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  Chapter One

  “You’re looking well, Mrs. Merritt.”

  “I look like hell.”

  Vanessa Merritt did indeed look like hell, but Barrie was embarrassed for having been caught paying an insincere compliment. She tried to recover gracefully. “After what you’ve been through, you’re entitled to look a little frazzled. Any other woman, myself included, myself particularly, would settle for looking like you even at your worst.”

  “Thank you.” She gave her cappuccino a desultory stir. If nerves conveyed sound, Vanessa Merritt’s would have clattered like her spoon when she shakily returned it to the saucer. “God. For just one cigarette, I’d let you pull out all my fingernails with pliers.”

  She’d certainly never been seen smoking in public, so Barrie was surprised to learn that she was a smoker. Although a nicotine addiction might explain why she was so fidgety.

  Her hands were never still. She twirled her strand of pearls, played with the discreet diamond studs in her earlobes, and repeatedly adjusted the Ray Bans that almost concealed the dark, puffy circles around her eyes.

  Those spectacular eyes were largely responsible for her beauty. Until today. Today, those remarkable baby blues reflected pain and disillusionment. Today they looked like the eyes of an angel who’d just had her first, horrifying glimpse of hell.

  “I’m fresh out of pliers,” Barrie said. “But I have these.” From her large leather satchel, she withdrew an unopened pack of cigarettes and slid it across the table.

  It was obvious that Mrs. Merritt was tempted. Her haunted eyes nervously scanned the outdoor terrace of the restaurant. Only one other table was occupied, by several men, and one obsequious waiter hovered nearby. Even so, she declined the cigarette. “I’d better not. But feel free.”

  “I don’t smoke. I only carry them in case I need to relax someone I’m interviewing.”

  “Before you come in for the kill.”

  Barrie laughed. “I only wish I were that dangerous.”

  “Actually you’re better at human interest stories.”

  It came as a pleasant surprise that Mrs. Merritt was even aware of her work. “Thank you.”

  “Some of your reports have been quite exceptional. Like the one on the AIDS patient. And the one you did on the homeless single mother of four.”

  “That was nominated for an industry award.” Barrie saw no reason to volunteer that she had entered the piece herself.

  “It made me cry,” Mrs. Merritt said.

  “Me too.”

  “In fact, you’re so good, I’ve often wondered why you’re not affiliated with a network.”

  “I’ve had some tough breaks.”

  Vanessa Merritt’s smooth brow wrinkled. “Wasn’t there an issue over Justice Green that—”

  “Yes, there was that,” Barrie interrupted. This wasn’t a conversation in which she wanted her failures itemized. “Why did you contact me, Mrs. Merritt? I’m delighted, but curious.”

  Vanessa Merritt’s smile gradually faded. In a low, serious tone, she said, “I made myself clear, didn’t I? This is not an interview.”

  “I understand.”

  She didn’t. Barrie Travis didn’t have a clue as to why Mrs. Merritt had phoned her out of the blue and invited her to have coffee. They’d been nodding acquaintances for the last few years, certainly not friends.

  Even the choice of today’s meeting place was curious. The restaurant was one of several along the shore of the channel that connected the Potomac with the Tidal Basin. After dark, the clubs and eateries along Water Street were filled with people, mostly tourists. Some did a respectable lunch trade, but in the middle of the afternoon, on a workday, the restaurants were virtually deserted.

  Maybe this place had been chosen precisely for its seclusion.

  Barrie dropped a sugar cube into her cappuccino, then idly stirred it as she stared out over the iron railing of the terrace.

  It was a gloomy, overcast day. The channel was choppy. Houseboats and sailboats moored in the marina bobbed in the gray water. The canvas umbrella above their table snapped and popped in the gusty wind that carried the scent of rain and fish. Why were they sitting outside on such a blustery day?

  Mrs. Merritt stirred the foamy milk in her cappuccino and finally took a sip. “It’s cold now.”

