Exclusive

by Sandra Brown

“Yes, ma’am. Just so they’d leave me alone. My head was hurting so bad. I’d vomited a couple of times. I was bad off. So I signed a paper saying that I’d killed my baby. But I didn’t. David Merritt killed him, and he left thinking he had killed me.”

  With Barrie offering very little guidance, Becky Sturgis told of the miscarriage of justice orchestrated by Senator Armbruster. He called in political favors. Within a matter of days, a judge sentenced her to life in prison. She was transferred from the county jail to the state prison, and there she had remained until two days ago, when Barrie learned of her existence from Charlene Walters. Attorney General Yancey had interceded with Mississippi authorities to have her brought to Washington.

  Barrie asked, “Do you think Senator Armbruster believed David Merritt over you? In your opinion, did the senator honestly believe he was seeing justice served by putting you in prison?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “But I suspect he double-crossed me so David wouldn’t get into trouble.”

  “You’re aware that David Merritt has believed you dead all these years?”

  “I didn’t know that until yesterday. I guess the senator double-crossed him too.”

  To protect her objectivity, Barrie refrained from stating the obvious: Senator Armbruster had kept Becky Sturgis in abeyance should he ever need to use her as leverage against his son-in-law. Barrie had discovered her before Armbruster became desperate enough to need her.

  “You’ve been in prison all this time, Miss Sturgis?”

  “Yes, ma’am. My parole’s been denied twice.”

  “Why? According to your records, you’ve been an exemplary prisoner.”

  “I don’t know why, ma’am. The board just rejects me.”

  Barrie let the silence stretch out so that her audience could reach another obvious conclusion: Armbruster had seen to it that Becky Sturgis would never get paroled.

  “A few years ago, you shared a cell with a woman named Charlene Walters. You told her your story.”

  Becky Sturgis nodded. “It was after David became president. At first Charlene didn’t believe me, thought I was making it up. But when his baby died in the White House nursery, she began to think maybe I had told her the truth. Especially after she saw your series on SIDS. It got Charlene to thinking that maybe Robert Rushton Merritt was one of those babies who’d been murdered and it was made to look like SIDS.”

  “Miss Sturgis, this is the most difficult question I’ll ask you tonight. I’m sure everyone wants to know why you didn’t come forward. All these years you’ve been in prison, why didn’t you bring it to someone’s attention that you’d been framed and then coerced into signing a false confession?”

  She shrugged, as though fully accepting the inconsequentiality of her life. “Nobody gave it a second thought when I disappeared. Nobody ever came looking for me. I hadn’t lived in that town long. I guess folks figured I’d drifted out just like I’d drifted in. I don’t have a family. Who was I going to tell?”

  “Didn’t you have a lawyer?”

  “Yes, ma’am. They appointed me one that night in the sheriff’s office, but he kept telling me that I’d be better off signing a confession. He said they might upgrade the charge to murder if I didn’t confess to manslaughter. In a murder trial, he said, I might lose and get the death penalty.

  “And besides, I was sick for a long time. I had headaches that would put me in the prison infirmary for days at a time. Sometimes I had blackouts and couldn’t remember sections of time. It was a couple years before I felt like my head was on straight.

  “That’s when I started writing letters to the lawyer, but he only answered a few of them. Then he stopped writing back altogether. I tried reaching him by phone, but I was always told he wasn’t there and he never returned my calls. One day this other lawyer—I’ve got his name written down somewhere—came to the prison to see me. He said my lawyer had died and that I wasn’t to bug them no more. If I did, there’d be hell to pay from Armbruster, he said. By that time, David was a congressman. I didn’t see the point in carrying on about it. Who would believe me over David Merritt and Clete Armbruster?”

  “That’s a good question, Miss Sturgis. Why should we believe you? What proof do you have that David Merritt killed your baby, beat you, and left you for dead?”

