On Your Mark Read online

  “Stand up, Malcolm,” Jim whispered and gave his dog a hand sign.

  Malcolm rose to all fours on the couch and wagged his tail.

  It earned Jim a smile from the President, which Reese felt was a good move coming off the start line.

  Zachary Thomas was a tall man, with an open and friendly face—his Air Force background was clear in his bearing. He was closely followed by a man ten years his senior, former President Peter Matthews, now the Secretary of State.

  “Hello, hello. Please sit.”

  Reese abandoned the chair and moved over to sit on Malcolm’s other side on the sofa that wrapped around the wall. It was a long sofa, so perhaps she shouldn’t have sat so close, but she liked being able to run a hand into Malcolm’s fur. It reminded her of the few quiet moments the three of them had caught together over the last few days: a moment by the candy machine, a long silence as they studied a video while sitting hip to hip. Jim made it easy to treasure those brief moments.

  She waited for the President to break the silence, which he did after only a few uncomfortable moments.

  “I wanted to thank you both for the roles you played in saving our wives’ lives. If you hadn’t already been assigned to replace McKenna before that, I’d have requested you, Ms. Carver.”

  “Thank you, sir. It was a pleasure to serve.”

  “Except maybe during the accident?”

  Reese felt the jolt and glanced at Jim, who grimaced.

  “Told you,” Secretary Matthews said casually.

  “Not an accident. What leads you to that conclusion that it was an attack?” The President kept his tone casual, not showing the least bit of surprise.

  She and Jim had agreed that they didn’t know who to trust. But if they didn’t trust the President and former President, what was the point?

  “Too many coincidences. However, we,” she glanced at Jim, who confirmed with a nod. It took her another breath before she could continue, “We have concluded that it was not an attack.”

  That got her both men’s full attention. She wished it hadn’t.

  “Please believe that this isn’t an egotistical statement, but we think the whole purpose was to test my reactions as a driver.”

  The President narrowed his eyes at her. But he didn’t speak. Both men restrained what must have been a hundred doubts and questions. Instead, they sat on the edges of their seats and listened. Neither man was what she expected.

  Damn Jim for his thinning atmosphere comment. She couldn’t seem to get her breath.

  “We believe, sir,” Jim thankfully stepped in, “that they used the attack on the First Lady’s Motorcade as an action-response test in preparation for an attack upon your own Motorcade.”

  “Why am I only hearing this now?”

  “The timing, sir. To place a truck at that moment in that place indicates an inside job. We don’t know who to trust, Mr. President.”

  “Reminds me of Emily,” Secretary of State Matthews leaned back in his chair and smiled. “That’s a very high compliment, by the way, Ms. Carver. She did something similar to Frank Adams, the head of my protection detail. That was shortly before my first wife’s death.”

  The two men exchanged significant looks.

  It had been before her time. All Reese recalled was that the immensely popular Katherine Matthews had died in a tragic helicopter accident. Their looks said there was little love lost there and that the truth was probably a very different story.

  “Harvey,” the President shouted.

  Harvey Lieber opened the door and stuck his head into the room. “Find Cornelia and both of you get in here.”

  While the door was closed, the President continued. “If we don’t count my wife and this guy here,” he waved a negligent hand at Secretary Matthews. “There are no two people I trust more. Actually, I probably trust them more than you, Peter.” It was a clear tease between two men who had been elected together and were now friends.

  Secretary Matthews shrugged as if it was no skin off his back.

  Reese felt Jim grab her hand for a moment deep in Malcolm’s fur and squeeze it hard.

  Trust.

  It was a hard concept for her and he knew that. She wished that she understood him better. Or knew him better. Yet she trusted him, like no one else more than Pop. Even in front of the leader of the free world, he did nothing to try and bump her out of the lane. He made it clear that she was the force to be reckoned with, not him or his male ego.

