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While Merritt appreciated his top adviser's concern, he thought it was disproportionate to the problem. "I stand by my decision. The public needed to see Vanessa do that interview, Silence. She looked great. Sounded great."

Silence was still frowning. "Then why do I wish we'd never consented to it? I'm getting bad vibes. It bothers me that she made the initial contact with the reporter, not the other way around."

"That bothered me, too, at first," Merritt admitted. "But it turned out all right. It was good p.r. for her and for us. As George said, no harm was done."

When Silence failed to reply, the President looked at him sharply.

"Well, we'll see," Silence said, in his foreboding way.

e'"'165

"All right, who is he?"

"Who?" Barrie didn't even look up. In her lap was a pile of phone messages, cards, and letters from viewers, all relating to her SIDS

series. In her most optimistic dreams, she'd never expected so great a response.

"You're a sly one, Barrie, hiding this one from us."

36 Sandra Brown

Finally she raised her head. "Oh, my God!"

The newsroom receptionist was completely hidden behind the enormous floral arrangement she had carried into Barrie's cubicle. "Where do you want it?"

"Uh . . ." As always, the top of her desk was a hazard zone. "The floor, I guess."

After depositing the arrangement, the receptionist straightened up.

"Whoever he is, even if he looks like a toad, to lay out this many bucks for flowers, I say he's a keeper."

Barrie had opened the card attached to the bouquet and was smiling. "I'd say so too, but he's married."

"All the good ones are."

Barrie passed the card to the woman, whose eyes bugged when she read the familiar signature following the handwritten message. Her shriek brought several newsroom staffers crowding into the cubicle.

Barrie reclaimed the card and fanned herself with it. "Just a little token of appreciation from the President, extolling my talent and insight, praising me for the excellence of my series, and thanking me for the patriotic service I've performed."

"One more word and I'm gonna puke." Howie had joined the group.

Barrie laughed and replaced the card in its envelope. It would be something to show her grandchildren. "You're just jealous because you're not a personal friend of the Merritts." Howie and her other co-workers ambled out, a few grousing about the luck of some people.

When she was alone, Barrie placed a telephone call. Speaking softly, she asked, "Are you free tonight?"

"Are you serious?"

"What've you got in your freezer?"

"Two steaks."

"I'll bring the wine." She glanced at the bouquet. "And flowers. I'll be there in half an hour."

"You call that half an hour'?"

"Stop bitching and give me a hand." Barrie, carrying the President's bouquet, two bottles of wine, and a grocery sack, wedged her way through the front door of Daily Welsh's house.

"You rob a new grave, or what?" he asked.

"Read the card, smart-ass."

He plucked the card from the floral arrangement and gave a low whistle.

"Pretty impressive."

She smiled cheekily. "All in a day's work."

"What are you going to do for an encore?"

"Any other time, I'd offer a scathing comeback about your unfailing talent of throwing a wet blanket over everything good, but I'm tired, so I'll just let it pass and open the wine instead."

"That gets my vote."

Together they went into the kitchen, which was the most appealing room by default. It was a singularly ugly house. Daily arm-wrestled a stuck drawer to get the corkscrew.

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"How are you?" she asked, showing her concern.

"I'm not dead yet."

But Ted Welsh-or Daily, as he was known to friends-looked like the next labored breath might be his last. He'd developed emphysema from smoking countless cigarettes during the countless days he had worked to provide the public with news.

Fresh out of high school he had begun working as a gofer on a daily newspaper. Hence, his nickname. He'd worked his way up the ranks and through several journalistic media to become news chief at a network affiliate TV station in Richmond, from which he'd taken an early retirement due to the rapid progression of his disease.

Not yet old enough to receive Social Security-and probably never would he-he lived on a modest pension. The "steaks" thawing on the countertop were actually ground meat patties. Fearing as much, Barrie had picked up two T-bones when she stopped to buy the wine. Daily sipped the Sonoma County vintage while she prepared their dinner.

