The Great Escape: A Novel Read online

  The Great Escape

  SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS

  Dedication

  FOR DAWN

  Even though you’re prettier and dress better,

  I still love you, dear friend.

  Epigraph

  Still, for the millionth time Lucy wished she could have a real family. All her life, she’d dreamed of having a dad who mowed the lawn and called her some kind of lame pet name, and a mom who didn’t get drunk and keep losing jobs and having sex with everybody.

  From First Lady

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  LUCY COULDN’T BREATHE. THE BODICE of her wedding gown, which had fit so perfectly, now squeezed her ribs like a boa constrictor. What if she died of suffocation right here in the vestibule of the Wynette Presbyterian Church?

  Outside, an international army of reporters stood at the barricades, and the sanctuary inside bulged with the rich and famous. Only a few steps away, the former president of the United States and her husband waited to escort Lucy down the aisle so she could marry the most perfect man in the world. The man of everyone’s dreams. The kindest, the most considerate, the smartest … What woman in her right mind wouldn’t want to marry Ted Beaudine? He’d dazzled Lucy from the moment they’d met.

  The trumpets rang out, announcing the beginning of the bridal procession, and Lucy struggled to pull a few molecules of air into her lungs. She couldn’t have picked a more beautiful day for her wedding. It was the last week of May. The Texas Hill Country’s spring wildflowers might have faded, but the crepe myrtle was in bloom, and roses grew outside the church doors. A perfect day.

  Her thirteen-year-old sister, the youngest of the four bridesmaids in her unfashionably small wedding party, stepped off. After her would come fifteen-year-old Charlotte, and then Meg Koranda, Lucy’s best friend since college. Her maid of honor was her sister Tracy, a beautiful eighteen-year-old so smitten with Lucy’s bridegroom that she still blushed when he talked to her.

  Lucy’s veil fluttered in front of her face, suffocating layers of white tulle. She thought about what an incredible lover Ted was, how brilliant, how kind, how amazing. How perfect for her. Everybody said that.

  Everybody except her best friend, Meg.

  Last night after the rehearsal dinner, Meg had pulled Lucy into a hug and whispered, “He’s wonderful, Luce. Everything you said. And you absolutely can’t marry him.”

  “I know,” Lucy had heard herself whisper in return. “But I’m going to anyway. It’s too late now to back out.”

  Meg had given her a fierce shake. “It’s not too late. I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever I can.”

  Easy for Meg to say. Meg lived a completely undisciplined life, but Lucy wasn’t like that. Lucy had responsibilities that Meg couldn’t begin to comprehend. Even before Lucy’s mother had taken the oath of office, the country had been fascinated by the Jorik menagerie—three adopted kids, two biological ones. Her parents had shielded the younger children from the press, but Lucy had been twenty-two at the time of Nealy’s first inauguration, which made her fair game. The public had followed Lucy’s dedication to her family—the way she served as a surrogate parent to her siblings during Nealy and Mat’s frequent absences—her work in child advocacy, her sparse dating life, even her less-than-exciting fashion choices. And they were definitely following this wedding.

  Lucy planned to meet her parents halfway down the aisle as a symbol of the way they’d come into her life when she was a rebellious fourteen-year-old hellion. Nealy and Mat would walk that final stretch with her, one on each side.

  Charlotte stepped out onto the white runner. She was the shyest of Lucy’s sibs, the one most worried about not having her older sister around. “We can talk on the phone every day,” Lucy had told her. But Charlotte was used to Lucy living in the same house, and she said it wouldn’t be the same.

  It was time for Meg to step off. She glanced over her shoulder at Lucy, and even through yards of tulle, Lucy saw the concern that dragged at Meg’s smile. Lucy longed to trade places with her. To live Meg’s carefree life, running from country to country with no siblings to help raise, no family reputation to uphold, no cameras shadowing her every move.

  Meg turned away, lifted her bouquet to her waist, plastered a smile on her face. And got ready to take her first step.

  Without thinking, without asking herself how she could consider doing something like this—something so awful, so selfish, so unimaginable—even as she willed herself not to move, Lucy dropped her bouquet, stumbled around her sister, and grabbed Meg by the arm before she could go any farther. She heard her voice coming from a place far away, the words thready. “I have to talk to Ted right now.”

  Behind her, Tracy gasped. “Luce, what are you doing?”

  Lucy couldn’t look at Tracy. Her skin was hot, her mind reeling. She dug her fingers into Meg’s arm. “Get him for me, Meg. Please.” The word was a plea, a prayer.

  Through the suffocating tulle shroud, she saw Meg’s lips part in shock. “Now? You don’t think you could have done this a couple of hours ago?”

  “You were right,” Lucy cried. “Everything you said. You were completely right. Help me. Please.” The words felt alien on her tongue. She was the one who took care of people. Even when she was a child, she’d never asked for help.

  Her sister Tracy spun on Meg, her blue eyes flashing with indignation. “I don’t understand. What did you say to her?” She grabbed Lucy’s hand. “Luce, you’re having a panic attack. It’s going to be okay.”

  But it wouldn’t be okay. Not now. Not ever. “No. I—I have to talk to Ted.”

