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  It was late September, three months since Keith’s death. When was Adam going to stop punishing her? Diane wondered, closing her eyes on her frustration. She’d tried repeatedly to beg his forgiveness for any laxity on her part, to explain that she’d taken her eyes from the boy mere seconds. Although Adam had said he believed her, nothing was the same.

  “Fitz, why is Adam shutting me out like this?” She heard the confusion, the fear, in her voice and wished she could have hidden it better from the brother she knew didn’t care for her.

  “It’s not a matter of shutting anyone out,” Fitz went on, wishing he’d let a secretary take the call. “It’s a matter of priorities. Adam has obligations. You’ve been a senator’s wife for nearly five years now. You know how busy Adam is when the Senate’s in session. Other wives are in the same boat. I’m sure you won’t be the only unattached woman there this evening.”

  “No, it’s not the same. He’s not the same since… since…”

  Fitz let out an exasperated sigh. There was no way he was going to be drawn into a discussion on this. “Look, I’m sorry, Diane, but I have to go. You should talk to your husband about this.”

  Torn between hurt and anger, Diane hung up. Damn Fitz for not seeing her side of it. And damn Adam for blaming her. She hadn’t been at fault, absolutely hadn’t.

  Moving to the bar in the apartment they rented in Chevy Chase, she poured herself a double bourbon and branch.

  Leaving his office and striding toward the committee room where Adam was attending a meeting, Fitz tried to walk off his annoyance. He knew damn well that Diane was right, that Adam was burying himself in a mountain of work and avoiding being with her. It was Adam’s way of handling his grief.

  He had no way of knowing if Adam thought that Diane had been careless that fateful day and that her negligence had caused Keith’s drowning. They’d never talked about it. Personally, Fitz didn’t think so. He wasn’t fond of Diane and knew she was devious. But even she wouldn’t let a helpless four-year-old drown, especially not when she must have been aware that Keith was the foundation of her marriage, the glue that held Adam to her. Diane was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

  It had been an accident, but one that Adam couldn’t seem to get over. His only escape was work and more work. He was making a real name for himself on Capitol Hill, but it was taking a toll on his health and his marriage. Still, that was Adam’s problem and not his, Fitz told himself as he entered the committee room. He should and would stay out of it.

  Liz stopped her nervous pacing of Richard’s den and turned to face the doorway as the tall, silver-haired man entered. Dr. Walter Emerson had been upstairs with Richard for over an hour. He set down his black bag and stepped over to the fireplace where she stood. Heart pounding, she waited.

  Gently he took her hands into his. “My dear, the news isn’t good,” he said.

  “Tell me, Walter.”

  The doctor sighed, as if weary of being the bearer of bad news. “It’s pretty much as I’d feared. Richard has cancer.”

  Liz pressed a fist to her lips, smothering a cry. “How… how bad is it?”

  He’d seen the blood drain from her face and led her over to the leather sofa. “He has five months, six at the most. It’s spreading rapidly.”

  “Dear God,” Liz murmured. “He’s always been so healthy. I knew he hadn’t been up to par for the last six months or so, but he claimed he was just working too many hours. He promised he’d cut down his hours, and now…”

  Sitting back, Dr. Emerson nodded. “Cancer is so insidious. It can start out so small, it’s nearly impossible to detect. It can go along sometimes for years, changing very little. Then something triggers the growth, it attaches to a vital organ, and suddenly there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Not surgery, not chemotherapy?”

  The doctor shook his head sadly. “It’s too far gone. Already in the bloodstream. Next, it’ll attack the bones, and…”

  Choking back a sob, Liz averted her face. No, this couldn’t be happening. Not to such a good man. “He’s only fifty-one, Walter.” Richard had complained of recurring indigestion for some time. He’d been admitted as an outpatient last week and had had a battery of tests. Then, this morning after his shower, he’d confided that the pain was so bad, he could scarcely walk. She’d put him to bed and called Walter, who’d been a friend of the Fairchild family for twenty years.

