First Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

back to him. All the fierceness had gone out of her. Like a tire running flat, she seemed suddenly wobbly, unsure of herself. "Anyway, I'm no longer seeing him."
    "Found someone better already?" Jack snapped.
    To her credit, she ignored his dig. "He's intent on pressing battery charges against you. I tried to persuade him he was making a mistake, but he wouldn't listen."
    Jack felt his heart skip a beat. Is that why she'd broken up with Jeff? Had she sided with him? He stared at her, too many emotions flitting through him for him to recognize even one. After all that had happened, all that had come between them, she still had the uncanny ability to draw him like a flame. And yet he felt the gulf that lay between them: the broken promises, the lies, the guilt—the unforgiven. It had substance, the form of life. It felt like the holding of one's breath just before the onrush of a storm.

    Beyond the stained curtain, there was silence, the activity had ceased, the doctors had gone on to the next urgent case. The patient was lost.
    In a clumsy attempt to counteract the gulf, he moved closer to her. "Do you think I stopped loving you?"
    Her lips parted, and her breath fanned his cheek. "No, I think you loved me. I know I loved you." Putting her hand on his biceps, she pushed herself away from him so gently, he didn't—couldn't—resist.
    Despite his best intentions, he couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. She had kept so many things from him, even before they'd split up: the depths of her grief, her depression, taking Prozac. He lashed out in twisted fashion. "So you show it by spreading your legs for—"
    She slapped him then.
    He noticed that her lipstick was the same bloody color as her nails, which meant that she wasn't biting her nails anymore.
    "Why did you make me do that?" Her voice was filled with sadness. "I didn't come here to rehash the past. I wanted . . . I want to offer you a bedroom, a good home-cooked meal, if you like."
    He had no idea how to respond.
    She gave him a nervous smile. "I went back to church, Jack."
    He looked at her in bewilderment. He felt disoriented, as if he were in a forest of mirrors. Who was this woman standing in front of him? Not his ex-wife, surely.
    "I suppose you think I'm either crazy or a hypocrite after the tongue-lashing I gave Father Larrigan." With a long finger, she swept a wisp of hair off her face. "The truth is, the Prozac didn't work. Nothing did. My heart was too damaged. The Prozac masked the pain, but it didn't take it away. In desperation, I turned to the Church."
    He shook his head mutely.
    "I've found a measure of peace there."

    "Don't you see that all you're doing is running away from the world, Shar?"
    She shook her head sadly. "You have a perverse way of turning something beautiful to ashes."
    "So you've found religion," Jack said. "Great. Another secret revealed."
    Sharon pulled open the curtain, said, not unkindly, "You need to get it into your head, Jack. We all have a secret life, not just you."

F OUR

    A FTER RETURNING with Bennett to HQ, Jack took a long-overdue shower. In the locker room, he found a set of fresh clothes on hangers waiting for him, but was surprised they included a rather expensive suit of midnight-blue worsted wool, a pair of English brogues, a similarly expensive Sea Island cotton shirt, and a fashionable though decidedly conservative tie. He'd never worn such extravagant clothes; nor could he imagine his chief having an allowance for them in his budget.
    He had just finished knotting his tie when Bennett returned.
    Jack closed his locker door. "So tell me, what am I doing in this monkey outfit?" He tried and failed to straighten the knot in his tie. "Who am I going undercover as? A Secret Service agent?"
    "Actually, you're not far off the mark." Bennett gestured with his head. "Come on."
    He led Jack out the rear door, where a smoke-windowed limo idled. Bennett opened the rear door and they climbed in.
    Jack settled into the