  “None. But I can prove that he was my baby’s daddy,” she said proudly. “The day my baby was killed, I clipped a curl from his hair and trimmed his fingernails. I’ve kept them all these years in a little papier-mâché box. Mr. Yancey has them now. He said they can run tests on them that’ll prove whether or not David’s the daddy. I didn’t want to let ’em go, ’cause that’s all I have of my baby. But Mr. Yancey promised to give them back soon as the lab is finished with them. People might think I’m lying, but my baby will tell them the truth.”

  Barrie couldn’t think of a more fitting note on which to end the interview. “Thank you, Miss Sturgis.”

  She turned and faced the studio camera as it rolled in for a close-up. “According to Attorney General Yancey, preliminary DNA testing of the hair and fingernail parings has indicated that David Merritt fathered Becky Sturgis’s son. This should go a long way toward getting her arrest and confession reviewed. Officials indicate that she’ll be granted a long overdue trial. It’s as yet undetermined whether David Merritt will be prosecuted for murder, although he’s already been charged with obstruction of justice, along with Senator Armbruster.

  “Senator Armbruster has been placed under house arrest. He officially resigned his Senate seat this afternoon. President Pietsch was sworn into office after Congress impeached David Merritt and demanded his resignation.

  “The former president is also under arrest inside Blair House, where he will remain until Attorney General Yancey has had an opportunity to organize two full-scale investigations, one involving the crimes in Mississippi, the other the death of Robert Rushton Merritt.

  “It’s too early to speculate what the final outcome of this incredible story will be. Over the course of our nation’s history, other presidents have weathered scandals, but there has been none to rival this.

  “Whether or not his alleged crimes are proved, David Merritt fled the scene of a crime in Mississippi to escape the giving of testimony and possible prosecution. That in itself is a federal offense and was cause enough to bring his administration as President of the United States to an end.

  “This is Barrie Travis. Good night.”

  * * *

  “Hi. Come on in.” Barrie stood aside and ushered Gray into the hotel suite where she’d taken up temporary residence.

  “Thanks. I’m honored to be in the same room with you. You’re a hot ticket.”

  “My celebrity hasn’t impressed room service. It still takes them forever to deliver a club sandwich.” She checked the clock. “Forty minutes and counting. Meanwhile, I’m starving.”

  “What’s wrong with the lights?”

  “Nothing. It seemed more restful this way.” The suite was in darkness, save for one dim lamp near the window. The draperies were open, revealing the beauty of the capital at night.

  Barrie was fresh out of a long, hot shower, wrapped from earlobes to ankles in a white terrycloth robe, compliments of the hotel. Her hair was still wet, hooked behind her ears.

  “Saw your interview,” he dropped casually.

  She looked at him expectantly, holding her breath.

  “It was good, Barrie.”

  While warming beneath his approving smile, she downplayed her success. “I didn’t do anything. The story told itself.”

  “If not for you, there’d be no story.”

  “If not for Merritt and Armbruster there’d be no story. I didn’t particularly enjoy what Becky Sturgis had to tell the world.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In a hotel. Bill has a couple of female marshals with her. She’ll be returned to the prison tomorrow and will have to remain there until her case is reviewed by a judge i
n Mississippi.”

  “The interview was so touching, there’ll be a public outcry for her release.”

  “At the very least, she’ll be granted a jury trial. I’ll be surprised if she’s convicted. If she is, she’ll probably be sentenced to time already served.”

  After a thoughtful moment, he asked, “What did CNN do to get you?”

  “They topped everybody else’s bid. What can I say?” she said, batting her eyelashes. “I can be bought.”

  “There’s your sandwich,” he said as he went to answer the door. He signed the bill and set the tray on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

  “Amanda Allan called,” she told him. “George is showing some signs that have encouraged the doctors. She’s optimistic. She loves him very much and is willing to forgive him anything if he survives.”

  “I would expect that of her,” he said. “How’s Daily?”

  “I’m covering his hotel tab now. I don’t want him ever to go back to that dreary house. It’s bad enough that he’s dying. He shouldn’t have to die there. Besides, I don’t think any of us could go back without remembering those last terrifying days we spent there.”

