FORWARD TO CAMELOT
By Susan Sloate & Kevin Finn | Historical Time-Travel Thriller
RETURN TO A VANISHED WORLD in this new edition of the beloved time-travel thriller.
October 2000
Soap-opera actress Cady Cuyler knows she isn’t brave or adventurous—that’s Sheila, the EMT she plays on TV. But after a profound tragedy disrupts her life, Cady is offered an incredible opportunity: to go back in time and recover the Bible used to swear in Lyndon Johnson as president on November 22, 1963--just hours after President Kennedy was assassinated. It was lost on that day and its value as an historic artifact would be literally beyond price.
To succeed, she must enter the Dallas of the past, a city teeming with dark secrets, danger, and the man who plans to kill the president when he visits. For the first time in her life, Cady can live an adventure more daring than anything Sheila ever faced—and maybe rewrite her own destiny.
But in changing the past, one wrong move could seal the fate of a nation—and cost Cady her life. As she races against time, she must finally risk it all: her safety, her family, and the chance to become the heroine of her own story.
Time can be altered. Lives can be altered.
History can be altered...
Excerpt
Then came the moment they had all waited for. Hundreds of heads leaned forward
in anticipation.
Air Force One touched down lightly and taxied to the reception area. Airport
personnel rolled portable steps to the passenger doors, set high in the side of the plane,
and the door swung open. Aides and Secret Servicemen deplaned swiftly.
There was a pause. Nothing happened.
Then there was a stir at the door, and a flash of pink, and a roar went up from the
waiting crowd.
The First Lady, in her lovely pink suit, short white gloves and pink pillbox hat, stood at
the open door, and smiled automatically toward the fence, where the crowd had exploded
into cheers and waves. Behind her, the President, in his elegant dark suit, striped shirt
and figured blue tie, smiled and waved. The glare and heat of the Dallas sunlight was
overpowering, but they looked cool, poised and genuinely pleased to be there.
Talk about star power.
They moved graciously through the official reception line—where Mrs. Kennedy
smilingly accepted an armful of blood-red roses—then made their way, as I knew they
would, toward the waiting crowds behind the fence.
It was eerie to be living through this moment now, just as it was happening, the
dashing young President and his beautiful wife in her unblemished suit, with the matching
pillbox hat set lightly back on her dark hair just a few feet away. The crowd roared
and waved, cameras clicking endlessly. A tall, lean Secret Service agent shadowed the
President.
Working his way through the crowd, Lee followed the President’s movements,
pulling me along behind him. “Stay close!” he insisted.
The President’s driver eased the convertible toward the fence, to be ready when the
President finally decided to leave his admirers. Kennedy was coming to the end of the
fence. There wouldn’t be another chance. Lee was leaning toward Mrs. Kennedy, who
was moving slowly along the fence.
I reached out for the Secret Serviceman next to the President. “Secret Service!” I
yelled.
Involuntarily, the man’s eyes flicked to me. He could see I had nothing suspicious in
my hands. “Don’t let him get in the car!” I shouted, trying desperately to be heard above
the roar of the crowd. “Don’t let him—”
The Secret Serviceman, unable to hear me and uninterested, was moving away, his
eyes trained on the President once again. I reached out and grabbed frantically at his
sleeve and managed to yank him back.
I had to tell him. He could stop it, but only if he knew.
He hadn’t expected anyone to grab him. I had pulled him off-balance, my strength
increased by my terror.
He fell back a step from the President, then two, then three, as the President,
not noticing, moved toward his wife and the admirers at the other end of the fence.
Meanwhile, I was transfixed by what was happening down there; I didn’t say anything
more to the Secret Service agent because I couldn’t stop staring in that direction.
Lee had a fixed smile on his face and was calling out to Mrs. Kennedy, pushing
through the crowd to the top of the fence. For a moment, he hung precariously there, then
leaped lightly down, to land right in front of the First Lady.
With a little laugh of surprise, she jerked back instinctively.
Lee removed his cap with one hand. I thought it was a gesture of exaggerated
courtesy. So did Mrs. Kennedy: she started to smile and reach out a hand to him.
When his hand came down from his head, it was holding a revolver. He pointed it
straight at her head.
The President saw it, and his eyes widened in horror.
The Secret Serviceman behind him couldn’t see it; his view was blocked by the
President, and I had unwittingly distracted him by trying to get his attention.
The President, only a few feet from his wife, was at her side before anyone else
could move.
“Put down the gun, Lee,” he said calmly. Even in this moment of maximum pressure,
he recognized Lee and remembered his name.
“Get in the car,” Lee retorted. “Now, Mr. President—or your wife gets it.”
Co-Author Kevin Finn