This time he had planned to have her stay the night. She had sung French cabaret songs for him and made a production of taking off her clothes. He had pulled her to the bed and kissed her all over.

But the mood had been destroyed. And probably it was just as well. He liked her too much.

And suddenly tears sprung to his eyes. It was one of those moments when he would have gladly given all his worldly goods just to be normal.

When he was twelve years old, he had asked the endocrinologist in Zurich to promise him that if he ever had children, they would not be dwarfs. The doctor had refused to make such a promise.

Gus had undergone a vasectomy when he was seventeen. By then he knew that he was as tall as he was ever going to be and that his ugly, disproportioned body would be his for life. With his family’s vast wealth, he realized there would be women willing to marry him, but no woman was ever going to love him. He had kept a succession of mistresses, each for a shorter period of time than her predecessor, until he decided to end the practice. For several years now, Felipe-who had served as Gus’s bodyguard/valet since his prep-school days-arranged his sex life for him, booking both the hotel suite and the woman, always in the middle of the night, when it was easier for Gus to slip in and out back entrances unobserved. Because of his short stature, Gus preferred to be in bed when the woman arrived. Nothing pleasured Gus more than watching a beautiful, long-legged woman pleasure him, especially if she was skillful at prolonging the process. He preferred never to have the same woman twice but on occasion broke his own rule. This was Suzette’s fourth time.

Felipe brought his cell phone. “The ranch,” he said.

Gus called Montgomery’s private line.

“Jamie Long is gone,” she said in a near-hysterical voice as soon as she answered the phone.

“Gone?”

“Oh, Gus, I am so dreadfully sorry,” she moaned. “The security office called to say that the front gate had been opened. I went immediately to Jamie’s apartment. She’s gone, Gus,” she said, her voice breaking. “Packed up and gone.”

“On foot?” Gus asked.

“No, in her car,” Montgomery admitted, her words interspersed with gasping sobs.

“Okay, Montgomery, take a deep breath and calm down,” Gus said.

He could hear her sniffling a bit and drawing in her breath. “That’s good,” he said. “Now, how did the girl get access to her car?”

“She demanded that it be brought over here so she could start putting her possessions in it. She said she wanted to be ready to leave here as soon as possible after the baby was born. At first I told her that the car wasn’t in running condition and a part had to be ordered for it. Then I stalled for more time, telling her it was hard to find parts for a car that old. But she went to the motor pool and saw the car up on blocks and covered with dust and realized that no one had touched it in months. She told me that she was going on a hunger strike and wouldn’t eat a morsel of food until the car was up and running and parked out back. I didn’t know she had an extra key to the car,” she moaned, the sobs beginning again. “I’d gone over her apartment with a fine-tooth comb. Not just when you told me to take her copy of the contract. I went through it several times. Every inch of it. And there were no keys. Not a one. I swear there weren’t. I would have taken them if there were.”

“Well, obviously, the girl got the car started some way,” he said, his tone hard and flat.

There were several seconds of silence before Montgomery said, “Yes. Of course, she did.” Her voice was calmer now. Almost too calm. “I am so sorry, Gus. I have failed you and our darling Amanda. And Sonny. I have failed you all, and I want to die. I just want to die.”

Gus took a deep breath in an effort to control his anger. “Now, Montgomery,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. “What we need to do is work our way through this. How long ago did the girl leave?”

“Less than thirty minutes.”

“Do you have any idea what caused her to bolt?”

“I think she was getting suspicious. Jamie knew that Amanda was claiming to be pregnant with a baby due about the same time as the one she was carrying. And she got upset when I wouldn’t allow her to call the secretary in Bentley Abernathy’s office and when she realized that she wasn’t really enrolled in the correspondence course. Then she quizzed me about when and how she would receive the money that would be owed to her after the baby was born. She wanted some sort of documentation showing that arrangements had been made and the money would be put in her bank account as soon as the baby was born. I told Amanda to call and reassure her, but I don’t think she ever did. And…” Montgomery paused.

“What?” Gus demanded.

“I probably should have told you sooner, but I didn’t think it was all that important…”

“Told me what?” Gus demanded.

“I think that Jamie may have been up in the tower. That maybe she talked to your mother and saw Sonny.”

“What makes you think such a thing?” Gus asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

“Mary Millicent asked me about the blond pregnant girl,” Montgomery admitted. “She was upset because the girl stopped coming to see her. She said that Jamie was Sonny’s girlfriend and that she was going to have Sonny’s baby.”

“Jesus Christ!” Gus yelled, no longer trying to hold back his anger. “How could my mother have known that? And how did that girl get access to her?”

“I don’t know, Gus,” Montgomery moaned. “Somehow Jamie found the hidden door. I didn’t tell her about it. I swear that I didn’t.”

“You should have put a lock on the door and installed an alarm. Your two most important responsibilities were to keep Mother away from other people and to keep tabs on Jamie Long. Now you call me in the middle of the night to tell me that you have screwed up on both. I counted on you to take care of things down there.”

“I am so sorry, Gus,” she wailed. “I don’t understand how it could have happened. Should I call the county sheriff and tell him Jamie stole the items in the car?” Montgomery asked, her voice frantic. “Or I could send some of our people out to look for her. The weather has turned bad, and she couldn’t have gone very far. I couldn’t let her stop eating, Gus. I was afraid it would hurt the baby.”

“Just shut up, damn it, and let me think!” Gus yelled.

Ann Montgomery dropped the receiver on the floor and put a hand to her throat. She found it difficult to breathe.

Gus had yelled at her. Her darling boy had yelled at her. The boy she had raised and mothered.

He didn’t love her anymore.

She had failed them. Failed Amanda and Gus. And Sonny, too.

She stared down at the telephone receiver. Gus was still yelling, using the Lord’s name in vain, demanding that she pick up the phone and talk to him.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I wanted that baby more than anything.”

Now even if Gus let her stay on at the ranch, she would no longer be in charge. And even if Jamie Long was found and brought back here to have the baby, Ann knew that she might be allowed to spend the rest of her life wiping Mary Millicent’s bottom but she would never be permitted to care for Sonny’s baby.

She stretched out on the bed she had shared with Buck, the bed in which she had birthed his baby. Her poor little dead baby boy. She had bathed his lifeless little body and kissed him all over and smoothed talcum powder on his skin and wrapped him in the blanket she had crocheted for him. When Buck came, she placed the baby in his arms. He told her it was for the best. She hated Buck for saying that, but he had gone with her to the cemetery and dug a grave. And weeks later, a wooden marker with the inscription “Stillborn Baby” appeared on the grave.

For the longest time afterward, Ann would sprinkle talcum powder on her pillow and pretend it was her baby while she rocked it in her arms. And she begged God to please let her baby into heaven, a baby who had been born of sin but had not sinned himself.