“He’s blunt and suspicious and I don’t like the way he’s always hovering.”
George leaned in to speak quietly. “Are you on her side?” he asked casually.
“He’s making her needlessly anxious,” she whispered back but smiled and nodded to the throngs of people who stood respectfully behind the fence lining the yard. All of them seemed so proud of their local son, but was it possible some disgruntled person had traveled all the way to this idyllic town to cause trouble?
She scanned the faces in the crowd and wondered. The kingof Italy probably hadn’t suspected anything when he boarded his carriage with a group of friends.
She shook off the worries. She would not allow Nathaniel’s obsessive mistrust of ordinary people to mar her day.
Nathaniel tried to let the first lady’s belligerent comments roll off his back as he and Sullivan moved from room to room inside the house, but it was getting hard, since Sullivan wouldn’t let him forget it.
“She really hates you,” Sullivan chided.
“She didn’t like me any better the day I got her away from the shooter at the Naval Hospital. We just need to do our job.”
He strode toward the dining room at the rear of the house. He needed a complete plan for security in place before tomorrow’s election. It was a surprisingly modest house, the ordinary two-story home of a government lawyer, which was how William McKinley once earned his living.
While inspecting the ground floor, Nathaniel overheard Caroline and George planning the election day festivities. Weather permitting, President McKinley would spend most of the day on his front porch welcoming any visitor who wanted to shake his hand. That meant more guards at the base of the walk, because Nathaniel wanted every visitor frisked before approaching the porch.
The hardwood floors creaked beneath his feet as he headed into the office, a hint of cigar smoke and musty books in the air. It was a corner office with a desk, a hand-knitted blanket draped over the chair, and windows on two walls, both screened by overgrown bushes.
“Get those bushes trimmed way back before the gathering tonight,” he told Sullivan.
“Absolutely not!” The first lady stood in the doorway, herface grim. “My father planted those bushes back in 1865, and they are not to be tampered with.”
“They’re a security hazard.”
“My viburnum bushes are nonnegotiable,” Mrs. McKinley bit out. “No one in Canton would hurt the Major. He is beloved here.”
She limped down the hall, no doubt carrying this latest outrage to her husband. How a man as congenial as William McKinley could tolerate a harridan like that all these years was a mystery.
Nathaniel breathed a sigh of relief once she was gone. The dining room still needed to be inspected, but as he crossed the front hall toward it, a photograph snagged his attention, seizing his heart like a fist.
The girl in the photograph looked like Molly. He didn’t even have a picture of his little sister, but the girl in the portrait looked so much like her that it hurt. Brown hair, large eyes, and an impish smile.
He couldn’t help himself. He picked up the photograph. If he unfocused his eyes, he could almost imagine itwasMolly. Would this pain never stop?
“That was our daughter.”
It was the president who spoke, standing directly behind him with Mrs. McKinley on his arm. Nathaniel swallowed, embarrassed to be caught handling a personal item, but neither of them seemed affronted. The McKinleys had had two daughters. One died in infancy, but the other lived to be a lively little girl before typhoid took her.
Nathaniel set down the photograph. “She looks like a delightful child.”
“She was,” President McKinley said. To Nathaniel’s horror, the president’s lip trembled, and it looked as if he was about to weep. He let out a deep sigh, and his shoulders sagged. “Forgive me,” he said in an unsteady voice. “It has been a trying day.”
Ida reached up to cup her husband’s jaw and turned his to face her. “God knew best, William,” she said gently.
The president managed a sad smile as he gazed down at his wife, a look of resignation on his face. The connection between them warmed and strengthened, and as Nathaniel watched, it seemed as if the president drew strength from his wife.
The pair headed upstairs to change into dinner attire, and Nathaniel watched them go. Mrs. McKinley’s crippled leg slowed their progress, but even so, it seemed as if the president was still leaning on her. It was the first time he’d ever seen the president turn to his wife for support, and it was a surprise.
After they disappeared into the upstairs bedroom, Nathaniel was alone in the hall. He looked back at the photograph of a girl so like Molly it hurt.
DidGod know best? It had been twenty years since Molly had died, but he doubted this choking sense of regret would ever ease. He felt unmoored and exhausted from battling the undertow of regret, made worse by his responsibilities to guard the president. He had only a few more days before he could be free of this assignment and return to life as an ordinary detective.
This feeling of being stretched beyond his limits was becoming more common, and oddly, Caroline Delacroix was the best remedy. The moment she came into view, he felt grounded and energized by a spark of electricity that jolted him back to earth. He both mistrusted and craved the way she made him feel.
Whether McKinley won or lost tomorrow’s election, Nathaniel was going to be a free man soon, and then he could figure out what to do with this mass of complicated feelings for Caroline.
