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"Do you ever read any of those?"

The familiar voice caused Barrie to groan. Howie Fripp was the news department's assignments editor, her immediate supervisor, and an all-around pain in the butt.

"Of course I read them," she lied. "Cover to cover."

She subscribed to a number of periodicals. The magazines arrived regularly, creating skyscrapers on her desk until she was forced to throw them away, more often than not unread. She faithfully read her monthly horoscope in Cosmopolitan. That was about the extent of the time she spent with the magazines, but on principle alone she wouldn't let her subscriptions lapse. All good broadcast journalists were news junkies, reading everything they could get their hands on.

And she was a good broadcast journalist.

She was.

"Doesn't it bother your conscience to know that thousands of trees give up their lives just to keep you in reading matter that you don't read?"

"Howie, you're what bothers me. Besides, you're one to preach environmental awareness when the smoke from your four packs a day pollutes the atmosphere."

"Not to mention my farts."

She despised that evil little grin of his almost as much as she despised the small minds that managed WWE, a low-budget, substandard, independent television station struggling to survive among the monolithic news operations in Washington, D.C. She'd had to beg for the budget to produce the feature stories that had won the First Lady's praise. She had ideas for many others. But the station's management, including Howie, weren't of a similar mind. Her ideas were blocked by men who lacked vision, talent, and energy. She didn't belong here.

Isn't that the belief clung to by prison inmates?

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"Thank you, Howie, for not mentioning your farts."

She plopped down in her desk chair and dug tunnels through her hair with her fingers, holding it off her face. Her coiffuer hadn't been much to brag about, but the damp wind on the restaurant terrace had played havoc with it.

Strange choice of meeting places.

Even stranger was the meeting itself.

What purpose did it serve?

On the drive back to the station, Barrie had reviewed each word that was said during her visit with the First Lady. She'd analyzed every inflection in Vanessa Merritt's voice, gauged each hand gesture, assessed her body language, reviewed that disturbing final question that had served as her goodbye, but she still couldn't pinpoint exactly what had happened. Or exactly what hadn't.

"Checked your e-mail?" Howie asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"Not yet."

"'That tiger that escaped from the traveling carnival? They found him. He hadn't escaped after all. Ergo, no story."

"Oh nooo!" she said dramatically. "And I was so looking forward to covering that."

"Hey, it could've been big news. The cat could've eaten a kid or something." He looked genuinely forlorn over the missed opportunity. "It was a crap assignment, Howie. You always stick me with the crap assignments. Is it because you don't like me, or because I'm a woman?"

"Jeez, not that feminist routine again. You PMS, or what?"

She sighed. "Howie, you're hopeless."

Hopeless. That was it. Vanessa Merritt had seemed hopeless.

Impatient to explore that avenue of thought, Barrie EXCLUSIVE 11

said, "Look, Howie, unless there's something specific that's brought you by, I've got a lot to do here, as you can see."

Howie backed up to the partition separating her stallas she thought of the cramped cubicle-from the neighboring one. Regardless of the season, he wore short-sleeved white shirts. Always. Always with black trousers that were always shiny. His neckties were clip-on. Today's selection was particularly ugly and had a stain on its fraying tip, which reached only the center of his barrel chest, which was far out of proportion to his nonexistent butt and spindly, bowed legs.

Crossing his arms and ankles simultaneously, he said, "A story would be nice, Barrie. You know, a story. What you're paid to produce, more or less on a daily basis. How about one for this evening's news?"

"I was working on one that didn't pan out," she muttered as she booted up her computer.

- "What was it?"

"Since it didn't ,pan out, what's the point of discussing it?"

Vanessa Merritt had said that the months leading up to her baby's birth had been intolerable. Even without the strong, descriptive word, her demeanor alone had made it clear that she'd had a very rough time.

Following the child's birth, "intolerable" had gotten worse. But what had been so :intolerable? And why tell me?

