Pursuit (10 page)

That was the thought that popped into Jess’s brain as her eyes opened, slowly and reluctantly, on what proved to be the shadowy, whisper-quiet world of her hospital room. Like the desperate hand of a drowning person going down for the last time, it shot out of the black void of the already almost forgotten dream she’d been caught up in, breaking the surface of her consciousness and grabbing hold. She blinked, trying to be rid of it, but still it held on.

That voice, shrill with terror, swirling up out of the darkness, was more residue from the dream. It was a woman’s, but it wasn’t hers; she didn’t recognize it.

Or maybe she did.

As she contemplated that, a cold little frisson of dread made her shiver. Her heart pumped like she had been running for miles.

In self-defense, she dismissed the other swirling images trying to take shape in her mind before they could solidify, and instead focused determinedly on the immediate, on the here and now.

Instinctively, she knew it was safer that way.

The walls were white, the curtains green. They were closed, with slivers of dull light glowing around their edges and, mysteriously, what looked like a stripe of duct tape running down the center line holding them together. The monitoring machines stood silent beside her bed; she hadn’t allowed them to be hooked up again because the idea of machines being attached to her body freaked her out now. Her mother stood between her bed and the machines, looking tired and frazzled in the soft, gray shadows of the heavily curtained room as she reached for something on the stand beside the bed. There were bags under her eyes that were not normally there, the creases running from her nose to her mouth and in between her eyebrows seemed deeper than usual, her lipstick had worn off, and her short cap of blond hair was straight and flat, as though it had not seen a curling iron in some time. Judy Ford Turner Whalen always had immaculate makeup and always curled her hair, world without end; for her to have neglected either showed just how extremely stressed out she was.

The phone was ringing. Her mother was reaching for the ringing phone. Probably, Jess decided, the sound was what had awakened her.

Just looking at her mother made her thudding heart start to slow. Judy was many things, not all of them totally positive, but one thing she definitely was was a tigress in defense of her young. No harm could come to her with her mother in the room—no harm that Judy could prevent, anyhow.

The certainty calmed her. Jess took a steadying breath. Whatever had come before or would come after, for now, for this moment in time, in this gloomy cocoon of a room, she was safe.

“Hello,” her mother said cautiously into the receiver. It wasn’t like her mother to be cautious, so Jess immediately knew something was up. She felt herself tensing again. Their eyes met. It was hard to read the nuances of her mother’s expression through the gloom, but Judy’s widened eyes and slight smile acknowledged the fact that Jess was awake.

It also made her think that whatever was going down on the phone couldn’t be so terribly bad. Judy wouldn’t be smiling at her like that if it was anything bad.

“You think I don’t know my own sister’s voice? This sure as hell is
not
Jessica’s Aunt Tammy.” Her mother slammed the receiver back down with enough force to make the phone jump. Jess would have jumped, too, if she’d had the strength. She winced instead, which hurt. “Damned reporters.”

“Mom?” Jess frowned at her in surprise.

“They’ve been trying every which-a-way to get information about you,” Judy informed her. “Ron”—Sarah’s possibly soon-to-be-ex-husband; their separation had led to Sarah, boys in tow, moving back in with Judy three weeks ago, which in turn had led Grace, who had been living with their mother, to flee to Jess’s apartment for sanctuary—“couldn’t even take the kids to school this morning. There was a TV truck out in front of his house! He had to call the police to run them off.”

“A TV truck?” Realization hit Jess like a bucket of cold water to the face.
The wreck . . .
She shivered. Her stomach clenched. “Mrs. Cooper’s death is all over the news, isn’t it?” It occurred to her that, as someone who had been in the accident and survived, the
only
one who had survived, she was a very obvious focal point for the media. “Are there reporters here at the hospital, too?”

Her mother nodded.

“They’ve been camped out around the place since before I got here, and it seems like more of ’em just keep coming. It’s a nightmare just trying to get to the car. We had to tape the curtains in here closed because one of them got up in a room in the wing across the way and was trying to take pictures of you lying there in that bed through the window. They’ve even tried to sneak up here a couple of times. If there wasn’t security at the door, I don’t know what we would have done.”

