chapter 38
Tate stood on the porch shouting into his cell phone as Bud roared up in his big pickup. They’d take the fastest route to Laramie, where the ER staff had been notified to expect them, with a possible diagnosis of poisoning.
Tate hadn’t believed it when Audra ran along the river, shouting at him, her face white as chalk. He’d ridden with her back to the house, convinced it was some kind of a joke, but then he’d seen Cara, curled up on the floor, fighting to breathe.
With Bud’s help, he lifted Cara into the backseat while the girls got in front. Tate covered Cara gently with a blanket, desperate to do something, anything at all, to help her. She was too pale, her body shaking, her breath labored.
Suddenly everything he’d accepted and dreamed about seemed to slide away from him. If what Sophy said was true, and his mother had truly argued with Cara, then tried to give her some kind of pills . . .
Amanda was headstrong and painfully determined when she had a goal in mind, but Tate couldn’t believe she would hurt Cara or the girls. She had told Tate once that Cara was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and she valued the strength of family as much as he had, even if she had been quick to calculate the political points a family would score in a campaign. “Being happily married with two adorable children never hurt a man who wants to be president of the greatest country on earth,” she had told him confidently.
Impossible to think of his mother snapping completely, turning into a murderer.
Tate closed his eyes. The truth was that he hadn’t spent much time with her in the last year. His brother had mentioned that she had some health issues, but they’d been minor, according to Greg, mainly a problem with one of her medications. But that, too, had been resolved, and just last week Amanda had assured Tate that she felt better than she had at thirty.
The truck pitched and swayed along the bumpy drive, dust kicking up in an angry cloud. Cara’s eyes closed and her head lolled.
Tate felt as if his whole world had tilted off course. The girls looked almost as bad as he felt.
Leaning forward, he put his arms around Audra, then Sophy. “I thought it was a joke. Dear God, I was so sure.” He closed his eyes and worked to pull himself together. He owed the girls that much.
He owed Cara that much.
“She’s going to be fine, you two. The people at the hospital have everything ready for us.” He struggled a moment, then forced a smile, the strong, confident kind that he used to forge coalitions and build grassroots assent.
Neither Audra nor Sophy responded.
Tate frowned at a sudden thought. “Sophy, honey, did you see where Grandma Amanda went? Did you hear a car?”
Sophy gave him an odd look, and for a moment her eyes were a stranger’s eyes. “I heard her leave, Uncle Tate. I think I heard her car. I—I can’t remember.” Her lip started to tremble as she looked down at her mother. “Patrick was there, but he left, too.”
“Patrick, your chef, here at the ranch? Well, never mind. I’m sure my mother went to get help.” Tate tried to put the best spin on matters as he glanced at the rearview mirror and met Bud’s eyes. It was like a kick in the chest when his ranch foreman frowned and shook his head.
So it was true. Bud had seen something Tate hadn’t. How long had Amanda been planning this, hating the woman he loved?
Wind churned across the road, scattering leaves and dirt over the windshield, so they drove blind.
If he lost Cara, nothing would matter. Tate choked the thought down like ashes. No way was he going to lose her. He’d badger and bribe every specialist in the country until someone found a way to help. Then he’d badger and harass Cara until she got well, just because she would be sick of seeing his face all day, every day. And he’d damned well take care of her girls until she was strong enough to take care of them herself.
It was the least he could do. Even if she hated him after this, hated the thing his mother had tried to do.
With Cara in his lap, he gripped Audra’s hand, pulling Sophy against his shoulder, and stared out at the roiling dust, trying to think about life, not death.
Dirt blocked the road, making the Mercedes skid wildly.
Amanda stared at the cloud for a moment, forgetting why she was here. Then she remembered.
Because of her, the beautiful, scheming woman who had stolen her son and destroyed his future—what would have been Tate’s and Amanda’s magnificent future together.
She was glad she had let Patrick drive. Her nerves were shot and she was still having trouble breathing.
He slanted her a questioning look. “Did you do it? Was she frightened?”
Amanda shuddered. “Sophy came, but I’m sure Cara got the message.”
