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  My heart sings to hear Trisha’s pride in her soccer accomplishments. Anything that gets her off Madison’s posse works for me.

  Janie’s eyes light up. “I can’t wait! I’m a midfielder, but sometimes my coach puts me at goalkeeper…but”—she turns to her mother—“Mummy, I thought the interview is on Monday?”

  “You’re mistaken,” Babette replies darkly. “I didn’t want everyone gawking at us, so I made the interview for today. The tour is on Monday.”

  Liar. She wants to bluff her way out of Mary’s Peace Meal photo opp.

  There’s one way to prove it, I tap Babette’s shoulder, “If you’re looking for privacy, the Monday tour defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? Why don’t you call Ms. Darling and suggest that it wait until Monday for both?”

  Janie takes her mother’s hand. “Please, Mummy?”

  “I…well…” Babette glares at me, knowing she’s been caught. “Let me call Chantal to see what she can do.” With as much dignity as she can muster, she moves into the dining room.

  After a conversation (with herself, I’m sure) she’s back. “Chantal is making the arrangements.” She sighs. “Perhaps it’s for the best, since it would have been tight to get back in time to meet with the realtor.”

  Mary gawks at her. “You’re selling Lion’s Lair?”

  “I’m considering it,” Babette replies airily. “It’s much too large for just…Janie and me.”

  She’ll be asking for a divorce?

  Jeff slaps his forehead. I guess he’s frustrated that he doesn’t have that on video too.

  That’s okay. He doesn’t know it but we’ve got security cams in every room. I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to receive the missed moments from an anonymous source.

  “Since you’ve got such a busy afternoon, can Janie hang with me?” Trisha is practically pleading.

  Janie begs, “Please, Mummy?”

  “Well, Peter Bing can take all afternoon.” Babette smiles at the thought. “So, I guess it’s okay.” She turns to Lurch and nods. In turn, he points to one of the agents: Tag, you’re it.

  The guy rolls his eyes.

  At that moment, Jack strides up the front porch and opens the door.

  The agents’ hands slide to their weapons, but with a shake of his head, Lurch warns them off.

  Jack smiles down at her. “So sorry I almost missed your visit.”

  Jack’s tee-shirt is soaked from his run. Otherwise, I’m sure Babette would have insisted on a bear hug to rival Aunt Phyllis’s usual greeting. Instead Babette leans in for a kiss. “My, I’m so glad I caught you before I took off!”

  If we weren’t in front of the kids and a Secret Service detail of three, I’m sure Jack would have passed on accommodating her.

  Or maybe he’s not so sorry, considering the way his lips graze her cheek.

  Is this his way of punishing me for getting the White House correspondent position? He should know better! I’m only doing it because it’s part of the mission.

  Then again, Jack could argue that he’s now taking advantage of an opportunity to engage with a possible Quorum operative.

  She’s certainly taking advantage of him.

  And he is definitely not arguing about it.

  “Well, I do have a few more minutes.” As if she’s caught some naughty boy with his hand in the candy jar, Babette wags a finger at him. “In fact there is something I must discuss with you—in private.”

  She nods toward the dining room.

  Oh no…here it comes! She’s going to blow his Good Morning Hartland cover.

  Try as I might, I can’t overhear what they’re saying, mainly due to the chatter going on around me. While Jeff and Mary are reviewing their video footage and discussing post-production considerations, Trisha rhapsodizes on and on of all the wonderful things her school has to offer. “And wait until you meet my posse! Madison is totally cool!”

  I throw up my hands. With all the chatter, chatter, chatter, covert surveillance is a moot point—

  Or maybe not. I’ve just remembered that we have a security camera in the dining room! It’s hidden in the eye of the portrait hanging over the fireplace.

  At that moment, Babette and Jack reappear in the foyer. He’s just said something that makes her gush, “Why, I think that is a marvelous idea!”

  I don’t like the cunning wink she gives him.

  He responds with a naughty grin.

  This time, when Babette goes in for a kiss, it’s right on Jack’s lips.

