by Sandra Brown
“Two agents went to WVUE and questioned him about me.” She recounted for Daily everything she could remember that Howie had related to her. “They scared him shitless. Literally. He went into details that don’t bear repeating about distress in his lower bowel.”
“This is no laughing matter, Barrie.”
Another defense mechanism she’d developed during childhood was a sardonic sense of humor. This time her wit did nothing to alleviate the grave situation. She had hoped that Daily would dismiss her concerns. Instead, he was underscoring them. “What do you think it means?”
“I think it means that you’ve made people nervous.”
“What people?”
“Maybe just Dalton Neely. Your repeated calls have annoyed the White House press secretary; they insinuate that he’s being less than truthful about the First Lady’s well-being. His way of telling you to back off is to sic the feds on you.”
“Or?”
“Or,” he sighed, “it could go all the way up to the Oval Office. Did Howie have any theories?”
“He and Jenkins were told that the inquiry was strictly routine, then Howie told them that my interest in Vanessa was a friendly outgrowth of the recent interview.”
“Did they buy that?”
“They seemed to. That probably capped it.”
“Probably.”
After a moment she said, “Daily, we’re agreeing on a point that neither of us believes.”
They were quiet for a while, the only sound on the line being Daily’s wheezing breath. Finally he asked, “I almost forgot—how was Bondurant?”
Her heart executed a flawless swan dive. How was Bondurant? In or out of bed? In bed, he was bloody fabulous. Out… “About what I expected. Hostile. Taciturn.”
“Didn’t greet you with open arms, huh?”
In a manner of speaking, he had. “Well, not exactly.”
“Did he shed any light on the topic?”
“Not a ray. Not on purpose anyway. I’m convinced that there were some strong feelings between him and Vanessa. At least from his side.”
“You think they did the nasty thing?”
“Consummated or not, he’s still emotionally attached. In an unguarded moment, he lamented the hell she must be going through. I presume he was referring to her grief over the baby’s death.”
“Never presume anything, Barrie. Don’t you listen? Don’t you learn? Get the facts.”
“Well, I’m not going back for another round with him, if that’s what you’re suggesting. He told me to forget my story and, short of that, to forget him. I intend to do the latter. I’ll get my story, but I’ll get it sans Bondurant.”
“What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing’s going on with me.” God, she would die if Daily ever found out how she had sacrificed her journalistic integrity and objectivity to several minutes of sexual bliss.
“Okay,” he said without conviction. “You just sound awfully defensive.”
“I’m worried about my story.”
“So you’re sticking with it?”
“Absolutely. Since when does a minor reporter’s employer warrant a visit from the FBI? The more doors that are closed on me, the more convinced I become that somebody has something to hide.”
“When are you coming back?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll pick up the trail in Washington. Any news about Vanessa?”
“Same old shit.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow night when I get home. Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said, not sounding fine at all. “Barrie? If you’ve stumbled over something really ugly… Well, just be careful. Okay?”
His concern was touching and made her homesick for him. Even after hanging up, she kept her hand on the receiver, reluctant to break the emotional contact. Daily was more like family than friend, more of a parent than either of her own had been.
Wearily, she went into the bathroom and began removing her clothes. The mirror over the basin was no kinder than the one above the bedroom dresser. She looked a fright. What was left of her makeup was thirty-six hours old. It was caked in the fine lines around her eyes, which seemed to etch themselves deeper on a daily basis. She was thirty-three. What would she look like at forty-three? Fifty-three? She had no basis for comparison. Her mother hadn’t lived that long.
Barrie pushed aside the shower curtain and turned on the water. She yelped when the shower spray struck her chest and looked down to see what had caused the stings. There were faint, pink abrasions on her breasts. Whisker burns.
God, what had she done?
She ducked her head beneath the nozzle, wishing the hard spray would pound out her memories of Gray Bondurant. Naked, he was lean and tough and supple. His body didn’t have the smooth perfection of youth. It had seen wear and tear. But its dents and dings made it all the more appealing, just as his graying temples and the creases around his eyes made his face more interesting.