“Security?”

“There’s two Secret Service agents outside the door right now. They change shifts every eight hours or so.”

Judy’s voice was hushed with respect. Jess knew she was impressed that her daughter rated notice from the White House, no matter how horrific the circumstances. To Judy, a president was somebody you saw on TV. The fact that her daughter’s job brought her into daily contact with people who knew people in the White House had been a source of tremendous pride. When Jess had told her that her boss was the First Lady’s lawyer and personal friend and that she herself had actually been in the same room as the First Lady and been introduced to her by name and shaken her hand and talked to her, Judy’s awe had been palpable.

“You’re kidding, right?”

But even before Judy shook her head, Jess knew she was not.

Jess wet her lips. The thought of Secret Service agents outside her door made her blood run cold.
Why?
She didn’t know, precisely, she realized. The idea of it just made her feel—panicky.

“Can you believe it? The White House sent them. ’Cause they want to help us out until you’re back on your feet, they said.” Judy’s expression changed as she focused on her oldest child. “How you feeling, honey?”

Jess thought about that. She was anxious. She was dizzy. She hurt all over, with special emphasis on her head and ribs. And her back ached, right down at the base of her spine, with a continuous, deep, throbbing pain that had her arching this way and that in a futile effort to relieve it.

“My legs . . .”

Fighting a rush of fear as she remembered how they had refused to work before, she tried to move them.

Her right leg slid sideways maybe a couple of inches. The toes curled on her left foot. The pain in her back turned excruciating, shooting up her spine, freezing her in place. She grimaced, and would have groaned, except she didn’t want to worry her mother.

“When the doctor came in to see you this morning, he said the X-rays didn’t show any sign of permanent damage. No fracture or anything like that. He thinks you must have bruised your spine. They’ve been giving you painkillers, and steroids to help with the swelling, and he said when that goes down you should be able to move better. He said you’ll be stiff and sore for a while, but everything’ll heal sooner or later. It’s just going to take some time.”

Hearing that made Jess feel like a humongous stone had just been lifted from her chest.

“Thank God.” She took a deep breath. Until that moment she hadn’t realized just how frightened she had been that she might have lost the use of her legs for good. If she wasn’t going to die or be paralyzed, then she was going to live and eventually be fine, so she might as well get on with it. “I want to sit up.”

Her mother nodded and hit the remote. Jess felt the head of the bed slowly rising beneath her.

“How’s that?”

“Better.”

Filled with renewed determination, gritting her teeth with effort, Jess concentrated on moving her legs. Her right knee rose off the mattress high enough to tent the covers. She was less successful with her left leg but managed to at least shift it sideways. The effort sent another sharp pain shooting up her back and electric tingles coursing down both legs, causing her to squirm in protest, but still she felt a wave of relief. At least that was proof she could move.

“You’re doing good,” her mother encouraged as Jess, frozen in place now, waited for the pain to recede. Which, somewhat to her surprise, it did.

Breathing easier, she concentrated again, and managed to get her left knee off the mattress, too. Then she cautiously wiggled the toes on both feet and turned her feet from side to side at the ankle. The pain was bad but not nearly as bad as the thought of her legs being paralyzed had been, so she persevered until she was sure everything still worked. Finally, using her hands for leverage, she scooted farther up in the bed until she was propped up against her pillows, and brushed her hair back from her sweaty face with both hands. Moving hurt. So did lifting her arms and scrunching up her face, which she did in reaction to the other pain, but she kept on. She figured that if she did only what didn’t hurt, she would basically just lie there and breathe. Shallowly.

“I need a shower.”

“How about I get a bowl of water and some soap and you make do with washing your face and hands for now?”

Jess thought about the effort required to move at all, extrapolated that to the far greater effort to get out of bed and somehow make it to the shower, then stand, sit, or lie there beneath the steaming-hot water for long enough to get clean, and made a face. With the best will in the world, she couldn’t do it. A bowl of water and some soap was not what she wanted, but clearly it was what she was going to have to settle for.