Patrick slapped the wheel happily. “Better and better. Her own daughter sees her terror. That’s perfect.”
“Don’t be coarse, Patrick.”
“Shut up, Amanda. Business is business. So did she agree to help out with the appeal? Will she get that forensic evidence we need?”
“Not exactly.” Cara had been curled up on the floor struggling to breathe when Amanda had left. With any luck she would soon be dead. But Patrick and his vicious employer didn’t plan on losing their inside informer. Their goal was her complete compliance, not her death.
The poison had been Amanda’s revelation. She had to free her son from his obsession with Cara before the woman distracted him from his crucial political mission. It was Amanda’s simple duty as a mother.
“What did she say?”
“Not much. She was too . . . upset.”
Patrick turned, glaring at her. “You did something, didn’t you? What was it, old woman?” Patrick gripped her arm. “Tell me, damn you.”
“I did something I’ve been thinking of for months.” Amanda felt a ragged laugh escape, then another. “You never knew. You thought you would use me, Patrick, but I used you.”
Amanda stopped suddenly. She had been a certified beauty for fifty years, and she was still held to be the yardstick for charm and elegance. Now it was all crashing to an end.
“Forget about Cara and drive,” she said acidly. Her head was aching and she couldn’t think straight. Every detail had been meticulously arranged, from the contact in Mexico and the threatening letters to the kidnapping at the clinic when the wretched nanny and Gabe Morgan had checked in. No doubt both of them were dead by now. A pity, since Gabe had always been a respectful boy, but Costello’s men would have seen to that.
Just as Cara should have been dead by now, thanks to the ground seeds Amanda had mixed in the lemonade pulp. The botanist at the National Arboretum had described their action very thoroughly while giving Amanda’s garden club a tour six months ago.
She remembered his discussion of toxic glycoproteins, whatever those were, but all that really mattered were the small scarlet seeds, which concentrated the main toxin of the plants. The botanist had assured his fascinated audience that even one seed well-chewed could cause fatal poisoning.
Amanda had used five seeds, taken from plants scattered about the gardens of her sprawling estate back in South Carolina. The same plants now grew in Cara’s backyard, thanks to Amanda. Of course, Tate wouldn’t care to make public the sordid details of Cara’s suicide, so it would be termed an accidental overdose, possibly influenced by Cara’s fear of scandal, resulting from the discovery of her visit to Los Reyes Clinic.
A yellow sign flashed by the side of the road, blurred by the dust, but Patrick didn’t slow down. Amanda coughed, hard, struggling to breathe. Sophy knew she was allergic to cats. Why had the girl turned on her that way, screaming and unrecognizable?
In growing confusion Amanda thought about her meticulous plans for Christmas at the White House and fireworks on Independence Day, along with select little dinners perfectly orchestrated to make Tate the most powerful president in history. And her files full of secrets would be carefully held in reserve, in case anyone dared to cross her precious son.
But what would happen now? Sophy would tell Tate what had happened, and then Tate would turn against her. If the truth ever leaked to the press, the scandal would destroy him.
Amanda closed her eyes in confusion. She couldn’t allow Tate to be harmed. There had to be some other way.
Patrick was staring at her again. “You’re starting to annoy me, old woman. Stop rambling and tell me what Cara said when you left. Costello will want to know.”
“She said that I was twisted and I needed medical help. She told me to keep my hands off her girls.” Amanda searched the rocky landscape, looking for an answer that would protect her son. If Costello found out what she had done, he would never let Tate go. He would blackmail Tate and bleed him dry, destroying his glorious future.
Dear God, what to do?
The answer came to her, a bright light in the midst of her terrible confusion. She recognized the turn ahead. When Bud had mentioned something about the road being washed out, she hadn’t paid much attention but now it made all the difference. Sitting beside her, Patrick was oblivious to the danger as her expensive Michelin tires dug in hard, then kicked free and swerved across the gravel.
It was time.
It was her duty—to her son and to her country. A Winslow never forgot the importance of duty.
Through the racing dust, she saw the turn flash before her.
Amanda Winslow took a deep breath and yanked the wheel, closing her eyes as Patrick screamed and the road vanished beneath them.