The President's Daughter (3 page)

“I don’t do puff pieces.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“What would the timetable be?”

“I’d like to see a rough draft in six months. I know it’s not a lot of time,” Norton added when Simon’s eyebrows rose, “but I will be able to provide you with all the secondary material you need. I’ll be sending you several boxes of old newspaper articles, interviews, film footage, magazine features that you can use as reference.”

“I’ll do my own research, my own interviews. If I do this, I’ll do it my way.”

“Of course you will. But I’ll provide some background material for you to look over, just the same. And I’ll make certain that the family is available to you whenever you need them.”

“You’ve already discussed this with them?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought they should know what I was planning on doing. It wasn’t a matter of asking permission, Simon. It was merely a courtesy.”

“As long as we’re not going for an authorized biography. I don’t want the family—or anyone else—to have final say over the manuscript.”

“It would be your book, Simon. Look, I realize this isn’t a deep investigative piece—the man’s life doesn’t need to be reinvented. But I do want something new on the market that can capture the attention of the people. Something that will get you—and the future candidate and possibly the former First Lady—on
Good
Morning America, Today, Larry King Live,
the usual. Don’t overlook for a minute what that kind of exposure, those sorts of contacts, can do for your own book, once it’s published.”

“If it’s published,” Simon reminded him.

“I doubt that will be an issue, Simon.” Norton appeared to be giving great thought to something, though in truth he’d had this part already thought out. He held out the carrot. “What if we make this a two-book deal?”

“Two books,” Simon repeated as if he wasn’t certain he’d heard correctly.

“The Hayward book and the book you’re working on now. I will want the Hayward book first, of course.”

“You’d buy my book sight unseen?” Simon’s brows lifted.

“Well, of course, I would want to see the first hundred or so pages as soon as you can get them to me. If I don’t like what you’ve done, well, we’ll have to talk about it, once the Hayward book is finished. Though frankly, judging by all you told me about the book at Frank’s wedding, I can’t see how I could be disappointed.”

“How much?” Simon heard himself ask. After all, before he agreed to sign away the next several months of his life, to put aside the book he’d been sweating over and living with for the past year, he had to know.

Norton took a pen from his pocket and wrote a number on an unused napkin, his eyes twinkling. Not for the first time, Simon was reminded of Sean Connery, tall and once brawny, albeit with a New Englander’s accent.

Simon studied the sum for a very, very long minute and willed himself not to react. It was more than enough to fill up that on-empty savings account. Enough to keep Simon in food and shelter—if not some few minor trappings of luxury—while he finished not only the Hayward book but his own book as well. With enough left over for the first real vacation Simon had had in a very long time. Mentally, for just a flash, Simon pictured himself trekking across the hot sand of a tropical island. . . .

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll think about it.”

“Yes. Of course I will.”

“Give me a call after you’ve had a few days to mull it over. I understand that you’ll have things to think about. Rest assured that I’ll make certain your interests are protected. But to keep all aboveboard, I know of several fine agents that I’d be happy to refer you to— including my own.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“Just want to make sure that you feel comfortable with the arrangements I’m offering.”

“I appreciate that. I’ll definitely give your offer some thought.”

Norton took a last bite of his crab cake and gestured to the open window, where fat flakes were beginning to fall and the small sailboat was heading for the marina. “Can I plan on hearing from you within a few days?”

“I’ll be back to you by the weekend.”

“I can’t ask for more than that. Now”—Norton stood and straightened the sleeves of his well-tailored jacket—“why not send that manuscript along to me? Overnight it, if you would. I’m eager to have a look. . . .”

All the way back to his apartment in McCreedy, Simon tried to put his finger on just what it had been about Norton’s offer that had kept him from turning cartwheels from table to table across the restaurant and accepting on the spot.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the money seemed like a lot for a book that was only expected to take six months of his time and a second book that Norton hadn’t even seen.

And then, it had struck Simon as odd that his former mentor—a man whose high journalistic standards were legendary—would be willing to use Brookes Press to promote someone’s political agenda.

The money aside—and Simon readily acknowledged that the money was more than would have occurred to him to ask for—he wasn’t fool enough not to recognize an amazing opportunity when he saw one. As he sat in traffic on the approach to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Simon ticked off the pros in his head.

