Betrayals

Twenty-Three

From the first moment Jared saw Mai bundled up in her exhausted mother’s arms, he knew this tiny, wriggling infant had the capacity to change his life. Already he had postponed getting out of collapsing South Vietnam because of her. She should have been born two weeks ago, when there was still at least some hope that Hanoi could be persuaded to halt its southward march.

But no baby came, and village after village fell to the communists, until, at last, shortly after six o’clock in the steamy Saigon dusk of April 28, 1975, a slippery, dark-haired girl was born to the sounds of her mother’s cries of pain and joy and the shelling of the giant Tan Son Nhut Air Base just four miles from the heart of the city.

The war had finally come to Saigon.

The French nun who’d served as Tam’s midwife took Jared aside several hours after the rough labor had ended. Tam and the baby were asleep in his bedroom, and the shelling had died down. But the nun-Sister Joan-looked concerned. “The baby’s healthy, but Tam is very weak,” she explained in English. “Her pregnancy was long and difficult, and I’m afraid so was the labor. She’ll be all right, I think, but you must wait as long as possible before you take her to America.”

Jared was surprised. “How do you know-”

“You must get her out,” Sister Joan said, with unusual intensity for one who’d seen as much fear, sickness and death as she had in the past month. Refugees were streaming into the city by the tens of thousands. Now there was nowhere left to run, except out of the land of their ancestors. The young nun gripped Jared’s arm. “The baby will get her out of Saigon. She’s what the Vietnamese call bui doi. It means the dust of life.”

It was the first time Jared had heard the expression, and he understood it at once. In a communist Vietnam, the children of American fathers, be they white, black or brown, wouldn’t fare well.

Releasing him, Sister Joan continued. “There are rumors those in charge of the evacuation are letting Vietnamese women with Amerasian children pass through the system with very little question. She wouldn’t even need a laissez-passer.”

Jared had heard those same rumors. Thinking the baby would be born any second, he had let the prospect that a half-American baby would ease Tam’s way out of Saigon delay their exit, despite the directive that nonessential American personnel get the hell out of the country. He couldn’t think of anyone more nonessential than an American architect and a college sophomore. Nevertheless, neither he nor R.J.-as beautiful and combative as ever-would leave without Tam. And the baby was Tam’s ticket out.

Still, if Tam had been able to travel safely, he and R.J. might have gotten her out sooner-somehow. Tam had no special status to get her evacuated from the country, but they’d have tried to find a way.

The problem was, the Republic of Vietnam was falling fast. The American ambassador, Graham Martin, didn’t have the time or the resources to evacuate all the Vietnamese who’d likely face reprisals under a communist government. And the Americans still in the country were his first priority. It was a tightrope act: if the general population got the idea the Americans were cutting and running-which they were-there could be panic… Vietnamese fighting Americans and each other for scarce space on planes and helicopters out…tramplings, drownings, shootings, crushed babies…Vietnamese soldiers killing and maiming the people they were sworn to protect to save their own skins. In a word, panic.

It had all happened just a month ago in Danang.

Jared promised the nun he would do everything he could to help Tam. They signed papers for the baby, and she went out into the humid, sweet-smelling night, unafraid of the curfew or the prospect of more shelling.

The apartment suddenly seemed too quiet and isolated, and Jared wished R.J. would hurry up. She was canvassing the building for food and whatever else of use she could find. Most of the other residents were American, and except for a writer-diplomat couple on the top floor, had already left the country, giving ever-resourceful Rebecca Blackburn permission to raid their cupboards. She’d produced snowy-white towels for Tam’s labor, and even a tattered Raggedy Ann for the baby.

Jared tiptoed into the bedroom, but Tam was awake. Her eyelids were swollen and heavy, her skin pallid, but her haunting beauty was still there, beneath the ravages of recent childbirth, fear, exhaustion. In her gaunt face, her magnificent eyes seemed huge and so sad, even as they filled with love and tenderness at the sight of her sleeping child.

“R.J.’s out scrounging,” Jared said. “How do you feel?”

She managed to smile. “Tired and sore.”

He didn’t doubt that. Witnessing his first childbirth had given him a new perspective on the strength and endurance of women. R.J.’s only comment was she couldn’t believe her mother had gone through this torture six times. But of course, Mai made all the difference. Jared couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked Tam.

“Just water.”