  “Cancer doesn’t discriminate as to age. It hits young and old and those in between.”

  “Does… does he know?”

  Walter released the button of his impeccable tan sport coat and nodded. “I brought over the test results—just got them back this morning—and went over them with him thoroughly. I’ve known Richard a long while, and we’ve discussed terminal illnesses many times. I knew he’d want to know, and I thought it would be easier if I told him.”

  Liz glanced through the doorway toward the stairs. She wondered what Richard was thinking as he lay in his bed in their room. Who was ever prepared for this kind of news?

  “He handled it well, as you might expect,” Walter went on, guessing the train of her thought. “I gave him a shot for the pain and something to help him sleep.”

  “He spent a very restless night. I just knew something was terribly wrong.” Liz found a tissue in the pocket of her white slacks and dabbed at her eyes. She couldn’t fall apart, for Richard’s sake. “We were going on a cruise next month when Sara gets out of school for the summer.” They had taken so few vacations. Why had they put off spending more leisure time together?

  Sara. How was she going to tell Sara that her father was dying? A precocious fifteen, she already suspected something wasn’t right. She’d been hovering around Richard the past few days, commenting on his lack of appetite, his discomfort in walking.

  Watching the play of emotions on Liz’s face, Walter took a steady breath. At sixty he’d been a doctor for over thirty years and had witnessed many deaths. But it never got easier, most especially when it happened to a friend. “Would you like me to help you tell Sara?”

  Liz shook her head. “Thank you, but I’ll do it.” There were some obligations you couldn’t pass on to outsiders. “Tell me what to expect.”

  “The pain will get increasingly worse. We’ll put him on a morphine drip as soon as I feel it’s necessary. The drug will flow intravenously, and he can press a button as needed to release a dose. It’s on a timed release, so he can’t overdose. Eventually, even that won’t kill the pain.”

  Liz could no longer stop the flow of tears. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

  Walter covered her two hands clasped tightly in her lap. “No one does. Richard told me he’d like to remain home as long as possible. You can hire nurses to assist you, or call the hospital. They have a wonderful hospice program.”

  Liz tried to absorb the things he was telling her, but it was all too much too quickly. “I’ll take care of him.”

  “When he no longer has control, when he slips into a coma, it would probably be best to hospitalize him.”

  She didn’t want to hear any more. Not now. Not until she’d had time to digest all this. “I’ll talk with him. I want to do whatever Richard wants.”

  Walter rose, aware she was still struggling with denial, a long way from acceptance. “I understand. Of course, we’ll follow your wishes.”

  In a daze Liz walked him to the door and saw him out. She stood looking at the bright May sunshine and wondered how everything could look so normal when upstairs a good, kind man had just been told his days were numbered.

  Slowly she climbed the stairs, quietly entered their bed room, and saw that Richard was sleeping. His light brown hair had thinned and grayed in the nearly sixteen years of their marriage. His perpetual tan seemed to have slipped from his face in the last couple of weeks, and his skin already had a sickly pallor. His features were dear to her, as was the man himself.

  “Oh, Richard,” she whispered, her heart breaking.
He’d been so good to her, given her a comfortable life. He’d been true to his word, never once asking who had fathered Sara, always treating her as his own daughter.

  Liz struggled with a rush of guilt that she’d never been able to love Richard as he deserved to be loved. She’d come to care for him deeply if not passionately. She’d been true to him, had tried to make him happy. They’d rarely argued, seldom even disagreed. She’d been lucky to have him and would miss him terribly.

  He shifted restlessly in sleep, as if the pain wouldn’t quite let him be, even with the drug he’d been given. She pulled over a chair and sat down beside the bed, then touched his forehead lightly. It was cool. “Sleep well, dear man,” she murmured. “I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

  “That was one of the best speeches I’ve heard you give, sugar,” Diane told Adam as they entered their suite.

  “Thanks.”