For one thing, the book proposed by Norton wasn’t expected to take much more than a few months of his time. And he’d been guaranteed publication by Brookes Press, something no previously unpublished author in his right mind would pass on. The book itself would have tremendous support from a respected independent press—support that he hoped would carry over onto
Lethal Deceptions,
a book even Norton had agreed would be a tough sell, though Norton hadn’t seemed concerned about Simon’s refusal to name his source of information. Of course, Norton knew Simon, knew he wouldn’t have stuck by that story if he hadn’t believed, heart and soul, in its verity. There was a trust factor there, something he’d been disappointed to have been found lacking in his editor at the
Press,
he recalled with a pang of annoyance. With luck, by the time
Lethal Deceptions
was ready for publication, all the wheels would be in motion to garner enough attention to propel it right onto the bestseller lists.

Who gets an opportunity like that? Who in his right mind would turn it down?

So why then, Simon asked himself yet again, had he not jumped at Norton’s offer right then and there?

“I don’t know,” Simon said aloud as cars once again began to move over the bridge from Annapolis to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. “I do not know. . . .”

But a glance at his mail once he arrived home—too many bills, too low a balance on his bank statement— was enough to convince Simon that Norton’s was, in fact, a classic case of an offer too good to refuse.

Besides, hadn’t he known Philip Norton for close to fifteen years? He’d never known the man to be less than forthright. And the book he’d asked Simon to write would, once it was completed, permit him to take his time while he finished
Lethal Deceptions. . . .

Simon dropped the mail onto the counter in his cramped kitchen and sat down at the small table. The apartment had been the least expensive living quarters he could find at the time he’d first left the paper, a definite comedown from his apartment in D.C. that had overlooked the Potomac. He glanced out the kitchen window, which overlooked a narrow yard and a derelict garage that the landlord always kept locked.

Simon took off his jacket, then roamed into the living room, where he tossed it onto one end of the sofa while he sat upon the other. On the coffee table sat the latest draft of
Lethal Deceptions,
Simon’s work on a money-laundering operation that reached far into the government and involved diplomats from seven other countries. While the individuals had hotly and sternly denied the allegations, Simon had spent too many nights in covert conversation with several members of the organization to doubt that the story was true. Unfortunately, his editor wouldn’t print the story without clearance from the legal department, and the legal department wouldn’t clear it without independent verification of the sources.

By the time Simon and legal had finished arguing, the bodies of three of Simon’s sources had been found on a fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico, their throats slashed.

Simon felt he owed it to those men to finish the book and to get it published. And the best way to do that—the fastest way to do that—was to put it aside for a few months and write Norton’s book for him. It was a no-brainer.

So what was it, then, about Norton’s offer that continued to prick unmercifully at the edge of his conscience?

CHAPTER THREE

The late-afternoon sun slanted in through the windows of the greenhouse at sharp angles, casting thin splinters of light across the worn wooden tables that stood, end to end, down the center of the narrow room to form one long, continuous work space. In perfect precision at the end of the table closest to the door, peat pots awaited their allotment of specially mixed growing compound and carefully selected seeds. At the opposite end, clay pots had been readied for the small seedlings that would be transplanted, one of these late-winter days, and eventually hardened out-of-doors as preparation for sale in the retail shop out front.

Dina McDermott opened the wooden door and pushed it aside with her foot just far enough to permit her entry into the moist, warm confines of the greenhouse that sheltered much of her nursery stock. She back-kicked the door closed, dumped the large bag of perlite onto the floor, and snapped on the light, then glanced at the indoor thermometer that she’d nailed to the back of the door on the day the structure had been delivered. Satisfied that the temperature remained at an even sixty-eight degrees, she pulled off her old suede gloves and stuffed them absently into the pockets of her down jacket, which she shed and tossed onto a hook near the door. She snapped on the radio and jumped nearly out of her skin as the harsh staccato of heavy rap jolted out in a loud, profane pulse.

“Yow!” Dina turned quickly to lower the volume.

“William, my friend, I can see we are going to have to have a little talk,” she muttered under her breath as she searched for her favorite soft rock station.

William Flannery, the young high school student Dina’d hired to take care of the odd jobs she often couldn’t get to, had a penchant for loud music, fast cars, and Kelly, the pretty young blonde who helped out in Dina’s shop on weekends during the busy spring through early fall seasons. He’d hung around so much last summer that Dina had ended up putting him to work.

If only his taste in music were a little more tolerable.