He had a pitcher ready and filled two glasses. Tam winced as she sat up, but didn’t complain. She sipped the water gratefully.

“What’s the situation?” she asked.

He knew what she meant. “Bad. ‘Big’ Minh was sworn in as the new president while you were in labor. A few diehards think he can still negotiate a settlement with Hanoi, but I doubt it. In cowboys’ parlance, they’ve got us surrounded. About all Minh can do is hand over the keys to the city and forestall a bloodbath.” At Tam’s increased paleness, Jared regretted his blunt words. “Maybe ‘liberation’ won’t be that bad. Most of the dying so far’s been the result of panic, not communist atrocities.”

Of course, the memory of communist atrocities during the Tet Offensive in 1968-the killing of three thousand civilians in Hue -had helped spark the hysteria that swept Danang. But Jared didn’t need to tell Tam that; this was her country. Like so many others, her family had been decimated: killed, tortured, exiled and scattered by the decades of strife. Since her popular father’s death in the 1963 scandal that brought down Thomas Blackburn, a familiar figure to many South Vietnamese, Tam had tried to live a quiet life. She had a small income from the life insurance policy Thomas had insisted Quang Tai take out on himself before returning home in 1959, and after school, used her language skills to land a string of jobs with various French, Australian and American firms. She hadn’t done anything to ensure her the special friendship or enmity of either the Americans or the North Vietnamese.

Tam looked away from Jared, touching her tiny daughter on her smooth, red cheek. “I’d have written a different ending for my country,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry.” Jared didn’t know what else to say. “Tam, we’ll get you and the baby out-”

She turned to him and smiled. “I’m not worried, Jared. Quentin will take care of me.”

“Giap and his gang will be hanging posters of Ho Chi Minh all over Saigon before you finally realize Quentin’s not coming back and he’s not getting you out of this country. I’m sorry to be hard on you at a time like this, but you’ve got to face reality.” He broke off, sweating and exhausted himself. “Quentin would have to go up against his mother to have a Vietnamese woman in his life, and he’s not going to do that.”

“Everything will work out,” Tam said with maddening confidence, but she sank back down on the mattress, and Jared could see she was too tired to argue. It’d all be moot soon enough. With the baby born, they’d get out of the country as fast as possible.

And from what he could gather of the situation, it wouldn’t be a moment too soon.

Right now he took Sister Joan’s advice and let Tam rest. She’d need her strength for the long trip to the U.S. After almost eleven months in Vietnam, he was anxious to get home himself. He’d rent an apartment in Boston, get a job there, talk R.J. into moving off-campus and living with him. She drove him nuts half the time and there was still a lot of the world he wanted to see, but there’d be time for that-when R.J. was out of school and signed up with the state department or whoever. Maybe they’d send her someplace interesting. He didn’t care. The future would take care of itself. First things first: she had two years of Boston University and umpteen of graduate school left.

No, he amended silently, the first thing was for them all to get safely out of Saigon. Now.

He was glad when Rebecca burst into the hot, close apartment, still reeking with the disinfectant Sister Joan had used to clean up after delivery. Rebecca’s hair was pulled back in a braid and perspiration shone on her face, but six weeks in Vietnam still had left her with more energy than most. Just two days in Saigon had made her understand why the people there dressed as they did. She herself had opted for linen shorts, a camp shirt, long bare legs and canvas shoes.

She dumped her paper bag of goodies on the table in Jared’s combination living room-kitchen. “I’ve got a couple of dried-up croissants, some orange juice, some of that chao tom stuff and look-a jar of instant coffee.”

Jared laughed. “You were born for this life, R.J.”

“Blackburns have always been good at making do. It’s making money that trips them up. How’s Tam?”

“Fine,” Tam said, wobbling in the doorway.

Jared turned to her, concerned. “Should you be up?”

“If we’re to leave in the morning, I’d better get steady on my feet,” she said. “I don’t want to be more of a burden than I already am.”

Rebecca looked shocked and sorrowful. “Tam, you’re not a burden-don’t think like that.” Then she grinned, obviously trying to maintain her own courage. “Come on, our midnight snack is served.”

Rebecca had arrived in Saigon in mid-March as Ban Me Thuot, in what the Americans called the Central Highlands, was falling to the first North Vietnamese offensive since 1972, effectively splitting South Vietnam in half. Vietnam had been exorcised from world headlines since the American military withdrawal two years earlier, and the fall of a grubby village didn’t draw much attention. Popular opinion held that Nguyen Van Thieu, the incompetent, intransigent president of the Republic of Vietnam, would launch his own counteroffensive and recapture the village. He’d broken the terms of the cease-fire often enough himself.