As he rolled his portable oxygen tank closer to his chair and out of her way, he said, "Cronkite will get a hard-on when he gets a whiff of those bones."

"Unlikely. He's been neutered."

"Oh, I forgot. You castrated even him."

She slammed a jar of meat marinade onto the counter and turned to him.

"Don't start that!"

"But it's true. You de-ball every guy you meet. It's your way of rejecting a man before he can reject you."

"I haven't rejected you."

"I don't count," he said on a wheezing laugh. "I'm too old and sick to get it up anyhow. I pose no threat. Which brings me to another point. You shouldn't waste your evenings coming to see me. If I'm the best you can do in the way of male companionship, your life's pretty pathetic."

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"But I love you, Daily." She closed the distance between them and kissed his cheek.

"Cut it out." He pushed her away. "And don't overcook those steaks. I want mine bloody."

Barrie wasn't deceived by his gruffness. Her affection for him was reciprocated. Their friendship had gotten off to a rocky start, but it was now unshakable. They had reached a comfort level where deprecations were almost equivalent to endearments.

"I'd take twenty years off my life for a cigarette," he remarked as they were enjoying after-dinner coffee in his living room.

"You already have."

"Oh. Right." He was seated in his threadbare recliner, his breathing apparatus at the side of the chair. Plastic tubing fed oxygen from the portable tank directly into his nostrils.

Across the room, Barrie was relaxing on the sofa. She pulled her feet up beneath her and hugged a throw pillow to her chest. "I was with someone else recently who was having a nicotine fit. Someone you would never expect."

"Who?"

"It's confidential."

"Who am I gonna tell? Nobody comes here but you."

"You could have other friends over. You don't invite anyone."

"I can't stand their pity."

"Then you should join a support group."

"Who wants to spend time with a bunch of sickies, sucking wind?

Literally."

"We've had this conversation before," she said in a sing-song voice.

"Let's not do it again tonight."

"Fine with me," he growled. "Who's the mystery smoker?"

She hesitated. "Our First Lady."

40 Sandra Brown

His eyebrows lifted with interest. "No shit? Preinterview jitters?"

"No. That day we met for coffee."

"Now that you've interviewed her one on one, do you still think she's a dimwit?"

"I never thought that."

He gave her a look. "You've called her that a dozen times, sitting right where you are now. Mississippi Belle. Isn't that your nickname for her?

You've described her as one of those women who never have an original thought, or pretend not to. All her opinions are formed by men, men she fawns over, namely her father and her husband. She's vacuous and vapid.

Have I left out anything?"

"No, that about covers it." Sighing, Barrie absently traced the rim of her coffee cup with her finger. "That's still my opinion, but I also feel sorry for her. I mean, losing your baby. Lord."

"So?"

Barrie didn't realize that she'd lapsed into a thoughtful silence until Daily's question nudged her out of it. "So, what?"

"You're gnawing your inner cheek, a sure sign that something's on your mind. I've been waiting all evening for you to unload it, whatever it is."

She could hide her feelings from everyone else, including herself, but never from Daily. When she was puzzled, or troubled, or otherwise stressed, he homed in on it with the inner radar that had made him an excellent newsman.

"I don't know what it is," she told him honestly. "It's just this . . ."

"Itch at the back of your neck?"

"Something like that."

"Probably means you're on to something, but you don't know what."

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Daily leaned forward in his chair, his eyes shining as brightly as those of a firehouse dog at the first clang of the bell. There was color in his cheeks, making him look healthier than he had in weeks, rejuvenated by the scent of a hot lead.

His keen interest made Barrie feel guilty for having broached the subject.

She was setting him up for a big disappointment. There probably was no story here. On the other hand, what harm could come from sharing a few thoughts? Maybe he could make sense of them. Either that, or he could tell her there was no life in her sketchy ideas.

"The SIDS series has generated a lot of interest," she began. "Did I tell you I got it on the bird?" Her series had been fed to a satellite, allowing it national coverage.

