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The people-watching had been enjoyable, but she was anxious to get back on the road, so she forced her eyes away from the man and gathered up her trash as she’d seen others do. A middle-aged couple at an adjoining table smiled at her and she smiled back. People smiled a lot, she’d noticed, at a pregnant woman.
Her smile changed into a self-satisfied grin. Last night, before she’d gone to bed at the motel, she’d cut the long blond hair her father and husband had cherished and dyed it light brown, which was really her natural color, although it was so long since she’d seen it that she’d had to guess at the exact shade. She loved the shorter, tousled style. Not only did it make her look younger, but it was much too casual for an elegant First Lady.
Although maintaining her disguise as an elderly lady had been her first idea, she hadn’t wanted the encumbrance of a wig and all that clothing. The fake pregnancy padding had been the perfect solution. Even if people noticed a pregnant woman’s resemblance to Cornelia Case, they’d regard it as nothing more than a coincidence.
Last night she’d modified a small Wal-Mart pillow by reshaping its corners and adding some ties. With her short brown hair, discount store clothes, ring-free hands, and minimal cosmetics, she looked like a pregnant woman who was down on her luck. When she spoke, she completed her change of identity by reshaping her upper-crust vowels with the trace of a Southern accent.
As she left the truck stop restaurant, she fumbled for her car keys in the purse she’d left the White House with. She felt a packet of tissues, some mints, her new wallet, but no keys. Had she left them in the car?
She needed to be more careful. She’d grown accustomed to having a cadre of aides carrying things for her. This morning, she’d left her purse behind when she’d stopped at a diner for breakfast, and she’d had to run back to get it. Now it was her keys.
She stepped out into the parking lot and looked around for the Chevy, but she didn’t see it. Odd. She thought she’d parked next to that trail-worn yellow Winnebago. She was sure she had.
She hurried forward, but the car wasn’t there.
She stared at the empty parking place, then at the motor home next to it. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe she’d parked somewhere else. Her heart raced, and her gaze swept across the parking lot. Even then she didn’t want to believe it. The car was gone. She’d left her keys inside and someone had stolen it.
Her throat constricted. One day of freedom. Was that all she would get?
She struggled against the despair that threatened to choke her. She could still salvage this. She’d brought thousands of dollars in cash with her. She could buy another car. She’d hitch a ride into the nearest town and find a dealer—
Her knees gave out beneath her, and she sagged down on a wooden bench. Her money had been locked in the trunk for safekeeping. All she had in her wallet was a twenty-dollar bill.
She buried her face in her hands. She’d have to call the White House, and within the hour the Secret Service would swoop down on this peaceful, ordinary place. She’d be whisked onto a helicopter and returned to Washington before dinner.
She saw exactly how it would unfold. Castigation from her father. Reminders from the President of her duty to the country. Suffocating guilt. By tomorrow evening, she’d be standing in a receiving line, her fingers aching from shaking another few hundred hands. And she had no one to blame but herself. What use was all her education, all her experience, if she couldn’t remember a simple thing like taking car keys out of an ignition?
Her throat closed tight. She wheezed as she tried to draw a breath.
“She’s heavy, and I’m not carrying her anymore!”
Nealy lifted her head and saw the young girl she’d been watching earlier set the baby she’d been carrying down on the sidewalk and yell at the Father of the Year, who was heading toward the yellow Winnebago.
“Suit yourself.” Although he wasn’t speaking loudly, he had a deep, carrying voice.
The girl didn’t move from the baby’s side, but neither did she pick her back up. The baby plopped forward on her knees as if to crawl, only to rebel at the midday heat coming from the sidewalk. She was a smart little critter, though, and she pushed herself up until only the minimal parts of her were in contact with the hot concrete—the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. With her bottom shoved high in the air, she began to move forward in a spider crawl.
The girl spun toward her father. “I mean it, Jorik! You’re acting like an asshole!” Nealy blinked at the girl’s crude language. “She’s not poison, you know. You could at least touch her.”
“You’re in charge of the baby, and I’m in charge of driving. Let’s go.” The man named Jorik might be a lousy father, but he was smart enough to have taken his keys with him, and now he shoved one of them in the lock on the door of the motor home.
The girl slammed her hands on her small hips. “This is bullshit.”
“Yeah, well, so is ninety percent of life.”
They were so involved in their argument that neither of them noticed the baby, who was slowly and fastidiously spider-crawling down off the curb into the parking lot.
Nealy rose automatically. A baby in danger. The one thing in life she hadn’t been able to escape since she was sixteen.
“Quit complaining and get inside,” the man growled.
“I’m not your slave! You’ve been bossing me around ever since yesterday, and I’m sick of it!”
An elderly couple in a Cadillac began to back out of a space much too near the crawling baby. Nealy shot forward, bent down, and snatched her up.
The kind of anger she couldn’t ever express in her real life erupted. “What kind of father are you?”
Mr. Macho turned slowly and regarded Nealy with flint-gray eyes. She stormed toward him, the baby in her arms. The fact that holding babies terrified her made her even angrier.
