Seduced By The Candidate (The Candidate, #1) (3 page)

* * *

Goulding’s good mood was fleeting and
before long he returned to roaring at his staff again and generally prowling
around like a bear with a sore head. He pulled them up on their tardiness,
criticized their accuracy and even had the audacity to refer to John Lennon as
a hopeless wannabe with only half the talent he thought he had and nothing at
all when compared to Elvis. This last comment had seen John Lyndsey calmly
collect his belongings and march out of the office amidst a flurry of abuse
from Goulding. Both men knew it was a hollow statement and that Lyndsey would
be back again the next morning. However, as with the previous four times he had
‘resigned’, he would make Goulding call him to apologize before he did. After
all, everyone knew Lennon was the superior musician—Elvis didn’t even write his
own songs!

Charlotte kept her head down and
concentrated on her work and when five-thirty ticked by and Goulding emerged
from his office, ready to head home. She breathed a sigh of relief. She had
survived another day. Better still, apart from the shaky
start,
she was sure that things were getting better.

“Charlotte, get
yourself
home. It’s late and you’ve worked hard today”, he paused momentarily. “NOT LIKE
SOME I COULD MENTION!” He raised his voice for the benefit of the rest of his
staff, but they merely kept their heads down and pretended not to hear him.

“Go on, all of you.
Go home. We’ve got another long day ahead of us tomorrow and the
Memphis trip to finalize next week. Get some rest and we’ll start a fresh in the
morning. I’ll lock up and I’ll see you all back here at eight.”

He looked at Charlotte.

“That’s eight AM, Miss Turner.”

Although the sarcasm was obvious, she
could see the distant creases at the corners of his mouth and eyes, just like
in his office. Charlotte allowed herself a private smile and decided that it
was about time she wore a bit of make-up and started taking some pride in her
appearance. Bill Goulding definitely wasn’t as bad as she had first thought.

When the last person had left the
office, Goulding looked around at the empty desks and the remnants of organized
chaos that accompanied his presidency
campaign’s
every
move. His team had been handpicked and every one of them had something to
offer, something that made them the best in his or her chosen field. He rode
them hard, often unfairly so, but secretly he was humbled and proud that they
were working so hard to get him elected.

“Tomorrow,” he thought. “Tomorrow, I’ll
make it up to them. I’ll let them know how much I value their input.” But he
knew he wouldn’t. Something would happen to sour his mood and just like every
other day, he would see his mood dictate his actions and words. He knew he was
an asshole, but he wasn’t sure that he could change the way he was and anyway.
They were well paid to put up with him.

It was like a marriage, they took the
good with the bad, the rough with the smooth. There was an easy out if any of
them had enough, but he was confident that none of them would. If nothing else,
he was good for their careers. They had backed a winning horse and without
exception they would ride with him right up to the finish line and in some
cases, right into the White House. Everyone stayed loyal, with the exception of
Madeline that was. She was the exception to the rule—in every sense.

Goulding turned off the lights, set the
alarm and locked the door.

“Six more weeks,” he thought to
himself. “Just let me have the strength to get through the next six weeks and
we’ll all be home and dry.”

Shivering slightly, he buttoned his
suit jacket against the un-seasonally chilly evening air and cursed his
decision to leave the car at home that morning. It was only a few blocks to the
office and with the sun greeting him cheerily when he had thrown back the
drapes, walking had seemed like the perfect start to the day. Now with a
bracing wind stirring up the fallen leaves into mini-tornados and the shadows
lengthening with every passing minute, it seemed much more like folly than good
sense.

“No point in whining about it Bill,” he
said to himself and set off along Main Street, a lone figure in the deepening
gloom.

Neon signs flickered into life as the
bars woke and prepared to greet the evening’s clientele and as the day shift
prepared to wind down and rest, the night shift readied itself for the
nocturnal revelers to appear. It wasn’t so long ago that Goulding had been a
fully paid up member of the night shift. First, with his fellow Rangers,
whenever their shift rotation would allow it, then more recently as a solitary
figure, all hilarity forgotten, with the sole intention of drinking himself
into oblivion. The only desire was to once and for all silence the voices and
the pain of a life lost to him.

After his wake up call, Goulding had
gone from a hardened drinker to a man that barely touched the stuff. The
exception being a glass or two at Thanksgiving and the usual toasts that
protocol demanded. Did he miss it?
Every single day.

It would be the work of a second to
walk into a bar, draw up a stool and climb inside a bottle of bourbon. All of
the pressures, the responsibilities and the personal scrutiny would disappear
in an instant and a part of him knew he would welcome the anonymity with open
arms. Unfortunately, he also knew it was a place he was highly unlikely to
escape from a second time. This time it would take hold and only release him
when he was no longer able to raise the glass to his lips. No, he was better
off without the strong stuff. It was harder, so much harder, but it was
definitely a better life without it.

Goulding turned right onto Mulberry
Avenue and was relieved to find that the wind wasn’t as bad as it had been on
Main Street. He loosened his shoulders, not realizing that he had been hunched
over and instantly he felt the familiar stab of pain in his chest and shoulder.
It was always worst when he was tense and the weather was bad, but it soon went
away. Some things he would never be able to escape from no matter how hard he
ran, or how strong his resolve was.

On a good day, he would use the pain to
remind himself that it was the moment that his life had begun again, this time
for the better. On a bad day, it was merely the day that the life he had chosen
for himself had come to an end and this new existence had been forced upon him.

Mulberry Avenue was quiet, really quiet
and Goulding could hear the steady rhythm of his feet echoing around the dark
shop fronts and apartments. It was only 6:10, but the street was his private
domain and military veteran or not, it made him nervous.

