Before we left, she assured the senator that his PACs would soon receive the first of two $1 million donations.

“Have Andrew stay in touch,” she told him. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to make you president.”

With a laugh, Bunny recalled her late husband, a staunch Republican, and added, “Paul is going to roll over in his grave.” (Later, I would learn that Paul had kept a mistress through much of their marriage, something that hurt Bunny but which she accepted as such a common practice for powerful men that it was hardly worth noting.)

As we drove out of Upperville, the senator was high with excitement. Aside from trial lawyers like Fred Baron, he had no backers ready to make the kind of unconditional commitment Bunny had made. Others asked for more in return than they gave.

I was happy because Bunny and I had established a very good rapport. For the next few years she w kew ould call me regularly and I would send her video and news clips almost every day. She would work with me and Bryan to help her “beloved senator save America.” Eventually, “whatever it takes” would amount to more than $6 million.

When someone like Bunny Mellon invites you to her guarded estate, declares you superior to John F. Kennedy, and makes a multimillion-​dollar commitment to see you elected president, it has an effect. Ever since he ran for the Senate in 1998, John Edwards had experienced similar encounters on a regular basis, and by 2006 he had evolved into a man who was absolutely certain he should be the leader of the free world. This change had also been aided by countless people who added their ambition to his because they hoped to get carried into the White House with him. I count myself in this group, along with various other professionals and Mrs. Edwards.

Committed to her political ideology, Elizabeth Edwards was even more excited about addressing the country’s serious problems-in health care, foreign policy, and economics-than the senator himself. And when she talked about living in the White House with him, it was with the assumption that she would remain his closest confidante and adviser. Mrs. Edwards showed plenty of ego as she made these plans, but she had the brains and courage to back up her dreams. These qualities saw her through her cancer treatment, which came with all the terrible side effects-hair loss, anemia, insomnia, terrible pain, and nausea-and I admired her bravery. Despite her outbursts and the times when her demands seemed excessive, I loved her and prayed for her to recover. I also admired her strength, which got her to her computer keyboard day after day to work on a book about her life, including her battle with cancer. It was to be called Saving Graces, and I was honored to be among the half dozen people she thanked in its pages for making the book possible.

The opportunity to tell her story, and a big-​money contract from a major publisher, came because Mrs. Edwards (like her husband) was a visible and popular public person. In presenting herself to the voters through the media, she had played up the elements that appealed to the majority of Americans-her roles as mother, wife, and advocate for things that mattered to families-and played down her career as an attorney and the role she had in helping to direct her husband’s campaigns. She also showed herself to be flawed in ways that might endear her to people. She struggled with her weight, ran herself ragged dealing with the demands of her life, and was guided by commonsense values.

Compared with political wives like Teresa Heinz Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and even Laura Bush, Elizabeth Edwards presented a more approachable and warmly human persona to the world. In private she was sometimes these things, but she was also fiercely ambitious and determined to advance herself. Because she got help from people like me and the nanny, Heather North, who lived with her husband, Jed, in an apartment over the garage, she had the kind of support for her writing that others just don’t get. She poured herself into the work, especially during early 2006, and even made frequent overnight trips related to this project and others.

When Elizabeth was away, Emma Claire and Jack were tended to by the senator and Heather North. Heather saw as much of the family as I did, and we became friends as we talked-shared war stories, really-about the care and feeding of folks who considered themselves “the First Family in waiting.” She set firmer limits than I did on the time she gave to the Edwardses, and this caused some friction between her and Elizabeth. But Heather’s job was safe, because when she was on duty she was completely reliable, Jack and Emma Claire loved her, and she loved them back with a consistency that made them feel safe and secure. She was a perfect fill-​in mom.

Heather was so much like a third parent that when Jack was upset and couldn’t find his mother or father, he naturally ran to her. In the fall of 2006, this happened in the middle of the night when Elizabeth was away and Jack went to his parents’ room hoping to get a reassuring snuggle from his father. He found the bed empty and then ran to awaken Heather. She took him by the hand to look for his dad and found he was gone. Somehow she managed to get Jack to go back to sleep, and in the morning the senator was back in the house to make breakfast and see the kids off to school.

My phone rang at nine A.M. On the other end of the line, Heather sounded worried, angry, and confused as she reported that the senator had gone missing in the night along with one of the family cars. (This was the first of several incidents like this.)

I didn’t lie when I told her I didn’t know where he might have been, but I did try to offer the most innocent explanation. He must have been unable to sleep and driven someplace where he could take a run.

How, then, Heather asked, would I explain the hotel key card from the Courtyard by Marriott hotel that she had found on a kitchen counter?

I couldn’t explain the card, except to say that perhaps he had gotten tired and just checked in someplace. I knew this was a lame explanation, but I did manage to calm her down, and since Mrs. Edwards was on her way home, she agreed to throw away the card and stay quiet, at least in the short term. As I told her I would look into things, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, as if a long-​dreaded crisis were at hand. I also found myself recalling little incidents that should have given me pause in the past but that I had chosen to ignore.

On the campaign trail, I had seen that the senator occasionally pocketed notes from eager women he met at an event rather than hand them to me for disposal. I had also received calls from other staffers who said that the senator had begun to request that they stay on different floors, away from him, whenever they were booked into a hotel for the night. On the hundred-​county tour, there were many nights when he would go out for “jogs” at two o’clock in the morning. I hadn’t been concerned about those episodes because I believed he was faithful to his wife.

My worries and Heather’s report came spilling out that morning as I told Cheri about Heather’s phone call. A committed skept kommic when it came to John Edwards, she was not surprised that he might be sneaking around, but she was upset about the threat an affair posed to his family. For all her flaws, Elizabeth was an essentially good person. Jack and Emma Claire were great kids who adored their dad. These concerns dominated Cheri’s reaction. But in a moment, when she was able to set them aside and offer a witty observation or two, she said she was shocked that the key card was from an inexpensive hotel and equally surprised by the identity of the woman I suspected was his mistress. For a man who could have his pick from among thousands of women who had literally thrown themselves at him, Rielle Hunter was, in my eyes and Cheri’s, a strange if not dangerous choice.