It didn’t take long, for what she found in the top drawer was damning. A folded wall map of Cuba with hand-drawn notes marking the location of American army encampments. Beneath the map was a small leather-bound booklet, the kind men kept in their breast pocket. The first page listed Cuban sympathizers, most of whom had been on the list of names General Molinaro had asked her to look for. The next page listed telegraph exchange codes. More papers and documents filled the other drawers. They were in Spanish and she couldn’t read them, but she would take them all. Someone in the government would know what to make of them.

It was hard to breathe in here. The walls were closing in, and she had to get out and away from this horrible desk. She dragged the chair to the transom window and shoved the papers through to the ground outside. Then she hoisted herself out the same way she’d come in, scrambling outside, where the glare of sunlight was blinding. It felt like she had aged fifty years in the space of five minutes.

She sat on the front step of the raccoon shed as her world crumbled around her.

No.

No. Gray Delacroix was not her world, and this wasn’t going to destroy her life. She had been briefly infatuated with a man who had a huge, gaping flaw that could never be overlooked.

She gathered the papers and the map, then headed toward the house. Even handling these papers was revolting, but they needed to be turned over to the government. They contained a wealth of information that might save lives on both sides of this simmering rebellion.

She went straight to her bedroom to hide them in her bag. When she returned downstairs, Tabitha nodded toward a towel-wrapped pan of cooling gingerbread.

“You’ll take the gingerbread to Mr. Gray?”

The warm scent of the spices made Annabelle want to weep, and she couldn’t bear to be near it. She smiled sadly. “No, keep it. I won’t be seeing Gray any time soon.”

It was late in the afternoon when Annabelle arrived back in Washington. She dropped her luggage off at her apartment, relieved that Elaine wasn’t home yet. It would be impossible to pretend nothing was wrong.

Twenty minutes later, she’d arrived at the grand building of the War Department, situated just west of the White House. Her canvas satchel weighed heavily as she carried it up the stairs leading to the building. The weight of the satchel made her entire arm and shoulder ache, even though all it contained was a single map, a slim notebook, and a few letters.

Enough to hang a man.

Enough to save countless lives on both sides of this battle.

She continued trudging up the stairs, the heat making it hard to breathe. Each step sapped her energy a little more.

“Annabelle! Annabelle Larkin, how are you?”