  Why she’d pushed him away the last two nights was now a mystery that she couldn’t—

  Harvey and White House Chief of Staff Cornelia Day entered and closed the door behind them. She was a slender, tall woman who had a lethal reputation. She ran the White House and the President’s schedule like a metronome. There had never been a more on-schedule administration in history. Everything about her said DC elite: an immaculate dark blue skirt and blazer, perfectly tasteful makeup on a flawless complexion, haircut simple but perfect for her narrow face, and a Cordovan leather case for her tablet computer. Her nickname was “The Shark” and rumor said that even real sharks would never stand a chance against her.

  Ms. Day perched on the far end of the sofa.

  Harvey stood with his back to the door and his hands crossed in front of him.

  “Tell them,” the President ordered.

  So they did. Harvey’s scowl went dark, but he didn’t say a word until they finished laying out all of their reasoning.

  “Carver, you ever leave me out of the loop again, I’m parking your ass in a kiddie car amusement park. Both of you!”

  Reese swallowed hard.

  “Second,” he turned to the President. “Reasoning is sound. I don’t like it, but it makes sense. Not a hint from the—” Harvey spun to face her so quickly that she jerked back against the sofa.

  He rubbed his forehead.

  “What?” Until that moment Cornelia Day had restrained her input to a nod that had her collar-length, dead-straight hair pitching forward and back in a slicing motion as sharp as shark’s teeth (Reese guessed that Jim would appreciate the metaphor). But Harvey’s consternation had finally moved her to speech—a short, sharp command.

  “NASCAR to my Motorcade. Draw me a roadmap, Carver.”

  “I left racing abruptly.”

  “Your father’s death,” Harvey nodded.

  Reese had kept her mouth shut and let the press and everyone else believe that. But the President deserved the truth. She was having trouble facing Harvey, so she turned to the Commander-in-Chief.

  “Putting my father’s team sponsor in the hospital with a lug wrench after he tried to rape me as part of ‘consoling’ me over my father’s loss. No witnesses. He didn’t press charges, but he blacklisted me with the other team owners and I was left without a ride.”

  “Why didn’t you press charges?” Ms. Day leaned forward. Despite her cold-blooded reputation, she appeared genuinely concerned and upset.

  “I tried. The police dismissed it. He was an important man in NASCAR racing and the Charlotte business community. I’m a black woman who looks like this.”

  Reese wasn’t conceited about her looks, but knew from experience that men were drawn to her for a reason. Even Jim had started that way. But he’d moved on. No mistaking that he liked her body, but he also liked her, which she knew she was being slow in processing.

  “The police wouldn’t even investigate. Besides it was a he-said / she-said and there was no evidence other than the beating I gave him. His punch to my gut and his throwing me around the room by my hair when I refused to cooperate didn’t even show. I wear my hair this long as a clear fu… As a clear statement to myself of who is in control of my life.”

  “I’ll fucking kill the bastard.” Jim apparently cared less about language in front of the President.

  In the telling, she’d forgotten Jim was sitting there beside her. She’d seen him quiet and sometimes frustrated, but mostly he was Mr. Pleasant with that big welcoming smile of h
is. His face was now dark with fury and his light eyes were as black as death.

  She wrapped her hand around his in thanks.

  “Don’t,” she told him. “He’s not worth it. Besides, I did tell his wife, who has made it her life’s mission to destroy his career and reputation. I suspect not because of what he did, but because I’m black. She’s very ‘traditional’ Southern in all the worst ways.”

  “I could get to like you, Ms. Carver,” the President said lightly to break the mood.

  She tried to pull her hand back, but Jim had clenched it tightly, for all to see. Harvey didn’t show any surprise, Ms. Day didn’t show anything at all, and the President traded a smile with Secretary Matthews that was all too easy to read. It said, “Isn’t that sweet?”

  Well, maybe it was at that. But now was not the time to think about it.

  “From there to my Motorcade,” Harvey demanded through gritted teeth. Fury was clear on his face as well. It made her think better of Harvey as she understood his anger probably had very little to do with her holding hands with another agent in front of the President and a great deal to do with her past.