  “Would you like another?” Barrie asked. “I’ll signal the waiter.”

  “No, thanks. I didn’t really want that one. Having coffee was just, you know…” She shrugged a shoulder that had once been stylishly slender but was now downright bony.

  “It was just an excuse?” Barrie prodded.

  Vanessa Merritt raised her head. Through the sunglasses, Barrie saw bleak honesty in the woman’s eyes. “I needed to talk to someone.”

  “And you thought of me?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Because a couple of my stories made you cry?”

  “That, and because of the sympathy note you sent. It touched me. Deeply.”

  “I’m glad it gave you some comfort.”

  “I… I don’t have many close friends. You and I are about the same age. I thought you’d be a good sounding board.” She lowered her head. A mane of chestnut hair tumbled forward, partially concealing her classic cheekbones and aristocratic chin.

  In a quiet voice, Barrie said, “My note couldn’t convey how very sorry I am for what happened.”

  “Actually it did. Thank you.” Vanessa Merritt removed a tissue from her handbag and slipped it beneath the sunglasses to blot her eyes. “I don’t know where they come from,” she said of the tears being soaked up by the tissue. “I should be dehydrated by now.”

  “Is that what you want to talk about?” Barrie asked gently. “The baby?”

  “Robert Rushton Merritt,” she blurted forcefully. “Why does everyone avoid saying his name? He had a name, for heaven’s sake. For three months, he was a person and he had a name.”

  “I guess—”

  She didn’t give Barrie time to respond. “Rushton was my mother’s maiden name,” Mrs. Merritt explained. “She would have liked having her first grandchild named after her family.”

  Staring out over the turbulent waters of the channel, she continued talking in a faraway voice. “And I’ve always fancied the name Robert. It’s a straightforward, no-bullshit name.”

  The vulgarity surprised Barrie. It was such a departure from Vanessa Merritt’s southern-lady persona. In her whole life, Barrie had never felt so bereft of something to say. Under the circumstances, what would be appropriate? What could she say to a woman who had recently buried her baby? Nice funeral?

  Suddenly Mrs. Merritt asked, “What do you know about it?”

  Barrie was caught off guard. Was she being challenged? What do you know about losing a child? What do you really know about anything?

  “Are you referring to…? Do you mean the baby’s… I mean, Robert’s death?”

  “Yes. What do you know about it?”

  “Nobody really knows about SIDS, do they?” Barrie asked, groping for th
e meaning behind the question.

  Obviously changing her mind about the cigarette, Mrs. Merritt tore open the pack. Her motions were like those of a marionette, jerky and disjointed. The fingers that held the cigarette to her lips were trembling. Barrie quickly fished a lighter from her satchel. Vanessa Merritt didn’t continue speaking until she’d deeply inhaled several times. The tobacco didn’t calm her. Instead, she became increasingly agitated.

  “Robert was sleeping, on his side, with one of those little pillows propping him up, the way I’d been shown to position him. It happened so fast! How could…” Her voice cracked.

  “Are you blaming yourself? Listen.” Barrie reached across the table, took the cigarette from Mrs. Merritt, and ground it out in the ashtray. Then she pressed the woman’s cold hands between hers. The impulsive gesture was noticed by the men at the other table.

  “Robert died of crib death. Losing a baby to SIDS happens to thousands of mothers and fathers every year, and there’s not a single one of them who doesn’t second-guess their parenting skills. It’s human nature to assign blame to a tragedy, so people lay a guilt trip on themselves. Don’t fall into that trap. If you start thinking you were responsible for your baby’s death, you might never recover.”

  Mrs. Merritt was vigorously shaking her head. “You don’t understand. It was my fault.” Behind her sunglasses, her eyes darted about. She withdrew her hands from Barrie’s, moved them from cheek to tabletop, to lap, to spoon, to neck, in a restless search for peace. “The last few months of my pregnancy were intolerable.”

