First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [112]
"I don't want to go back there," she whispered. "I couldn't bear it."
Without thinking, Jack put a protective arm around her, and to his slight surprise, she moved closer to him.
"I want to tell you about Emma," she said at last.
Jack, stunned, said nothing.
Alli turned her face to him. "I think that's why she's still here. I think she wants me to tell you now. She wants you to know all about her."
THIRTY - EIGHT
IT TOOK the better part of an hour for Jack to convince Dr. Saunderson and the powers that be at Emily House that Alli wasn't joking when she said she couldn't spend another night there. In the end, though, he was obliged to call in the big gun.
"She'll be with me, sir," Jack said to the president-elect.
"That's what she wants, Jack?"
"It is, sir." Jack moved away from where Dr. Sanderson sat in a pool of lamplight behind her enormous ornate desk. "Frankly, I don't see any other way to get through to her. Every other avenue has been exhausted."
"So I understand," Edward Carson said gloomily. "All right, then. You have until noon tomorrow."
"But, sir, that's hardly any time at all."
"Jack, the inauguration is the day after tomorrow. No less than three top shrinks have evaluated her without coming to any conclusion except that she hasn't been harmed. Thank God for that."
"Sir, it's imperative we find who abducted her."
"I applaud your impulse as a lawman, Jack, but this is nonnegotiable. Alli has a duty to be at my and my wife's side at the ceremony. We didn't go through all this secrecy only for her to miss the most important photo op of her life. And after all, what's important is that Alli's safe and sound. I don't care to know about what happened to her, and frankly I'm not surprised she doesn't want to relive it. I sure as hell wouldn't."
It must be single-mindedness, Jack thought, that put such a hard, shiny shell around all politicians, conservative, liberal, or independent. He knew the president-elect's mind was set. No argument would sway him. "All right, sir. I'll deliver Alli tomorrow at noon."
"Good," Carson said. "One more thing. I must insist on a Secret Service detail."
"I understand how you feel, sir," Jack said, thinking their presence might not be a big problem, but it would have to be dealt with. "Just so you know, right now seeing a detail isn't going to be good for Alli. I need her to open up about what happened while she was in captivity. Feeling hemmed in is going to make that job more difficult than it already is."
There was silence on the other end of the line while Carson mulled this over. "All right, a compromise, then. I want them on the roads with you. They'll exit their vehicle only in case of an emergency."
"And then, sir, I'd like to pick her permanent detail. I've a couple of people in mind. I don't want a repeat of what happened at Langley Fields."
"You've got it, Jack, we're on the same page there," Carson said. "Now let me settle matters with Dr. Saunderson."
ALLI TURNED when Jack emerged from Emily House. She'd been standing on the veranda, watching the guards crisscross the lawns at random intervals. He saw the anticipation in her face, but also the fear.
"Well?"
Jack nodded, and immediately relief flooded her face.
On the way to his car, she said, "I want to sit in the backseat."
Jack understood immediately. On the way back to Washington, he kept one eye on the road, one on the rearview mirror, checking on the vehicle carrying the two-man Secret Service detail, and on Alli.
"Tell me where she was sitting," Alli said.
He knew she meant Emma. "To your right, just a little more. Okay, right there."
Alli spent the rest of the drive in that position, her eyes closed. A certain peacefulness settled over her, as if she had been transported out of time and place. Then, with a jolt, he realized that her near trance-like state reminded him of what had stolen over him after he'd killed Andre in the library. And he wondered whether he and Alli were two tigers,