Pandora's Box (37 page)

“I’m going to tell you what you need to know so you can stop her,” he said.
 
“Nobody steals from me and gets away with it.”

“I’m listening,” she said, even though her thoughts were with
Tyler
.
 
Somehow she had to save him from whatever Roxie’s twisted mind had in store for him.

Boracci winced, and he clutched his wound tighter.
 
“My wife couldn’t have children, so we decided to adopt.
 
But I wanted my own child, my own flesh and blood.
 
So I got one of the maids pregnant, set her up in a nice house, and gave her money once she popped Roxie out.
 
Then I took Roxie home and told my wife the adoption had gone through sooner than expected.”

“Quite a coincidence that both your wife and Grainger couldn’t have children.”

Boracci shook his dark head.
 
“Grainger lied to his wife.
 
He got fixed behind our backs because we all agreed in the beginning that we would give our children implants to test them.
 
That way it would be fair.
 
My wife couldn’t have kids, so I had one without her, and we gave her a microchip.
 
Malcom gave one to
Tyler
, and
Duncan
fixed you up with one, but Grainger refused to have a kid with an implant.
 
He made sure he’d never have a child.”

Seemed a bit extreme until a person thought about how dangerous the microchips were, and Grainger would know that better than anyone.

Boracci coughed into his fist before continuing.
 
“We told Roxie she was adopted from the beginning because my wife thought it was important.
 
Roxie was such a needy child, never having enough love, never enough attention.
 
Like you, Roxie was given a microchip, but it didn’t work.
 
Something went wrong.
 
We had to render it useless.
 
She was never the same after that.”

“Are you telling me that her psychotic tendencies began with the microchip?”

Boracci shrugged.
 
“No one will ever know that for a certainty.
 
After my wife died, Roxie got worse.
 
For some reason she got it into her head that your mother was her mother.
 
She thought Sharon Grey had given her up for adoption.
 
I told her it wasn’t true, but she wouldn’t believe me.
 
I suppose I could have told her then that she was my actual child, but I was afraid of how she would react.

“For a while she thought
Duncan
was her father, but I guess she had his DNA tested last year.
 
I was having problems with Malcom Law by that time.
 
He started thinking that he didn’t need us anymore because he had the White House.
 
He stopped taking our phone calls and he went against the group on almost every decision.
 
I wanted him dead and usually Roxie would have handled that for me, but she was preoccupied with her own private matters.
 
So I used that to my advantage.
 
I set her up to believe that Malcom was her father.”

Madison
didn’t get it.
 
“How would that make her want to kill him?”

“She was obsessed with having what she calls a real family.
 
She felt cheated.
 
When she did a DNA test done on him, I had someone fix the results.
 
I know my girl.
 
She wants revenge…blood.”
 
The man was actually proud to have raised a crazy killer.
 
“Tell her the truth.
 
Take the wind out of her sails if you want to stop her.”

“Didn’t it ever occur to her that you might be her father?
 
Why didn’t she have you tested?”

“She did.
 
I made sure the tests came back negative.”

Madison
actually felt sorry for Roxie.
 
She’d been a victim of the four men and their power-hungry ambition as much as
Madison
had.
 
She wanted to ask Boracci what sort of man, what sort of father could do something like that to his daughter.
 
He could have told Roxie the truth at any time.
 
He’d decided not to for his own selfish reasons.

She compressed her lips, refusing to ask the question.
 
Boracci wasn’t going to give her a satisfactory answer anyway.
 
She put her mind on a different track instead.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t just give the president a microchip and make him do what you wanted.”

“Don’t think we didn’t consider it.
 
Unfortunately since Malcom knew about the microchips he would have been suspicious the first time he had time missing from his day.”
 
Boracci shook his head slowly.
 
“Besides Malcom made sure you Secret Service people were always around him.
 
No way for us to make him disappear for a couple of hours.
 
No time to implant him even if we wanted to.”

He coughed again, harder this time, his lungs probably filling with blood.

She said, “
Tyler
took Marc’s pulse and told me he was dead.
 
Was
Tyler
lying to me for some reason, or had Roxie programmed him to say it?”

“It was all part of the plan, honey.
 
We left nothing to chance.
 
You and Tyler have been starring in our off-Broadway play without even knowing it.
 
You’ve said your lines, taken your cues, everything on the mark.”

He laughed, and for a moment she hoped he would die.
 

“What is she planning to do with
Tyler
?”
Madison
asked.

“He’s the assassin.
 
He’s supposed to kill his father, the president.
 
Roxie’s been getting together with him.
 
I believe he left you alone in your father’s cabin to meet with her and give her information on you.”

So
Tyler
had been with Roxie, under her influence while he’d been thinking he was on a simple trip down to
Reno
.
 
