Tarla clenched her fists in anger. ‘Birch assaulted her brutally. That monster. Honestly, I wish I’d known, I would have killed him myself. Imagine the two faces you need to do something like that to your wife and then stand up and proclaim yourself a political savior.’

‘What else did she tell you?’ he asked.

‘She realized she was pregnant in July. It was a shock, of course. I gather she’d stopped bothering with protection. You get to your mid-forties without another child, and you start to assume—’

‘Did she say who …?’

‘She only told me it wasn’t Birch,’ Tarla replied. ‘They hadn’t had sex in months. You have to believe me, Cab, she did not tell me who the father really was. I asked, of course, but she said she hadn’t told him, and she said she would never tell anyone. She said …’ Tarla stopped. ‘Do you really want to hear what she said about it, darling?’

‘I do.’

‘She told me it was a one-time affair. Literally one-time. She said it was born out of her great need, and it was with a man who made her feel special for the first time in a long time.’

‘And who ran away and avoided her for a decade,’ Cab said bitterly.

‘Well, what did you plan to do, Cab? Marry her? You may recall, she was already married at the time.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ he asked. ‘I’m angry at myself, but I’m angry at her, too. She never told me. Don’t you think I had a right to know? The baby was mine, too.’ It was strange how devastating those words were as he heard them on his lips.

‘I understand, darling, but consider her situation. A married woman whose husband is running a political campaign? She finds herself pregnant by another man? Most women in her situation would have ended it. She didn’t. She wanted the baby.’

‘Was it a boy or a girl?’ he asked quietly.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know.’

A son or a daughter. That was the kind of question a single man didn’t take much time to think about. He felt a wave of rage directed at Birch Fairmont. The man had murdered his child. If he’d known the truth back then, he might have killed Birch himself.

He had to remind himself: Someone did.

‘She couldn’t have expected to keep it a secret forever,’ Cab said. ‘Sooner or later, people were going to notice.’

‘I think for a while she simply couldn’t face it. She kept it from everyone as long as she could. I was her best friend, but she never told me. Birch was so caught up in the campaign, I doubt he saw what was happening to her. On the other hand, you’re right, it couldn’t last forever. So she decided to tell him.’