IX
She felt like she was living in a cage. This was ridiculous! She'd never had this much Secret Service protection, not even in the days following the shooting at Rosslyn. Bad enough being pregnant, with all the overprotectiveness that came with that, without having to deal with an extra layer of interference between you and trying to live your life.
The trouble was that the only person she could have bitched to about being treated as if she was in danger of shattering at any moment was her mother... and there was no way her mother was listening to complaints about the level of Secret Service presence in her life.
She got the need for protection. She really did, and if she hadn't, the memory of her father's impassioned ranting about it early on in their time at the White House had well and truly driven the point home. She knew why she needed agents... she just didn't see why they had to be there at her elbow twenty-four hours a day, leaving her no room to breathe.
The only place she could get any semblance of privacy was at home, and she was gradually going stir-crazy staring at the walls. Charlie was hardly ever home, and mostly exhausted when he was, and she didn't want to be one of those sad, pathetic girls whose only existence was tied up in their husband anyway.
This was driving her crazy. Zoey grabbed her bag and decided, agents be damned, she was going out. She made a beeline for the bedroom to pull on her shoes and jacket.
Of course, they were there to meet her as soon as she stepped out. Mitch and Tony and Sarah, all perfectly nice, dedicated people she was sure, but God, she was tired of seeing their faces. Mitch was saying something into his wrist-radio; 'Osprey is on the move', no doubt, or some other such overdramatic phrase. She couldn't even walk down to collect her mail without it being radioed in to a control centre.
"Mitch, I just want to go to the bookstore," she said, picking up a destination on the fly. He nodded briskly, and spoke into his radio again.
"Yes, ma'am. Cole, bring the car up."
Zoey grimaced. "I don't need the car. It's only a couple of blocks away, I could do with the walk."
"Ma'am, we really would prefer it if you took the car," he said impassively. Her agents all stood there like a bunch of hyper-alert statues, and suddenly yearned for the days when her detail had been hand-picked to blend into a crowd and be unobtrusive, instead of the opposite.
"I'm not going to win this argument, am I?" she realised wryly.
"Ma'am-"
"Fine, we'll take the car!" Zoey threw up her hands. She wasn't in the mood for yet more lengthy wrangling, with everybody else but her being so frustratingly calm and sensible. She was twenty-three years old! She didn't want to have to settle for calm and sensible all the time.
She rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on, and wished briefly that Charlie was there to give her a massage. But Charlie wouldn't be home for hours, and she was damned if she was going to be frustrated out of leaving the house by her own Secret Service agents. "Can we just...? Let's just go," she groaned.
She had a feeling this trip wasn't going to be the nice, relaxing break she'd been yearning for.
CJ was sitting with her feet up on her desk when he walked in, reading a sheaf of papers. She looked up at him over her glasses as he stepped inside the office.
"Hey," he smiled.
"Hey." She made it an obvious query with a quirk of an eyebrow.
"What're you doing?" he asked.
"I'm trying to figure out who I am."
Sam blinked, and gave a cautious smile. "Okay, is this some kind of Zen thing, or-?"
She dropped the papers and gave him a sharp. "It's Danny's book."
"That's Danny's book?" He leaned in curiously.
"Yeah." She gathered up the pages and frowned over them. "The lead character is so Danny. He's definitely Danny. And that means I must be in here somewhere. I'm trying to figure out whether I'm the model for the Prime Minister's wife, the lead character's fiancée, or the brunette reporter. Would you say I'm lithe?"
The question soared in rapidly out of left-field, and he fumbled for the right answer. "I'd say you're very lithe. Limber, even," he added, for good measure.
"Don't push it, Sparkles," she warned.
Sam pouted. "Do I have to be Sparkles?"
CJ shrugged fluidly. "Do you see anybody else around here who looks like a Sparkles?"
He wasn't quite sure how to answer that one, so he forged on ahead. "I'm looking for inspiration."
"We're fresh out, try the OEOB," she answered without skipping a beat.
He frowned. "Why are they inspired?"
"They're not, but it'll get you out of my hair a while."
"So you can carry on figuring out who you are?" he smiled.
CJ gave him a look. "I have other names than Sparkles," she said ominously.
He took the hint, and scurried for the door. He paused when he reached it, and asked "Is it a good book?"
"It is."
"Do you think Danny would write my speech for me?"
She lowered the book, and scowled at him. "Sam, tell me it's-"
"It'll be done by tonight!" he blurted quickly, and ran for it.
"Hey, Josh." Leo greeted his deputy briefly as he walked in, attention still half tied up in his paperwork. Josh closed the door softly behind him, and waited for him to look up. "What is it?" he asked, with an expectant frown.
"Rita Wells is the leak," Josh said matter-of-factly.
"Wells?" he demanded, puzzled. "There's no way she could-"
"At Senator McGann's instigation, I'm guessing," he elaborated. "I don't know how, I don't know why, but Wells is the leak." He radiated alert confidence.
Leo pulled his glasses off, and folded his arms across his desk. "How do you know?" he asked bluntly.
"She's ducking my calls. I spoke to Brenda Garland, Donna mentioned Wells, it got a reaction. I was watching her, and she definitely flinched when I said I was trying to contact Rita Wells. I swear to you, Leo, Wells is the one who gave the story to Garland."
Leo didn't doubt his deputy's instincts, but still... "Well, that makes no sense."
"Tell me about it." Josh grimaced, biting his lower lip. "McGann is an old college friend of Wells', she obviously put her up to it... the question is, why?"
"You spoke to Selena?"
"Yeah, and she gave me the railroad out of town. She wanted to know why on earth we would possibly suspect her of jeopardising something she's worked so hard on for so long, which is a fair point, except..." he tilted his head to meet Leo's eyes- "...she did it."
"It doesn't make sense," Leo repeated, shaking his head. "This isn't Selena."
Josh shrugged slightly. "You know her better than I do."
"I do," he agreed. He frowned. "I'll set up lunch with her, see if I can get anything."
Josh raised his eyebrows pointedly. "Good luck with that."
"Yeah." He glanced back down at his paperwork and made a brief note, then looked back up at Josh. "Are you still here?"
"I'm going," he said hastily. "So you're having lunch with McGann?"
"Yeah!" Leo nodded impatiently.
"Watch out for her, Leo. She might try to snare you in her womanly wiles," Josh advised him sagely.
"Her womanly- What are you, twelve? Get out," he suggested with a sharp gesture.
Josh did as he was ordered, and Leo rolled his eyes to himself. Womanly wiles? Yes, Selena McGann was an incorrigible flirt when it suited her, but you'd have to be a hapless walking ego to trip over yourself because of that. Which was, he supposed, why Josh was so terrified of her.
He walked out to find his assistant. "Margaret? Clear my one o'clock, and set me up a lunch with Senator McGann."
Margaret gave him a baleful look. "Selena McGann?"
"Yes, Selena McGann!" he snapped impatiently.
"I should set you up a lunch date with Selena McGann?"
"It's a business meeting!" he growled.
"Okay," said Margaret, in her 'yeah, right' voice.
"Margaret!"
"Okay, okay!" She reached for her list of contact numbers. "I suppose you want me to find the two of you a nice restaurant?"
"I always do, and you know it," he reminded her curtly, and stomped back into his office.
Honestly, some days you had to wonder if that whole 'substitute teacher' analogy was at all inaccurate. It sure as hell felt like he was working in a high school.