Howie rambled on, unaware that she was only half-listening. "I'm not asking for live coverage of somebody getting his head blown off, or man's first steps on Mars, or some extremist from the Nation of Islam holding the pope hostage in the Vatican. A nice, simple little story would do.

Something. Anything. Sixty seconds of fill between the second and third commercial breaks. That's all I'm asking for."

"How short-sighted of you, Howie," Barrie remarked. "If that's the best motivational speech you can give, no

12 Sandra Brown

wonder you get such unsatisfactory results from your underlings."

He uncrossed his limbs and drew himself up to his full height of five feet six inches, and that was with elevators in his scuffed wingtips. "You know what your problem is? You've got stars in your eyes. You want to be Diane Sawyer. Well, here's a news flash for you-you aren't. And you aren't ever going to be. You aren't ever going to be married to a famous movie director or have your own news magazine show. You aren't ever going to have respect and credibility in this business. Because you're a screw-up and everybody in the industry knows it. So stop waiting for the bag story and settle for something that you and your limited talent can handle. Something I can put on the air. Okay?"

Barrie had tuned him out just after the "stars in your eyes" statement.

The first time she'd heard this speech was the day he hired her, out of the goodness of his heart, he'd said. Besides, he'd added, management had been after him to hire another "skirt," and Barrie was "okay-looking." She'd heard the same speech almost every workday since. Three years of them.

There were a few messages on her e-mail, but nothing that couldn't be handled later. She turned off her computer and came to her feet. "It's too late to do anything for tonight, Howie. But I'll have a story for you tomorrow. Promise." Grabbing her satchel, she slung it back onto her shoulder.

"Hey! Where're you going?" he shouted after her as she brushed past him.

"To the library."

"What for?"

"Research, Howie."

As she passed the cold drink machine, she banged it with her fist. A Diet Coke rolled out of the chute.

She took that as a good omen.

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Juggling her satchel, an armload of library books, and her keys, Barrie unlocked the back door of her townhouse and stumbled inside. The moment she crossed the threshold, she was subjected to an ardent, wet kiss on the lips.

"Thanks, Cronkite." She wiped the slobber from her face. "I love you, too."

Cronkite and the rest of his litter had been destined for euthanasia at the pound on the day that Barrie decided she needed a four-legged companion after a two-legged one announced he needed space and walked out of her life forever.

She'd had a difficult time choosing which pup to spare, but she'd never regretted her choice. Cronkite was large and long-haired, with definite ripples of golden retriever in his gene pool. Big brown eyes adored her worshipfully now, while his tail beat a happy tattoo against her calf. "Go do your thing," she told him, nodding toward her patch of backyard. "Use your doggie door." He whined. Barrie sighed. "Okay, I'll wait. But hurry.

These books are heavy."

He watered several shrubs happily, then dashed inside ahead of Barrie.

"Let's see if there's anything interesting in the mail," she said as she made her way to the entry where her mail lay in a heap beneath the slot in the front door. "Bill, bill, overdue bill. Invitation to dinner at the White House." She looked at the dog, who tilted his head inquisitively.

"Just checking to see if you were paying attention."

Cronkite followed her upstairs to her bedroom, where she exchanged her dress and heels for a Redskins jersey that came almost to her knees and a pair of gym socks. After running a brush through her hair, she pulled it into a pony-tail. Regarding her reflection in the mirror, she mumbled,

"Stunning," then put her appearance out of her mind and focused on work.

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ra ,~d_rrown

Over the years, she had cultivated numerous sourcesclerks, secretaries, illicit lovers, chambermaids, cops, a handful of people in key positions-who occasionally provided her with valuable information and reliable leads. One was a young woman named Anna Chen, who worked in the administration office of D.C. General Hospital. The juicy scuttlebutt Anna Chen picked up through the hospital grapevine frequently led to good stories. She was one of Barrie's most reliable sources.

Hoping it wasn't too late to catch her at the office, Barrie looked up her number in her home Rolodex and dialed. The hospital operator put her right through.

"Hi, Anna. This is Barrie Travis. Glad I caught you."

