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Daily tugged at his lower lip, saying nothing.

“Why wasn’t an autopsy performed on that baby?” Barrie continued. “Dr. Allan wasn’t present when he died. In an accidental death, law mandates an autopsy to determine the cause.”

“We’re talking about the President and First Lady of the United States, Barrie. The law can be bent.”

“If your child had suddenly died for no apparent reason, wouldn’t you want to know exactly why? Why would the Merritts object to an autopsy if they had nothing to hide?”

“Lots of people object to autopsies.” Daily waved his hand in dismissal. “Next argument.”

“I keep going back to Vanessa’s strange messages to me. Could they have been implied confessions?”

“If she murdered her baby, why would she confess?”

“Deep down, she wants her crime to be exposed. She wants to be punished.”

“You know, the more you talk, the sicker she gets.”

“And where is she?” Barrie asked impatiently, while still keeping her voice low. “At Highpoint?” The Merritts’ private getaway on the Shenandoah River was a couple of hours’ drive southwest of Washington.

“That would stand to reason,” Daily said, “although the official word is that she’s resting in an ‘undisclosed location.’ ”

“If she’s only resting, and is otherwise healthy, why all the secrecy?”

“If his daughter was seriously ill, Clete Armbruster would be right in the middle of it,” Daily said. “He’d have her in the best medical facility in the country, undergoing every kind of test they’ve got. Have you talked to anyone in his office?”

“I’ve tried. Neely’s statements have become his staff’s mantra.”

“If her health was at risk, the senator wouldn’t be satisfied with an extended rest. He’d fight hell or high water to get the best treatment available.”

“Likewise, if the senator knew that she had committed murder, he would fight equally hard to cover it up and protect her.”

“Shit,” Daily said. “I walked right into that one.”

“You keep placing these obstacles in my path,” she said crossly. “You don’t want me to be right.”

“I don’t want you to be wrong. I don’t want you to go out on a limb with a chain saw in your hand like you did with the Justice Green story. And others.”

“This bears no resemblance to those. None at all.”

“And I don’t want it to. After a series of fiascoes, you’re just now regaining some credibility. Can you imagine the shit storm these theories of yours will create if they get leaked?”

“Can you imagine how far and fast my career will soar if my theories prove to be right?”

“Before you start fantasizing about your own magazine show, you’d better acknowledge what you’ve got. A hunch, Barrie. That’s it. A hunch, which in journalism amounts to zero.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she argued emphatically. “Unless you’re actually there when somebody jumps off a ledge, or an airplane crashes, or a killer is caught standing over the body with a smoking gun in his hand, every good story begins with a hunch, a gut instinct that tells you there’s more to the situation than meets the eye.

“You probably won’t believe this, Daily, but my motives aren’t purely selfish. I’m concerned for Vanessa. She was stretched about as thin as I’ve ever seen anyone stretched. Say I’m way off base and the baby died of SIDS, as reported. Maybe grief has driven her insane. If she’s becoming an embarrassment to the White House, isn’t it possible that they shuttled her off somewhere to keep her out of the public eye?”

“You think the President is holding her against her will?”

Put that way, her hypothesis sounded ludicrous. “That would be totally implausible, wouldn’t it?”

“No more implausible than anything else we’ve tossed around.” He thought about it for a moment. “Then again, power has its own unique psychology. History has shown that to some presidents, any means justified the end. I guess that could extend to the sequestering of an emotionally unbalanced first lady who might stand in the way of reelection.”

Barrie shuddered. “God, our theories only get worse.”

“They’re still just theories, Barrie.”