"It's certainly given your career a kick in the butt," Daily said. "Which is what you wanted, isn't it? So what's the problem?"

She stared into her cup, swirling the coffee that had grown too cool to drink. "When I first met with her, she was having understandable guilt feelings, so I reminded her that no one can be blamed for a crib death-that it just happens. Curiously, she said, `Does it?'

"It was that question and the way she asked it that prompted me to research SIDS. Then I ran across a bizarre story of a woman who'd had four babies die of the syndrome. Which later proved not to be the case."

"She had that . . . that . . ."

"Munchausen syndrome by proxy," Barrie supplied. "Some crib deaths are now coming under suspicion. Mothers are being charged with killing their own babies to get attention.

"Well . . ." She took a deep breath and held it, raised her head, and gave him a puissant look.

He held her stare for a noticeable length of time. Finally he said, "Maybe I should adjust my oxygen level. I'm either

42 Sandra Brown

not getting enough, or I'm getting too much. For a minute there I thought you were suggesting that the First Lady of the United States killed her own baby."

Barrie set her cup on the coffee table and came to her feet. "I did no such thing."

"Sounded like it."

"That's not what I'm suggesting, Daily. I swear."

"Then why all this cheek gnawing?"

"I don't know! But something's not right." She dropped back onto the edge of the sofa and held her head between her hands. "I've been with Vanessa Merritt twice in the last few weeks. The first time, she was as strung out as a junkie on the second day of detox-a woman clearly on the verge of emotional collapse. The day of the interview, she was another person entirely. Superior. Cool. Controlled. Correct. And about as . . . as human as that coffee table."

"It was a good interview."

"It was passionless, Daily, and you know it," she shot back. His wince told her that he agreed. "The interview with Mrs. Merritt should have been the highlight of the series. Instead, it was the low point. She was plastic. If she'd been like that the first time, I probably wouldn't have noticed. But the contrast between the first Vanessa Merritt and the second was dramatic."

"So she popped a coupla Valiums before she went on camera," Daily said, shrugging.

"Probably. I'm sure she was medicated the night I saw her at that reception-either that or she was drunk. Gorgeous as ever, but vague.

Almost . . . I don't know . . . afraid. The President covered-

"And that's another thing," she said, interrupting herself and launching into another tangent. "He greeted me as though he and I were old chums.

Naturally I was flattered by his attention, but I thought it was odd. He was enthusiastic

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about the series, before and after it was produced. I mean, look at those flowers. What they cost would have made a substantial dent in the national debt."

"Then that shoots your theory all to hell, doesn't it? He wouldn't feel that way toward you and your series if it had shed an unfavorable light on his wife."

"I'm just surprised by the palsy-walsy treatment. I've been covering the White House beat for a long time. Why all of a sudden are the President and I good friends?"

"Barrie, you're a journalist. He's an incumbent facing reelection next year. He's got to schmooze all journalists. Win the press, win the election."

She had to concede the validity of Daily's explanation. David Merritt had, from his first term in Congress, known how to court the media. The love affair had lasted through his campaign for the presidency. The gilt was beginning to wear off the romance, although his media coverage remained largely favorable. But Barrie Travis was a small-time reporter who wielded zero influence. Why was he schmoozing her?

Her mind darted from one puzzle to another, as it had ever since her first meeting with Vanessa Merritt. She didn't stay with any one thought too long because she feared all of them were booby-trapped.

"I could probably shrug off the inconsistencies and still sleep nights, except for one thing," she told Daily. "And I think this is the real kicker. When we completed the interview, she hugged me. Me."

Daily continued playing devil's advocate. "It was good p.r.

"No, it was an excuse."

"For what?"

"To get close enough to whisper something in my ear that couldn't be overheard. She said, `Battle, please help me. Don't you know what I'm trying to tell you?' "

44 Sandra Brown

"Damn!"

"My sentiments exactly, Daily. That was the first and only time she displayed any honest emotion. She sounded desperate. What do you think she meant?"