“Fine,” she said with a sigh.

Her mother headed for the bathroom, flipping on the overhead light as she passed the switch. Jess flinched at the unexpected assault of so much brightness. While her eyes were adjusting to the near-blinding fluorescent glow, she cast a quick look at the bedside clock. The numbers were blurry since she wasn’t wearing her contacts, but by squinting and tilting her head and shading her eyes with her hands she was able to read them. The time was five-twenty-three, and from the light filtering in around the curtains she knew it wasn’t a.m., because at this time of year at almost five-thirty in the morning it would still be dark outside. Therefore, it was late Sunday afternoon; ordinarily, she would be finishing up briefs to be presented in court on Monday. Apparently, whatever they’d put in the shots they’d given her—no way was she ever having another IV for as long as she lived, as she’d finally made crystal clear to the bevy of hospital personnel who had taken turns trying to bully her into it—must have been something potent to make her sleep for a little more than twelve hours. Her mother had said they’d given her painkillers; she was still feeling pain, so they weren’t doing so great with that, but at least she’d gotten plenty of sleep.

Her glasses, the ones with the big black frames that she kept as backup to the contacts, rested on the table beside the clock. They were a little fuzzy around the edges but unmistakable, and she guessed that someone—Grace, most likely—must have fetched them from her apartment. Reaching for them greedily, sliding them on and experiencing the instant relief of seeing the world around her in focus again, she noticed something else: the TV remote beside the clock.

The temptation proved irresistible. She didn’t want to know, she was better off not knowing, but she couldn’t help herself: She picked up the remote, clicked it at the ceiling-mounted TV just beyond the foot of her bed, and . . .

A close-up of Annette Cooper smiling as she shook hands with someone an unseen narrator identified as Chilean president Jorge Peres de Toros blinked to life. The camera pulled back, and Jess saw that the First Lady looked beautiful in a floor-length white evening dress that shimmered with sequins. Her trademark short blond hair gleamed in the light of the overhead chandelier. Her skin was smooth and tan and glowing. Her eyes were bright.

Jess had expected it, of course, when she had turned on the TV. Still, the shock of seeing Annette Cooper was overwhelming. She caught her breath. As agonizing as it was to watch, she couldn’t look away as the First Lady said something over her shoulder to her tuxedo-clad husband, who laughed and nodded in response.

“. . . such a short time ago Mrs. Cooper was at the President’s side as he ...”

Biting down hard on her lower lip, Jess changed the channel.

A shot of the White House filled the screen. A crowd, an enormous sea of people that seemed to stretch all the way to the Mall, had gathered around it, and the camera panned dozens upon dozens of weeping faces. It seemed to be a live shot, taken in real time, because the sky that formed the backdrop was streaked with sunset colors of orange and purple and gold, and the White House itself cast a long shadow across the lawn.

“. . . thousands gathering in the capital to pay tribute to First Lady Annette Cooper, who this evening is lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Mrs. Cooper was killed in a car crash shortly after . . .”

Punching the button with far more force than was necessary now, Jess changed the channel again. She was breathing hard, she realized, and her palms were sweaty. Her stomach churned. She felt gorge backing up in her throat.

It was night, and a car, blackened and crushed and flipped over on its roof, filled the screen.

Jess’s eyes widened. She was instantly bathed in cold sweat. The shot seemed to have been taken from above, and it showed the still-smoking undercarriage, the flattened tires, the circle of charred grass in which the vehicle rested, the dozens of firefighters and rescue workers and police officers and military personnel and plainclothes investigators moving around the scene. Make and model were impossible to determine because of the car’s burned-out state, but she knew instantly that it was the black Lincoln that Davenport had sent her to pick up Mrs. Cooper in. It was a night shot, lit up by big orange klieg lights focused on the scene and the bright beams of spotlights crisscrossing the wreck from above—helicopter searchlights, she realized, and realized, too, that the shot had been taken from a helicopter soon after the accident.