Michael Prescott: Mortal Faults

Although the money didn’t tempt her, curiosity did. She had to know what this was all about. Tired though she was, bruised like a peach, she couldn’t say no.

“Okay, I give in. Four p.m. it is.” So much for her vacation. “Where is your office exactly?”

“My assistant, Rebecca, can give you that information.” Suddenly the congressman’s warmth was gone, replaced by the curtness of a busy professional. “See you then.”

Click, and Abby found herself speaking with the same crisp-voiced female who’d been first on the line. The assistant gave directions to an office building in Newport Beach, about twenty miles south of L.A.

“You wouldn’t happen to know what this is about?” Abby asked Rebecca in hope of eliciting a little sisterly understanding.

“I’m afraid I have no idea. Have a nice day.”

Apparently sisterhood wasn’t powerful, after all.

Abby pondered the situation. It didn’t make a lot of sense. She was in the security business. Members of Congress had all the security they needed. Reynolds ought to have had no use for her services. Unless he was arranging protection for someone else-or keeping secrets that even his bodyguards weren’t allowed to know.

The phone rang again. Another politician? Maybe it was the president on the line.

“Abby Sinclair,” she said.

“I just saw the paper. Thank you.”

It was that certain schoolteacher in Reseda, who’d been unlucky enough to catch Leon Trotman’s eye.

“No problem,” Abby said.

“You saved me. You saved my life.”

“I’m not sure that’s true.” Actually, she was pretty certain it was.

“He was after me. He would have killed me. And the police couldn’t do anything except talk about a restraining order. As if a restraining order would stop a man like him-”

Abby had heard the same song from dozens of clients. She didn’t need a reprise. “He’s back where he belongs, so don’t sweat it. Just get ready to write me a big whopping check when my bill comes.”

“It’s worth it. Whatever it costs-you’re a lifesaver, Abby. Literally, a lifesaver.”

Abby accepted a few more compliments of a similar nature and managed a graceful exit from the conversation. She put the phone back into her purse.

A lifesaver. Yes, that was what she was.

Not a killer. Of course not.

Reynolds’ office was located on the sixth floor of a glass box high-rise a block inland from Pacific Coast Highway. Abby got there early but lingered outside till four o’clock. She didn’t want to seem too eager.

At four, she took the stairs to the sixth floor, working up a slight burn in the adductor muscles. It always amazed her that people paid good money for health-club memberships and then rode the elevator.

Rebecca, manning the reception desk, made her wait in the anteroom while her boss pretended to be busy inside. Apparently he didn’t want to seem too eager, either.

The walls of the anteroom were covered with pictures of Reynolds with various celebrities and power brokers. Before heading over, Abby had visited the congressman’s Web site, which was cluttered with many of the same shots, along with endorsements from miscellaneous Orange County business and civic organizations.

She’d read his biography online. He came from humble beginnings in the barrios of Santa Ana and never let you forget it. Photos accompanying the bio showed the rundown apartment building in which he’d been raised, and the canning factory-now closed-where his father had worked on the assembly line. No posh private school for Jack Reynolds-his high school class photograph showed a mixture of races and ethnicities, with young Jack, his face circled, one of a minority of Anglos. Prowess on the football field had won him a scholarship to the University of California at Chico, known colloquially as Chico State. It was hundreds of miles from home, in rural northern California. He’d worked part-time throughout college, earning money for textbooks and meals, a practice he’d continued while attending law school. Returning to Santa Ana, he rose to the position of D.A.-“crusading D.A.,” as the bio put it-before his first run for Congress.

Everything about the man said that he was no pampered elitist. He’d come up the hard way, and he was proud of it.

At four fifteen the intercom buzzed, Rebecca opened the door, and Abby was granted an audience with the seven-term representative of Orange County’s Gold Coast.

His hairline had receded since the photo on his Web site was taken, his temples were grayer, and he was wearing a pair of reading glasses which he took off, perhaps self-consciously, before rising to shake her hand. A strong clasp, his palm cool and dry.

“Miss Sinclair. Have a seat.”

She knew he was looking her over, sizing her up, and she gave him a moment to do it. He would see a trim, wiry woman of thirty-four-though she looked younger, or so she told herself-with brown hair in a cute pageboy ’do, selected because long hair could be grabbed in a fight. She was of medium height, tall enough to fend for herself and short enough to get lost in a crowd. Her face was pale, with high cheekbones and a scattering of faint freckles. Her hazel eyes regarded the world coolly, keeping secrets.

He resumed his power position behind his desk, while she had to settle for the role of supplicant in a straight-backed armless chair.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Reynolds said in his aged-whiskey voice.

“Same here,” Abby said. “Nice digs.”

“I maintain this office year round. It’s where I work when Congress is out of session.” He leaned forward and steepled his hands-large hands, which went with his large, athletic frame. He still had the rangy build of a quarterback, and a squinty gaze set for sixty-yard passes. “As you may have realized, I have a security issue I need to deal with.”

“Don’t you have the Secret Service to protect you?”

“The Secret Service doesn’t provide protection to members of Congress, only to the president and vice president and their families. And visiting heads of state. Basically their turf is the White House and the vice president’s residence.”

“Not the Senate or the Capitol building?”

“That’s the jurisdiction of the Capitol Hill police.”

“So you’re covered when you’re on the job in D.C. How about when you’re out of town?”

He shrugged. “I’m on my own.”

In the post 9-11 world, Abby had assumed that every politico had official protection at all times. “No security at all? You serious?”

“Some members of Congress hire personal bodyguards. Security firms are available that specialize in protecting politicians. There are also retired D.C. police officers who go into the private security business. But not every congressmen or senator traipses around with an armed man at his side. Personally, I’ve never felt the need.”

“What about public events?”

“Local law enforcement generally provides protection, crowd control, security checkpoints…”

“And when you’re just driving around, shopping for groceries or whatever?”

“I’m by myself. Of course, most of the time I go unrecognized. Most people don’t even know who their congressmen is, let alone what he looks like. Believe me, I don’t draw many stares.”

“It still seems crazy.”

“The system may be a little out of date. Things change slowly in Washington. You know, it wasn’t that long ago that Harry Truman used to walk out of the White House with one Secret Service man and stroll down the street for a haircut.”

To Abby, it seemed like plenty long ago-decades before she was born. “So the bottom line is, you’re unprotected?”

“I’m hoping you’ll protect me, Miss Sinclair.”