Page 21

Lizzie

Alana wants everything. She wants photos and first-person interviews with MomBomb attendees.

She wants all the details about the last night I spent with Bex.

She wants to know our entire history together.

She wants me to live stream everything from the Modern Woman accounts if possible.

I tried to tell her that I’m a witness, or something.

That I’m whatever you call it when the police bring you in for questioning, that I don’t know if I can share anything.

Alana was undeterred. She got on the phone to the magazine’s general counsel, who confirmed that if I haven’t signed anything, I can share whatever I want with whomever I want whenever I want.

Legal advice aside, it feels wrong.

Alana is a lot of things, but she didn’t get to be as successful as she is today by not knowing how to read people.

She turned on the empathy when we spoke, said she couldn’t imagine what I was going through, asked what I needed, how she could support me.

And only then did she ask for all the reporting.

The most successful hunters are always the ones who make sure their prey are comfortable and unaware before going in for the kill. Alana and Bex might have that in common. I promised my boss two stories. The first is due in an hour.

I sit down at the computer as the sun comes up and decide I have to lie in this piece, or at the very least bend the truth.

I will do most of what Alana asks because we need my salary and my generous benefits.

But this is different than being a fly on the wall at the Golden Globes or sitting in the audience during a murder trial.

This is my life and our shared history. Only yesterday I was bemoaning how I could possibly create content out of my own life. And now someone is begging me to.

The note that Bex left me is on my bedside table and it was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes after a fitful couple of hours of sleep.

I’ve brewed myself a cup of coffee from the very complicated Nespresso machine.

There should be a German word for the intense confusion one feels in the face of new hotel appliances and lighting options.

Despite what the note says, I don’t believe Bex. I don’t know who or what to believe. I don’t know when she’ll be in touch again, but I think I have a plan to make her get in touch with me faster and it involves writing this article and getting it up on Modern Woman as quickly as possible.

Adrenaline has kicked in. I’ll write just enough about reuniting with Bex to make Alana happy. I’ll write the things that will hopefully make Bex reach out.

Her note feels like a desperate plea, but she’s also more calculated than I ever took her for.

And let’s not forget she may also be a murderer.

I can’t stop thinking about her kids. Where are they?

Grayson’s parents have finally talked to the press.

They’re pleading for information about their grandchildren.

How do six kids disappear without a trace?

One of them is a toddler who is still breastfeeding.

It seems impossible in this day and age that anyone could disappear.

And more important, are the children safe if Bex is with them and she’s unhinged and dangerous?

I keep thinking of this terrible story we reported at the magazine about two years ago that was so popular it was also turned into a podcast. A Hollywood producer bought the television rights too.

I think Emma Stone is slated to star in it next year.

At first I was excited to be assigned as the lead editor on such a big project, but it quickly overwhelmed me and put me into a dark place.

The story was about a mom who killed her seven children by driving them all off a hundred-foot cliff into the Pacific Ocean. All of the kids had been given near fatal doses of Valium and Benadryl and were most likely sound asleep at the time of the crash, which was the smallest of consolations.

I was in the thick of postpartum with Ollie.

I’d only just started back at work a few weeks earlier and I remember the intensity of my milk coming in as I edited the story.

My shirt was soaked before I could get to the bathroom with a useless hand pump.

I hadn’t slept in weeks. The baby had colic; the toddler had strep.

Someone needed me during every minute of every hour of every day.

I sat on the toilet then and bawled, and for the briefest of seconds I completely understood why that woman had driven off a cliff.

I immediately pinched myself hard enough to make a mark and took it back because what kind of woman tempts fate like that?

One of the things we discovered in our reporting is that prior to the incident the mom confided in a co-worker that she wished she hadn’t had such a big family, that she wished someone had given her permission to just stop. It seemed so strange to me at the time, the use of that word— permission .

But in hindsight it’s clear that mother felt trapped.