  “I found a flyer stuck under the windshield wiper on my Mustang. I went to see a race…from the cheap seats. Only place I’ve ever called home was Charlotte Motor Speedway and I’d never seen a race from the stands. Now that all of the backfield was closed to me, it was the only way I had to get on track—buy a seat. The flyer was there when I came out. I figured it beat the dead-end future I’d seen myself skidding toward for that entire race.”

  “The Protection Force,” Harvey groaned as if he was in pain.

  “What’s that?” The President asked while the Secretary chuckled. “What?”

  “My doing, I’m afraid.” Then Secretary Matthews must have spotted Reese’s look. “Oh, not me personally. There’s a little outfit called the White House Protection Force. One of my gifts to you, Zack. They’re the ones who saved us all last month with Linda and Thor. In my book, there is no possible higher recommendation of Ms. Carver’s skills than being picked by them.”

  Reese had certainly never heard of them.

  “Who?” The President and Ms. Day asked in unison.

  “Completely anonymous,” Harvey complained. “I’d feel better if they weren’t always right.”

  Reese wondered what else this Protection Force knew. She became very self-conscious of Jim’s hand still holding hers. Did they know about how he cared for her? That was ridiculous, even she hadn’t known that. Not until he promised to kill her three-years-past would-be rapist.

  Jim was watching Secretary Matthews throughout the exchange. This Protection Force might be anonymous to everyone else, but it was clear that former President Peter Matthews knew exactly who was behind the operation. Clear as mud on a hog, his father would say. Having hauled hogs in his early days, Jim knew that was pretty damn clear.

  White House Protection Force. Somehow they’d reached out and plucked Reese Carver out of NASCAR, but she’d won her own way to the driver’s seat of Stagecoach. There’d been no doubting her driving skills in the First Lady’s Motorcade. And no doubting the look on McKenna’s and the trainers’ faces that morning out at RTC as she spun The Beast through paces it had never seen before.

  It simply confirmed to him that she was special in so many ways.

  “I just drive,” he teased her softly while the others were debating what to do about this new threat.

  “I do,” she was paying attention to the other conversation.

  “You’re a goddamn miracle, Reese Carver.”

  She turned to face him at that. Her brow furrowed as she looked at him.

  He could see a succession of emotions slipping over her beautiful features. Denial, the weight of the past, puzzlement, and finally a small flicker of hope as she whispered, “Really?”

  “Really.”

  She swallowed hard and offered the tiniest nod that said she’d still need a lot of convincing.

  “We should cancel this trip, Mr. President,” Harvey was arguing.

  “I refuse to huddle in fear, Harvey. That’s the Protection Detail in you: lock me inside Cheyenne Mountain and let me out in four or eight years after I’ve turned into a babbling idiot. I’m not an Air Force captain because I hide from danger.”

  “But—”

  “You’re not an Air Force captain,” Cornelia Day spoke up. “You’re the Commander-in-Chief.” She sounded as if she was offended at him acknowledging the lower rank.

  “Drive straight ahead, sir,” Jim spoke, though he hadn’t meant to.

  Everyone turned to look at him. In for ten tons, in for twenty—that was Mom’s saying.

  “I drove Karachi-Kandahar-Kabul for three tours, sir. And the answer is to be ready. The answer isn’t to not show up in the first place.”

  “Could get to like you too, Mr. Fischer.” The President turned to Harvey. “We’re keeping the trip schedule. It’s up to you and these two to keep me alive. Don’t let me down or I’ll be very disappointed.”

  Harvey nodded, but didn’t move from the door.

  The look he aimed at Jim made him wish that he still worked for Captain Baxter and was walking the fence line.

  “You seriously think it’s someone on my team?”

  Reese didn’t appear to want to talk, which left it up to Jim.

  “When did you announce that Reese would be the driver for the First Lady’s trip?”

  “I told the team within minutes of when you left for site prep, but only our own people.”

