DUTCH AND GINA: A SCANDAL IS BORN (21 page)

“Excuse me, sir,” the house butler said as he entered the room and walked over to Crader, “but the Secret Service states that a Liz Sinclair wishes permission to enter the estate grounds.”

“Liz?” Gina asked, frowning.
 
“What to devil she’s doing here?”

“Who’s Liz Sinclair?” Crader wanted to know.

“She’s the staffer I told you about,” Dutch said, getting off of the floor with Little Walt, “the one I hired to look out for Gina.”

“That’s a cute way to put it,” Gina said.
 

“I’ll refuse entry if that’s what you want,” Crader said.

“Let her in,” Dutch ordered.
 
Crader nodded to the butler, and the butler left.

Gina looked at Dutch.
 
“Did you ask her to come here?”

“She had to take care of some business in L.A., but yes, I told her to come to Florida after she concluded her business.”

“Not fair, Dutch.
 
You should have asked me first.”

LaLa and Christian glanced at each other.
 
They’d heard the couple argue many times before, but it always made them feel uneasy.
 
Dutch and Gina were their gold standard.
 
If they didn’t act right, or, God forbid, if they didn’t make it, what chance did the rest of them have?

“I hired her to do a job,” Dutch said.
 
“Her job is to be your protector.
 
I’m not going to stop the woman from doing her job.”

“Then you let her follow you toe to toe because she’s not following me,” Gina made clear.
 
“I can’t stand her.
 
I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“She’ll not follow you toe to toe,” Dutch said, “but you will allow her to do her job.”
 

Gina rolled her eyes.
 

Dutch continued.
 
“You will allow her to be within striking distance of you just in case.”

Gina frowned.
 
“Just in case what?
 
I’m in a veritable fortress here as it is, Dutch.
 
We’ve got more Secret Service agents running around this place than we have at the White House, it seems to me.
 
What in the world does she need to protect me from here?”

“She’s here now, Gina,” Dutch made clear, “and you will be civil to her and she will stay.
 
Understood?”

Gina tossed out another card, although it wasn’t her time to do so.
 
“Yeah,” she finally said.
 
“Understood.”

Within a few minutes after their conversation, Liz entered the room looking radiant, it seemed to Dutch, as she put on her best smile on her arrival.

“Hello, all,” she said.
 

Everybody in the room, except Crader, knew her and spoke to her, with Gina doing as Dutch had ordered her to do and was being civil with her also.
 
Crader, on the other hand, was impressed.
 

Wow
, he thought inwardly, as he watched this strikingly gorgeous tall, slim, black woman enter his home.
 

Liz noticed him too, and she was equally impressed with his good looks.
 
Although no-one, not even him, could hold a candle to Dutch.

“How are you, Liz?” Dutch asked, as she made her way to his side.
 

“Considering that I just flew in from California on a flight that had me seated next to a man who not only snored throughout the entire trip, but drooled, and drooled on me, I’m okay.”

“Oh, my,” Dutch said. “Perhaps you’d like to freshen up.”

“Particularly with you,” she wanted to say.
 
“That would be lovely,” she said instead.

“We may have to reconfigure the guest rooms, Cray,” Dutch said as Crader came over to them.

“There are a few more vacant rooms.”

“Liz, you know Crader McKenzie, don’t you?”

“I know of him,” Liz said, putting on that charming smile of hers, as they shook hands.

“As I know of you,” Crader replied.
 
“Nice to meet you, Liz.”

“Likewise,” Liz said, not making a secret of the fact that she was assessing him.
 
Gina looked at LaLa.
 
LaLa was staring, not at Liz, but at Crader.
 

“I’ll show you where you can lay your head,” Crader said with a smile of his own as he and Liz left the Family room.
 

“All I have to say,” Gina said, tossing out yet another card, although it still wasn’t her turn, “is women, hold onto your men.”

LaLa smiled, although she was hardly feeling joyous.
 
Then she perked back up.
 
No way, she decided, could he even think about looking at another woman, even one as alluring as Liz Sinclair, after the way he made love to her.

“This is nice,” Liz said as Crader escorted her into one of the downstairs bedroom.
 

“I’m letting the First Family have the run of the second floor, so the rest of us are kind of packed in down here.”

“I’d hardly call this spacious room as any packing in,” Liz said.
 
“I’ll be quite comfortable here.”

“Good,” Crader said.
 