I know in my bones that no matter what she did or didn’t do Bex feels trapped too.

It may be one of the only things that I know for sure.

But she couldn’t do what that woman did.

There’s no way. Even if she’s the one who murdered Grayson in that barn, I don’t actually believe she could hurt her kids.

And I have to keep telling myself that as I write this story, because I’m putting myself on the line here in the hopes that I’m right.

I bang away at my keyboard, the words flowing easily. I’m in a groove in a way I haven’t been in a long time, and despite the subject matter, it feels damn good. I love writing, always have.

I take a break when I need a real coffee and not the weak Nespresso crap in the room.

I think it’s close to lunchtime and the hotel will probably be packed and Alana wants interviews.

I read on the MomBomb Instagram page that the rest of the conference has been canceled as the organizers have been working with the authorities, but people are welcome to stay as long as they need to.

You deserve the space to absorb, reflect, and heal, the organizers wrote.

While writing I’ve been trying to avoid reading what’s already out there, though I know there are a lot of column inches.

There are the traditional news stories, but also entire Reddit threads now dedicated to searching for Bex and positing theories about what she’s done.

They are cruel and often unhinged. The grammar is appalling.

The hatred is real. I remember all of the vitriol and outrage in the comments section of the stories about the mother who killed her children by driving the van off a cliff.

I wonder what happened to this woman to make her so sick and sadistic

She deserves to burn in hell

It was warranted. What she did was horrible. It was also like rubbernecking a car crash because you’re titillated by something appalling. The commenters were desperate and maybe delighted to be so horrified.

For the current Bex story, which someone has dubbed #BloodyFootMama, there’s also a whole tribe of TikTokers who refer to themselves as “citizen journalists,” both men and women who claim they will get to the bottom of this case before the police.

Who are these people and how do they get their information?

Do they have real jobs? Or is this a real job now?

A news alert comes across my computer screen that Marsden Greer, that stupid ballplayer from yesterday, has made a statement about Grayson Sommers’s murder. But I need coffee before I can watch it.

There’s a knock at the door. Part of me thinks it’s Bex, but I’m only slightly disappointed when I throw it open and see Olivia standing there.

She looks no worse for wear than she did yesterday, despite the fact that I know she must have spent much more time than I did in the police station.

Her purple suit has been replaced with an electric-blue version in the exact same style and cut.

A blue streak is now in her hair. She’s holding out a cup of coffee.

“It’s black, but I brought creamer and sugar. I don’t know how you take it.”

“It’s like you read my mind,” I say. “I was about to head down to get some coffee.”

“Oh, you don’t want to go down there. At least not yet. I think we should talk first.”

I’m slightly hesitant.

“Ten minutes.” She cocks her head and I realize she isn’t asking if she can come in. I step aside and she brushes past me.

“Are we allowed to be talking to one another?” I ask.

“We can do whatever we want.”

“I’m just…I’m sorry. I don’t know the rules here.”

Her voice softens. “I get it. A lot of this is new for me as well. But yes, we can talk safely and legally too. And if you want to get your own lawyer you are more than welcome to.”

“Do you have a lawyer?”

“I am a lawyer.”

“I thought you were an accountant.”

“I’m both. And I happen to be Rebecca’s attorney so there are things I know due to attorney-client privilege that I do not have to share with the police.”

“But you’ll share them with me?”

“Not all of it, no. But some.”

“Did she do it?” I blurt out.

“By ‘it,’ I assume you mean did she murder Grayson Sommers in cold blood in their barn?”

“No, I meant did she sleep with Bradley Cooper?”

“You’re funny. Rebecca said you were funny.”

“What else did she say about me?”

“I don’t think we’re here to talk about you. But we can if you want.” Olivia settles onto the couch.

“I would like to know how much she told you about me.” That seems only fair here, if maybe self-serving.

“Okay. So let’s talk about you first. She said you were old friends. She said you were a great writer and a great reporter, that you might be desperate for a good story.”