Pandora's Box (43 page)

Law made it to the microphone.
 
He held his hands up as if in victory and the applause exploded louder than ever.
 

Before
Madison
could make a decision,
Tyler
slipped in through a side door.
 
His eyes stared straight ahead.
 
If he hadn’t been under the chip’s influence, he would have
 
quickly scanned the room, searching for traps and enemies, but he wasn’t himself today. His hand dipped beneath his dark jacket.
 
He was reaching for a gun.

Madison
darted through the throng of people.
 
She rushed to his side, desperate to stop him.
 
Where the hell was Brett?
 
She needed that damn second remote.
 
Otherwise she didn’t think she could stop the inevitable.
 
Tyler
would pull his gun and the Secret Service would drop him on the spot.
 
Just like her father.

She blocked his path.

Her fingers encircled his wrist and she pressed against it, keeping him from removing the gun from its hiding place.
 
“I know you don’t remember me right now, but please listen to me.
 
Don’t do this.
 
You’re being controlled by a microchip in your brain.
 
You have to fight it.”

His cold eyes stared at her as if she were a stranger, no more important than a pesky fly.
 
With a windmill gesture he knocked her hand off.
 
At the same time his other hand twirled her around until she faced in the opposite direction and he stepped closer, pressed her back against him and grasped her throat with his gun hand.
 
His fingers tightened, nearly cutting off her oxygen.

A dangerous man without a conscience, without a memory, no past or future to worry about.
 
That was what he’d become.

“You don’t want to do this,” she said.
 
She glanced around nervously, hoping no one would notice. She needn’t have worried.
 
Everyone’s attention focused solely on the president as he began to give yet another tedious speech.
 
If she could stall
Tyler
long enough, Brett would arrive with the remote.
 
“I’m your wife.
 
Remember?
 
We shared our secrets.
 
We shared everything.
 
We even talked about having children.”
 
His fingers loosened.
 
Good.
 
She lied, “I’m pregnant with your baby right now.”

His hand dropped away.

She turned to face him, hope shining in her eyes.
 
Had she finally reached him?
 
Did he remember her?

But his eyes hadn’t warmed even a tenth of a degree.
 
He stared at her, no emotion.
 
He still didn’t remember he loved her.
 
So why had he released her?

Because he had other things on his mind.
 
He pushed her out of the way and headed for the president, relentless.
 
Once again his hand slipped inside his jacket.
 
Even though she couldn’t see his fingers, she knew they were wrapping around cold steel.
 
If she didn’t do something fast, he was going to kill the president or die trying.

Madison
clicked off her options.
 
She could tackle him, but someone might get the right idea and open fire on him.
 
So that was out.
 
She could play the crazy one, place a gun at the back of his head, and threaten the president’s son.
 
Yeah, and then she’d wind up dead.
 
That wasn’t a good idea either.

She decided to go with Plan C.

Dashing past
Tyler
, she raced up the stairs and shouted a code word to the Secret Service Agents standing close to the president.
 
They moved in front of him, shielding him from unknown danger.
 
She grabbed the president, whirled him around, and pushed him through the double doors.
 
She followed him through.
 
As the doors closed behind her, she turned to see
Tyler
looked confused.
 
He had no idea what to do.
 
And there was the flaw with the microchips.
 
The chips didn’t have a Plan B, let alone C.

They took the elevator up to the room on the tenth floor that the president had used earlier.
 
When he made a speech, he liked to have a place to relax before and after, a shot of bourbon and a few minutes alone.
 
The president invited her inside, although he asked the other agents to remain outside.
 
His wife had decided to stay downstairs with the vice-president.
 
Big surprise.
 

President Law walked over to the bar.
 
He lifted a crystal decanter along with his eyebrow.
 
“Drink?”

She shook her head, scowling at him.
 
If
Tyler
’s life hadn’t been on the line, she would have let the president die.
 
No man deserved death more.

“Tell me, who was trying to assassinate me tonight?”

“I think you know,” she said.

He sipped his liquor.
 
“So they finally brought out the big gun.”

“You’ve known this whole time that
Tyler
had been programmed to kill you.”
 
She circled him yet kept her distance.
 
“DeMarco was set up and you knew.
 
You knew all about Boracci and Roxie and their plan to finish you.”

“Don’t forget your father.”
 
He boasted, “There isn’t much happening in this country that I don’t know about.”

“You’re twisted.”

“Boracci and your father wanted to share my power.”
 
He sat on the cream colored couch and patted the cushion next to him, silently inviting her to join him.
 
She’d rather sit next to a cobra.
 
He went on.
 
“Clingers.
 
They were nothing but clingers.
 
I would have made it to the White House without them.
 
I don’t owe them a damn thing, but they have deluded themselves into believing they made me what I am.
 

“I am the president of the Untied States of
America
.
 