  “Now?” Tracy echoed Meg. “You can’t talk to him now.”

  But she had to. Meg understood that, even if Tracy didn’t. With a worried nod, Meg lifted her bouquet back into position and started down the aisle to get him.

  Lucy didn’t know this hysterical person who’d taken over her body. She couldn’t look into her sister’s stricken eyes. Calla lilies from her bouquet flattened beneath her stilettos as she moved blindly across the vestibule. A pair of Secret Service agents stood by the heavy front doors, their eyes watchful. Just beyond, a crowd of onlookers waited, a sea of television cameras, a horde of reporters....

  Today, President Cornelia Case Jorik’s oldest daughter, thirty-one-year-old Lucy Jorik, is marrying Ted Beaudine, the only son of golf legend Dallas Beaudine and television newswoman Francesca Beaudine. No one expected the bride to choose the groom’s small hometown of Wynette, Texas, as the site for her wedding, but …

  She heard the purp
oseful strike of male footsteps on the marble floor and turned to see Ted striding toward her. Through her veil, she watched a beam of sunlight play on his dark brown hair, another ray splash across his handsome face. It was always that way. Wherever he went, sunbeams seemed to follow. He was beautiful, kind, everything a man should be. The most perfect man she’d ever known. The most perfect son-in-law for her parents and the best imaginable father of her future children. He rushed toward her, his eyes filled—not with anger—he wasn’t that sort of man—but with concern.

  Her parents were right behind him, their faces masks of alarm. His parents would appear next, and then they’d all come pouring out—her sisters and brother, Ted’s friends, their guests … So many people she cared about. Loved.

  She searched frantically for the only person who could help her.

  Meg stood off to the side, her hands in a death grip on her bridesmaid’s bouquet. Lucy pleaded with her eyes, prayed Meg would grasp what she needed. Meg started to rush toward her, then stopped. With the mental telepathy shared by best friends, Meg understood.

  Ted caught Lucy’s arm and swept her into a small antechamber off to the side. Just before he shut the door, Lucy saw Meg take a deep breath and stride purposefully toward Lucy’s parents. Meg was used to dealing with messes. She’d fend them all off long enough for Lucy to—To do what?

  The long, narrow antechamber was lined with hooks holding blue choir robes and high shelves bearing hymnals, music folders, and musty, ancient cardboard boxes. A trickle of sulfurous sunlight oozed through the dusty windowpanes in a door at the end and somehow found his cheek. Her lungs collapsed. She was dizzy from lack of air.

  Ted gazed down at her, those cool amber eyes shadowed with concern, as calm as she was frantic. Please let him fix this like he fixes everything else. Let him fix her.

  Tulle stuck to her cheek, held there by perspiration, by tears—she didn’t know which—as words she could never have imagined speaking tumbled out. “Ted, I can’t. I—I can’t.”

  He lifted her veil just as she’d pictured, except she’d pictured him doing it at the end of the ceremony, right before he kissed her. His expression was perplexed. “I don’t understand.”

  And neither did she. This raw panic was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

  He cocked his head, gazed into her eyes. “Lucy, we’re perfect together.”

  “Yes. Perfect … I know.”

  He waited. She couldn’t think of what to say next. If only she could breathe. She forced her lips to move. “I know we are. Perfect. But … I can’t.”

  She waited for him to argue with her. To fight for her. To convince her she was wrong. She waited for him to take her in his arms and tell her this was merely a panic attack. But his expression didn’t change except for an almost imperceptible tightening at the corner of his mouth. “Your friend Meg,” he said. “This is because of her, isn’t it?”

  Was it? Would she be doing something so unimaginable if Meg hadn’t appeared with her love, her chaos, and her swift, brutal judgment? “I can’t.” Her fingers were icy, and her hands shook as she tugged at her diamond. It finally came off. She nearly dropped it as she pushed it into his pocket.

  He let her veil fall. He didn’t beg. He wouldn’t know how. Nor did he make even the slightest attempt to change her mind. “All right, then …” With a brusque nod, he turned and walked away. Calm. Controlled. Perfect.

  As the door shut behind him, she pressed her hands to her stomach. She had to get him back. Run after him and tell him she’d changed her mind. But her feet wouldn’t move; her brain wouldn’t work.

  The knob turned, the door opened, and her father stood there, with her mother just behind, both of them pale, tense with concern. They’d done everything for her, and marrying Ted had been the best thank-you gift she could have given them in return. She couldn’t humiliate them like this. She needed to get Ted and bring him back. “Not yet,” she whispered, wondering what she meant, knowing only that she needed a moment to pull herself together and remember who she was.

  Mat hesitated and then shut the door.

  Lucy’s universe collapsed. Before the afternoon was over, the world would know that she’d dumped Ted Beaudine. It was unthinkable.

  The sea of cameras … The herds of reporters … She’d never leave this small, musty room. She’d live the rest of her life right here, surrounded by hymnals and choir robes, doing penance for hurting the best man she’d ever known, for humiliating her family.

