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She was breathing hard. "You think I came here to swap sex for a juicy story. I didn't. In fact, I'm mortified for the way I compromised myself and my profession. You don't know me, so you'll have to take my word for it when I tell you how badly I wanted to skulk out that front door, and how hard it is for me even to look you in the face."

Something in her voice caused him to wait and listen.

She removed her hands from his sternum and smoothed EXCLUSIVE 101

them down the sides of her skirt. "That I'm still here should give you some indication of how important this story is, Mr. Bondurant. Not just to me and my career. To everyone. Please hear me out. Then, if you order me to leave, I will. No argument. Five minutes, okay?"

It was a very good act, he thought, but not good enough. His innate caution had been heightened by his recon training, which had taught him never to accept the surface appearance of anything or anyone. Experience had taught him that journalists were vicious scavengers. They would pick your bones clean without the least bit of remorse, then leave you exposed and vulnerable as they moved on to the next victim.

However, despite his statements to the contrary, he was growing interested in what Barrie Travis knew, or had surmised, about the SIDS death of Vanessa's child. Knowing it was a bad idea, and hoping that he wouldn't later regret it too much, he agreed to five minutes. "Outside."

He took the rocking chair. She sat on the top step, her arms wrapped around her shins. She was probably cold, but he didn't offer her anything to ward off the morning chill.

Now that he had granted her an ear, she seemed reluctant to begin, although she had her notepad ready. "It's so beautiful here."

This morning, the valley was shrouded in fog. The mountains were obscured by it, but the imminent sunrise had made the mist as pink as cotton candy.

The air was cool and crisp.

"The barn looks older than the house and garage."

Pretty observant. "It was here when I bought the place. It had been built over the original homesite. I just did some refurbishing."

The horses were playing a frisky game of chase in the corral. "What are their names?" she asked.

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"They don't have names."

He saw her surprise. "Your horses don't have names? How sad. Why not?"

"Is this the interview, Miss Travis?"

She gave a puzzled shake of her head. "I've never met anyone who didn't name his pets. Part of Cronkite's personality is his name." As she told him about her dog, her face turned soft and animated. "He's a big, floppy, affectionate, spoiled baby. You should have a dog," she said. "It would be good company for you."

"I like my solitude."

"You've made that abundantly clear."

"Time's ticking."

She let him have it then. With both barrels. "I think Vanessa Merritt killed her own baby."

Gray clenched his teeth to keep from saying anything.

She talked nonstop for the next several minutes. He lost track of how many, but certainly more than five. She talked him through several motives for why the First Lady might destroy her child, then detailed for him the steps she'd taken in making inquiries and the roadblocks she'd encountered.

"Now Mrs. Merritt has gone ìnto seclusion.' Don't you think that's odd?"

"No," he lied.

"When she retreated from public life after the child's death, that was understandable. Jackie Kennedy did the same when she lost her baby. But it was for a specified time, and we're past that. If she's only resting, as insiders insist, then why isn't she staying with her father? Or why hasn't she gone to their home in Mississippi?"

"How do you know she hasn't?"

"I don't," she admitted with a frown. "But it's been announced that she's in Dr. Allan's care, and he's still in Washington. I don't get what the big secret is all about."

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"There is no big secret."

"Then how do you account for Anna Chen's strange behavior? She was always a reliable source, willing to cooperate."

"You pissed her off?"

"I don't know her well enough to make her angry."

"I don't know you at all, and you've made me angry."

"She was scared," Barrie said stubbornly. "I recognize fear when I see it."

"Okay, maybe she was scared," he said impatiently. "Maybe she'd just seen a mouse. And maybe Vanessa's behavior is a little unusual, but doesn't she deserve privacy to do her grieving?"

This Barrie Travis, this reporter with the sexy voice, was bringing up the ambiguities he himself had entertained. His gut in a knot, he stood and walked to the edge of the porch. "Christ, what she must be going through."