He didn’t get much of a chance to go after Ban Me Thuot. Pleiku and Kontum fell next, and then the march was on to Hue and Danang.

For the first time in decades Jenny O’Keefe Blackburn and her father-in-law agreed on something: Rebecca had no business even being in Saigon in the first place. She had borrowed money from Sofi’s father for her trip. Sofi had told him her brilliant, non-dope-smoking, impoverished roommate had to have her wisdom teeth out, but her health insurance wouldn’t cover having them done in the hospital. He’d come up with the money. Rebecca had already set up an account to pay him back from money she earned typing papers and doing freelance graphic design, on top of her job and classes.

By the time she reached Jared’s tiny apartment on Tu Do Street, she was run ragged. She had meant to stay two weeks at the most, but she got caught up in the death throes of the country, of being a part of history in the making. She couldn’t just run back to the safety of Boston. She’d felt compelled to help and had plunged in, volunteering to work with orphans and refugees, to do whatever she could.

And she wouldn’t leave Jared or Tam. Absolutely, categorically refused to go home without them.

Rebecca didn’t miss a beat when she discovered a beautiful, pregnant Vietnamese woman camped out in her lover’s apartment. So what? She trusted Jared. She barely remembered Tam from her visit to the Riviera in 1959, but Tam remembered Rebecca. And they shared the loss of a father on the same tragic day in 1963. The tragedy gave them a bond that transcended the years they’d spent apart and the wildly different worlds from which they came.

While they resumed their friendship, the communists continued their “liberation” of their brethren to the south.

When panic struck Danang, Thomas Blackburn did something he hadn’t done since 1963: he called in a favor. An old friend, a die-hard state department type, looked up Rebecca and warned her and Jared to get out-now.

“If Thomas Blackburn’s worried,” he said, “it’s time to worry.”

Rebecca made several calls to her mother to reassure her, promising that as soon as Tam had her baby, they’d all leave.

“Leave now,” her mother had said. “I lost a husband to Vietnam. I won’t lose you, too. You’re not supposed to be there. You don’t belong there.”

Rebecca felt guilty for worrying her mother, but she couldn’t have lived with herself if she abandoned her pregnant Vietnamese friend.

At four o’clock in the morning Jared, Tam and Rebecca were jolted awake by the sounds of mortar, rockets and artillery fire out at Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Tam came unsteadily out of the bedroom to join Rebecca and Jared, who’d been dozing on the couch. Jared helped her to a chair, and Rebecca made coffee.

“I’ll go in with the baby,” she said.

Tam smiled weakly and thanked her. “You’ve both been so good to me.”

“You’d do the same for us if our positions were reversed.”

“I’ll repay you. I promise-”

“There’s nothing to repay.”

Tiny Mai was all wrapped up in a cotton receiving blanket and snoozing in the middle of Jared’s bed. Rebecca lay down beside her and just watched her sleep. Tam had told her little about her life before Jared had taken her in late last summer, but Rebecca wouldn’t have been surprised if circumstances had forced her into a “sugar daddy” arrangement with a rich American or European or even limited prostitution. It was like Jared, Rebecca thought, to help out a lonely woman in need-a friend. Whatever he knew about Tam’s situation he’d kept to himself, something Rebecca, despite her curiosity, could respect.

The baby squirmed. Rebecca loosened the blanket and peeked at her tiny red feet. “What a cutie you are,” she murmured, touching the baby’s mass of straight black hair, still matted down from childbirth.

The shelling seemed loud enough to shake the entire building, and Rebecca wondered if the North Vietnamese bombed Tan Son Nhut, what did that do to a fixed-wing evacuation? Airplanes needed runways to get off.

“You’re so tired, aren’t you, sweetie?” Her mouth was dry with fear, and she brushed the back of a knuckle gently across Mai’s smooth cheek. “Getting born’s such hard work, but don’t you worry. We’ll get you out of here.”

Tam was fading fast. She had insisted on walking around the living room and kitchen area, and had collapsed on the couch. She looked drained.

“We’re out of here first thing in the morning,” Jared told her, handing her a cup of coffee.