  “Where will he live?”

  She picked at the bread crust. “I’m thinking of buying a house. Something in the suburbs. With a mother-in-law room for Daily to live in. The insurance settlement on my townhouse was more than fair, and with the salary I’m negotiating, I’ll be able to get almost anything I want. I could get a dog to keep him company when I’m not there. I think I’m ready to love another one, although I’ll never replace Cronkite, of course.”

  “Have you bounced this idea off Daily?”

  “He snarled something about his not being ‘a fucking charity case,’ but he’ll come around,” she said, smiling fondly. Having eaten a quarter of her sandwich, she pushed the plate away.

  “I thought you were starving.”

  “Guess I wasn’t.”

  “What’s wrong, Barrie?”

  “Nothing,” she said impatiently. Then, reluctantly: “I don’t know.”

  “You’re right where you always wanted to be, on top of your profession with every network in the country clamoring to get you under contract. You can name your price. You had the interview of the century. I thought I’d find you guzzling champagne.”

  “That’s what I thought I’d be doing too,” she said ruefully. “But you’d be surprised what a downer it is to be the person responsible for toppling a president.”

  “You aren’t the person responsible. David brought about his own downfall.”

  “You’re right, of course. Up here,” she said, tapping her head, “I know you’re right. Maybe I’m ambivalent because of Howie. He was a casualty, and he shouldn’t have been. I feel I’m indirectly to blame.”

  “Spence is to blame.”

  She gave a despairing sigh. “I guess it’s sort of like postpartum. After a hard labor, I’ve delivered the baby, but I’m not sure I love it yet.” Averting her eyes, she said, “Pursuant to that, Vanessa called me this afternoon.”

  Gray looked at her inquisitively.

  “She thanked me for handling the Becky Sturgis interview in such a low-key manner when I could have exploited the story, made it more tabloid.” She paused and thought about that for a moment. “I suppose my restraint shows that I’m maturing. I’ve grown a lot, personally and professionally.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Anyway,” she said, shaking off the introspective tone, “Vanessa’s moving out of the White House tonight, but she’s not sad to be leaving because it holds such terrible memories for her.

  “Naturally she’s shattered by Becky Sturgis’s story. She kept repeating that she couldn’t understand how her father could have had a hand in something so nefarious—my word, not Vanessa’s. He not only covered up a violent crime, he allowed her to marry David. He encouraged it. She feels betrayed.”

  “Where has she left it with Clete?” Gray asked.

  “She claims she’ll never forgive him.”

  “Her rejection is no better than he deserves, but it’ll kill him.”

  Barrie nodded. “She’s promised Bill Yancey her full cooperation when he begins his investigation into Robert Rushton’s death. Now that she doesn’t have to fear for her life, she can tell the truth. David killed the baby, but it was Spence’s idea to blame it on SIDS.”

  “Sounds like him. Keeping things simple was Spence’s forte.”

  “Was Vanessa in love with him?”

  “With Spence? No. She wanted from him what she wants from every man—attention and protection. Out of spite, she gave David a taste of his own medicine, with a man whose loyalty David thought was incorruptible. But when Spence turned his back on her, she took the rejection hard.”

  “And turned to you.”

  “For friendship.”

  Barrie rose and made a restless circle around the coffee table. “I’m not sure that’s all she wanted.”

  “That’s all she got.”

  “You could have told me.”

  “There was nothing to tell.”

  “That’s what you could have told me.”

  “I didn’t want Vanessa, and I never had her. There. Satisfied?”

  “Yes. Was that so hard?”

  He steepled his fingers and placed them across his lips, then studied her until she squirmed beneath his stare. “What?” she demanded.

  “I think what’s really got you down is that I haven’t pledged my undying love.”

  She expelled an unladylike guffaw. “There you go, flattering yourself again. You have a bad habit of doing that, Bondurant.”

  “I’m here with you, Barrie,” he said quietly. Then he reached out, grabbed hold of the belt of her robe, and slowly pulled her to him. “This house you intend to buy, how big is it going to be?”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been offered a job in the Justice Department. Sort of a freelance job. Sounds interesting. I’ll be spending a lot of time in Washington and will need a place to stay.”