She needed rest, she thought, working shampoo lather through her hair. Fatigue and stress were making her emotionally fragile and dangerously reflective. First on Daily. Then on her parents. Now on a tall, rangy man with laser-beam-blue eyes and a cruel mouth.
Didn’t your daddy love you?
No, Mr. Bondurant, he did not. He didn’t love my mother, either.
If he had, why had he cheated on her? Why had he made a habit of adultery all his married life? Why had he lied and denied her mother’s accusations, and engaged her in those vituperative shouting matches that had filled Barrie’s nights with misery and terror? Why had he continued torturing his family with his affairs until he died of a heart attack in a Las Vegas hotel room while his bimbo of the month was anointing his loins with coconut-flavored love gel? He hadn’t even had the consideration to drop dead in a decent manner.
And what had Barrie’s silly, stupid mother done? Had she ever rebuked him for betraying his marriage vows? Had she reviled him for ignoring his daughter, for being too busy screwing around to notice any of her rites of passage from infancy through young adulthood? Had she ranted and raved at him for being the least affectionate, least attentive parent in history? Even after his death, had she told anyone what a royal son of a bitch he was and always had been?
No. She had buried him in grand style, and then, unable to conceive of life without him, she went home and swallowed a bottle of pills.
One week, two funerals.
Yes, Mr. Bondurant, you surely struck a nerve.
Barrie stepped from the shower and reached for a towel. She’d read the books, listened to the talk shows. She knew the psychology. Girls rejected by their fathers usually went one of two ways: They became nymphomaniacs, looking for love and attention in whatever form, from every man they encountered, or they rejected men altogether, usually in favor of other women.
Barrie had done neither.
She hadn’t become a slut, craving male attention and relying on it for her sense of self-worth. Nor had she taken the other path. Her sexual appetite was whetted only by men. When she was with one whom she found physically attractive, charming after a fashion, intelligent to some degree, she enjoyed sex very much. Her one unbendable rule was that she set the time and the place and the parameters of the relationship. She called the shots.
Until this morning’s sexual episode.
Never had she lost control like that. That kind of mindless, heedless, reckless plunge into passion was hazardous to one’s psyche. Case in point, her own mother. Barrie had vowed not to repeat her mother’s fatal mistake of loving blindly and having that love abused.
Barrie would share her body when desire and circumstances permitted. But she had sworn never to let her head, and certainly not her heart, get fucked.
* * *
Gray woke just in time to see the pillow coming down over his face.
Instinctively he tried to reach for the pistol beneath his pillow, but his arms were pinned down by a pair of knees, one on either side of him, as his attacker crou
ched over his chest. He strained and struggled. He arched his body. He tried to pull in air that wasn’t there.
And the bastard was laughing.
Gray recognized the laughter a split second before the pillow was tossed aside. Spencer Martin’s face hovered above his, grinning. “You’re going soft out here on the frontier, old man.”
Gray threw him off and rolled out of bed. “You damn lunatic. I could’ve killed you.”
“Haven’t you got that backward?” Spence said, still laughing. “I could’ve killed you.”
“What the hell are you doing here, sneaking into my house, playing games? Jesus, what time is it? I gotta pee.”
“Glad to see you, too, Gray.” Spence followed him as far as the bathroom door. “You’ve lost a few pounds.”
Gray reached for a pair of blue jeans hanging on the back of the door. As he stepped into them, he appraised his former colleague. “You’ve put on a few. The White House chef must still know his stuff.”
Spence kept his rare grin in place. “Know what I’ve missed most since you left?”
“My charm?”
“Your total lack of it. Most people kiss up to me. I’m the President’s trusted adviser and best friend. No matter how rude I am, people go out of their way to kiss my ass. But not you, Gray. You treat everybody the same. Like shit,” he added.
“So that’s why you’re here? You miss me?”
He led Spence through the house and into the kitchen. He had only one clock in the house, and it was over the stove. He checked the time. Almost daylight. It had been twenty-four hours since he’d entertained Barrie Travis in this room. The unsettling symmetry of that didn’t escape him.