  For several moments she covered her mouth with her hand, as though the last trimester had been unspeakably painful. “Then Robert was born. But instead of getting better, as I’d hoped, it only got worse. I couldn’t…”

  “Couldn’t what? Cope? All new mothers experience postpartum and feel overwhelmed,” Barrie assured her.

  She kneaded her forehead with her fingertips. “You don’t understand,” she repeated in a strained whisper. “Nobody does. There’s no one I can tell. Not even my father. Oh, God, I don’t know what to do!”

  Her emotional unraveling was so obvious that the men at the next table had turned to stare. The waiter approached, looking anxious.

  Barrie spoke quickly beneath her breath. “Vanessa, please, get a grip. Everybody’s watching.”

  Whether it was because Barrie had addressed her by her first name or for some other reason, the emotional collapse immediately reversed itself. Her nervously active hands fell still. Her tears dried instantly. She downed the cold cappuccino she had claimed moments earlier not to want, then finished by daintily blotting her colorless lips with her napkin. Barrie watched the transformation with amazement.

  Wholly restored, in a cool, composed voice, she said, “This conversation was strictly off the record, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Barrie replied. “You made that understood when you called me.”

  “Considering your position, and mine, I see now that it was a mistake to arrange this meeting. I haven’t been myself since Robert died. I thought I needed to talk about it, but I was wrong. Talking about it only makes me more distraught.”

  “You’ve lost your baby. You’re entitled to unravel.” Barrie laid her hand on the other woman’s arm. “Be kinder to yourself. SIDS just happens.”

  She removed her sunglasses and looked directly into Barrie’s eyes. “Does it?”

  Then Vanessa Armbruster Merritt, First Lady of the United States, replaced the Ray Bans, slipped the strap of her handbag onto her shoulder, and stood up. The Secret Service agents at the next table came hastily to their feet. They were joined by three others, who’d been standing post along the iron railing, out of sight.

  As a group they closed ranks around the First Lady and escorted her from the terrace of the restaurant to a waiting limousine.

  Chapter Two

  Barrie dug into her satchel in search of coins for the cold drink machine. “Anybody got a couple of quarters I can borrow?”

  “Not for you, sweetcheeks,” replied a videotape editor who was walking past. “You’ve already stiffed me seventy-five cents.”

  “I’ll pay you back tomorrow. Swear.”

  “Forget it, sugarbuns.”

  “You ever heard of sexual harassment in the workplace?” she called after him.

  “Sure. I voted for it,” he retorted over his shoulder.

  Barrie gave up on retrieving any coins from the bottom of her bag, deciding that a diet drink was hardly worth the effort of the search.

  She wove her way through the television station’s newsroom, working the maze of cubicles until she reached her own. One look at the surface of her desk would have made an obsessive-compulsive take a razor to his wrists. Barrie slung her satchel onto the desk, knocking three magazines to the floor in the process.

  “Do you ever read any of those?”

  The familiar voice caused Barrie to groan. Howie Fripp was the news department’s assignments editor, her immediate supervisor, and an all-around pain in the butt.

  “Of course I read them,” she lied. “Cover to cover.”

  She subscribed to a number of periodicals. The magazines arrived regularly, creating skyscrapers on her desk until she was forced to throw them away, more often than not unread. She faithfully read her monthly horoscope in Cosmopolitan. That was about the extent of the time she spent with the magazines, but on principle alone she wouldn’t let her subscriptions lapse. All good broadcast journalists were news junkies, reading everything they could get their hands on.

  And she was a good broadcast journalist.

  She was.

  “Doesn’t it bother your conscience to know that thousands of trees give up their lives just to keep you in reading matter that you don’t read?”

  “Howie, you’re what bothers me. Besides, you’re one to preach environmental awareness when the smoke from your four packs a day pollutes the atmosphere.”

  “Not to mention my farts.”

