Best Laid Plans
A Novel By Sidney Sheldon.
The astrology forecast for that
day promised Leslie Stewart a red letter day.
She is a slim
lady with a figure and look that made her
sophisticated and also simple. Leslie worked as
Public relations and advertising executive at
the Lexington, Kentucky firm of Bailey and
Thomson.
When later that day, her boss
gave her a new assignment to help Oliver Russell become
governor of Kentucky State
, she believed she has met the man she was going to marry.
And began to lay her plans.
Oliver
Russell is a brilliant and handsome attorney and probably the most eligible
bachelor in Lexington. He was known to be very notorious
with the ladies.
He was
prompted into the race for the governor of Kentucky by
Senator Todd Davis
ever before he met Leslie Stewart and had the misfortune of
being dropped midstream by his sponsor who has an agenda of making him marry
his daughter in exchange for the governorship.
Leslie fell in love with Oliver Russell and before Oliver
knew what was happening they were on the way to the altar.
At that moment senator Todd Davis in a desperate move to
stop the proposed marriage made a proposal to Oliver Russell. The seat of the
governor of Kentucky
was still available if he repents and marries his daughter as expected.
Oliver Russell refused but accepted to take on a legal
assignment in Paris
where the senator’s daughter was staying. When they saw each other one thing
led to the other and they continued their love affair where they left off. They
were engaged within a few days of reconciling and persuaded by Senator Todd
Davis, they got married in Paris, in a civil
ceremony to the chagrin of Leslie Stewart who had made elaborate plans for her
marriage to Oliver Russell in Lexington.
Oliver Russell became the governor of Kentucky state with the support of Todd Davis
his father in-law.
Leslie Stewart though heartbroken decided to destroy Oliver Russell
and carefully planned a vendetta that saw her marrying senator Todd Davis rich
publisher friend.
After her husband died, she built a big publishing empire that
made her very rich and powerful. And ready to take on Oliver Russell who by
then was the
president of the United
States of America.
Senator Davis kept a foot in the
white house. He considered
making Oliver Russell the president of the United States his greatest
investment of all time and he was bent on reaping an equally great financial
reward.
He planted Peter Tager his erstwhile assistant in the white
house as the chief of staff to the president. .
He controlled the affairs of state and influenced policy to
enrich himself.. He dictated the choice of the president’s cabinet and
virtually controlled the president.
Leslie Stewart was bent on ruining Oliver Russell with the
power of the press through her newspapers.
The president’s entreaties notwithstanding, Leslie Stewart
doggedly pursued her vendetta by striking at the president on the front page of
her newspapers whenever the opportunity arises.
Senator Todd Davis also made entreaties on behalf of the
president pleading with powerful Leslie Stewart to forgive the past wrongdoings
of Mr. President.
When a sixteen year old schoolgirl on excursion to the white
house was found dead in the imperial suite of a Washington hotel, from an
overdose of a drug called ecstasy investigation showed that a call was made to
the white house from the hotel suite while the girl was there.
Further investigation also revealed that the young girl
being the daughter of a senator who is an old friend of the president, had an
appointment to see the president earlier that day.
The president became a prime suspect for murder and the fact
that the young girl died of an overdose of ecstasy a drug which the president
offered to Leslie Stewart when he was dating her, linked the president to three
other deaths, Oliver Russell was faced with the greatest challenge of his
political career.
The presidents alibi though embarrassing was revealed. He
was cloistered with the wife of the Italian ambassador to the United States
on the night of the murder.
Leslie Stewart also saw the scandal as an opportunity to put
the final nail on the president’s political career.
The sister of a key witness who has been murdered however
blew the lid off the scandal by revealing that the man behind the death at the
imperial suite and technically responsible for the other deaths and murders was
Peter Tager the presidents chief of staff.
This revelation restored Oliver Russell’s innocence. His
progress at brokering peace at that period between Israel and the the Arab states
prepared him for victory in his bid to run for a second term.
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