Page 22

She pauses here to gauge my reaction and I flinch slightly because it’s embarrassing that Bex would know that about me, but anyone who has followed what’s been happening in media in the past decade could easily smell that desperation.

I thrust my shoulders back slightly. “I’m always looking for a good story.”

“As you should be. And Rebecca was going to deliver one to you. She had big plans. But they didn’t turn out the way she expected.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Circumstances changed. They usually do. I read the coverage so far on Modern Woman magazine. I saw them claim you’re their boots on the ground here. You’ll still be working on this?”

I shake my head. “I’m going home as soon as I can.”

“How can you do that if you’re on assignment on what looks like it will be one of the biggest news stories this month?”

The truth is that I don’t have an answer to that.

Alana wants me here for the week, maybe longer if need be, and if I say no, she can very easily cancel my tenuous two-year contract.

That was something she made abundantly clear before we ended our call.

She was sweet and understanding until she wasn’t.

But Olivia doesn’t need to know any of that, no one does. Not even Peter for the time being.

“I think you should stay,” Olivia says without breaking eye contact with me. “Have you heard from Bex?”

Her use of the nickname is intentional. She knows it’s what I call her. She clearly knows lots of things.

“You and I are going to have to trust one another. You don’t have to start right now, but soon.

And if it makes you feel better, I can sign on as your attorney as well, which means our relationship is also covered by attorney-client privilege.

” She holds up a hand. “Like I just said, you don’t need to decide anything right now.

But it’s an option, and it’s a good one.

First let me tell you what I came here to tell you.

Rebecca, Bex, was going to give you a massive story. ”

“I know that.”

“But you don’t know exactly what it was?”

“No.”

“She recently signed several licensing agreements with huge multinational brands. The deals are worth a couple hundred million in total. She would be leveraging her entire platform for a magazine, a television show, multiple lines of home goods. She’s poised to be the next Pioneer Woman, or actually even bigger than that.

She’s poised to be the next Martha Stewart. ”

I don’t mention that not everything has always turned out rosy for Martha.

“She was poised to be,” I say instead. “Now she’s wanted for murder.”

“There’s no warrant out for her arrest yet,” Olivia says diplomatically. “And I won’t let her be tried in the court of public opinion.”

“Her husband is dead.”

“No one cares about her husband. Do you know anything about Martha Stewart’s husband? They’ve been divorced since the nineties. No one cares. No one will remember Grayson Sommers in a few years.”

“He’s fucking dead,” I shout.

“It’s terrible. I know. But she didn’t do it.”

“Did Grayson know about this? All of these big deals?” I already know the answer, or at least part of it. Bex told me the other night, but I want to know what Olivia knows.

“No.”

“How is that possible?”

Olivia sighs. “A lot of reasons. She had tried to make deals like this in the past. Not as big of course. But there have been offers and he forbade her from pursuing them over and over again.”

“Why?”

“He claimed it was because they didn’t need the money, even though they did. But I know it was because he couldn’t handle her getting more and more famous, more and more powerful.”

“So she didn’t tell him about this one.”

“No.”

“And she was planning on letting him find out how? Through my story? Through her big keynote speech here?”

“I believe that was her plan.”

“And then what?”

“She didn’t think he could stop her if she made it so public.”

Once again, I feel like a pawn in some game I didn’t agree to play.

“He also can’t stop her now. Because he’s fucking dead. That’s convenient for her.”

Olivia watches me process all of this and chooses her next words carefully.

“I agree that it seems convenient. Of course she also can’t pursue any of this if she’s in prison so it makes no sense for her to have done what she did when so much is at stake.

Have you thought about the fact that Rebecca could be in danger herself?

That whoever killed her husband might want her dead too?

Everyone has been so quick to demonize her.

No one seems at all concerned about her safety. ”

I have to honestly admit that I hadn’t thought about that. I too had been quick to jump to conclusions about who was the perpetrator and who was the victim here.

Dread lurches through my stomach. Bex is missing and of course she could be in danger.