He plowed his fingers through his hair, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried forcibly to keep his own demons at bay.

Several moments passed before he remembered that she was there. He caught her staring up at him, a strange expression on her face. "It wasn't just an affair. You truly loved her, didn't you?" she said in a hushed voice.

"You still do."

Cursing himself for consenting even to five minutes with her, he bent down and, for the second time that morning, picked up her big leather bag and pushed it into her arms. "Time's up."

His hand encircled her biceps as he pulled her to her feet. To steady herself, she gripped one of the posts supporting the porch roof. "After everything I've told you, is that all you have to say?"

"You're on a single track going nowhere, Miss Travis. All these inconsistencies are distortions of the facts, pieced 104 Sandra Brown

together by your warped imagination and ambitious little mind to create an ugly but sensational story.

"For whatever it's worth, I advise you to drop this thing before you upset somebody in the administration who could really hurt you. Forget about that baby and how he died."

"I can't just forget it. Something about his death doesn't ring true."

"Suit yourself. But whatever else you do, forget about me." He went inside and locked the front door.

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When Howie received the summons to the general manager's office, his bowels turned to water. Leaving the men's room, he went directly to the carpeted office on the second floor. An aloof secretary told him that

"they" were waiting for him and to go right in.

Jenkins was seated behind his desk. Another man was standing in front of the window, while another occupied an armchair. "Come in, Howie," Jenkins said. Rubber-kneed, he advanced into the office. Typically, an unscheduled meeting like this meant bad news, like a drastic drop in ratings, a major cutback in budget, or a comprehensive ass-chewing.

"Good morning, Mr. Jenkins," he said, trying to appear calm. He purposely kept his eyes on his boss and not on the two austere men who were looking him over like he was in a line-up. "What can I do for you?"

"These men are from the FBI."

Howie's sphincter clenched. The goddamn IRS. He hadn't filed a tax return for the last three years.

"They want to ask you some questions about Barrie Travis."

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Howie nearly laughed with relief. Cold sweat had trickled from his armpits and collected around his waist. "What about her?"

"Did you send her on an assignment?" Jenkins asked.

"LJh . . .>"

That was a tricky question, and Howie needed time to weigh his answer. If he answered yes, and Barrie was in deep shit, he'd be jumping into the shit right along with her. If he answered no, and her instincts about a top-secret hot story proved correct, then he would be sacrificing his share of the credit.

He glanced at the FBI agent standing silhouetted against the window. The guy looked all business, and so did his partner.

"No," Howie replied. "She asked my permission to take a few days to investigate a story, but I didn't assign it to her."

"What story?" asked the agent by the window.

"I don't know. Something she cooked up on her own."

"She didn't discuss it with you?" the second agent asked.

"Not specifically-not the subject matter. All she told me was that it was hot stuff."

"You don't have a glimmer?"

The new buddy he'd made in the bar the other night had asked him these same questions. "No, sir."

"I find that hard to believe."

"It's the truth," Howie averred. "I tried to pry some information out of her, but she said she didn't want to elaborate until she had something concrete to back up her hunch."

"You're her immediate supervisor, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you have no idea what story your reporter is pursuing?"

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Howie felt himself weakening, so he immediately turned defensive. "Well, you gotta understand my philosophy of personnel management, which is to let my subordinates take some initiative. When a reporter thinks he's on to a hot story, I cut him some slack. But it's understood that in exchange for my generosity, I expect a damn good piece in return."

Jenkins wasn't impressed. He practically stepped on Howie's last few words. "But Ms. Travis is away this week?"

"That's right. She left, let's see, day before yesterday. Said she'd probably be out the rest of the week."

One of the agents asked, "Where'd she go?"

"She wouldn't tell me."

The agents exchanged a meaningful glance. Howie wished he knew what that meaning was.

"Is the station covering her expenses?" This from Jenkins, whose perpetual scowl had deepened during the last few minutes.