Dina tucked a long strand of black hair into the makeshift bun at the nape of her neck and leaned over one of the flats of annuals she’d planted the previous Sunday. The first little spikes of green had just pushed their way from the soil, and the sight of those thin featherlike leaves brought a smile to her lips. Growing all of her own nursery stock gave her total control over color and type, texture and fragrance, and ensured that she’d be able to meet the needs of her landscape and garden design customers. Already three shelves of heirloom plants—salvia, larkspur, dame’s rocket, columbine, and poppies—had germinated, plants that were indispensable to the old-fashioned cutting gardens so in demand these days.

At thirty, Dina was the owner of Garden Gates, specializing in re-creating and restoring eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gardens. Such projects having been scarce those first few years, she’d focused her energies on building up her greenhouse and retail efforts. The business had grown solidly, and as time went on she’d managed to snag a few of those landscaping plums as gentrification sought out one after another of the small towns near Henderson, her home on the upper end of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Over the past year, Dina had been tapped for the private restorations of several historic homes since building her reputation on the renovation of Ivy House, a local property that had been bequeathed to Henderson by two elderly sisters, longtime residents of the town. Dina also wrote an occasional column on heirloom plants for the local newspaper and served as the gardening consultant for the local television station. All in all, Dina was doing just fine.

“Pretty
damned
fine, if I do say so myself,” she reminded herself as she debated on whether or not to plant another flat of hollyhocks, recalling that last year the double yellows, reds, and pinks had sold out of the greenhouse by the beginning of June. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to re-create their grandmother’s garden.

And Dina’s business was booming.

From a drawer in the center of one of the worktables she pulled out a pad of paper and began to sketch a flower bed she’d been contracted to design for a family who’d recently purchased one of those new executive-style homes that were being built out on Landers Road—McMansions, as the locals referred to the overly large homes on the postage stamp–sized lots— and lost herself in a dream of midsummer color. That’s what the owners had wanted. Lots and lots of color . . .

“Garden Gates,” Dina said as she lifted the ringing phone from its base on the small desk behind her.

“Hi, sweetie,” Jude McDermott greeted her daughter.

“Oh, hi, Mom. You’re home from work already?”

“Already?” Jude laughed. “It’s almost six. Actually, I’m running a bit late today.”

Dina frowned and looked out through the glass walls. Sure enough, while she’d been picking through plastic bags and vials and envelopes filled with seeds and plotting out beds of summer annuals the last bit of afternoon had slipped away and the sun had set, and now her stomach took the opportunity to remind her she hadn’t eaten since eleven o’clock that morning.

“I didn’t realize how late it was,” Dina said. “I have a meeting at borough hall tonight with the volunteers for the new memorial park project.”

“What time?”

“Eight. But I’m hoping to get there a little early to catch up with Don Fletcher. I want to speak with him about building some benches for the memorial garden.”

“Oh.” Jude’s voice brightened. “Isn’t Don that good-looking carpenter who worked with you on the gazebo for the park?”

Dina rolled her eyes. “You know perfectly well who he is. Don’t get any ideas.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Mom, you are about as subtle as a sledgehammer. But for the record, I’m not interested in Don. He’s a good carpenter; he’s a nice man. He’s been very generous with donating his time and his talents to the community projects we’ve been working on.”

“And...?”

“And nothing. That’s it. I really don’t have any interest in him other than a professional one.”

“Pity.” Jude sighed. She knew her daughter well, knew when to give up. “Why not stop by on your way back home, if you’re not too late? I’m thinking about making a cranberry apple cobbler.”

“Bribery,” Dina muttered. “Some mothers will resort to anything to keep their offspring tied to their apron strings.”

“Whatever works.”

“Unfortunately, I think tonight I’ll have to take a rain check. I have a big day at the shop tomorrow and I’m beat. Polly and I worked day and night during the Valentine’s Day rush.”

Dina glanced at the clock. “Mom, I have to run. I need to shower and grab a bite before the meeting. I’ll give you a call in the morning.”

Dina hung up the phone, then, slinging the forgotten bag of perlite into a bin under the table she kept for that purpose, dusted her hands off on her jeans. She took one quick glance at the primroses that sat under the grow lights, then, satisfied that all was well, grabbed her jacket, turned off the overhead light, and locked up for the night.

Alone in the frosty air of late February, Dina paused between the greenhouse and the carriage house that served as her home. Against a darkening pink-and-gold evening sky geese flew in a precise wedge over the flat fields, and somewhere in the distance an owl hooted. Dina smiled. All was right with her particular world at that particular moment. She climbed the three steps leading to the porch of the carriage house, searching her pockets for the key, then unlocked the door and walked into the quiet of the small entry.

