Dead to the Last Drop (12 page)

“Why the hurry?”

Hunched over the wheel, she refused to meet my gaze. “I wanted to get to you before they did.”

“They? Who’s
they
?”

“The Secret Service.”

“Abby, where are we going?”

“My mother wants to meet you. We’re going to brunch at the White House.”

T
wenty-eight

“I
can’t go to the White House looking like this! I don’t have my purse. I don’t have makeup. I don’t even have lipstick!”

“You look fine,” Abby assured me as she swung the car onto M Street—without applying the brakes. The tires squealed as we made the turn, then she punched the gas, and I was pressed into my seat by the sudden acceleration.

But our speed was only one on a list of my concerns.

Topping it was my coffeehouse, which I’d unwittingly abandoned. At least Tito had arrived to man the espresso machine. I knew he was capable of handling the staff and customers until I returned. That boy was assistant manager material if ever I’d seen it, so I considered this a test.
If he can handle my freakish absence with reasonable aplomb, I swear I’ll promote him.

Next on my list of concerns—my appearance.

I glanced down at my black skirt, black tights, and thin, black V-neck sweater—all covered by a blueberry-hued Village Blend, DC, apron.

I twisted the ceiling rearview mirror to check my face. After the night I’d had, what I saw wasn’t pretty—

“I’m going to need that!”

Abby tugged my hand away from the mirror as the sedan swerved into the opposite lane. This time someone else’s tires screamed.

“Why are we going so fast?”

Abby glanced at the rearview. “They’re catching up.”

“This is the second time you’ve done this,” I said. “Last night—”

Abby cut me off. “Last night I was staying at my friend’s house. It’s a beautiful home, with a private garden
right next to Glover-Archbold Park
.” As she spoke Abby put her index finger to her lips and then tapped her ear.

“Bugged?” I mouthed, incredulous, and she nodded.

The park she mentioned was a beautiful strip of land running from Northwest Washington all the way down to the Potomac. My GU baristas said students used it to jog or bike the worn dirt paths between Georgetown and American University.

With that one clue, I could easily see how she’d gotten away.

If Abby had insisted the Secret Service give her privacy in her friend’s home, they probably stationed a few agents on the public street. She could have left her panic button and tracker in her guest bedroom, slipped out a window or back door, and moved through the home’s private garden, or even over a low wall, right into the park.

Then it would be a straight shot, under the canopy of trees, away from closely observed streets, to Georgetown’s campus, where she could easily blend in as a student and finally make a short walk to the Village Blend, DC.

The blare of the car radio brought my attention back to our Washington speedway. Abby had turned up the radio’s volume to hide our conversation from the planted listening device. Waving me close, she spoke low into my ear.

“I wanted to have some time alone.”

I studied her. “You mean alone with Stan, don’t you?”

She nodded
yes
.

“You really care for him?”

She nodded again, with much more enthusiasm. “
Please
don’t give me away, Ms. Cosi.”

“Abby, I don’t know what to say. What you did was a risk—”

“
Promise
me. Please? It will be hard on me if you rat me out.”

She looked so desperate. “Okay,” I found myself saying, “as long as you promise
never
to do that again.”

“I won’t,” she said and smiled with relief.

We swerved right, onto Pennsylvania Avenue. I glanced over my shoulder to find one SUV closing fast. A dour Agent Cage sat in the passenger seat. Our eyes met and the agent telegraphed her disapproval.

“They’re right behind us,” I warned.

Abby’s black leather boot hit the gas.

“It’s clear you learned to drive at the Indy 500,” I said, hands gripping the shoulder strap. “But where did you learn to ditch a security detail?”

“Easy,” Abby replied. “I did my research.”

T
wenty-nine

“R
ESEARCH?”

“Of course!” Eyes on the road, Abby beamed with pride. “After the election, but before we moved to the White House, I wanted to know what I was getting into.”

Abby passed a slow-moving car—no biggie, except she did it by swerving into a lane with oncoming traffic!