There were plenty of psychos out there
only too happy to make their point by targeting presidential candidates,
especially those that received as many column inches as Goulding did. He cursed
his stubbornness in refusing the protection that Lyndsey had recommended. Even
as he quickened his pace he made a mental note to discuss it with the little
man in the morning. If he had forgiven him by then that was.

He was only five minutes away from the
hotel when he heard the footsteps for the first time. At first he thought it
must have been a rogue echo caused by the uneven shop fronts, but after calming
his breathing and concentrating, he could clearly hear them. Whoever was
following him carefully stayed concealed. He was good, very good and the
footsteps were almost perfectly timed to his own stride and pace. Had it not
been for the extreme quietness of the street, he might never have heard his
pursuer, but he had and now his body coursed with adrenaline.

He stopped and the footsteps stopped
with him. When he turned around the street was quiet and empty, shrouded in
half-light and apparently reluctant to give up its hidden secrets. Perhaps he
had been mistaken, or maybe he had simply imagined the footsteps? Tentatively
he restarted walking and after a few seconds he heard them again, almost
perfectly in time with his own footfall, but definitely another person.
   

Goulding ran through his options in his
head; could he continue as he was and make it to the hotel before whoever was
following him caught up? Possibly, but the footsteps didn’t sound more than
twenty or thirty meters away and anyone who was being so careful to remain
concealed was unlikely to let their target slip away.

Could he try and outrun his pursuer?
Again, it was possible, but Goulding had been out of the army for a long time
and he was now far more used to undergoing two-hour long lunches than pushing
himself to the limit on two-hour long speed marches. There was no telling how
old or how fit his pursuer was and if he ran, it would be bound to bring this
thing to a conclusion much more quickly. Goulding was far from confident he
could still remember enough of his Ranger training to work those odds in his
favor. What else then?

Evasion—the only thing that he was
confident about was his ability to lose this individual somewhere on route to
the hotel. His body might not be as toned and tested as it once was, but his
mind was still as sharp and focused as the day they had presented him with his
Rangers Tab.

Making sure that his step never
faltered and all the while straining to keep the sound of the strangers
footsteps forefront in his mind, he scanned ahead, eyes flicking from one
feature to the next. His mind desperately tried to find something that would
give him the advantage and a chance to surprise his pursuer. Waste bins – no,
irregular shop fronts – no, bus shelter – no, come on! There must be something
he could use. Then he saw it, a narrow alley about twenty meters ahead on his
right. It might be a dead end and it might provide his pursuer with the quiet
solitude he needed to conduct whatever business he had with Goulding away from
prying eyes, but it might also give Goulding sufficient cover to duck out of
site and hide from this crazed bastard long enough for them to think they’d
lost him for good.

He walked on and the alley got closer
and closer; fifteen meters...ten meters...five meters...now! Without any kind
of warning, he accelerated from a slow walk to a full-paced run and disappeared
into the alley. It was dark and claustrophobic, but at least it wasn’t a
dead-end and it had plenty of discarded obstacles that were perfect for
concealing a man. His eyes were constantly searching for an optimal hiding
place. He ran on until he had been completely swallowed by the shadows. He
focused immediately on a pile of old cardboard boxes that had been stacked
against the wall and forgotten. There was a gap behind them, just big enough to
accommodate a man and he made for it, pressing himself into the damp brickwork
and easing himself sideways until he was completely concealed. Then he waited.

With his vision obscured, he strained
to hear any sound that might indicate the passing of his stalker, but there was
nothing.
Nothing at all, except for the harsh grating of his
breath and the pounding of blood in his ears.
Slowly he counted to one
hundred and listened again—nothing. He counted to two hundred and
listened—nothing. Maybe he had been mistaken, maybe there had been no one there
at all and it had merely been his over-active imagination? No, he was sure of
it, there had definitely been someone else walking behind him along Mulberry
Avenue.

“Okay,” he said to himself trying to
reason with his subconscious. ‘If there WAS someone, where are they now?”

“Just suppose there was someone else
walking the same route as you. Why couldn’t they simply have been making their
way home in the same way that you were? Isn’t it a huge leap to go from quiet
footsteps, to persistent assassin? Get a grip Goulding. Get out from behind
these boxes, man-up and get
yourself
back to the
hotel.”

It was hard to argue with such logic,
especially when it came from the person he most trusted! Slowly he reversed the
sideways shuffle that he had used to hide himself and re-emerged into the dark
alley. He looked left and then right, listened for any sound of movement and
only after he was completely satisfied did he begin the short journey back to
the mouth of the alley and Mulberry Avenue. It was only then that the darkest
of the shadows uncurled itself, snaked an arm around Goulding’s shoulders and
clamped his mouth shut with an enormous gloved hand. Despite the savage
strength of his attacker, Goulding struggled to break the grip and was already
planning how best to drop this asshole. Then he went very still, the knife
being pressed to his throat changed everything.

* * *

“Goulding.....Bill Goulding?”

Goulding said nothing, but his body was
stiff with tension. His only thought was, “Shit they’ve decided to make good
their threats. They’ve found me.”

“Bill, it is you
isn’t
it?”

In the far recesses of his mind Bill
realized that he knew the voice and that it was someone from much further back
in his past. As the hand on his mouth was removed, he addressed his attacker.

“Jake?”

“Bill! I knew it! I’d know that profile
anywhere.”

Goulding felt the arm around him
slacken and he turned to face the man at his back. Although it had been nearly
ten years and the alley was dark, he knew who it was that he was facing
immediately.