“You never were much for laughs, Gray. But you were good to have around. You served your purpose.”
Gray shot Spence a telling look. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? I was there when you needed me most.” He held the stare for several tense seconds before turning away. “Coffee?”
“Please. Got anything to eat?”
He prepared a hearty breakfast similar to the one he’d fed Barrie the day before. As they ate, the silence was broken only by the clink of flatware against dishes. After a time, Spence asked, “Is it always like this?”
“Like what?”
“This quiet.”
“No.” Gray sipped his coffee. “Usually it’s quieter. There’s nobody talking.”
“Gray the loner,” Spence said. “The strong and silent, stalwart, unsmiling hero who eschewed publicity and sought a solitary life. Damn! It’s the stuff of legends. Who knows? Maybe a hundred years from now, schoolchildren will be singing folk songs about you.”
Gray was silent.
After the hostage rescue mission, he’d been approached by publishers and movie producers eager to turn his real-life adventure into entertainment. They’d offered staggering amounts of money, but he had never been tempted. He’d saved up enough to buy this place and live comfortably for the rest of his life. All he’d wanted was out, and out he was.
Gray removed the dishes from the table, then returned with the coffee carafe and poured each of them a refill. Finally, he brought the topic back to why Spence had come to Wyoming.
“You. Simple as that,” Spence said. “David sent me out to Seattle on an errand. I thought as long as I had to fly over, I’d drop in and check on you.”
David might have sent Spence on an errand, but nothing Spence did was ever simple. He had a multiplicity of motives for every action. That way, he was covered. He had fallback positions to take if an action came under close scrutiny by one of the checks and balances built into the federal system.
Spence had been the unqualified best of their entire infantry and reconnaissance division. He had aced everything—weapons, intelligence, survival. He knew no fear. Spence was a machine. Gray wouldn’t have been surprised to find a computer instead of a brain inside his skull. Or an engine inside his chest where a heart should have been.
He knew with absolute certainty that the man seated across the breakfast table from him had no soul.
“You’re lying, Spence.”
Spencer Martin didn’t even blink. “Fuckin’-A, I’m lying. And I can’t tell you how glad I am that you caught it, Gray. You’re as sharp as ever. Haven’t lost your edge.” He leaned forward. “He wants you back.”
Although he was surprised, Gray maintained his rigid calm.
“David needs you back in Washington,” Spence pressed.
“Like hell he does.”
“Hear me out.” Spence held up both hands, palms out. “He’s a proud man. Hell, I don’t have to tell you that. He’s stubborn and determined, and the hardest thing for him to do is back down or apologize for being wrong.”
“So he sent you to do it for him.”
“I’m not groveling, but I’m asking, on David’s behalf, that you get your ass back to Washington, where it belongs.”
“My ass belongs right where it is.”
Spence glanced at the spectacular scenery through the windows. “You’re not Grizzly Adams, Gray.”
“I like the mountains.”
“So do I. They’re great for climbing and skiing and yodeling. Keep the place here for vacations—but return with me to Washington. Your talents are being wasted. The President needs you. I need you. The country needs you.”
“That’s a stirring speech. Who wrote it for you? Neely?”
“I’m serious.”
“The country needs me?” Gray snorted. “Cut the crap. The country doesn’t care if I’m dead or alive. I did the job I was trained to do. My country asked no more from me, and I sure as hell asked no more from it. That’s as it should be.”
“Okay, forget patriotic duty. What about David?”
“Hell, he doesn’t need me. His ratings are through the roof. The other party will sacrifice some poor bastard to run against him next year, but that’ll turn out to be an expensive exercise in futility, because David will serve his second term. He needs me like he needs a boil on his butt.”
“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.”
Spence was on his feet again. “I’d better call Washington. David will want to hear this immediately.”
“Phone’s in the bedroom on the nightstand.”
“Thanks. And, by the way, great breakfast,” Spence said over his shoulder as he left the room.
Gray turned on the radio to listen to the news and weather while he cleared the kitchen. Methodically he returned perishables to the refrigerator and staples to the pantry.