Exclusive

A second-stringer with first-class talent, Barrie Travis is stuck at a low-budget independent television station struggling to survive among the giant networks. Then, suddenly, she receives an invitation from First Lady Vanessa Merritt for an off-the-record conversation. Barrie's reporter's instincts are instantly aroused. During a furtive, emotionally charged meeting, Barrie sees that the President's beautiful wife is stunned by grief after the crib death of her infant son. Vanessa's motive for meeting Barrie seems to be to share her heartache with another woman. What Barrie overlooks in her excitement at hearing the confidences of the First Lady are the questions she should be asking: Why would Vanessa Merritt call her? And why would the President's wife hint to an unknown reporter that her child may have been murdered? Blind to everything but getting her exclusive, Barrie is determined to investigate the death of the President's child. But she soon realizes that getting her story will test her ethics and her patriotism. Would she expose information that could topple the presidency? She confronts this problem when she tracks down Gray Bondurant, a former presidential aide and war hero who shunned the politics of Washington in favor of life on a remote Wyoming ranch. And when they both begin to follow a trail of lies and intrigue right to the White House door, Barrie's exclusive puts at least three people on the firing line: the First Lady, Gray, and herself - as crimes and ambitions combine to endanger their lives and the future of the nation.
"You're looking well, Mrs. Merritt." "I look like hell." Vanessa Merritt did indeed look like hell, but Barrie was embarrassed for having been caught paying an insincere compliment. She tried to recover gracefully. "After what you've been through, you're entitled to look a little frazzled. Any other woman, myself included, myself particularly, would settle for looking like you even at your worst." "Thank you." She gave her cappuccino a desultory stir. If nerves conveyed sound, Vanessa Merritt's would have clattered like her spoon when she shakily returned it to the saucer. "God. For just one cigarette, I'd let you pull out all my fingernails with pliers." She'd certainly never been seen smoking in public, so Barrie was surprised to learn that she was a smoker. Although a nicotine addiction might explain why she was so fidgety. Her hands were never still. She twirled her strand of pearls, played with the discreet diamond studs in her ear- 2 Sandra Brown"