"I was on my way out. What's up?"

"What would be my chances of getting a copy of the Merritt baby's autopsy report?"

"Is this a joke?"

"That slim?"

"Nigh to impossible, Barrie. Sorry."

"I thought so, but it never hurts to ask."

"Why do you want it?"

She did some verbal acrobatics as to her reason, which seemed to pacify her source. "Thanks anyway, Anna."

Disappointed, Barrie hung up. An autopsy report would have been a good starting point, although she was still unclear as to exactly what she was starting.

"What do you want for dinner, Cronkite?" she asked as she loped downstairs to the kitchen. She opened the pantry and recited the menu selections.

"Tonight's specialties include Kibbles and Bits, Alpo chicken and liver, or Gravy Train." He whined with disappointment. Taking pity, she said,

"Luigi's?" Out came his long, pink tongue, and he began panting like a pervert at a peep show.

Her conscience told her to have a Lean Cuisine for din-EXCLUSIVE 15

ner, but what the hell? When you spent your evenings at home in a football jersey and gym socks, conversing with a mongrel and having nothing to look forward to except hours of research, what difference did a few hundred fat grams make?

While she was on the telephone ordering two pizzas, Cronkite began whining to go outside. She covered the telephone mouthpiece. "If it's that urgent, use your doggie door." Cronkite glanced disdainfully at the opening cut in the back door. It was large enough to accommodate Cronkite, but not so large that she worried about intruders. As she was reiterating her pizza order, she jabbed her index finger toward the doggie door. Looking humiliated, Cronkite crawled through it. She was off the phone by the time he was ready to come back inside, so she opened the back door for him.

"The pizzas are guaranteed in twenty-five minutes or we get them free."

While waiting for the delivery, she poured a glass of merlot and carried it up to the third floor, which she had converted into a home office. She had cashed in a trust fund to purchase the townhouse, located in the fashionable Dupont Circle district. The building was quaint and had character and was also convenient to everything in the city.

Initially she had leased out the top floor, which was a self-contained apartment. But when her renter moved to Europe with six months left on her lease, Barrie used the extra money to convert the three cramped rooms into one large studio/office.

One entire wall of the room was now devoted to videotape storage. She had shelves upon shelves of them. She saved all her own reports, newscasts of historical significance, and every news magazine show. The tapes were alphabetized according to subject. She went straight to the tape she wanted, loaded it into the VCR, and watched it while slowly sipping her wine.

16 Sandra Brown

The death and funeral of Robert Rushton Merritt had been thoroughly documented. The tragedy seemed doubly unfair since it had happened to the Merritts, whose marriage was considered the epitome of perfection.

President David Malcomb Merritt could have been a poster boy for any young American male who aspired to hold the office. He was classically handsome, athletic, attractive, and charismatic to men and women alike.

Vanessa Merritt was the perfect armpiece for her husband. She was gorgeous. Her beauty and southern-bred charm somehow made up for any shortcomings. Such as wit. And wisdom. She wasn't considered a dynamo in the brains department, but nobody seemed to care. The public had wanted a First Lady with whom to fall in love, and Vanessa Armbruster Merritt had easily fulfilled that need.

David's parents were long deceased. He had no living relatives. Vanessa's father, however, more than compensated for this lack. Cletus Armbruster had been the senior senator from Mississippi for as long as anyone could remember. He'd survived more presidents than most Americans remembered voting for.

Together they formed a photogenic triumvirate as famous as any royal family. Not since the Kennedy administration had an American president, his wife, and their personal life attracted so much public attention and adoration, nationwide and around the world. Everything they did, everywhere they went, singly or together, created a stir.

Consequently, America went positively ga-ga when it was announced that the First Lady was pregnant with the couple's first child. The baby would make perfection even more perfect.

The baby's birth was given more press than Desert Storm or the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Barrie remembered

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watching, from a newsroom monitor, the umpteenth story on the Merritt baby's arrival at the White House. Howie had sourly remarked, "Should we be on the lookout for a bright star in the East?"