Maria’s expression softened. “I’m sure there were times when you were frightened, too, away from your family’s security detail.”
“A few,” Win admitted. “Which was silly, wasn’t it? Living among all those military men.”
“Mija, have you ever questioned…?” Maria trailed off. “I don’t know how best to say what I have to say. I’m afraid I brought you here to tell you something unpleasant.”
“Go ahead.” Win had never seen Maria looking so unsure of herself, and it unnerved her.
“Rosa and I talked this over, and we agreed you should know, although we wish someone else had told you. Since Rosa doesn’t work for your family anymore, we only learned about your mother’s illness from watching your show some months back.”
“Base Camp?” Win nodded. When she’d left suddenly, her letter of explanation had been read on air, much to her chagrin.
“We thought you were using your mother’s illness as an excuse to leave. We thought maybe you and Angus had argued. Your letter didn’t sound like you at all.”
“I know.” Win shook her head. “I couldn’t let Angus think there’d be a chance I’d be back in time to marry him. I knew if I told him about the baby, he’d think he had to come with me and let everyone else down. I couldn’t put him in the position of having to make a choice, so I chose for him.”
“A man likes to make his own choices,” Maria said reprovingly. “But what’s done is done. The thing is…” She trailed off again. Win looked up to find Rosa standing in the entryway to the hall and Lenore cutting across the living room to the front door.
“Thanks, Rosa,” she called from the entryway. They heard the door open.
Rosa came into the room and took up the story. “The thing is, we wanted to pay a call on your mother. To bring her flowers and a card. She has offered us so much employment over the years, and we felt bad for her. I rang up the housekeeper. Asked if we could come. She told us your mother was gone for a few days, getting a treatment.”
“Yes, she’s been treated at a private clinic, of course. She’s sometimes gone three to four days at a time,” Win explained.
“It’s just… I have a cousin who works at the Piermont Spa in Colorado Springs,” Maria said slowly. “It’s very exclusive. Very private. Celebrities go to unwind when they don’t want the press to know their whereabouts. The staff all sign NDAs. I talked to Raul last week.”
“And?” Win wasn’t sure why she was flooded with misgivings. Maybe it was the grave expressions on both women’s faces.
“We were talking about our lives and our work. I mentioned your mother’s illness. How sick she must be if you’d come home to nurse her. Raul asked what was wrong with her. He’d seen her recently, and she looked terrific. Of course, I asked him when he’d seen your mother.”
“And?” Win prompted, not sure she wanted to know more.
“It was the same week we’d tried to visit her. Your mother was at the Piermont Spa playing tennis, swimming, doing yoga.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“I don’t understand.” That didn’t make sense at all. It was only recently Vienna had begun to get out of bed and then only for an hour or two at a time.
“Raul said he’d overheard the nutritionist arguing with your mother about the cleanse she was on. The nutritionist said she was far too thin. Your mother said that was just the look she was going for. Raul thought it was kind of funny. You can never be too rich or too thin, that kind of thinking.”
“Cleanse? She was getting chemo treatments. She certainly couldn’t have been playing tennis. She could barely walk back then. He must have the dates wrong.”
“I don’t think so. Mija, I don’t think she’s sick at all.”
Win let out a breath as if she’d been punched. Not sick? “But you saw her today.”
“She did look very thin,” Maria admitted. “She also seemed very determined to keep you home. She’s hoping you’ll marry Leif, after all.”
As the implication sank in, Win’s thoughts reeled. Could Vienna have… faked cancer? Just to get her to leave Base Camp?
No. “You can’t be right. Maybe Raul saw someone who looks like my mom.”
Rosa took out her phone. “Cousin Raul sent me this. He shouldn’t have taken it, of course, but he’d planned to send it to me to show what a small world we live in. Then he got busy and forgot all about it until I called him last week and mentioned your mother.”
Win looked at the date-stamped photo of Vienna making an overhand serve in a pristine white tennis skirt, her ponytail swinging with the vigorous movement.
She remembered that week. She’d been home only a few days when her mother was whisked off by limousine to the clinic for a treatment and refused to let Win accompany her. Win had spent most of the time her mother was gone working feverishly to get through the list of tasks Vienna had set her, alternately crying about leaving Angus behind and pleading with God to heal her mother’s illness.
“Is this real?” Win stared at the photograph, trying to make sense of it.
Maria nodded. “I’m sorry. I asked Raul to make some inquiries, to see if somehow his information could be wrong. Raul knows everyone who works at the spas, you know? He’s not the only one who’s seen your mother up and about. She’s acting sick when she’s home, but she’s not.”
“But… how could she spend six months faking an illness? Does my father know?”
Rosa shrugged, but the pity in her eyes told Win she thought he must.
“Why?”