“I looked into the lives of other First Daughters to see how they survived living in a bell jar. It proved helpful.” She grinned. “Jenna and Barbara Bush were free spirits. A lot of times, the Bush girls did what they wanted, and the Secret Service had to play catch-up.”

A traffic light went from green to yellow, but Abby didn’t stop. And the heavy flow of cross traffic left a brace of Secret Service agents behind at the red light, playing “catch-up.”

“Chelsea Clinton was lucky,” Abby continued. “The Secret Service gave her a lot of space while she was in college. Of course an agent lived in the room next door, and they installed bulletproof windows in her dorm, too. But at least she could open them when she wanted fresh air.”

“You can’t open your dorm windows?”

Abby shook her head. “My room is on the sixth floor and they sealed them . . .”

She didn’t finish her thought, but I wondered, given those scars on her wrist.
Were they afraid Abby might lose it and jump?

“I researched the Princess of Wales, too. Do you remember Lady Di, Ms. Cosi?”

Yes
, I thought,
the memory is distant but it’s still stored somewhere in my “older-lady” brain
.

“Lady Di did all kinds of things to bamboozle her security detail.” Abby’s grin widened. “She was so cool!”

Another wild ride through a fast-changing yellow light set the Fusion’s tires to howling again.

“Abby, you
do
know that Lady Di tragically perished in a high-speed traffic accident?”

The First Daughter’s reply was to pass another slow-moving car.

“Of course you do,” I continued, “because you’ve done your research.”

Fortunately I no longer had to worry about a deadly crash. Abby had entered the Washington Park traffic circle—and she couldn’t seem to find her way out.

While she looped around a second and then a third time, a flock of black SUVs appeared. Expertly jockeying through traffic, two vehicles flanked us like hungry raptors while a third pulled up right behind, and a fourth zoomed in front of us.

Boxed in by the bigger vehicles, Abby was forced to slow to a reasonable speed. But by now, she’d given up the fight—and flight.

“You see, Ms. Cosi, there’s no getting away,” she said as we came out of the circle, onto Pennsylvania again. “Freedom is fun. But it’s fleeting. And that’s inevitable.”

She glanced at me. “It’s best to know what’s inevitable, don’t you think? Only crazy people get blindsided by life’s little surprises. I never want to be crazy. Not ever again.”

“Whoever said you were crazy?”

“Forget it,” Abby said. “Helen said I should never, ever use that word.”

“Helen? Is that a college friend?”

“No. She’s on the White House staff.”

Before I could ask more questions, Abby announced—

“We’re here!”

She turned off the blaring radio, and I prayed my hearing would come back before I met the President’s wife.

I noticed our escort vehicles came to a stop, allowing Abby enough room to drive her car through a narrow corridor between huge, traffic-blocking concrete-potted plants.

As we reached a tall iron gate beyond, guards appeared to open them.
These members of the Secret Service Uniformed Division had obviously been expecting Abby. They immediately waved us through the gate, and we rolled deeper into the White House grounds.

Abby followed a narrow road that ran parallel to the lush lawn, until we reached the East Appointment Gate.

The gate opened automatically, and we were waved through.

Previous to this, I’d only admired the White House through books and strolled past as a curious pedestrian, gazing through the fence. It gave me chills to be on the other side.

We followed a gently curved driveway around a bubbling fountain, then Abby pulled right up to the two-story, colonnaded East Wing building, which I already knew served as the office of the First Lady and her staff.

More people were gathered outside the virgin white structure, all waiting for us. Things got more crowded when Agent Cage’s SUV and two others parked behind ours.

I felt the door slam and realized Abby was already out of the cab and was racing for the entrance. I rolled my window down and called after her.

“You’re leaving me?”

“The Secret Service will take care of you,” Abby yelled back. “I’ll see you inside.”

That’s when I saw a torn piece of sheet music lying in the driver’s seat, my name scrawled on it.

I turned it over. In the same hand I saw eight words.

Watch out for my mother. She’s onto us.

I didn’t know what to do with the note. If I were in a spy movie I’d probably eat it. Instead I stuck it between the seat cushions—and just in time, too, because the frowning face of Agent Sharon Cage suddenly filled my window.