  “I see.” Her heart had picked up its pace. Her appetite had returned. In fact, she was ravenous. “What about Rocket, Tramp, and Doc?”

  “I’ll get somebody to watch them and the place while I’m away. There’ll be plenty of downtime with this job. I’ll get back to Wyoming frequently.”

  “You’ve got it all planned.”

  “Pretty much.”

  He tugged on the ends of the belt, opening her robe, then sliding his hands inside and resting them on her waist. His eyes held her transfixed. “You told me once not to look through you as though you don’t matter. You matter, Barrie. Throw out all that emotional garbage your parents left you with. Your father cheated nobody except himself. You matter a hell of a lot.”

  Then he drew her down to straddle his lap, curved his hand around her neck, brought her close, and kissed her, sliding his tongue erotically into her mouth, sending her tummy plummeting and her spirit soaring.

  His fingertips found her nipples tight and supersensitive. He pressed them, feathered them, molded her breasts while she wrangled with his clothing. His lips closed around one nipple as she took him inside her. She rode him with unabashed lust. Where had she learned to move like this? How had she come by this carnal skill to draw out his pleasure? From what pagan ancestor had she inherited this dark knowledge?

  Nothing in her experience matched the way her body responded to his, or her need to pleasure him. Seconds away from her orgasm, he sensed it. “Are you going to start yelling like you did last time?”

  “Unless you stop it.”

  “Not a chance in hell,” he groaned. He gripped her hips and held them in place.

  She gasped from the delicious pressure that created deep inside her. “I mean… unless you stop me… I might yell.”

  His mouth captured hers in another kiss, which disintegrated at the onset of their simultaneous orgasms. He buried his face in the cleft of her breasts. Her soft, sta
ccato sighs made dash marks of erotic sound in the darkness.

  Then she collapsed onto his chest, nuzzling his neck. He held her for a long time. When eventually he set her away from him, he brushed her wet hair from her face, traced her cheekbone with the tip of his index finger, stroked her damp lips with his thumb.

  He’d never demonstrated so much tenderness, and tears came to her eyes. She whispered a single word. “Bondurant.”

  “You know,” he said, “your voice alone makes me hard. It gets embarrassing.”

  Laughing softly, she leaned forward to take love bites out of his throat. “So it’s accurate to say that you’re definitely in lust with me?”

  When he didn’t respond, she pulled back to look into his face. He squinted, indicating she hadn’t quite nailed it.

  “Love?” she ventured weakly.

  He merely looked at her, his eyes answering with their trademark blue intensity.

  “Really?” she whispered.

  “Don’t get too excited. I’ll never remember your birthday, or Valentine’s Day, or anniversaries,” he told her. “I’m not the hearts-and-flowers type.”

  She placed her hands on his cheeks. “Will you cheat?”

  “No.” His tone left no room for doubt. “Never.”

  “Then I don’t need hearts and flowers.”

  “What about sex?”

  “Sex I need.”

  Later, they lay together on their sides, spoon-fashion on the wide bed. The cool smooth skin of her bottom was nestled against the fuzzy warmth of his middle. His chin rested on the crown of her head. His arm was around her, his hand possessively covering her breast. Occasionally his thumb drifted across her nipple. Occasionally she raised his hand to her lips and kissed the spot that still bore faint teeth marks where she’d bitten him weeks ago.

  She grew drowsy. Then just before falling asleep she spoke his name.

  “Hmm?”

  “You want to hear something ironic?” He didn’t say anything, but she knew by his stillness that he was listening. “I loved my father. Desperately.”

  Softly, into her hair, he whispered, “I know.”

  Epilogue

  The telephone on Barrie’s desk rang. She glanced at the clock. Five minutes until she was due on the set. Time to take one quick call. It might be Gray. Frequently he called just before airtime to tell her to break a leg—preferably his, as soon as she got home.