“The bathroom is right through that door, and anything else you need just use the intercom button on the night stand and the staff on duty will be happy to assist you.”

“Wonderful.
 
Thank-you, Crader,” Liz said, looking down the length of him.

“You’re welcome,” he said.
 
He, too, felt an urgent need to assess this African princess, but he didn’t.
 
For LaLa’s sake, not to mention his own sanity, he didn’t.
 
He simply turned to leave.

Liz, however, wasn’t about to let a hunk like him get away without her having some fun, at least some, with him.
 
“Crader?” she yelled, stopping his progress.

He turned back toward her.
 
“Yes?”

“I see there’s no television in this room.
 
Which is rather problematic for me.
 
You see, I can’t seem to sleep unless I have a television blaring.
 
I won’t blare it, I promise you that, but do you think you could wrangle up one for me, dear?”

“I’m sure I can find a little portable one in one of these rooms.
 
Be right back.”

And he left, but couldn’t seem to find one (watching television was something he almost never had time to do).
 
It wasn’t until he peeped, not in any of the bedrooms, but in the rarely used downstairs parlor did he find a small, sixteen inch flat screen sitting inside a tall entertainment center.

Once he was able to unplug it, he carried it to the back guest room.
 
He entered talking, telling Liz that it was small, but he didn’t think he had another.
 
It wasn’t until he had sat the television on the armoire did he realize that Liz wasn’t there.
 

And then he heard a loud thump in the bathroom.

“Are you okay in there?” he asked as he hurried over to the door.

“No,” she said.
 
“Please come here.”

He opened the door quickly, and entered quickly, expecting to find that she had fallen and was on the floor, or even inside the tub.
 
But she wasn’t either.
 
She was upright, stark naked, and moving up to him.
 

I’m not okay,” she said, turning him toward the vanity chair and pushing him down.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked angrily, moving to stand up.
 

But she was already crotched down and unzipping his jeans.
 

“Look, lady,” he said, grabbing her hand and slinging it away from him, moving to stand up.

But she had already put his rod in her mouth.

That was the game changer.
 

No way, he knew, could he resist this.
 
He just couldn’t.
 
not with this bombshell.
 
Not with the expert way her tongue was licking him.
 
Not as his penis wouldn’t even have the decency to remain deflated.
 
It flared right up.
 
Stood at attention immediately when her she touched him.
 
And he leaned his head back, angry with himself; knowing that this was all wrong; knowing that his inability to control his attraction to beautiful women would be the death of him yet.
 

But even knowing all of that, he still didn’t stop it.
 
He still allowed her mouth to fuck his penis the way he would have been fucking her.
 
And probably would have fucked her, he knew, if he hadn’t opened his lust-filled eyes just enough to see that LaLa had entered the bedroom, and was now standing outside of the bathroom, staring at him.

 
And just like that the will power he didn’t think he had showed up with a vengeance.
 
“Oh, no, La,” he said, his heart pounding.
 

Liz, however, kept sucking, kept his penis deep inside her mouth and kept drawing on it like a pothead drew out a drag on a reefer.
 

“La, I can explain,” he was saying, moving to get up, but LaLa didn’t wait around for explanations.
 
She was gone.

“LaLa, wait!” he yelled as he had to literally push Liz away from him to get up and get after the only woman he really wanted.
 

Liz sat back on her haunches and shrugged, her indifference to the plight of her fellow man scary even to her.

But Crader didn’t care about her plight at this time.
 
He only cared that the one woman he was considering committing his life, the only woman who had ever made him want to be a better man, had just found out what kind of douche bag he really was, and would probably never expose her heart to him again.

“LaLa, please!” he stood at her bedroom door and pleaded. “Please open the door.
 
I was wrong, I know I was wrong, but please don’t lock me out.
 
LaLa please!”

And he stood there, calling her name, begging her to open the door, to let him in, to not lock him out, and she stood right on the other side of the door, leaned against it, tears flowing freely down her face.
 
It was the prom all over again.
 
It was the date who was no better looking himself, but who constantly kept looking past her, over her, around her, for a better deal than her.
 

And she, like the stone they took her for, was supposed to understand.

She walked away from the door, away from his pleads, and went to bed.

SIXTEEN

Two hours later and Gina and Christian were playing Gin Rummy at the card table, Dutch was on the sofa with his sleeping son in his arms, and Liz was seated beside him, telling him about her trip to L.A. and some of the clients she used to serve, including one who would rather lose millions of dollars in endorsements just to get revenge on his soon-to-be ex-wife.
 