“Please step out of the vehicle, Ms. Cosi. You’ll have to clear security before you meet the First Lady.”

T
hirty

I
entered the somber, wood-lined East Wing Lobby anticipating a security check along the lines of a TSA airport screening.

I got that—and a whole lot more.

The difference was: here in the People’s House, under the watchful eyes of the Presidents and First Ladies, whose portraits hung on the walls, things were polite . . .

Exceedingly polite.

“Welcome to the White House, Ms. Cosi. My name is Carol. How nice of you to visit us today.”

My greeter had a light Virginian drawl and a rosy, cherubic face like Mrs. Santa’s on a vintage Coca-Cola poster. This jovial woman also possessed a tasteful bouffant of snow-white hair, and the most gracious and genuine smile I’d ever encountered.

I liked Carol instantly. I couldn’t help myself, and her warm, wise sapphire eyes told me she liked me, too. That’s when it struck me, looking at her rosy cheeks, white hair, and blue eyes.

Carol seemed to embody the best of America itself.

“May I take your wrap?” she asked. Without a hint of condescension or even levity, she relieved me of my Village Blend apron. Then she draped it over her forearm as if it were a full-length chinchilla coat.

“Come along with me, Ms. Cosi. We’ll get the messy stuff out of the way as fast as we can so you can get on with your day.”

Heels clicking, Carol ushered me along the East Colonnade, a long corridor with massive windows along one wall. We trod along a central gold rug that reminded me of the yellow brick road. In the February sun, the floors on either side of that rug were as slick and shiny as just-Zambonied ice before a Penguins hockey game.

(Sports analogy again.
Yes, I was that nervous.
)

Agent Cage silently followed, while Carol happily chatted away, informing me that these windows faced the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden.

“Trees, shrubs, and flowers all seem to thrive in the shelter of the south-facing White House,” Carol noted. “The rays of the spring sun are reflected and magnified by these white walls. The light helps everything in the garden grow, which is as it should be, I think.”

Because it was late February, the view wasn’t as colorful as it soon would be, but my guide regaled me with descriptions of the coming pink tulips and magnolias, and the bronze and gold spoon chrysanthemum Starlet in the fall. Carol pointed out the dedication plaque, then directed my attention to a white, cast-iron Rococo Revival garden bench that had been on the White House grounds since 1850.

“I like to think Abraham Lincoln rested there during our nation’s most trying days,” Carol said, eyes misty.

Next we arrived in the East Garden Room, a sunlit space with double doors that led to the Kennedy garden we’d passed. An enormous bronze bust of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum occupied a niche on the west wall. The east wall was dominated by four massive presidential portraits.

“This room, I admit, is a bit austere. But I wish you could have seen it a few months ago,” Carol said, beaming now. “Christmas decorations hung everywhere, and the official greeting cards the First Family received were displayed on the wall panels beside Lincoln.”

Carol’s holiday story was heartwarming, but there was little goodwill toward men in this room at the moment. I suddenly found myself flanked by officers of the Secret Service Uniformed Division, here to complete my screening process.

I was asked to remove my shoes, along with the claddagh ring Mike gave me, and a delicate gold cross on a long chain that was my confirmation gift from my nonna. But instead of dropping my stuff in a dirty plastic tray, Carol took them for safekeeping.

In another especially nice, extra personal touch, Agent Sharon Cage used the security wand on me herself.

“I didn’t even have time to grab a coat,” I told her. “So you can bet I’m not armed.”

“We already know you don’t have a
gun
,” Agent Cage informed me. “Magnetometers scanned you when you drove through the gate, and again when you entered the lobby. Right now I’m checking for chemical or biological agents, as well as explosives.”

I made my arms into angel wings. “Check away.”

T
hirty-one

S
HARON Cage seemed almost disappointed to find me free of anthrax, nuclear waste, and improvised explosive devices.

But all was not lost.

Cage stepped back and signaled a courteous but annoyingly thorough female member of the Uniformed Division, who began a pat-down of my person.