  Tossing her handbag onto a chair, she kicked off her shoes and then crossed over to the bar. “Would you like a nightcap?”

  Adam removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and undid the top button of his shirt. “No, and I don’t know why you need one.”

  “Need’s not the operative word here, sugar,” she said, peering at the collection of bottles on the counter. “Want is more like it. I’ve been sitting on that dais like a good little girl all evening, sipping coffee along with all the other dutiful wives. Up here away from the prying lenses of those photographers, I ought to be able to let my hair down a wee bit, don’t you think?”

  Frowning, Adam dropped his long frame onto the couch and picked up the top newspaper from the stack on the coffee table. “Do what you want. You usually do.”

  Diane returned his frown. “You’re making it sound as if I’m a problem drinker here. One frigging drink a night doesn’t make me an alcoholic like some other senators’ wives I could tell you about.”

  “I’m not interested in gossip.”

  “Fine, then I won’t tell you.” She scanned the row of bottles again. “There’s no branch water here. I distinctly told them to send up several bottles. I thought the Plaza was supposed to have the best service in New York City.” She moved to the phone and jerked it off the receiver. As she did, she heard a soft knock on the door. “Now who can that be? It’s past eleven.”

  Reluctantly Adam rose and opened the door. “Fitz. Come in.”

  “I’m glad you’re still up.” Fitz walked in, excitement in his eyes. “I know it’s late, but I need to know if you’re free around one tomorrow. We didn’t get a chance to go over the schedule.”

  “Why do you have to know now?” Adam closed the door and walked back to sit down on the couch.

  Fitz followed him over. “I ran into someone who wants to have lunch with you.”

  “Who might that be?”

  “Palmer Ames.” A smile forming, Fitz watched his brother’s face. “We had quite a chat downstairs just now.”

  “Isn’t Palmer Ames the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination for next year’s election?” Diane asked, bustling over to them in her stocking feet.

  “That he is,” Fitz answered. He was feeling so good, he couldn’t get annoyed with Diane tonight. “And he wants to talk with you,” he told Adam.

  Always cautious, Adam considered that. “Did he say specifically about what?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you this much.” Fitz’s grin broadened. “He asked me if I thought you’d consider being on the ticket with him.”

  “Vice president?” Diane let out a whoop. “Holy shit!”

  “Let’s not go jumping to conclusions,” Adam said, frowning at her again. “And if you ever talk like that in front of the senior senator from Texas, we might as well forget the whole thing. Gentlemen from the South like women to be genteel ladies, not talk like a sailor on shore leave.”

  “I’m from the South, sugar,” Diane reminded him, “and I can play the game as well as anyone you know.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s wrong with you these days? You’re as jumpy as a tick on a hot griddle.”

  Lord, but he hated it when she turned southern folksy on him. Adam turned back to Fitz before he said something he shouldn’t and they got into another argument. It seemed lately they quarreled every time they were together, which wasn’t even all that often. “Running mate, eh?”

  “That’s what he said. You don’t seem too thrilled.”

  Adam leaned back and placed his right ankle on his left knee, wishing he didn’t feel so damn tired most of the time. “I’ve heard some things about Palmer. Sloppy personal bookkeeping. That savings and loan mess in Texas. And I don’t agree with how he’s voted on some key bills. To say nothing of the fact that I don’t know the man personally. I would think in order to work that closely with someone, you ought to know him and what he stands for very well.”

  It was Fitz’s job to soothe, to reassure. “We’ve got lots of time, Adam. The primaries are months away. We can look into his voting record and his background. But I think we need to keep this option open.”

  Adam rubbed at a spot above his left eye where a headache had been threatening. He’d been having too damn many headaches lately. “I’m not opposed to that.”

  “Is Mrs. Ames going to be at the luncheon?” Diane asked hopefully.

  Both men looked up at her. “No,” they chorused.