Dutch was slouched on the couch, one arm holding his son, the other flapped over his head, listening intently to that witch.

And that was what she was, Gina believed, as she looked at her husband.
 
She didn’t trust her, didn’t like her, and probably never would.
 

When Crader came back into the Family Room, looking as if he’d just lost his entire family, Gina became concerned.
 
She had assumed he had been with LaLa all this time, especially since LaLa had left the room in search of him some two hours ago.

“Where’s La?” she asked him.

“Don’t ask,” Crader said and Gina and Dutch glanced at each other.

“Nurse Riley,” Dutch said and Penelope Riley, inwardly thrilled, hurried to the sleeping child.

“Come on, Little Walt,” Riley said as she took him from his father’s arms, “it’s time for you to go.”

When she and the baby had gone, Dutch looked at his friend.
 
“What’s happened?” he asked him.

“I’m an asshole, that’s what happened,” Crader disgustedly replied.

Nurse Riley, however, was well into her plan.
 
As soon as she walked into the second floor Nursery, she closed the door and pulled out her cell phone.
 
Dialed the number Caroline had provided.
 
“I’m coming out now,” she said, and hung up.

Then she got busy.
 
Grabbing the large overnight bag she arrived with, taking the few clothes out, and then, lifting up the false bottom, revealing a compartment just big enough.
 
She then reached into an enclosure on the outside of the bag, pulled out her needle and cylindrical vial, filled the needle, and then injected the still sleeping Harber baby.
 

Her hands were shaking as she placed the baby into the cleared compartment, fit the false bottom back into the bag, and then put her clothes back on top.
 
She tossed her cell phone into the side pocket of her nurse’s smock, placed the overnight bag on her shoulder, and headed downstairs.

She could hear conversation coming from the Family Room, but nobody heard her.
 
And she was quick about it, walking across the living room, across the foyer, and exiting out of the front door without one eye on her.

As expected, Secret Service agents had the property blanketed, with two of them at the front door.
 

“Nurse Riley,” one of the agents said, well familiar with the middle-aged nanny.
 
Some evenings in DC, when she was leaving the White House to head home, he would escort her to her car, bidding her a good night.

“Hello, son,” she said cheerily without breaking her stride.
 
“I’m going to spend the evening in town with friends of mine,” she said, “since Little Walt’s asleep.”

“Need a ride provided, ma’am?”

“Oh, no thank-you very much,” she said. “Not on a gorgeous night like this.
 
My friends are going to pick me up beyond the perimeter anyway, since that’s as close as you folks will allow anyone to get, but it’s perfect for me.
 
It’ll give me a chance to get some exercise.
 
Stretch these legs.
 
You get to be my age you have to keep working these old bones.
 
So you boys have a good night.”

“You too, Nurse Riley,” both agents said and watched the kindly old grandmotherly type as she walked away, without so much as a by-your-leave, with the son of the President in her bag.

“Just tell us what happened, Crader,” Dutch ordered.
 
“I know you don’t want to talk about it.
 
I know it’s personal and you that’s not your style.
 
But Loretta is our friend.
 
What’s happened?”

Gina and Christian were glued to their seats, both staring unblinkingly at their cagey host, a man who never seemed to be at a loss for words, but couldn’t seem to find one single word this time.

“Crader, what is it?” Dutch asked again.

“It’s probably nothing,” Liz said and as soon as she interjected herself, Gina knew whatever it was, she was the cause.

“Did she catch you with Liz?” Gina asked.

“How
dare
you!” Liz said, feigning offense.
 
“We may have started out on bad terms, and you may have all of these preconceived notions about me even though you barely know my name, but you will not be disrespectful to me that way.”
 
She looked at Dutch. “I would strongly suggest, Dutch, with all due respect, that you get your wife, who has been nothing but unfair to me, to back off.”

Dutch, however, was still staring at Crader.
 
“Did she catch you with Liz?”
 
he asked him.

Liz’s heart dropped.
 
She couldn’t afford to lose Dutch’s confidence.
 

Gina was pleased.
 
About time
, she wanted to say.

“Yes,” Crader said, so disgusted with himself that he didn’t bother to look at any of them, not even Liz.

“That’s a lie!” Liz proclaimed.

Christian, however, was already up and hurrying for LaLa’s bedroom.
 
Gina stood to, to go check on her friend, but first she looked at Crader.