The clock ticked loudly from the wall, and she scowled as she passed it to turn on the light. She’d found the clock at a yard sale in town six months ago, and no matter how many times she changed the batteries, the damned thing still kept erratic time. Tonight it read 1:45. Dina sighed and made a mental note:
Buy
new clock.

She passed through the small dining area and slid her jacket onto the back of one of the four chairs. The table was cluttered with several piles of mail, magazines, and other assorted stacks of papers. Contracts for future jobs, bills relating to the business, household bills, phone messages, sketches, each had their own place on the table. It was the only way Dina could keep things straight.

In her all-white kitchen, Dina filled a pot of water and placed it on the stove to boil for pasta, then assembled all she would need for her dinner. While the water simmered, she went to the living room window and looked out toward the former Aldrich farm, which Dina had purchased the year before primarily for its acreage. The lights were on in the kitchen windows of the old yellow farmhouse where her assistant, Polly Valentine, was making dinner for her daughter, Erin.

That same old yellow farmhouse that Dina had purchased with an eye toward living in herself.

That had been her original plan. The fates, it would seem, had something else in mind.

When Dina had started looking for a property from which to run her business, the only suitable place available had been the seven acres with the carriage house in which she now lived. At one time there had been a farmhouse, but that had been burned to the ground by vagrants years earlier and since the owners, who lived in town, rented out their fields to a neighbor, the house had never been rebuilt. With money from a trust fund, Dina had purchased the seven acres with an eye toward eventually buying the adjacent ten-acre property when it came up for sale. Three years later, it had, and she’d successfully bid to purchase it from the previous owners’ estate. However, squabbles within the sellers’ family had held up the sale for almost eleven months. By the time the sale had been finalized, Dina had already turned the carriage house into comfortable living quarters and was just too busy to take on the restoration of the aging farmhouse.

It was just about that time that Jude had come across Polly Valentine and had suggested that Dina meet the fragile young woman with the sad past.

Polly, a refugee from a bad marriage, had taken a well-aimed swing at her abusive ex-husband with a baseball bat as he attempted to sneak into her apartment after repeatedly threatening harm to her and her child. Unable to make bail, she’d spent five months in prison, awaiting trial for assault. Though she’d been acquitted, she’d lost almost half a year out of her life, along with her job at a flower shop, her self-respect, and, most important, her nine-year-old daughter, Erin. Jude, a volunteer teacher at the county prison, had met Polly there and had seen something in the young woman’s eyes that had drawn her to the courtroom when Polly’s trial began. On the day Polly was acquitted, Jude waited for her outside the courthouse, and learning that Polly had no place to go, Jude had taken Polly home. It hadn’t taken much for Jude to talk her daughter into hiring Polly on at the shop and renting out the farmhouse to her. After all, Dina needed help, Polly needed a job and a home, and the old farmhouse needed painting. It was a given that Dina, already living comfortably in her carriage house, would never find the time to do it.

It was the best decision Dina had ever made. Polly was a natural with flowers, and she had become a huge asset to the business. She was also a good friend.

The water started to boil, and Dina unceremoniously dumped the pasta into the pot. A second, smaller pot of marinara sauce began to simmer as Dina went into her small office at the end of the hall and took a yellow file from the desk. She cleared a space at the table, then returned to the kitchen, the file under her arm, and, standing up, ate the leftover salad from lunch. The timer went off on the pasta, and she drained it absently, her mind on the yellow folder and the work order within. She prepared a plate, then headed back to the dining room, where she ate with her left hand while her right hand played with the sketches from the folder, landscaping plans for another of the new houses being built out along the river. This one was a beautifully designed redbrick Federal-style house from its roof to its windows.

And Mrs. Fisher, the owner, was insisting on what she termed a “wild English country garden.” Despite Dina’s gentle suggestion that perhaps something slightly more structured might be more appropriate for this particular home and property, Mrs. Fisher would not be shaken from her vision of oceans of waving delphiniums and phlox, hollyhocks and roses. The best Dina could hope for was to plan the beds in a manner that would complement, rather than overwhelm, the architecture. To this end, she played with sketches of a walled garden with a patio and a bricked walk that would wind around a series of raised beds. Back against the walls, the tall perennials would appear more graceful, less serendipitous, than in smaller beds closer to the formal house. Those small beds were just right for an herb garden, the scale of which would be in better proportion to the back of the house, the function more in keeping with the era the Fishers were trying to re-create.