The story, he told himself. Think about the story. He wouldn’t tell her he was a reporter, that was for damn sure. She’d lied to him from the beginning, and he didn’t owe her anything.

He forced himself to organize his jumbled thoughts. Why had she fled and how had she done it? He tried to figure out how much time had lapsed between her disappearance from the White House and the moment he’d picked her up at the truck stop. But nothing would come together. Instead he found himself thinking about the way they’d planned to make love when they got to Iowa. Another deception. She’d known it would never happen.

He remembered her silly story of a gay husband. It was laughable the way he’d actually believed her. But her lies had been so convincing, the way she’d manipulated him with those coy hesitations so that he’d drawn an entirely erroneous conclusion. He’d been used by a master.

He began to outline a plan. Sooner or later, she would have to tell him at least part of the truth—why she’d done it, how she’d managed to get away. The conspiracy nuts were already having a field day with this, but—

Every muscle in his body tightened, and for the third time that night he felt as if he’d been struck. Her gay husband . . . What if she hadn’t been lying? What if she’d been telling the truth?

For a moment he was actually dizzy. Dennis Case, America’s squeaky-clean young President, had been the perfect antidote to years of Clinton’s womanizing. What if the reason Case hadn’t looked at other women was more complicated than strong moral character?

A thousand caveats blasted through his head. He needed facts, not speculation. This was too big a story to ruin with even a single mistake. Truth. Accuracy. Fairness. What he wrote would go down in the history books with his name attached to it, and he couldn’t let anything screw that up.

At least an hour passed before he let himself inside the Winnebago. The door at the back was shut, even though it was too early for her to have gone to bed. She couldn’t have made it clearer that she didn’t want to talk.

He kicked off his shoes, pulled a root beer from the refrigerator, and began to plan. But even as he sorted and organized, he felt a bone-searing anger. There was nothing he hated more than being played for a chump.

Nealy woke at dawn. For a few seconds she simply lay there, content to the tips of her toes, and then it all came crashing in. Mat knew who she was.