  “Swell.” Never let it be said she couldn’t take a hint. Back at the bar, she picked up the bottle of bourbon, tossed cubes from the ice bucket into a tall glass, and carried both of them into the adjacent bedroom. The door closed with an angry thump.

  “What’s eating her?” Fitz asked. “Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  Adam reached into his pocket for the tin of aspirin he’d begun carrying. “Hell, I don’t know.” He walked over to the bar and poured himself a glass of water, then tossed back two pills.

  Fitz leaned back, relaxing now that Adam had agreed to meet with Palmer Ames. “You two getting along okay?”

  Returning, Adam shrugged. “About the same.”

  “Is she drinking to excess?”

  “Nah. One’s about all she can handle, and she rarely drinks in public.” He sat thinking for several minutes, then glanced at his watch. “It’s only nine back in California. Call Steve Quinlan and see what we’ve got in the files on Palmer.” Adam had kept his San Diego office open, manned by Steve, who hadn’t wanted to move to D.C. “I’ve watched Palmer in the Senate for some time, so I pretty well know his voting record. But I’d like more background: his family, which he kind of keeps under wraps; his formative years, so I know how he came to have the ideas he has. Is he southern prejudiced or did some northern branch of the family influence him? Things like that.”

  “Got it.” Fitz was already making notes in his ever-present notebook.

  “If he’s inquiring, undoubtedly Palmer’s checked me out already. I don’t want to go into the luncheon with him armed and me uninformed. Have Steve fax everything he can scrape up to us here by noon tomorrow.”

  “I’ll get right on it.” Fitz stood. “And I’ll tell Palmer you’ll meet him.”

  “You don’t have to rush off this minute.” The prospect of only his own company and his restless thoughts didn’t cheer Adam. “Want a drink?”

  Fitz also checked his watch. “Actually I’m meeting someone for a late drink after I call Steve.”

  Adam thought he knew who that might be. For the past couple of years Fitz and Molly had squeezed a few hours now and then from their busy schedules to have dinner or a drink together. Adam liked Molly and had hoped that she and Fitz would move toward a more serious arrangement, but so far that hadn’t happened. “Molly in town?”

  “Yeah. She’s attending a one-woman art show of a friend from college.”

  A friend from college. The only college friend of Molly’s whom Adam knew was Liz. Technically Liz was an artist, he supposed, at least she used to sculpt. He was curious. “Who is it?”

  “Someone named Susan Gifford
. Do you know her?”

  “No.” Disappointed, Adam ran a hand along the back of his neck. “How is Molly?”

  Fitz took off his glasses and carefully placed them in his inside pocket. “She’s fine. We have quite a bit in common.” Far more than he could tell his brother. Probably the single most important thing that drew Fitz to Molly was that she understood what it was like to love someone you could not have. “I think she’s still carrying a torch for that jerk that dumped her.”

  “That was about three years ago, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Fitz opened the door. “That’s how it is with some people. They have a hard time letting go. See you around ten?”

  “Fine.” Adam locked the door, then slowly walked to the window. They were ten floors up on the north side, facing Central Park. The September evening was warm, and he could see people strolling along from Fifty-Ninth toward Fifth Avenue. The street lamps were on, cars were moving, horse-drawn carriages showing tourists the sights.

  He wished he had someone he wanted badly to be with, a woman who’d take his hand and go walking with him amid the window-shoppers, maybe stop for an ice-cream cone at Rockefeller Plaza. He wanted someone to share his thoughts with: someone who’d listen and respond; someone who cared about him, not the job he had or the job he might get next; someone interested in the person, not the position.

  He’d known someone like that once, and he’d lost her. He had no one to blame but himself. The woman whose bedroom he shared wasn’t to blame, either. It wasn’t Diane’s fault that she didn’t fulfill his dreams.

  Some people have a hard time letting go, Fitz had said. You got that right, little brother.

  Adam stepped out of his shoes, then turned off the lamp. He stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes.

  How was it possible to feel so alone in a city of eight million people? he wondered.

  CHAPTER 12