She nodded. There were tears in her eyes, and he could see she was terrified. The shelling wasn’t doing much for his nerves, either, but it wasn’t his country going down the tubes.

He sat beside her. “Look,” he said. “Quentin’s got a lot of good qualities, and I can see why you feel for him. But Tam-” He sighed. His cousin had abandoned Tam: he’d cut and run. The Quentin Reed style since childhood. “He’s no knight in shining armor. R.J. and I’ll help you get settled in the U.S. It’ll be okay.”

“I loved him so much,” she whispered, crying. “I thought he loved me.”

Jared didn’t know what to say. He neither wanted to defend his cousin nor damn him. When Quentin had come to Saigon in October 1973, he had looked up his childhood playmate from the Riviera, the daughter of another man killed during the ambush that had claimed Benjamin Reed’s life. He and Tam quickly fell in love. Quentin rented her own penthouse apartment and bought her lavish gifts and made her even more lavish promises. Jared stumbled onto his secret when he arrived in town the following June, but by then Quentin was already coping with the consequences of another secret: his involvement with a drug-smuggling network that had used Winston & Reed planes for transporting heroin. He was in over his head. Jared tried to help, but Quentin only wanted to make sure he promised not to tell his mother.

“I can handle it,” he told Jared.

It wasn’t long before Jared discovered his cousin was being blackmailed. The situation deteriorated, and by August, Quentin had returned to Boston. Jared was appalled that Quentin could drop Tam with hardly a word, but when he confronted him, his cousin insisted he loved her and would be back.

Like hell.

Quentin had developed consummate skill at making himself believe what he wanted to believe.

Tam lost her apartment and seemed confused about why Quentin wasn’t in Saigon. When was he coming back? Jared avoided bad-mouthing his cousin and invited Tam to share his apartment until she could get back on her feet. There were no breathtaking views of the river, no elegant French furnishings, no near-priceless Asian curios.

Within weeks, Tam discovered she was pregnant.

Jared volunteered to fly to Boston and kick Quentin Reed all the way back to Saigon for her, but she wouldn’t let him. If she and Quentin were meant to be, he would return. She didn’t want the prospect of being a father to influence his decision. She would wait.

Her pregnancy wasn’t an easy one, and she was often depressed about not hearing from Quentin, waiting for him to come back to her as the months dragged on.

In early April, however, her feet so swollen she could hardly walk, her country on the brink of extinction-Tam’s mood improved.

She was convinced Quentin would get her out of the country and they would live happily ever after together in Boston.

Now, Jared hated to disillusion her. He took her hand, just comforting her in silence as they listened to the shelling.

Footsteps echoed in the hall outside the apartment. It was almost dawn and there was a curfew in effect, and the building was virtually unoccupied. Could it be another R.J.-type scavenger at work?

There was a single knock at the door. A man spoke something in Vietnamese.

Tam’s eyes lit up and she jumped to her feet with a sudden burst of excited energy.

“What did he say?” Jared asked.

With a dazzling smile, she looked over her shoulder at him. “Help has come from Boston. I told you, Jared. I told you!”

Jared didn’t believe it, but Tam happily pulled open the door.

She screamed and shrank back into the small apartment, and Jared, on his feet, felt his stomach lurch at the sight of the AK-47 assault rifle pointed at Tam.

Before Jared could even think of what to do, the stout Vietnamese man fired.

Tam’s body jerked backward and blood spread over her front. She crumpled, falling so silently, and Jared yelled and lunged toward her, knowing he was too late.

He knelt beside Tam. There was blood everywhere, and he didn’t have to touch her to know she was dead. Tears mixed with perspiration and spilled down his cheeks. She’d been killed instantly-expertly. Help from Boston…Quentin…

The Vietnamese assassin turned his rifle on Jared.

Of course, he thought, with a sudden, awful calm. Tam was one of Quentin’s secrets, but Jared knew what both his cousin’s secrets were.

But not R.J., not the baby. Stay in the bedroom-don’t make a sound.

He willed them to be all right.

The assassin hesitated as he was joined by a white-haired, wiry Caucasian. He, too, carried an AK-47.

I don’t have a chance, Jared thought.

With Tam’s body lying only feet away, the white-haired man grinned at his cohort and said something in Vietnamese. The two made eye contact.

