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Frank.” She had her gaze set out the window of the airy hotel penthouse. Blue skies, even bluer sea, a scattering of sailboats, toy-sized at this distance, free and glistening in the tropical sun. That’s where she wanted to be. Who wouldn’t?
    “Why don’t you call me Mr. President,” he said, giving her his trademark grin. “It might remind you why you volunteered.”
    His idea of a joke. She turned to watch him as he stepped into his trousers. Sure enough, one leg at a time, just like anyone else. Maybe she ought to bring in the photographers, let them snap away at Frank in his flopping boxers. It was the sort of thing that had once aided the presidency, wasn’t it: LBJ showing his scar, Gerald Ford clonging his bald head on an airplane wing?
    “But you’re going to miss it. It’s right up your alley,” she said. “Cops, soldiers, derring-do.” She noted that he sucked in his breath before he snapped the waist button of his slacks. A damned shame. You could be chief executive and your waistline still be beyond your control. Not that she had any room to talk, of course. She’d paid twelve hundred dollars for the suit she was wearing, and if the wall of mirrors behind her husband was to be trusted, about a thousand dollars’ worth of the fabric was stretched over her behind.
    Frank disappeared into the bathroom, pulling his shirt on, and she turned, trying another angle, trying to convince herself it was just the way the light struck the fabric. There was a knock at the bedroom door and she glanced at her watch. One of the aides, she thought, hurrying them along. “They’re baying at the door, Frank…” she began, and then the door flew open.
    “I don’t give a damn what Malcolm Jesse says,” the first man through the door was saying. It was Larry Chappelear, who’d been with Frank from the beginning, the man who’d helped transform him from a professor of political science into a state representative, a governor, and ultimately a president. They’d all been classmates at Mizzou together, once upon a time.
    The normally placid Chappelear was red-faced now, nearly shouting at John Groshner, Frank’s special advisor, who was coming through the doors on Larry’s heels. While Larry had been with them since forever, Groshner had come aboard in Washington last year to help lay the groundwork for this campaign. Larry was down-home, even rough about the edges, and, while forthright, a strategist who preferred to play behind the scenes. Groshner was Ivy League through and through, stern but brilliant, a Beltway insider who loved the spotlight. Frank didn’t care for Groshner’s style, either, but she knew he trusted the man’s brutal instincts, counted on him for the ruthless take on things, something Frank worried that Missouri politics had not prepared him for sufficiently, even to this day.
    “Getting in bed with these people is like taking a hum job from a rattlesnake…” Larry was saying to Groshner. He broke off when he noticed Linda staring at him.
    “Sorry,” he said, glancing about the room. “Where is he?”
    “In the bathroom, Larry. Do you mind…?”
    Chappelear didn’t hesitate. He was through the open door before she could get another word of protest out.
    “You can’t do this, Frank,” he was saying.
    “I can’t take a leak?” she heard Frank call back.
    “Forget Florida…” Chappelear continued.
    Groshner hesitated, gave Linda a look that was supposed to be apologetic, then barged into the bathroom after Chappelear. “He can’t forget Florida. Not if he wants to be president…”
    “He
is
the president,” Chappelear called out. “How do you think he got there?”
    “Stop it!” Linda heard Frank cry over the sound of the toilet flushing. “Both of you!”
    She saw Groshner backing out of the bathroom, followed by Larry, both of them being driven along by Frank, who was zipping himself up. He glanced at Linda, shaking his head. “You believe this?”
    She