The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [0]
Title Page
Dedication
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Copyright Page
With love and thanks
to the incomparable Linda Marrow,
for having faith in me.
“Simon? You’re the only thing about this whole mess that I wouldn’t change.”
“Even though I brought this mess to your door?”
“You’re not responsible for the truth being what it is.”
He went to put the key in the front door.
And realized it was already open.
“Uh-oh,” he muttered.
He held out a hand to stop Dina from entering with him. Who knew who had been there, or why, or if they remained?
“Call nine-one-one on your cell phone. Tell them there’s been a break-in,” he said quietly.
“Are you serious? . . . Oh, my God, Simon, don’t go in there.”
He pushed the door aside far enough for them both to see inside, enough to know that someone had done far more than simply paid a visit. . . .
PROLOGUE
Washington, D.C.
December 14, 1971
2:03 A.M.
The woman stepped from the shadow of the stylish Art Deco apartment building, heels clicking on the walk as she strode with purpose toward the street. The light at this section of Connecticut Avenue was scant, despite it being a fine neighborhood. In fact, but for the lights at the intersection some hundred feet or more from the building, the lighting was scarce indeed.
At the end of the sidewalk, the woman paused, shivering. On this night, not even her fur coat and her cashmere gloves could keep out the cold.
The caller had said that a car would stop for her on the opposite side of the street at exactly 2:00 A.M. It was now a few minutes past. But she was certain the car would come. . . .
She continued toward the street. Such an odd time to be meeting someone, though of course she understood. There were good reasons for keeping their meeting a secret.
It was such a sensitive situation. And she totally understood the caller’s reluctance to be seen with her in public.
She doubted if even the caller had any idea of just how sensitive the situation really was.
She hunched her shoulders, as much against a sudden gust of wind as at the prospect of what she was about to face, desperately not wanting to go through with this meeting but knowing there was no way to avoid it. To try would appear cowardly. And how could she have refused? The caller had pleaded, had seemed so truly in need of speaking with her. . . .
How could she have said no?
The light changed and she stepped off the curb, a full half block from the light. Turning up her collar against the sharp wind, she began to cross to the designated spot on the opposite side of the street where she was to be picked up. She’d taken but four or five steps toward the centerline when she first saw the car approaching on her left, had barely noticed it at all when it had been loitering at the light, hunkered in the shadows with its lights off. She had assumed it to be unoccupied and therefore had paid it no mind.
Until it began to move.
Rapidly.
Accelerating as it passed through the intersection until it was upon her in less than the blink of an eye. There had been no time to move out of its path, no time even to scream.
She was dead before the car came to a stop barely fifteen feet from where she had fallen and idled for a long moment, as if in reflection, then shot backward defiantly to run over the lifeless body a second time.
Three cars would pass through the intersection before one would stop on the nearly deserted street to investigate the still bundle that only moments before had been a vibrant and beautiful woman.
CHAPTER ONE
Early February 2002
The money paid had been money well spent.
The figure