She didn’t know if her credit cards were being monitored, but she had to take the possibility into account. In Cape Town, she’d buy a ticket in cash.

To New York.

Where you could catch a train to Washington, Harold had told her, a dozen times a day.

Hugging her bag to her, feeling the portfolio’s stiffness through the canvas, Leonora stared out the window at the dry land, the lonesome trees.

A dozen trains a day.

That ought to be enough.

5 - ERICA SPINDLER

5

ERICA SPINDLER

Charlotte Middleton-Perez cracked open her eyes, disoriented. Not home. Not the dining room at the Ritz.

Bright, antiseptic white. Shiny surfaces, stiff sheets. She hurt. Ached everywhere, especially her lower back.

The squeak and rattle of a cart broke the silence. Muffled voices followed. She shifted her gaze. Her husband Jack by the bed, head in hands. The picture of grief.

With a shattering sense of loss, she remembered: standing up. Seeing the blood. Crying out, then gasping as pain knifed through her belly.

She brought a hand to her abdomen, vision blurring with tears. She’d had a life growing inside her. A baby boy. She and Jack had begun picking out names.

Had. Past tense. Now, no life inside her. No little boy with Jack’s blue eyes and her dark hair.

Her tears spilled over, rolling down her cheeks, hot and bitter.

He lifted his head. His eyes were red-rimmed from crying.

“Charley,” he said.

The one word conveyed a world of emotion—despair and regret, love and need. For comfort. To understand—how could this have happened?

They’d reached the second trimester. Safe, they’d thought. Out of the woods. Common wisdom validated their belief.

Her fault? Working too hard? Not enough rest?

As if reading her thoughts, Perez stretched out a hand. She took it and he curled his fingers protectively around hers. “Not your fault, Charley. The doctor said these things . . . happen.”

She shook her head. “That’s not good enough. I need to know why.”

He cleared his throat. “They’re going to run some tests. On us. On our . . . The miscarriage. He suggested an ultrasound of your uterus, an x-ray, too.”

She squeezed her eyes shut as he tightened his fingers on hers. “This is a setback. It really hurts, but we’ll have—”

“No.”

“—other childre—”

“Don’t. Please.” Her voice cracked. “I wanted this baby . . . I—I already loved him.”

“I understand,” he said with apparent sympathy.

And he always seemed to. She didn’t know what she had done to deserve his love. They’d met at Tulane University in New Orleans. She had been stunned when he asked her out, when he pursued her. She wasn’t an extraordinary beauty. Just pleasant looking—average face, average figure. And Jack was off the charts handsome. Smart. Educated. From an influential Louisiana family. His falling for her had been as much a mystery as a miracle.