"Damn! Why did I have to get involved in this?" Steve complained, but lowered his voice when more kitchen staff walked in. He looked like he wanted to go and attack the White House wine cellar to fortify his sagging spirits. If he did, his choices would be limited. The place had only carried American-made wine since the Ford administration.

"We have to do something," she hissed. "If somebody finds out I got this letter and then didn't do anything about it… I won't have her blood on my hands. I won't! And now you know too. You got to do something."

"Just calm down." Steve thought for a few moments. "Look, let me make a call." He thrust the letter back in her hands.

Five minutes later a woman dressed in a black suit walked into the kitchen and asked Shirley to follow her. They passed into a part of the massive house Shirley had never been to before. As she looked around at all the people rushing this way and that, and then the stoic men and women standing at attention outside doorways, and still others in military uniforms or else nice suits carrying thick binders and looking harried, she felt her mouth drying up. These were folks you saw on the TV all the time. Important people. She just wanted to run back to the kitchen and finish making her fruit and cheese platter.

When they arrived at the woman's office she wheeled on Shirley and said sternly, "This is highly irregular."

"I didn't know what to do. Did Steve tell you about it?" Shirley added nervously.

"Yes. Where's the letter?"

Shirley slipped the envelope from her pocket and handed it to the woman. "Read it for yourself, ma'am. What else could I do?" she said.

The woman put the key on her desk, unfolded the letter, and read through it, her eyes widening as she did so. She quickly put the two items back in the envelope. "I want you to go back to work and forget you ever saw this."

"Yes, ma'am. Are you gonna give it to her?"

The woman had already lifted up her phone. "That's not your concern."

After Shirley left the room, the woman punched in a number and spoke quickly. Minutes later a man, even more stern-looking than her, arrived and took the envelope.

He walked hurriedly up a staircase, crossed a broad foyer, headed down another hall, and finally arrived at a door. He knocked quietly. A woman opened the door, took the letter, and closed the door without exchanging a word with her visitor.

A minute later the letter was placed on the woman's desk, the door was closed, and the lady sat alone staring down at the plain white envelope.

Jane Cox took out the letter and read through it. The writer had been concise. If Jane wanted Willa Dutton back alive and well, the next letter that would be sent could not be shown to anyone else. If the police got hold of it, the writer said that he would know. And the contents of that letter, the writer claimed, would destroy everything if the public became aware of the contents. And it would cost Willa Dutton her life.

She read through one critical part several times. It said, I do not want to kill the girl, but if I have to, I will. The next letter you will be sent will reveal a lot. In some ways, it will reveal everything. If the public finds out, all will be lost for you. I know that you know what I mean. If you follow the instructions, Willa will come back to you alive and well. If you don't Willa dies and everything else will be over. That is the only way it can be.

The writer informed her that the next letter would be sent to a P.O. box in D.C. that was identified for her in the letter. That was what the key was for. To open the mailbox.

Jane sat back in her chair. There was a creeping dread working its way through her body that was nearly incapacitating. She picked up her phone and then put it back down.

No, she would not make that call. Not yet. She locked the letter away in her desk and slipped the key in her jacket pocket.

She was hosting a reception in ten minutes for a delegation of female governors and other women in politics who were in town for a caucus on healthcare reform. She was to give brief remarks, all carefully typed out and waiting for her at the lectern set up in the East Room. It was the sort of thing she had done hundreds of times before, and almost always flawlessly. She'd had lots of practice. The White House typically entertained thousands of such visitors a week.

Now she knew it would take all her willpower merely to walk to the lectern, open the book, and read the words someone else had written for her. As she walked down the hall five minutes later surrounded by her staff and security, her mind was not on healthcare reform. Nor was it on the contents of the letter.

After she pressed him mercilessly, her brother had finally told her what Sean had asked him over the phone.

Was Willa the adopted one?

She stumbled a bit as she thought this, and a Secret Service agent immediately took her arm.

"Ma'am, are you okay?"

"Fine. I'm fine. Thank you."

She marched on, going into full-scale First Lady mode.

But one terrible thought pierced this usually rock-solid armor like it was paper.

Is the past finally catching up?

CHAPTER 40

QUARRY DROVE. Gabriel was in the middle, and Daryl on the other side of him. The truck rocked, pitched, and rolled until it reached the firmness of asphalt. They'd spent pretty much all day in the fields and were bone-tired. But this visit was not an option. They'd headed out right after dinner.

Gabriel looked out the window and said, "Mr. Sam, I think you were right about old Kurt. He moved on. Not hide nor hair of him."

Daryl glanced at his father but said nothing.

Quarry said nothing either, just kept one hand on the wheel and stared dead ahead, the smoke curling off the end of his Winston. They pulled into the parking lot of the nursing home. As they climbed out Quarry snatched a cassette recorder off the dashboard, crushed his smoke out on the pavement, and they all headed in.

As they moved down the hall, Quarry said, "Been a long time since you visited your sister, Daryl."

Daryl made a face. "Don't like seeing her like that. Don't want to remember her that way, Daddy."

"She didn't have any choice about it."

"I know that."

"She might look different on the outside, but your sister is still in there."

He pushed open the door and they walked inside.

The nurses had turned Tippi on her right side, so Quarry slid chairs over that way. He slipped the Jane Austen book out of his pocket and handed it to Daryl.

"I ain't no good at reading," Daryl said. "Especially that old stuff, Daddy."

"Give it a whirl. I'm not handing out prizes for performance."

Daryl sighed, took the book, sat down, and started reading. His delivery was halting and slow, but he was doing his best. When he made it through four pages, Quarry thanked him and then handed the book to Gabriel.

The little boy was clearly the superior reader and he whipped through an entire chapter, getting into the personalities of the characters and changing his voice to accommodate them. When he was done Quarry said, "Didn't sound like you were too bored that time, little man."

Gabriel looked sheepish. "I read the book back at Atlee. Figured if you and Miss Tippi liked it so much I needed to give it another go."

"And your verdict?" Quarry asked, a smile playing across his lips.

"Better than I thought it would be. But I still can't say it's my favorite."

"Good enough."

Quarry set the cassette recorder on the nightstand next to the bed and turned it on. He picked up Tippi's hand and held it tightly as the voice of Cameron Quarry, Sam's dead wife and Tippi's mother, engulfed the room. She was talking directly to her daughter, expressing words of love and encouragement and hope and all the things she was feeling in her heart.