“Can I write about anything you just told me?” I ask.

Olivia shrugs. “I knew I was talking to a reporter when I said it.”

“Are we on the record?”

“Sure. I can email you some of the specifics about this deal. We should get that information out there. It drives me crazy that every story written about her so far calls her a housewife instead of mentioning that she’s the CEO of a multimedia, multinational brand.”

“That’s what she’s been selling to everyone,” I blurt out.

She may be an entrepreneur, but she’s been selling a traditional lifestyle, same as all those June Cleaver clones cheering on Marsden Greer.

She’s been selling herself as a homemaker and housewife in order to make massive amounts of money. It’s fairly genius.

I’m well aware that I am being played again, but the scoop is good, so I’ll take it. And it will get Alana off my back. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

“There are a lot of people who hate Rebecca. There’s a lot of jealousy in the world, and when you combine jealousy with as much money as she has at stake, it’s always dangerous. If I were you, I would talk to the women who are still here. Some of the women from around where she lives.”

“Now you’re just telling me how to do my job.”

I should dislike this bossy woman, but I don’t. I respect her confidence and it feels like she has Bex’s best interests at heart. She also plans to make a good deal of money off Bex if things work out, so she has a stake in all this.

“All suggestions. We want the same things.”

“I need to finish my story. Thanks for the coffee.”

“I’m always good for coffee. Text or call me anytime.” Olivia heads to the door to let herself out, but she turns slightly before exiting the room.

“Hey, Lizzie. One last thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Be careful.”

***

I can feel everyone watching me in the hotel’s restaurant.

I carry my laptop under my arm and set it up at a table in the corner to work.

As promised, Olivia sent over information about the deal that Bex was about to close with a very famous media company.

There would be a TV show and a magazine.

She would oversee a whole bunch of other shows on the network.

The number of zeroes in the contract made me slightly ill, slightly jealous, and slightly resentful.

I can’t imagine how Grayson would have felt finding out about all that money she was poised to make in an article written by me instead of finding out about it from his wife.

The piece I write is glowing and kind and not altogether true, but it’s what feels right for the moment and Alana texted me about nineteen thumbs-up emojis when she got it.

I mostly talked about how Bex, who I called Rebecca, and I reconnected online after growing apart when we moved to different parts of the country.

I wrote that we bonded over our children.

The lie about the reconnection is intentional.

I want Bex to read it. I want her to know that, for right now at least, I am on her side.

I want her to reach out to me again and I’m hoping my lie signals that I am here to protect her secrets. I’m still not sure if that’s true.

I write about the deal and about how awed I have been by her success. I throw in a cryptic line about how she was worried Grayson wouldn’t let her take on such a big new job. But I don’t mention her bruises.

Alana is satiated for the moment, but it won’t last.

I go back to my room, slide into the plunge pool, and try to forget everything for a couple of hours.

I call my babies. It’s irrational but I still worry they’ll forget me every time I go away.

Ollie screams when I try to get off the phone and my heart cracks in two.

I can’t stay here. I’m a terrible mother.

The shame is a rock lodged in my stomach that remains until Peter texts me minutes later with a picture of Ollie happily gnawing on the corner of the couch. He writes:

Never forget that small children have less of a short-term memory than a hamster. We’re fine.

I keep digging and reporting. I go downstairs for dinner.

A shadow of the conference is continuing without the formalities.

Many of these women probably couldn’t, or didn’t feel like, changing their flights.

Plus, the hotel rooms were insanely expensive.

Most of them remain, huddled in groups all around the dining room, still lounging at the pool, still walking the James Turrell–created meditation labyrinth.

From my online reading, I gather that Grayson’s political campaign was further along than I thought.

He had an office in the city even though he hadn’t yet officially announced he was running.

A snappy young man who referred to himself as a campaign manager for “Gray for America” released a statement about his intense sorrow, his thoughts, and his prayers and a call for justice.

“We will do everything we can to catch this brutal killer and lock them up for the rest of their life.”