Exclusive

“Not so.”

Spence stood, stretched, and looked out the window. The sun was up now, so the view was breathtaking. The snow on the peaks appeared gold-flecked.

“This thing with Vanessa,” Spence said, “is a potential hand grenade.”

“What ‘thing’?”

Spence turned. “The baby dying. She’s freaked out over it.”

“As any mother would be.”

Spence shook his head. “It’s more than that. Grief has exacerbated her other problem. Bottom line, she can’t be left alone.” He told Gray that she was at Highpoint under the care of George Allan and a full-time nurse. “David’s afraid she’ll do something crazy.”

“You mean like harm herself?”

“It’s anybody’s guess. Anyway, David thought if you came back, you might have a stabilizing effect on her.”

“He’s got far more faith in my healing abilities than they warrant. Besides, if he can’t hold sway over his wife, what does he expect me to do?”

“Allay the new gossip about their marriage,” Spence replied bluntly. “Vanessa’s been away a lot recently. You know how people talk. Rumors get started.

“A good marriage would go far toward David’s reelection. A marriage on the skids would be disastrous. If you were back, that rumor would be squelched once and for all. David might be a forgiving man, but he would never reenlist a man who’d been his wife’s lover.”

Gray was grinding his teeth so hard it was making his jaw ache. Beneath the table, his hands were clenched into fists.

“Complicating the situation is this reporter,” Spence continued as he returned to his chair. “Barrie Travis. She’s been asking some questions that are a little too personal for comfort. She has unimpressive credentials.” Resting his arm on the laptop computer he always carried, he summarized Barrie Travis’s professional history. “But since Vanessa granted her that interview, she’s passing herself off as the First Lady’s best friend and con

fidante. She’s just a screw-up—but sometimes a loose cannon can pose the worst threat.”

“She is a threat. She was here.”

“Here? When?”

“Yesterday.”

Spence dragged his hands down his face. “We thought she was just poking around Washington, but if she sought you out, she means business.”

“Oh, she means business, all right. She had a whole backpack full of tabloid clippings about me and Vanessa. She’d done her homework and had set up shop to get the goodies. I told her I had nothing to say about the Merritts and wasn’t interested in hearing anything she had to say about them.”

“Did she say anything about them?”

Gray chuckled. “Get ready for this one, buddy. She thinks Vanessa killed the baby and only claimed it was crib death.”

“I hope you’re joking.”

“Have you ever known me to joke?”

“Jesus Christ,” Spence whispered. “We knew she was out in left field, but… She actually believes Vanessa could do that? That’s preposterous.”

“Of course it is.”

“But if Travis even leaks something like that, I don’t have to tell you the harm it could do, not just to David and next year’s campaign, but to Vanessa. She’s very fragile now. George has had to increase her medication to keep her in balance. She’s grown real fond of the grape, which contributes to the problem. If Travis’s theory became public, Vanessa would fall apart completely.”

Gray could envision Spence’s mind clicking along its single track: protecting and preserving the presidency for David and therefore for himself.

“Where’s the Travis broad now?”

Gray shrugged. “On her way back to Washington, I guess. I told her to get lost.”