  Her veil stuck to her lips. She tore at her headpiece, welcomed the pain as the combs and crystals pulled her hair. She was crazy. Ungrateful. She deserved pain, and she ripped it all off. The veil, the gown—snaking her arms behind her to work at the zipper until the white satin lay in a puddle around her ankles and she stood gasping for breath in her exquisite French bra, her lacy bridal panties, blue garter, and white satin stilettos.

  Run! The word shrieked through her brain. Run!

  From outside the chamber she heard the crowd noise grow momentarily louder and then muted again, as if someone had opened the front doors of the church, then quickly closed them.

  Run!

  Her hand grasped one of the dark blue choir robes. She jerked it from its hook and pulled it on over her disheveled hair. The cool, musty robe slipped along her body, covering her French bra, covering her tiny panties. She stumbled toward the small door at the end of the antechamber. Through the dusty windowpanes, she saw a narrow, overgrown walkway enclosed by a cinder-block wall. Her hands weren’t working properly, and the lock didn’t give at first, but she finally managed to open it.

  The walkway led toward the rear of the church. The cracked pavement grabbed at her stilettos as she made her way past an air-conditioning unit. Spring thunderstorms had blown trash into the gravel at the side of the path: smashed juice boxes, bits of newspaper, a mangled yellow shovel from a kid’s sandbox. She stopped when she reached the end. Security was everywhere, and she tried to think of what to do next.

  She’d lost her Secret Service detail a few months earlier, at the end of her mother’s first year out of office, but the agency still guarded Nealy, and since she and her mother were so frequently together, she’d barely noticed the absence of her own detail. Ted had hired private security to supplement the town’s small police force. There were guards at the doors. The L-shaped parking lot overflowed with cars. People were everywhere.

  Washington was her home, not this Central Texas town she’d failed so miserably to appreciate, but she remembered that the church sat on the edge of an old residential neighborhood. If her legs could carry her across the alley and behind the houses on the other side, she might be able to get to one of those side streets without anyone seeing her.

  And then what? This wasn’t a well-planned escape like the one Nealy had pulled off from the White House all those years ago. It wasn’t an escape at all. It was an interruption. A suspension. She needed to find a place where she could get her breath back, pull herself together. A child’s empty playhouse. A hidden nook in someone’s backyard. Someplace away from the chaos of the press, from her betrayed bridegroom and bewildered family. A temporary hideout where she could remember who she was and what she owed the people who’d taken her in.

  Oh God, what had she done?

  A commotion on the other side of the church caught the guards’ attention. She didn’t wait to see what it was. Instead she stumbled around the end of the cinder-block wall, rushed across the alley, and crouched behind a Dumpster. Her knees were shaking so badly she had to brace herself against the side of the rusty metal bin. It exuded the fetid stench of garbage. There were no cries of alarm, only the distant noise of the crowd packing the bleachers that had been set up in front of the church.

  She heard a thin cry, like a kitten’s mew, and realized it was coming from her. She made herself creep along the row of shrubs that separated the old Victorians. The shrubs ended at a brick-paved street. She rushed across it and into someone’s
backyard.

  Old trees shaded the small lots, and detached garages opened into narrow alleys. She pulled the choir robe tighter as she moved blindly across the yards, from one to another. Her heels sank into the soil behind freshly planted vegetable gardens where marble-size green tomatoes grew on the new vines. The smell of pot roast wafted through an open kitchen window; the sound of a television game show came from another. Soon that same television would broadcast the story of former president Cornelia Case Jorik’s irresponsible daughter. In the space of one afternoon, thirty-one-year-old Lucy had blown seventeen years of good behavior. Seventeen years of proving to Mat and Nealy they hadn’t made a mistake by adopting her. As for what she’d done to Ted … She couldn’t have hurt him more.

  A dog barked and a baby cried. She stumbled over a garden hose. Cut behind a swing set. The dog’s barking grew louder, and a rusty-haired mutt charged the wire fence that marked the next yard. She backed around a statue of the Virgin Mary toward the alley. The toes of her stilettos filled with pebbles.

  She heard the roar of an engine. Her back straightened. A beat-up black and silver motorcycle spun into the alley. She ducked between two garages and flattened her spine against peeling white paint. The bike slowed. She held her breath, waiting for it to pass. It didn’t. Instead, it crept forward, then stopped in front of her.

  The rider gazed into the space between the garages to the place where she stood.

  The motor idled as he took his time studying her. One black boot hit the gravel. “’S’up?” he said over the engine noise.

  ’S’up! She’d crushed her future husband, mortified her family, and if she didn’t do something quickly, she would become the country’s most infamous runaway bride, yet this guy wanted to know what was up?

  He had too-long black hair that curled past his collar, cold blue eyes set above high cheekbones, and sadistic lips. After so many years of Secret Service protection, she’d grown used to taking her safety for granted, but she didn’t feel safe now, and the fact that she dimly recognized the biker as a guest at last night’s rehearsal dinner—one of Ted’s odd assortment of friends—didn’t exactly reassure her. Even semi-cleaned-up in a dark suit that didn’t fit well, a rumpled white shirt open at the collar, and motorcycle boots that appeared to have received nothing more than a dusting, he didn’t look like anybody she wanted to meet in an alley. Exactly where she happened to be.