  Afterward, she looks around to make sure I caught it. Seeing my stunned stare, she sweeps out the door with a triumphant smile.

  I blink away the urge to cry. I don’t know if he’s doing it for the mission, or because he’s angry at me about my new assignment. In any regard, Babette now knows she’s succeeded hurting me.

  As Lurch follows her out, he nods his farewell. He frowns because he’s embarrassed for me.

  Jack is walking to the stairwell as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.

  Angrily, I follow when my cell phone pings. Jack’s does too.

  Simultaneously, we stare down at it:

  Ryan. The message:

  Meeting. NOW.

  Darn it.

  I follow Jack upstairs.

  He uses our shower.

  I use the one that Mary shares with Trisha.

  Afterward, we drive to work together. In silence.

  Except for Ryan, Jack and I are the last ones to enter Acme’s conference room. We circle the room for chairs on the opposite sides of the round conference room table.

  Emma is tapping away at her computer. So is Arnie, but it’s harder for him because Nicky sits in his lap. He’s so excited about having his daddy at home. Whenever Arnie leans in to type over him, Nicky squeals with delight.

  From what I can tell, Abu is editing video footage. I’m sure he’s prepping it for some story he’s already been assigned by Hart’s D.C. news bureau. It’ll be great to have him covering my back there.

  As I pass Dominic, I look over his shoulder and see that he’s texting. I take a closer peek, and sputter, “My goodness! You’re sending someone pornographic GIFs?”

  Miffed, he draws back to block my view. “Pardon? It’s not pornographic if the sender and the recipient are the video’s subjects!”

  I snatch the phone out of his hand. He’s right. It’s Dominic and Charlotte. Their position isn’t just compromising. It’s exhausting.

  I toss the phone back to him. “Yeah, okay, keep telling yourself that.”

  “Well, well! Someone is in quite the mood,” he grouses.

  That does it. I’m not sitting next to him. And since the only other chair is next to Jack, I elect to stand instead.

  Ryan strides into the room. As he lowers himself into the seat next to Dominic, he declares, “It’s great to have you folks back in the country, and on this coast. As everyone knows, a lot has happened since we were last together, so let’s play catch-up.” He nods at me. “First, I want to congratulate Donna on the interception of the Russian military arms intel.”

  I blush at my team’s applause. Even Jack slaps his hands together, albeit tepidly.

  “And Jack’s suspicions about the Japanese operative, Kimiko Satō, saved the World Nuclear Proliferation Summit from turning into a disaster.”

  As I clap along with the others, Jack glances over at me. “Donna’s run-in with Luuk gave me the idea,” he admits.

  I nod. Still, he’ll have to do better than that before we kiss and make up—like, say, tell me what the hell Babette said to him.

  “Which brings me to the extermination of Charlotte Hart’s fiancé, Mikhail Gorev. Jack did a credible job of making it look like a heart attack. However, with all the unfortunate mishaps befalling Russian nationals on U.K. soil, any coroner assigned to the body is going to be looking for suspicious causes, especially if the expat was a friend of the Kremlin. With this in mind, I took the liberty of alerting the Cousins that the kill was ours. Th
ey in turn have assured me that the coroner’s report will reflect death by natural causes. This should be a relief to his fiancée.” Ryan turns to Dominic. “Speaking of which, how is your target?”

  “As anticipated, we are a definite item.” Dominic frowns. “Not anticipated, however, is her voracious libido! To put it bluntly, the woman is insatiable!” Perplexed, he slams his cell phone onto the conference room table. “Needless to say, I have infiltrated the target.”

  A video now appears on Dominic’s phone screen. Charlotte can be heard chattering away in the universal language of naughty talk.

  In unison, we tilt our heads toward it…

  Ewww!

  Arnie covers Nicky’s ears, while Emma puts her hands over his eyes. The toddler giggles at this new game.

  Abu stares down at Dominic’s phone. “I’ll say you have!”

  Wearily, Ryan closes his eyes. “Put. That. Away. NOW.”

  Dominic clicks off and tosses the phone into his jacket. Then, without missing a beat, he adds, “On the plus side, Charlotte has proven to be very open to discussing Hart’s business practices.”

