“Mr. President.”
Dorn stopped at the door. “Yes, Stewart?” he asked, obviously irritated.
Dorn couldn’t have a Monica Lewinsky scandal on his hands, especially with all the positive momentum going for him right now. Baxter was intensely loyal, even when he and the president weren’t seeing eye to eye. More to the point, Baxter didn’t want his name associated with a scandal, especially one like that.
“Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“Do I think what’s a good idea?”
The Teflon syndrome was setting in. Baxter had seen its insidious effects before on other high-ranking officials. But this was the first time he’d seen Dorn yielding to it. “Sir, I mean, we just talked about how it wasn’t good for anyone to have skeletons in their bedroom closet.”
“I’m not going to my bedroom.” Dorn turned his head slightly as a warning when Baxter didn’t laugh or even grin a little at the insinuation. “Don’t give me attitude, Stewart. I deserve a few distractions.”
That was a fat, juicy rationalization by the leader of the free world. “Yes, sir.”
“Do I need to hire someone who understands me better?”
“No, sir, I—” Baxter was interrupted by a sharp knock on the Oval Office door.
Dorn reached for the knob and pulled the door open. “Yes?”
“May I come in, sir?”
Dorn gestured inside. “Of course.”
“Thank you, sir.”
With his eyes glued to the blue carpet, the aide slipped past the president and moved quickly to where Baxter was standing. When the young man had finished whispering to his boss, Baxter sent him back out again with a curt nod at the door. The kid sprinted from the Oval Office.
“What was that?” Dorn demanded.
Baxter pointed at Dorn and then at the chair behind the great desk. “Sit down, sir.” He was rather enjoying how quickly the president’s face had drained of its normal, healthy glow. Being the president’s chief of staff wasn’t easy — especially when that president was David Dorn.
“What is it, Stewart?” Dorn asked in a wavering tone. “Tell me.”
“We have a situation, sir. It’s not good.”
“Come on, Stewart, stop with the games.”
“Do you have a daughter, sir?” President Dorn and the First Lady had no children. Not being a family man had been the only constant thorn in his side during the campaign for the Oval Office, Baxter knew. “One you haven’t told me about. One you haven’t told anyone about.”
President David Dorn suddenly looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
And Baxter loved it.
“You’ve been telling everyone you’re twenty-one. But you aren’t. You’re actually older than that. You’re twenty-five, aren’t you?”
Leigh-Ann glanced up as the man walked toward her across the room. Her hands and ankles were bound tightly to the uncomfortable wooden chair, so she could barely move. Only enough to turn her head slightly to the side to try and shield her eyes from the bright rays of a flashlight he was aiming straight at her face through the darkness from close range. She took a quick try at making out his features, in case there was a reason for that later. But she couldn’t. He was being very careful to make himself nothing but a dark silhouette. So she shut her eyes and turned away again.
“You’ve let people think you’re from Savannah.” He hesitated. “And that you’re from money.”
“Why am I here?” she murmured, ignoring his questions. “What are you going to do to me?”
“And you’ve been telling everyone that your name is Leigh-Ann Goodyear. But I know the truth, Shannon.”
That caught her attention, though she tried not to show it. They knew her real name. “Who are you?”
“You’re from Boston,” he continued as he moved behind her so she could no longer make out even his silhouette. “From Southie.”
“How do you know all that?” Shannon jerked away as fast and far as possible when he ran the backs of his fingers gently down the soft skin of her cheek. But it wasn’t very far, and she had no place left to go when he did it again. “Stop!” That had sounded far too demanding for the vulnerable position she was in. “Please stop,” she begged this time. “Please let me go.”
“You did a nice job turning that harsh Boston accent into a sweet Southern twang, didn’t you, Shannon?”
Shannon could feel the tears welling up as he continued to stroke her face gently. “Who are you?” she asked. He was breathing heavily. “Please tell me.”
He laughed softly in her ear as he leaned down close. “You’re asking the wrong question, Shannon. You should be far more concerned with your own identity.” He chuckled again. “I wonder, sweetheart. Do you have any idea who you really are?”
She gazed up at the man. She knew exactly what he was talking about. But how did he know?
CHAPTER 11
Kodiak Island, Alaska, was Commander Skylar McCoy’s home. She’d been born on this island, grown up here, and learned how to be a warrior here. So it was good to be back after two years away, even if her stay would be short. She needed to recharge, especially after that mission to Daran, and Kodiak was the perfect place to do it. Those three boys were the youngest lives she’d ever taken, and it was the first mission she’d ever reflected upon. She didn’t regret it, but she couldn’t shake it, either.
What she liked most about coming home, particularly to this remote spot on the island, was that it never changed. She was just twenty-four, but many things had already died or deserted her. However, this spot in the middle of the forest was always waiting, and it was always the same.
She glanced down into the puddle at her boot tips — it had rained heavily last night. Staring back up was a pretty young woman, she had to admit, and she wasn’t being arrogant. Her beauty was simply a fact of nature. She’d been blessed that way. She was a product of good genes — a handsome, wonderful father and a gorgeous, hateful mother. Well, mostly good.
She was five-five with jet-black hair — a precious reminder of her distant local heritage. She would have preferred to keep it long, but, given the physical nature of her missions, that wasn’t practical. So she kept it trimmed above her shoulders, and usually pulled back in a brief ponytail, as it was today.
She had a slim face with high cheekbones, full lips, and big eyes the color of the Caribbean Sea as well as every drop of New Zealand water she’d ever seen. She was “cut,” in excellent physical shape, though she was not at all bulky and took great pains to avoid that thick build. She worked out constantly but maintained her slender, feminine shape despite the demanding regimen.
She was pretty, but she’d been only the second prettiest girl in her two-daughter family. Her younger sister, Bianca, had been headed for the fashion runways of Paris before being killed four years ago at seventeen in the pickup truck of a drunken boyfriend — who, regrettably, had survived the wreck.
That guy was dead now, the victim of a mysterious backwoods fall off a steep cliff in Denali on a wonderfully clear day just like this one. He’d been a good climber, too. No one could figure out what had happened, especially with the weather so fine.
Skylar turned away from the image at her boot tips and moved through the forest to one tree in particular, which stood at the edge of a sheer cliff overlooking the ocean. It had been two years since she’d been here, but the tall spruces of this familiar grove on Kodiak’s northeast coast didn’t seem different at all. And her initials, SIM for Skylar Indigo McCoy, which were carved into the trunk, were as legible and sharp as they had been the day thirteen years ago she’d carved them, on her eleventh birthday — after making her first overnight trek out here, with only her father’s Remington rifle strapped securely to her shoulder as company.