Page 1 of Caught By the Chief of Staff

Prologue

Gone

Iclutch my phone in my hand so tightly I’m afraid the glass will shatter, and then where will I be? I just stopped the video. I’m going to be sick, but I can’t now. I have to get to Rick. If anyone can fix this, it’s him. I know we have a lot to atone for between us, but I know I can trust him with this.

My lungs burn with the air that isn’t filling them as I race from the First Lady’s offices to the main ones. I had come in to style Grace. She has an appearance tomorrow and two next week we needed to get everything squared away for. I love being her stylist, and life in D.C. totally agrees with my daughter Rachel and me.

Or so I thought. Now I’m regretting every decision that led me here.

“Stop, ma’am,” one of the marines who guards the offices says. “No one is allowed back here.”

“I need to see Rick Donovan right away,” I tell him as I flash my badge. My voice is thready, and my hands shake. “It’s an emergency.”

“Right this way, Ms. Donovan,” Gus, one of Jake’s Secret Service agents, says. “You can wait in his office. I’ll tell him you’re here.”

“Can’t I just go to him?” I ask. “It’s important.”

“No, ma’am. He’s in a closed-door meeting,” Gus explains.

“Oh okay,” I reply. “Just… please hurry.”

I pace Rick’s office while I wait for him. If he doesn’t show soon, I’m going to puke in his wastepaper basket. The offending video on my phone plays over and over in my brain on a loop. These things are time sensitive, right? And my baby. I can’t bear for her to be away from me for one more minute.

“What the fuck could be so important that you’ve interrupted me during a closed-door meeting, Cara? Did you break a nail?” he seethes. I know he hates me; I hate me too. I did things he will never understand to protect him, to protect Rachel, and now it was all for nothing.

“She’s go—” I whisper. The words get stuck in my throat and I can’t get them out.

“Who’s gone?” he asks, his body instantly alert.

“Our daughter,” I explain. “Somebody took Rachel.”

And poor Rick. He just found her, and now if something happens to her, it will gut him. I know he hates me, and I accept that he should, but Rick is a good man and an even better father than I could have dreamed he’d be. He is the way he is because of me and my actions, not because of him or who he is deep down.

“What do you mean somebody took Rachel?” Rick asks after a pause.

“She’s gone, Rick,” I answer in a panic. My belly is churning with acid and I know I’m going to be sick just saying the words. “Someone took her from the school.”

I hold out my phone with the video queued up. Rick takes the little stack of glass and metal that hold our whole entire world in them. I watch as he hits play, his face is blank until the video starts and I watch the tightening of his jaw, his fingers whiten around my piece of shit phone, it’s the only outward sign he gives that he’s upset. Rick is a fortress and I’m that little piggy’s straw house, one more gust and I’m toast.

“I think I know who did it,” Rick says after a moment.

“You do?” I ask. “Well, go get her. We have to get her back.”

“I’ll get Rachel back if it’s the last thing I do,” he vows.

God, I hope it’s not. He and Rachel need time to get to know each other after spending almost nine years apart. I don’t want anything to happen to either of them. I love them both and always have.

“Please,” I beg. I hope he knows I mean I need him to get our daughter back but also need him to come back in one piece as well.

“I don’t knowexactlywho it is, but I think I know why.”

“What? Why?” I question.

“Someone is trying to blackmail the president, and the only way to get to him is through me.”

And then I promptly throw up in the wastebasket after all.