  “Not the press or a public announcement?”

  Harvey shook his head. “Not until the night before departure. And the route was never published, of course.”

  Jim nodded. “I had guessed that. We arrived in New York Tuesday noon to scout the locations. We met the First Lady’s party at the heliport on Wednesday morning. We were an easy target anywhere in Manhattan, but it would have been hard to guess our route. The truck was stolen on Wednesday morning at four a.m. before the First Lady’s party had even left DC.”

  “Thirty-six hours later,” Harvey finished for him, “at 1600 hours on Thursday, the attack occurred. It was the one place they could be sure of our arrival route and time based on our public departure from the UN building.”

  Jim nodded. “Who knew about the trip in time for that truck to be stolen? Who knew our exact departure time from the UN and was poised to have that truck in the right place at the right time?”

  “There’s never been a traitor in the Secret Service. I’m going to find his ass and I’m going to grind him so far into the ground so hard that they’d need an oil drill to find his body.” Harvey’s snarl was one of the most dangerous sounds Jim had ever heard. No one faking it could make that sound.

  Cornelia rose to her feet. “Thank you, Mr. President.” Showing no fear, Cornelia eased Harvey Lieber aside as if he was an errant puppy and opened the door. She waved for them to leave, and Jim would have run except it took him a moment to understand that he couldn’t disentangle himself from Reese’s grip.

  It had changed as they sat there. At first it had been comfort, no surprise to him at all that she’d successfully defended herself against some bastard rapist—he was just sick that’s how she’d lost something she’d so loved. But now they were holding hands as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  And it was.

  Jim had never been much of a hand holder. Margarite hadn’t been either, which maybe should have told him something. So what did it say that he wanted to hold Reese’s? Not to keep her close and safe—okay, not only that. But because he liked the connection there. Liked the way their fingers laced together as if they were the same hands despite the different colors of their skin.

  As they rose to their feet, it was so hard to let go of her. And the President’s knowing smile wasn’t helping at all. He’d seen the President and his wife on TV—it seemed they were always holding hands. Holding on as if it was the most natural thing
in the world.

  When Reese finally noticed and went to extract her hand, he held on, earning him a puzzled look from her and a “good man” nod from the President. So he kept her hand in his as he led her out of the President’s office.

  Cornelia Day led them into the medical suite directly aft of the President’s office. She shooed out the doctor and nurse. There were two chairs and a tiny couch. The operating table was folded up against the wall.

  Ms. Day and Harvey took the two chairs; he and Reese were pressed hip-to-hip on the little couch, which he wasn’t complaining about. Malcolm got the floor.

  “Now. We’re going to go through the entire trip step-by-step until it is second nature to all of us.”

  That’s what they did for the entire hour-and-a-quarter-long flight to Nashville. And when nothing untoward occurred, Harvey and the two of them spent the next two hours to Colorado Springs doing the same thing.

  They arrived at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, at 2300 local time.

  The President would sleep in his suite in the nose of Air Force One. Most of the Protection Detail would stay aboard as well, but the Motorcade personnel had no reason to remain aboard through the night.

  Colorado Springs was at six thousand feet, almost a thousand feet higher than Denver, and was bitterly cold. A several-inch dusting of snow lay on the semi-arid desert.

  All the vehicles of a second Motorcade were already pre-positioned inside the hangar, ready for tomorrow’s events. Not being on duty until shortly before the Motorcade would have to roll, they grabbed a base car and headed for the nearest hotel.

  Chapter Eleven

  Reese had never been like this with any man.

  They played grab-ass at the registration desk.

  They would have had sex in the elevator if it had been more than two floors or in the hall if they’d been at the far end.

  As it was, while he battled with the keycard, she stood behind him. Peeling back the coat she’d opened in the elevator, she yanked out his shirt hem and ran her hands over his flat stomach and up his chest, pulling herself hard against his back.

  He had a workout chest, the legs of a man who walked for a living, and hips that her legs fit around like they’d been made-to-order.