“But the story about the yacht in St. Tropez, that was me, and it was a mistake.” The First Lady looked down at her hands. “I was feeling hunted. You had video of me, here at the house—”

“You leaked that story about the yacht?” Natalie asked, disbelieving.

The First Lady gestured to the room and her voice took on a higher pitch. “I came here for privacy, and it was as though the whole world was closing in on us. I just wanted everyone to look away.”

Natalie tried to remember how that story had leaked.

“I had someone go to a coffee shop and talk too loudly on the phone,” the First Lady answered before she could ask the question. “And you all went scurrying. I didn’t believe it would be so easy. But a man was shot and I deeply regret it. I’d like that cameraman to know, I’m very sorry.”

Natalie shook her head. There was a piece of the First Lady’s story that didn’t add up. “Mrs. Crusoe, why wait to reveal all this? Why not shout this from the rooftops? There’s a paper trail. A history of payments. Reports of the oil field and the pipeline. There are interests in the US who would want to stop this, to say nothing of the Persian Gulf.” She paused, “Respectfully, what’s taken you so long?”

The First Lady looked at Anthony and reached for his hand. “Because this is a personal story, too.”

Natalie glanced back at Dasha who, she could tell, was already zooming out to bring Anthony back into the shot.

“There are parts of my past about which I am not proud. If I had spoken out, the White House would have exposed my family and I was hoping to avoid that.”

“This isn’t necessary, Anita,” Anthony said. “You don’t need to do this.”

“I do,” she said. Pulling her hand back, she straightened up and looked at Natalie. “They will tell you this story to discredit me. So I will tell you first.

“When I was young in Venezuela, I had a sister named Eva.” Her voice dropped when she said the name. “When we were growing up, my mother was an opposition leader, and my father was a judge who dared to stand for the rule of law. The Chavez government sentenced them both to fifteen years for political incitement. When they went to prison, my sister was nineteen. I was twenty-three.” The First Lady paused, seemingly lost in a memory.

“We were old enough to take care of ourselves, but still young. The conditions in prison, the stories that reached us—they were awful. We worried that we would learn our parents had died in prison from mysterious causes.”

She gathered her calm before continuing.