  “She seems open to a lot of things,” Jack replies.

  Ryan pierces him with small, angry eyes. Assured that Jack is duly chastened, he looks at Dominic again. “Has she mentioned Wagner Klein?”

  “Not with any concern or at any length other than to bemoan the fact that Hart Media didn’t break the story first,” Dominic assures him. “However, she was very happy that the Conkling woman got the scoop about POTUS’s standing as one of its clients. She says it makes for many great leads for her reporters to follow.”

  On that note, I raise my hand. “By now, I guess everyone knows that as of Monday ‘Gwendolyn’ is being transferred to Hart’s D.C. news bureau. My new title is White House Correspondent.”

  My teammates nod then glance over at Jack, whose face is as stony as a poker pro’s.

  I lift my new employment contract out of my valise and hand it to Ryan. “I’ve already signed it, but as my ‘attorney,’ please follow Randall’s protocol and email a PDF to his office before noon Eastern Time tomorrow.”

  “Will do,” Ryan agrees. “Abu says it’s a hotbed of activity, and that the cheat sheets are handed out to all reporters and anchors. He does his best to collect them and passes them forward to Emma and her team. But since the news bureau is Hart’s largest, he’ll welcome the help.”

  “Amen,” Abu declares.

  “By the way, the Hart Media cheat sheets you’ve been passing forward have gone a long way toward helping the ComInt team in its encryption analysis, so keep them coming,” Emma says.

  “Arnie also has another promising bit of news. A breakthrough, sort of.” Ryan nods to Arnie.

  The happy father hands the toddler to Emma. Or attempts to, anyway. Nicky whines and wiggles to get back in Arnie’s arms. Emma is embarrassed. Still, she holds the child firmly. When she hands him his favorite teddy bear, he calms down.

  Arnie sighs with relief. “Okay, sorry about that, folks.” The harried daddy takes a deep breath. “As everyone knows, I’ve hacked Hart Media’s corporate database. I’m hunting down anything that leads to a money trail into Wagner Klein or Trident Union Bank that launders its clients’ offshore funds. It’s a massive endeavor. All banking intel is encrypted out the wazoo! However, I have noticed one anomaly. If it’s what I think it is, we’ll have nailed Hart directly to the top players in the Kremlin, and I’ll be dancin’ in the end zone like Deion Sanders—”

  Ryan buries his head in his hands. “Anything else of importance?”

  Arnie thinks for a moment. “Oh yeah! Hey, Donna, as you requested, I went through the whole Wagner Klein database and found nothing related to any of the companies in the GWI portfolio. I also searched under Lee’s name and Babette’s.”

  I frown. “But that can’t be! The Special Counsel must have found something.”

  Arnie shakes his head. “Whatever it is, I don’t see it.”

  “Maybe it was planted there after the fact,” I insist. “Or maybe it really is just a witch hunt!”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Ryan promises. “The subpoenas will start rolling out.”

  Poor Lee! And that rat, Babette, is jumping ship…

  Speaking of whom: what the hell did she say to Jack?

  I look sharply at him—

  Only to find him staring back at me.

  I temper the urge to stick out my tongue at him.

  Nope, I’ve got another way of getting it out of him. Casually, I announce, “We had a visit from Babette this morning.”

  This time, all heads swivel to me.

  “She agreed to sit down to an interview with Mary and Jeff for their school newspaper.”

  “Well, now, there’s classic spycraft for you,” Emma says admiringly.

  “She did drop some interesting soundbites. She and Janie are moving back to Hilldale, without Lee, if what she says is to be believed.”

  Emma snickers, “So much for ’til death do us part!”

  “She said she may have to sell Lion’s Lair, and that she’s putting Janie into public school.”

  Abu rubs his thumb and forefinger, as if playing a tiny violin.

  “She’s priming the pump for her departure,” Ryan says softly.

  Ryan too is thinking: Poor Lee.

  The bomb is ticking in slow motion, giving her enough time to move away from the debris field.