  She despised that evil little grin of his almost as much as she despised the small minds that managed WVUE, a low-budget, substandard, independent television station struggling to survive among the monolithic news operations in Washington, D.C. She’d had to beg for the budget to produce the feature stories that had won the First Lady’s praise. She had ideas for many others. But the station’s management, including Howie, weren’t of a similar mind. Her ideas were blocked by men who lacked vision, talent, and energy. She didn’t belong here.

  Isn’t that the belief clung to by prison inmates?

  “Thank you, Howie, for not mentioning your farts.”

  She plopped down in her desk chair and dug tunnels through her hair with her fingers, holding it off her face. Her coiffure hadn’t been much to brag about, but the damp wind on the restaurant terrace had played havoc with it.

  Strange choice of meeting places.

  Even stranger was the meeting itself.

  What purpose did it serve?

  On the drive back to the station, Barrie had reviewed each word that was said during her visit with the First Lady. She’d analyzed every inflection in Vanessa Merritt’s voice, gauged each hand gesture, assessed her body language, reviewed that disturbing final question that had served as her goodbye, but she still couldn’t pinpoint exactly what had happened. Or exactly what hadn’t.

  “Checked your e-mail?” Howie asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Not yet.”

  “That tiger that escaped from the traveling carnival? They found him. He hadn’t escaped after all. Ergo, no story.”

  “Oh nooo!” she said dramatically. “And I was so looking forward to covering that.”

  “Hey, it could’ve been big news. The cat could’ve eaten a kid or something.” He looked genuinely forlorn over the missed opportunity.

  “It was a crap assignment, Howie. You always stick me with the crap assignments. Is it because you don’t like me, or because I’m a woman?”

  “Jeez, not
that feminist routine again. You PMS, or what?”

  She sighed. “Howie, you’re hopeless.”

  Hopeless. That was it. Vanessa Merritt had seemed hopeless.

  Impatient to explore that avenue of thought, Barrie said, “Look, Howie, unless there’s something specific that’s brought you by, I’ve got a lot to do here, as you can see.”

  Howie backed up to the partition separating her stall—as she thought of the cramped cubicle—from the neighboring one. Regardless of the season, he wore short-sleeved white shirts. Always. Always with black trousers that were always shiny. His neckties were clip-on. Today’s selection was particularly ugly and had a stain on its fraying tip, which reached only the center of his barrel chest, which was far out of proportion to his nonexistent butt and spindly, bowed legs.

  Crossing his arms and ankles simultaneously, he said, “A story would be nice, Barrie. You know, a story. What you’re paid to produce, more or less on a daily basis. How about one for this evening’s news?”

  “I was working on one that didn’t pan out,” she muttered as she booted up her computer.

  “What was it?”

  “Since it didn’t pan out, what’s the point of discussing it?”

  Vanessa Merritt had said that the months leading up to her baby’s birth had been intolerable. Even without the strong, descriptive word, her demeanor alone had made it clear that she’d had a very rough time. Following the child’s birth, “intolerable” had gotten worse. But what had been so intolerable? And why tell me?

  Howie rambled on, unaware that she was only half-listening. “I’m not asking for live coverage of somebody getting his head blown off, or man’s first steps on Mars, or some extremist from the Nation of Islam holding the pope hostage in the Vatican. A nice, simple little story would do. Something. Anything. Sixty seconds of fill between the second and third commercial breaks. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  “How short-sighted of you, Howie,” Barrie remarked. “If that’s the best motivational speech you can give, no wonder you get such unsatisfactory results from your underlings.”

  He uncrossed his limbs and drew himself up to his full height of five feet six inches, and that was with elevators in his scuffed wingtips. “You know what your problem is? You’ve got stars in your eyes. You want to be Diane Sawyer. Well, here’s a news flash for you—you aren’t. And you aren’t ever going to be. You aren’t ever going to be married to a famous movie director or have your own news magazine show. You aren’t ever going to have respect and credibility in this business. Because you’re a screw-up and everybody in the industry knows it. So stop waiting for the big story and settle for something that you and your limited talent can handle. Something I can put on the air. Okay?”