“Why would you do something that vile?” she wanted to know.
 
“Why would you do that to a sweet soul like LaLa?”

Crader ran his hand through his crop of brownish blonde hair.
 
“I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Gina said with angry sarcasm, “you couldn’t possibly have meant that. I mean, how could fucking a woman you just met be interpreted any other way than as something that would be a great help to LaLa?”

“Why are you on my case, Gina?” Crader wanted to know. “That bitch over there,” he started, but was too angry, and still too disgusted with himself, to continue.

Gina, however, was not persuaded.
 
“That bitch over there--”

“Now wait a minute,” Liz said, feeling under siege for real now.

“---wouldn’t have done anything to you that you didn’t allow her to do,” Gina continued. “That bitch over there didn’t owe LaLa any allegiance, any faithfulness, anything but mutual respect which bitches like her never pay anyway.
 
But LaLa gave you something she doesn’t just give away without great cost.
 
And you owed her to at least understand that.”

If he thought he couldn’t have felt worst when LaLa wouldn’t open that door, he was wrong.
 
Gina’s rage made him feel even worst.

Gina left, to go and check on her friend.
 
She could hear Liz trying with all she had to explain herself to Dutch, but she could also hear Dutch giving her a scolding she wouldn’t soon forget.
 
He thought he had an ally in her.
 
He thought she was that good person who never failed to present herself as this loyal, kind, devoted soul to him in a way she didn’t bother projecting before others.
 
But now the veil had been lifted.
 

About time
, Gina thought again.

Yet as soon as she walked out of the Family room, through the long corridor, and entered the Livingroom area, she stopped in her tracks.
 
A sense of foreboding, a kind of heavy-handed dread, suddenly came over her.
 
She tried to dismiss it; to decide it was just the fact that she was in a strange house at a strange time in her life.
 
But as soon as she took another step, that dread gripped her again.
 
And like a song that suddenly popped in your head, those words Nurse Riley said popped into hers.

Come on, Little Walt.
 
It’s time for you to go
, she’d said.

But it was odd for her to say that, Gina thought, a frown encompassing her face.
 
Of course she could have easily meant that it was time for him to go to bed, but she didn’t say that.
 
She also didn’t say what she always, but always said when she put Walt down to bed:
 

Bedtime, Little Walt
, was always her mantra.
 
Bedtime, Little Walt
.

Come on, Little Walt.
 
It’s time for you to go
.

Gina knew she was probably being silly.
 
She suspected she was overreacting big time.
 
But that dread didn’t grip her for nothing.
 

She hurried up the stairs, knowing that LaLa probably needed her desperately, but also knowing she just had to make sure first.
 

But as soon as she arrived just outside the wide-opened Nursery door, she knew like she knew her name that something was wrong.
 
And when she entered the Nursery, and saw that her baby and her baby’s Nanny were not in that room, she screamed.

Dutch’s heart rammed against his chest when he heard such a blood curling scream coming from his wife.
 
He ran out of that Family room, with Crader and Liz right behind him, down the corridor, and into the Livingroom just as Gina was running down the stairs.

“They’re gone!” she cried.

“Who’s gone?” Dutch asked, running to meet his hysterical wife.

“I searched upstairs, I searched for them, but they’re gone, Dutch!”

“Our baby?”

“She took our baby.
 
Nurse Riley took our baby!”

Dutch ran to the front door, with Crader on his tail, with Gina and Liz and now LaLa and Christian coming out of LaLa’s bedroom, and running too.

The agents at the door and many others around the premises ran as soon as they saw what looked like a hysterical president.
 

“Nurse Riley,” Dutch said. “Have you seen our child, have you seen Nurse Riley?”

“Nurse, yes,” the agent nervously said. “She said she was going to spend the night with friends
 
in town.”

“Was our baby with her?” Gina asked.

“No.
 
All she had was an overnight bag.”

As soon as he made that statement, the agent in charge had his transmitter devise out and was running.
 

“Close down the Island!” he ordered.
 
“Mickey is loose!” he yelled, which his agents knew was code that the president’s child was missing.
 
“Mickey is loose!” he kept yelling as agents were already cranking up the emergency SUVs.

Dutch and Gina were about to head for one themselves, but was stopped by one of the agents.

“You can’t, sir,” the agent said to the president.

“Watch me,” Dutch said as he grabbed his wife’s hand and ran for the truck.
 
Crader, whom the agents knew well as former Senator McKenzie, was allowed passage too.