I wasn’t going to share the office with a mobster and a has-been spy.
 
So they put their heads together and decided to use the chips against me.
 
Idiots.
 
They fired warning shots at first, thought they could scare me.

“But I wasn’t worried.
 
I have a top-notch team of agents looking out for me day and night.
 
Eventually I knew they would send
Tyler
after me.
 
He was the obvious choice.”

“So you aren’t surprised?”

“Surprised?
 
No.”
 
He swirled what was left of the bourbon in his glass around and around.
 
“Unhappy?
 
Yes.
 
I was hoping Boracci and your father would give up and go away on their own.
 
When your father tried to kill me, that did surprise me.
 
I didn’t think he had the balls to do it himself, and in front of everyone.
 
What was he thinking?”

“He was thinking you killed his wife.”
 

Law choked on his drink.
 
He slapped the glass down on the table and coughed into his other hand.
 

Madison
waited quietly for him to finish, all the while hoping he would choke to death.
 
It would make her decision on what to do about him so much easier.

“Whoa,” he said.
 
“What are you saying, girl?
 
Have you lost your mind?”

“I know what you did.
 
You left a hair on my mother’s body.
 
The DNA report came back on it.
 
That’s why my father tried to kill you.”

“It will never go to court.
 
The test was tainted.”
 
He shrugged.
 
“And no one will believe you, the daughter of a known traitor.”

She circled around him again, checking him from every angle.
 
She wasn’t a fool.
 
He might look like an old man, but he was as deadly as a rattler.
 

“Who said anything about telling?”
 
She pulled her gun from the back of her pants.
 
“I could just take care of you right now.”

He laughed again, a weak and desperate laugh.
 
“You can’t kill a man in cold blood.”

“Why not?
 
You murdered my mother in cold blood.
 
I’m a firm believer in people reaping what they sow.”

Law stood.
 
He held his hands out as if they could stop a bullet.
 
Turning as she turned, he wouldn’t let her get behind him again.
 
Did he actually think she wanted to shoot him in the back?
 
No.
 
She wanted to see his lying face.

“Tell me something,” she said.
 
“Why did you kill my mother?
 
Was it to get back at my father?”

He shook his head.
 
“It was because of you.”

“Me?”
 
Her insides went cold.
 

“You had our first microchip,” he said.
 
“Your mother found out.
 
She wouldn’t listen to reason.
 
She threatened to go to the FBI, the press, anybody in the world who would listen.
 
She would have ruined us all.
 
We couldn’t let that happen.”

“We?”

“Boracci and myself.
 
We had already killed once for the sake of our futures.
 
We’d killed Boracci’s father, laid him out cold.
 
That was the plan, you know?
 
We wanted Boracci to take over his father’s territory and inherit his money.
 
We needed money to fund Grainger’s microchips.”

And her father had been part of it.

“I was a child.
 
But you didn’t care.
 
You murdered my mother.
 
Admit it?”
 
She pointed the gun at his face.
 
It shook in her otherwise capable hand.
 
Shock, guilt, sorrow, each emotion battled for supremacy.
 
“I want to hear you say the words.”

“Fine.
 
I killed your mother.”
 
His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“How did you do it?”

“I made her put a knife against her wrist and then I pushed it down until it sliced through her artery while Rico stood guard, watching in case your father came home early.
 
Your father had a blind spot when it came to her.
 
She made him soft.”

The bastard had no idea, but he’d just buried himself.

“When did you have your tattoo removed?”

He glanced down at his weathered hand.
 
“I got rid of it before I went on the campaign trail.
 
I didn’t want to have any ties to those imbeciles who called themselves my friends.”

“Tyler and I worked for the CIA,” she said.
 
“We got married.
 
Then Roxie brainwashed us to forget each other.
 
I don’t understand why.”

“It was a chess game, sweetheart.”
 
President Law shrugged.
 
“I wouldn’t go along with Rico or your father anymore, so they arranged for
Tyler
to get to know you.
 
Your father offered him the job with the CIA.”

Had they been programmed to fall in love?
 
Before she could voice her concerns, Law answered it.

“They had no idea the two of you would marry.
 
I think you were just supposed to work closely with each other, make me nervous that maybe the two of you would figure out what we’d done, but Rico disagreed with the plan.
 
Too risky for him.
 
He had his daughter grab you, make you forget each other, and then they planted
Tyler
with the idea of killing me.
 

“I have to admit, it was a good plan.
 
They put you in
Washington
, assigned you to the Secret Service and gave you an ex-boyfriend.
 
Tyler
stayed with The Agency, and I pretended to think he was still in the Navy.
 
When people started to try to assassinate me,
Tyler
decided to help me out.
 
I tried to get the boy to go back to
Virginia
.
 
For the first time in his life, he defied me.
 
That’s when I knew he had been programmed to kill me.”