  The one she created. We all know that.

  Even Jack no longer buys into her pity party.

  Or does he?

  In the most innocent voice I can summon, I ask, “Jack, when she had you alone, what did she say?”

  Jack’s eyes meet mine. Nonchalantly, he replies, “Ryan agrees with me that for now we should keep it on a need-to-know basis only.”

  How dare he! I need to know. NOW.

  Our eyes never waver—

  Until he blinks first.

  But he also gets the last laugh.

  I spend Sunday in the laundry room.

  It’s the one place I know Jack avoids at all cost.

  On the other hand, I don’t mind all the pre-treating and pre-soaking needed for the precarious mountain of athletic pants and shorts and tee-shirts and jeans on top of the dryer.

  Load after load is moved from washer to dryer. I pull out the ironing board because the kids deserve a real treat: creases in their jeans.

  To salvage the elasticity of my delicates, I put them in a special mesh drawstring bag, which I then toss in with the cold-water wash.

  Then the folding begins. Nice squares of warm fragrant clothes are sorted by owner and placed into baskets that will be left at the bottom of a bed.

  Everyone’s things, but Jack’s.

  He left early this morning again.

  The way I see it, he has tomorrow off anyway. He can do his own laundry.

  Had he not removed the dining room security footage while I showered yesterday, I might have reconsidered.

  Until he comes clean with his little secret, his laundry is on a need-to-do-it-yourself basis.

  Jack walks into the house just a half hour before Abu is due to swing by so we can head out to the airport.

  “Don’t bother seeing me off,” I sniff.

  “Fine, if that’s the way you want it,” he retorts.

  I don’t. But my pride won’t let me say it out loud.

  Instead, I jibe cruelly, “Hey, since Babette is taking Air Force One straight from Hilldale to New York on Tuesday, maybe ‘Grant’ can hitch a ride with her. Isn’t it a hoot that she didn’t recognize you on Good Morning Hartland? I guess that’s the advantage of having her look no higher than your crotch.”

  Jack takes the bait. “You should talk! I’ll give you three-to-one odds that Lee doesn’t recognize you either since he never looks beyond your breasts!”

  Furious, I toss my suitcase to the floor. “I’m not just some bimbo to him, and you know it!”

  Ja
ck frowns. “You’re right. You’re not. You’re his ideal woman: beautiful, strong, and you always have his back.”

  “Why shouldn’t I have his back? It’s my job! He is the President of the United States!”

  “Be honest, Donna. If it wasn’t your job and he wasn’t the leader of the free world”—Jack puts air quotes around the moniker—“you’d still feel that way about him! Go ahead. Admit it.”

  I stutter, “That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”

  “Friends? No! That’s what spouses are for!”

  Outside in the driveway, a horn toots. Abu is here.

  I pick up my suitcase again and start for the door.

  By the time I open it, Jack hasn’t said a word.

  Not even “goodbye.”

  On the way to the airport, Abu keeps up a cheery monologue because he knows I’m too morose to answer back.

  It’s all I can do to keep from crying.

  13

  Tease

  It’s to a news show’s benefit to hold your attention between commercial breaks. The strength of its ratings depends on it!

  To do so, the newscaster will provide a short but tantalizing description of what you’ll see, should you stick around. This is called a “tease.”

  You’ve often played the tease, so you know how it works. Only, in your case, the words may have been naughtier. Perhaps even X-rated. Shall we say, “For Mature Audiences”?

  If he didn’t hang in there, it’s his loss. I mean, let’s face it: there is nothing in your fridge as yummy as you!

  “Ah, here she is now: our new White House correspondent, the very gracious Gwendolyn Durant!” Wendell Edwards, the former BBC news anchor, waves me over from across Hart News Tower’s very crowded newsroom pit.

  On the flight over, I reviewed Acme’s intel on my D.C. co-workers, including Wendell’s dossier. It pleases me that the company was smart enough to put such a distinguished journalist on its prime time anchor desk.

  I was also not surprised to learn that, like me, Jeanette Conkling’s reportage earned her a transfer to the Washington Bureau.