"Only if she produces a story." He explained the deal he'd struck with Barrie. "I didn't want her squandering company funds on a wild goose chase." That ought to win him some points.

"What about her politics?"

Howie turned his head to the agent at the window. "Politics?"

"Her political inclinations. Does she generally lean to the left or the right?"

Howie thought for a moment. "I guess you'd say she's liberal. You know, she's always taking up for the underdog. Women, fags, foreigners, people like that. She voted for President Merritt." He smiled all around at the unsmiling group. "The President sent her flowers recently. She got a kick over that."

No comment on that from either agent. The one in the 108 Sandra Brown

chair asked, "Is Ms. Travis a member of any organizations? Any activist groups, religious sects, or cults?"

"Yeah," Howie said, nodding enthusiastically. "She's a Methodist." One of the agents rolled his eyes. The other said, "You wouldn't call her a religious fanatic?"

"No. She's not opposed to letting fly with a four-letter word, or anything like that."

"Does she sympathize with any particular splinter group or radical organization?"

"Not that I know of. But she's participated in some protests."

"Against what?"

"Banning books. Destroying the rain forest. Eating porpoises instead of tuna fish. Stuff like that."

"Nothing subversive?"

"No."

"What about her personal life?"

"She doesn't talk about it much."

"Boyfriends?"

"Nobody regular."

"Roommate?"

"She lives alone."

"Close friends?"

He shook his head. "I've never heard her mention any. She's one of those women who's, you know, married to her career."

"What about her parents?"

"Dead."

"Do you know their names? Where they lived?"

"Sorry. They died before she started working here."

In his eagerness to appear important and be informative, Howie had almost forgotten that they were discussing Barrie and not a hardened criminal. He experienced a twinge

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of conscience. Barrie could be a pain in the butt, but he felt bad about discussing her so freely with feds.

"Is she in trouble? Has she done something wrong?"

"Just a routine check." The seated agent came to his feet. "She's called routinely to inquire after the First Lady's health, showing what appears to be an inordinate amount of interest in Mrs. Merritt and her whereabouts."

Howie relaxed. "Oh, hell, she's calling as a friend. They got pretty close when Barrie interviewed her."

The second agent said, "The White House tends to get suspicious when someone starts asking nosy questions about the President or members of his family."

The pair thanked Jenkins and Howie for their time and left.

Howie didn't make as clean a getaway. Jenkins's glower was as good as shackles around his ankles. "Do you know something you're not telling?"

he demanded.

"No, sir."

"What's her hot story?"

"Just like I told them, Mr. Jenkins, I swear to God I don't know. But Barrie said it would make chicken feed of Watergate."

"So it is political?"

"She didn't say. Just that it was big."

Jenkins aimed an imperative index finger at him. "I won't have some radical lunatic working at my TV station."

"Barrie's not a lunatic, sir. She's a good reporter. You told her so yourself in your memo."

"I never sent her any memo. What the fuck're you talking about, Fripp?"

"George?"

Vanessa wasn't sure she'd made herself heard, but the 110 Sandra Brown

doctor glanced down at her and smiled. "Glad to see you awake. How're you feeling?"

"Not good." She was nauseated, and it was difficult to focus on his multiple, wavering images. She vaguely remembered a nasty scene. George had given her a shot to sedate her. It seemed like a very long time ago.

"What's wrong with me? Where's David?"

"The President and I agreed that you needed absolute bed rest, so we moved you here." He patted her arm, but she probably wouldn't have felt his touch if she hadn't been looking at her hand, where an IV needle was dripping a clear solution into her veins.

Motion on the other side of the bed drew her attention. A nurse was smiling down at her. "I'm Jayne Gaston," she said. She was fifty-five or thereabouts, with a wide, pleasant face and short salt-and-pepper hair.

"Mrs. Gaston's been staying with you round the clock," George said. "She's taking excellent care of you, and so far you've been an ideal patient."