Chapter 15

After a few hours of meetings and sessions with various Congressional leaders, Jed realized he was hungry. He walked over to the outer office to get Charlie's attention.

"Charlie, order me two salads and have them brought to the Residence. I'll have a quick bite with Abbey and then come back within an hour. Okay on my schedule to do that?"

"Yes, Mr. President. But only an hour. Nothing longer."

"Yeah, Charlie. I hear you. Only an hour. I promise."

"Yes, sir." Charlie responded, knowing full well he should start rearranging the President's afternoon schedule.

On the way to the Residence, Jed couldn't stop thinking about what was happening.

'Who would want my marriage disrupted? The polls always highly positive about our strong marriage. Many people even envy our long term commitment to each other. So who would have done anything to try and split us up? A political enemy? That was the only thing that made sense. It's really dirty politics to insinuate that either Abbey or I are being unfaithful to our wedding vows. So who was so low as to set up all these so called coincidences to think that Abbey was being unfaithful to me? That's the main question.'

He only hoped that Ron would find the person or persons involved so they can put an end to all these horrible things that seemed to just keep occurring.

Right now, he was just looking forward to a quiet lunch with his wife. Maybe they could find some other item to talk about. He only hoped so.

Jed opened the bedroom door and saw Abbey on the bed, obviously sound asleep. It had been several hours since she had gone upstairs, so Jed decided it was time to wake her up and get her to eat something.

As he rounded her side of the bed, he noticed the open pill bottle on the bedside table. Two pills had been dropped on the floor by the bed and he leaned down to pick them up. As he picked up the bottle to put the pills back in, he noticed it was sleeping pills and had been issued just that morning by the White House Medical Office.

He was puzzled by it, but knew that Abbey had been very stressed out for the past twenty-four hours by all the things had been happening. He leaned down to wake her up.

"Abbey, hon, its Jed. It's two o'clock and you need to eat something. I have a salad on its way up."

No response.

A little louder, he repeated the words, but this time with a shake of Abbey's shoulders.

Still no response.

Beginning to panic, he looked at the bottle and saw that it should have contained ten pills. But only two were left.

He vigorously shook Abbey again, this time yelling her name. "Abbey! Abbey!" She was still breathing, but when he checked her wrist, her pulse was almost non-existent.

"HELP! HELP!" The agents outside the door heard the President's cry for help and opened the door. "Call an ambulance now! Now!"

Jed turned his attention back to his wife.

'No way would she have tried to kill herself. No way! She was a doctor. She couldn't have! She wouldn't have!'

But the proof was lying unconscious in front of him. Irrefutable proof.

With tears falling from him onto her face, he sat down on the bed and held her cooling body in his arms. Even after the paramedics arrived, he refused to let go. It took Leo to pry his arms away so the paramedics could do their job.

"Sir, you have to let them work with her."

Still holding Abbey, he looked at Leo, overwhelming grief filling his face.

"I…"

Taking him gently by the shoulders, Leo pulled until Jed reluctantly let the professionals do their job.

As Abbey was rushed out and the room emptied, Jed turned to his best friend.

"She can't die. She just can't." With those words, the President of the United States broke down into unstoppable sobs.