Jared took advantage of their momentary distraction to scramble and dive toward the kitchen. The two murderers were blocking the door, but if he could get to the balcony-

The gun cracked, and he felt himself flying through the air, his body out of control. He didn’t know what he’d done, if he’d been hit…and he landed on the floor, hard, burning his cheek against the thin rug. For a few seconds he thought that was all that was wrong, just the rug burn, not understanding the cold, numbing sensation in his shoulder.

Then the pain started.

At the first sound of gunfire Rebecca had grabbed for the.38 Smith & Wesson her grandfather’s state department friend had insisted she take, just in case-of what, she didn’t ask. She’d thought he was being melodramatic. But she’d thanked the man and stashed the.38 in her knapsack.

There was another shot before Rebecca managed to get her hands on the gun. At least she knew how to shoot. It was one of the skills Papa O’Keefe had taught her that her mother would have rather he hadn’t. Rebecca could do an impressive job on a coffee can.

She had to force herself not to kick open the door and swoop in with gun blazing like John Wayne.

Cracking the door, she saw Jared sprawled on his stomach, blood seeping into the carpet around him. Only her survival instincts kept her from screaming and running to him. She began to shake uncontrollably. Jared…oh, God, no! But she could see he was breathing. He was still alive. Now where was Tam?

Out of her view a man said something in Vietnamese.

Rebecca’s mouth felt parched and her stomach had cramped up so badly she was afraid she’d double over. She stepped back and held the revolver the way Papa O’Keefe had shown her and decided her best strategy was to watch the door and wait. When-if-the bedroom door opened, she’d fire.

Everything’s going to be all right. Whoever’s out there is just going to go away… Jared’s going to be okay… Tam…

Her heart was pounding and she thought she’d throw up, but she didn’t have to wait long.

The door banged open, and a short, tough-looking Vietnamese man jumped into the bedroom. He didn’t see Rebecca at first. She knew her revolver was no match for his assault rifle. She wanted just to melt into the woodwork, to disappear.

The assassin leveled his rifle at Tam’s sleeping newborn.

Horrified, Rebecca screamed, “No!”

She fired, braced for the kick of the gun. Her shot grazed the Vietnamese’s upper arm, and he grunted, turning his attention from the baby to her. She hadn’t even brought him down. Her hands were shaking badly, and sweat was pouring into her eyes, blurring her vision. She knew she had to make her next shot a good one, fast, before he could recover his balance enough to let loose with his rifle.

Another man burst into the bedroom. Rebecca thought it must be Jared, but saw the white hair, the assault rifle. I’m dead…we’re all dead.

The intrusion distracted the Vietnamese. Rebecca used the opportunity to fire again.

Her second shot struck the Vietnamese man in the leg, and he went down, gritting his teeth, but flipped around immediately, his rifle still in hand.

The white-haired man was standing in front of the door. There was nowhere for Rebecca to run. And the Vietnamese was between her and the baby. What kind of heartless bastard would shoot a baby?

She couldn’t leave Mai to die.

And she knew something neither the Vietnamese nor the white-haired man knew: she was out of bullets.

“There are only two bullets in the thing,” her grandfather’s diplomat-friend had advised her.

All this Rebecca digested in the split-second it took for the Vietnamese man to adjust his aim to take her out.

She started to dive under the bed.

But it was the white-haired man who fired. Not at Rebecca: at the Vietnamese. Stunned, she put out a hand to steady herself against Jared’s crummy bureau and turned her head at the sight of the blood spreading across the man’s chest. She heard him fall back onto the floor with a finality and quiet that sickened her.

On the bed, the baby began to cry.

Rebecca had no idea what the white-haired man would do next and tried to make herself speak-to beg-but no words came out.

He lowered his rifle and held it in one arm as he walked slowly toward her. “You must get the baby and your friend out of Saigon,” he told her in a soft, French-accented voice. He took her clammy hand…she was shaking. “It’s up to you. Do you understand?”

She tried to focus on his face. “Tam?”

“I couldn’t save her.” His voice choked and his eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry.”

“What…” Rebecca, too, began to sob, trying to force back the waves of approaching hysteria. “But why?”

The Frenchman touched her mouth gently with two fingers. “You will be all right,” he said with confidence. “Take the baby, take your friend. At first light, leave Saigon. Go home.”

“I don’t know if I can…”

“You can.”

Her eyes reached his. “Who are you?”

But he was already moving toward the door, and he left quickly, not making a sound.

