Chapter 1

The bugle played "Taps." The sound was clean and lonely in the cold air of Arlington National Cemetery.

Each note hung there for a moment before the next one pushed it away.

I stood next to my mother, Helen. Her hand was cold in mine. She wore a black veil, but I could see her face was tight, like a mask about to crack.

We were burying my father, Colonel Marcus Evans. A hero. That' s what the flags and the uniforms and the rows of stoic faces told me.

I knew the truth. I was the only one who did. He was my father, the man who rescued me from a bombed-out orphanage, but he was also a man living a secret life.

The honor guard folded the flag. The movements were sharp, perfect. They presented it to Helen. She took it with hands that trembled just a little.

That' s when I saw her.

A woman was walking toward us, against the flow of the quiet crowd. She was young, dressed in a black dress that was too tight, too flashy for a funeral. And she was visibly pregnant.

She stopped a few feet from us, right in front of the generals and the politicians. Her eyes, wet with tears that looked too practiced, found mine. Then they moved to Helen.

"He loved me," she said, her voice loud enough to carry.

A murmur went through the crowd. Cameras that had been respectful now turned on us with a new hunger.

"He was going to leave her for me. For us."

She placed a hand on her swollen belly.

"This is his son. His only son and heir."

Helen made a small sound, a choked gasp. I squeezed her hand, trying to hold her together, trying to hold myself together.

The woman, this stranger, was a lie. A walking, talking, breathing lie.

Because I knew the one thing that made her claim impossible.

My father, Colonel Marcus Evans, the war hero, was gay.