Oh why hadn’t she seen it?

“What about me?
 
What about DeMarco?
 
What were we programmed for?”

Boracci’s eyes began to drift shut.
 

Madison
shook him.
 
He had to stay awake at least long enough to give her some vital information.
 
“Answer me.”

“You were the decoy,” he said.
 
“Everyone was supposed to believe you wanted to kill the president.
 
Then they would be watching you and not Tyler."

“And DeMarco?”

“He did his job.”
 
Boracci coughed up a bit of blood.
 
“He stayed close to you, kept your trust, and planted the bomb on the plane.
 
He waited until you got off before he detonated it.
 
I wanted you alive until after Malcom was dead.”

He slumped over and
Madison
suspected he didn’t have much time left.
 
She pulled her cell out and called 911 for an ambulance.
 
The gangster had already lost too much blood.
 
He was pure evil, but she didn’t want him to die from
Tyler
’s bullet because
Tyler
shouldn’t have to live with the guilt.

After she put her cell away, DeMarco, still strapped to a nearby gurney, turned his face in her direction.
 
He frowned.
 
“I don’t know you.”

Madison
glared at him.

He continued.
 
“I remember having breakfast with you in pajamas.
 
You wore blue ones with little clouds on them.
 
We had a fight about keeping our affair a secret.”
 
Madison
remembered that argument.
 
He continued on, dazed.
 
“But it isn’t right.
 
I was alone that year, just me and a dog.
 
What happened to my dog?”
 
He stared at her and his lips trembled.
 
“I think they killed my dog when they made me forget things.
 
They wanted me to think we were together, but we weren’t.
 
I didn’t even know you before you came to work for the service.”

He was right.

She had two sets of memories now, too.
 
There were memories about
Tyler
and then there were memories about DeMarco, and the time span of each set overlapped each other.
 
Which ones were real?

Madison
concentrated hard, tried to remember sharing another dinner with DeMarco besides the one they both remembered.
 
Nothing.
 
She tried to recall something new, a memory she hadn’t already gone over a thousand times.
 
Nothing.
 
But when she thought about
Tyler
more and more memories swam into focus.

She got up and went over to DeMarco, stared down at him for a moment, and tried to figure out if she could trust him enough to turn him loose.
 
Either his microchip had been turned off and his real memories were returning or he was setting her up again.
 
It could all be another trick, but she didn’t think so.
 
He was a mess.

She asked, “What was your dog’s name?”

“
Butler
.”
 
No hesitation.
 
He spoke the name with warmth and sincerity and she believed him.
 
He’d had a dog named
Butler
, a dog he had loved, and they’d taken the dog away when they’d given him the implant.
 
Probably because they couldn’t give the dog false memories of her.
 
Someone might have thought it was suspicious if the dog had been constantly barking at her even though she was supposed to have been with DeMarco for months, living in the apartment with him and his dog.

She released DeMarco from his bonds and helped him to his feet.
 
He wobbled slightly.
 
His arm went around her shoulders and he leaned on her.
 
She heard sirens in the distance.
 
They had to get away quick.

******

Chapter Seventeen

After returning from
Las Vegas
,
Madison
spent a sleepless night in her own bed.
 
She turned, twisted, and kicked the hours away, worried for
Tyler
.
 
Would she ever see him again?

In the morning she called the White House and insisted on scheduling a meeting with the first lady.
 
She had to bite her tongue when the secretary told her the first lady was indisposed and probably would be all day.
 
Vivian Law was still pretending to be a drunk, and
Madison
had no choice but to go along with it.
 
For now.

Madison
told the secretary to ring the woman’s bedroom where she was resting and tell her there was an urgent message concerning her son.
 
If the first lady cared about
Tyler
at all, she’d agree to see
Madison
.

A meeting was set for that very hour.

Madison
hurried to the White House and did her best to avoid being seen by anyone who might tell the president she was on the grounds.
 
She was taken to the first lady’s bedroom, a room across the hall from her husband’s.

Once they were alone,
Madison
went to the bed and stared down at the woman.
 
Give her an Academy Award already and be done with it!

Vivian Law, Martini glass in hand, held a wet cloth to her forehead.

“Oh, what is it?
 
It’s too early in the morning for anything depressing.
 
Is this about my husband?
 
Did he send you?”

“You can save the act for someone who’s impressed,”
Madison
said.
 
“I know you aren’t a drunk.
 
I tasted your Martini the other day.
 
So why don’t you tell me why you’re pretending to be a lush before I go public with it.”

Vivian Law leaped out of bed.
 
Her Martini glass fell to the floor but didn’t break.
 
She grabbed
Madison
by the shoulders.
 
“Please, no, you can’t say a word to anyone.
 
If Malcom finds out I’ve been faking, he’ll kill me.”