Mai was screaming now. Rebecca looked around, feeling strangely helpless. What was she supposed to do? Sobbing, she picked up the baby, a tiny, warm bundle, and held her close, and she hushed. Tam’s dead…oh, baby, your mama’s dead…

Forcing back another wave of panic, Rebecca carried the baby with her into the living room.

She saw Tam’s body sprawled unnaturally on the floor near the door and could see at once she was dead.

“Tam…oh, God…”

Jared had managed to roll onto his back and was in the process of trying to sit up, his face racked with pain. Rebecca held the baby against her shoulder and knelt beside him. His face was drained of color. But his eyes focused on her.

“Jesus, R.J.,” he said.

“Don’t talk. Save your strength.”

“You’re okay?”

She nodded, tears streaming down her face. “We’ll get out of here. I love you, Jared.”

He sank against the wall, unable to answer.

At 10:48 a.m. Saigon time on April 29, 1975, Ambassador Graham Martin notified Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that they were going to Option IV. It was the final and least desirable option for a full-scale American evacuation of Saigon: they were going out by helicopter. Helicopters couldn’t hold as many people as planes could. That meant not all the Vietnamese who deserved to get out were going to make it.

Rebecca’s state department friend showed up to make sure she and her friends got out, but was surprised to find her making her way from the apartment building with a newborn baby and a seriously wounded Jared Sloan. She had patched him up as best she could with bandages she’d scrounged from a vacant apartment. There wasn’t much more she could do. He had at least two bullets in him and needed proper medical attention as soon as possible. He was in a great deal of pain, feverish, near-delirious-but determined.

“Listen, kid,” her friend said when she explained what had happened. “You’ve got to put it behind you. Never mind the bodies. If Hanoi wants to call you in Boston with a few questions after they get into town, you can talk. Right now we’ve got to get you home.”

He helped them get to a bus pickup point, but he had to get back to the embassy. White-faced and numb, Rebecca thanked him. He said to give Thomas Blackburn his best.

“Tell him if more people’d known what he knew back in ’63, maybe-well, the hell with it. Maybe nothing. Take care of yourself, Rebecca. Call me when you finish your degree.”

She promised him she would.

Then, with a diaper bag slung over her shoulder, Mai in one arm and supporting Jared with the other, she got them onto the bus, which joined a caravan edging cautiously through the city to one of the landing zones where U.S. Marine and Navy helicopters could set down.

By midafternoon, with a photographer clicking away, they climbed aboard a packed Chinook helicopter and lifted high above Saigon, on their way to a U.S. Navy ship in the South China Sea. It was hot and close in the helicopter, and Mai was screaming. Calling upon her experience as the eldest of six, Rebecca tried to comfort the baby, loosening her blanket, cooing. Tam had planned to breast-feed, but Sister Joan had left several ready-made bottles of formula for emergencies. Rebecca had stuffed them into the diaper bag, but she hoped Mai could hang on until they reached the ship. Nothing like a starving, screaming baby to forestall awkward questions from the brass. With Jared wounded and Mai barely a day old, Rebecca knew she’d end up doing all the explaining about who they were and what they were still doing in Saigon.

Mai continued to scream.

Knowing it was an old wives’ tale and unless they had a rash most babies didn’t give a damn whether they were wet or dry, Rebecca gave in to frustration and checked Mai’s diaper.

She pulled out a deep ruby-red velvet bag wrapped in plastic.

Peeking inside, Rebecca saw the ten glittering colored stones.

Tam’s ticket to freedom?

Rebecca shoved them into her pocket, wrapped the baby back up and held her close, until she exhausted herself crying and went back to sleep.

Jared grimaced and coughed a little. Someone had given him a shot of morphine during their wait for the helicopter. He still looked terrible, and despite his assurances he’d be okay, Rebecca could see he was in a state of shock not just from his wounds, but from having witnessed Tam’s murder. She was grateful for having him and Mai to tend: it kept her mind occupied.

“Mai has papers,” he told her. “In the diaper bag.”

“Relax, no one’s going to bug us about papers right now. We’ll take care of the red tape later.”

“No. I promised Tam, R.J. I’m not taking any chances.”

Rebecca dug in the diaper bag and got out the papers and had a look. “It says her name’s Mai Sloan and you’re her father.”

“I know.”

“Is that a mistake?”

His eyes cleared as they held hers, and he said, “No.”