So how had the would-be kidnappers planned around such a thing?
None of it made sense, but I also wasn’t sure if Collier’s investigative team would appreciate me stepping in where I didn’t belong.
My job was to protect Lennon Holloway and I would do that, then after the election we would figure out where to go next.
Chapter Two
“What do you mean you’re changing my entire detail?” I asked, my voice shrill as I stared at my mother and her chief of staff with disbelief.
They’d called me into the Oval first thing this morning, forcing me to change up my usual routine of walking Ginny before getting ready for the day.
Ginny, who was still sitting at my feet, whined up at the clear distress in my voice, tilting her curly red head as she stared up at me and I quickly reached down to give her a comforting pat.
My mother, as always, looked perfect even this early in the morning. Athena Holloway wasn’t the type of woman that would allow even a single silvery blonde hair to be out of place in the low ponytail that her stylists had pulled it into this morning. Nor would there be a wrinkle in the light blue suit that creased perfectly as she sat on the couch across from me with an already-tired expression.
Somewhere deep in my mind I realized she probably hadn’t gotten any sleep again. There was always some secret issue or something that she couldn’t tell me about because she was the president and I was just her daughter, but right now I didn’t really give a damn.
The detail that they were trying to switch had been mine since I was a little girl and I felt protective over them.
Especially now that Greg Brady was gone, they were all that I had left of the safety I used to feel before I was nearly kidnapped in the middle of the city two months ago.
Turning, I glared at the thin middle-aged man sitting next to my mother who had barely looked up from his phone for this entire conversation. “This is all your idea isn’t it, Arthur?”
Arthur McDaniels was my mother’s chief of staff and had been with her even when she was just a state senator. He’d also been the bane of my and my brother’s existence for just about as long.
He was pragmatic to a fault, and if I didn’t know any better, I would think he was some kind of a robot my grandfather had built by hand to support my mother’s political career straight to the White House.
The presidency or whatever office she was running for always came first to Arthur, even if it meant Carter and I fell by the wayside. Just like I was now.
“Arthur,” my mother said, cutting in to defend him just like she usually did, “Is correct and it really didn’t take much for him to convince me, Lennie. Your detail should have been switchedup long before the incident happened. They were growing too lenient with you.”
I winced at her use of my childhood nickname. My mother wasn’t stupid with her use of it either. She knew how to use it to her own advantage in hopes that it would soften me up.
Besides the nickname, I couldn’t totally disagree with her words.
The memory of how Brady’s blood felt as it soaked into my dress flashed through my mind and I shook my head once, trying to banish it as far back as I could before I glanced up at my mother again.
It had been my fault that he was gone. If I hadn’t asked to change our route back to the White House maybe we would have made it back sooner and we wouldn’t have been ambushed. Agent Brady was like an affectionate older uncle, and with that came mistakes.
“So, what sort of switch up were you thinking?” I asked, finally giving in just as they both had known I would because I always gave in.
It wasn’t in my nature to disagree with my mother’s requests—not when she was doing so much day in and day out to run the country and try to keep our fractured little family together.
My mother’s expression broke into a wide smile, one of the genuine ones that she rarely ever showed these days, and she turned to Arthur who reached out to the coffee table in order to press on the intercom button.
“Cindy, go ahead and send in Onassis and his team.”
The doors to the office opened and four men entered, dressed in the typical dark suits that all Secret Service agents wore.
But that was exactly where their similarities to a typical agent ended.
The first man that entered at the head of his group was broad shouldered and clearly the one in charge because thethree behind him seemed to fan out without even needing to communicate, placing themselves in a line a half-step behind him.
He had dark brown hair that was neatly combed out of his face and trimmed short on the sides. His facial hair seemed a touch too long for what was typical for the Secret Service, making him look more rugged than most agents that I passed by on the daily.
Then there were his eyes which were scanning the room as if danger was lurking somewhere behind the bespoke furniture. They were a warm brown color—the color of maple syrup or the bourbon my grandfather tended to favor.
Slightly shorter than him, the next man I looked at had shiny black hair that was actively resisting the taming he must have given it this morning. His equally dark eyes met mine for a brief second before shifting away and I watched his pale skin flush slightly as he stared forward, a tendon in his sharp jaw ticking as he stood at attention.
