The Chatter suggests you stay home, and stay silent.
Laurie clicked the button at the bottom of the tablet to blacken the screen, then handed the device back to her son.
“Mom, how does that website know so much about your show? Is all of that information true?”
Every word of it, Laurie thought. She already knew-or at least, strongly suspected-that Gabrielle had a habit of feeding information to Mindy Sampson, but this column contained more information than Gabrielle could provide on her own. Gabrielle knew that Laurie was planning to cover Casey’s case for their next special. And she could probably make an educated guess that any responsible television producer would speak to the ex-boyfriend who wrote a tell-all hatchet job. But to know how many times Laurie had met with Casey, and where? Anyone who could guess that accurately should be playing the ponies.
She was replaying the entire column in her mind, thinking she had no idea who could have given Mindy Sampson the inside track on her production. And then suddenly, she thought of a moment that had passed a few hours earlier. You may be a good lawyer in the courtroom, but you’ve now chosen a job that you seem to have little interest in learning about.
Ryan Nichols. Was he trying to teach her a lesson? She immediately tried to shake the possibility, telling herself she was being paranoid. But Grace, Jerry, and Ryan were the only people who could have leaked all this information. She trusted Grace and Jerry with her life, but knew nothing about her new host, other than that he was so hungry for time in front of a camera that he’d been willing to leave behind a promising legal career to pursue television full-time. Was he leaking inside information to create gossip that was certain to generate plenty of interest in the show? Was this his first step in trying to undercut me and push me out of the picture? His uncle’s best pal, Brett, rewarded those whose ideas resulted in better ratings.
As they say, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get you.
•••
She was still wondering whether she should trust Ryan when her cell phone rang on the counter. It was Alex. For the first time since she’d known him, she hesitated before accepting the call.
Finally, after three and a half rings, she answered with a hey there.
“Hey there, yourself.”
“How did your talk at NYU go?” She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d shown up at his office asking questions about his prior dealings with the Raleigh family.
“Fine. My friend was beaming ear to ear over his induction as an endowed chair. Sounds like nothing but a title to me, but it was good to see him honored. You would have been more impressed with the food, I think. They had those Baked by Melissa tiny cupcakes you love so much.”
“They’re both delicious and adorable. What’s not to love?” She could hear him smiling over the phone. Before she knew it, twenty minutes passed as they fell into a comfortable rhythm talking about a local political story in today’s Post, a new client who’d retained Alex the previous day, and nothing in particular.
Just when she was beginning to feel silly for being so paranoid-about Ryan, about Alex-he suddenly asked about Casey. “So you made a final decision to cover her case.”
It sounded like an observation, not a question. To her knowledge, only The Chatter blog had reported the news. She couldn’t imagine that Alex was a regular follower of Mindy Sampson’s posts. She knew Timmy had set up a Google alert of her name, but had Alex? Or had Alex made a special effort to stay up-to-date with any news about Casey? Or was all of this in her head?
There was only one way to find out. “I take it you saw the story?”
He paused. Or at least, she thought he did. “What story?”
“On a website called The Chatter,” she said. Only after she spoke did she realize that his response hadn’t been a direct answer to her question, just as when she’d asked him the other night whether there was a reason he didn’t want her working on the case. “I don’t know how Mindy found out about the show,” Laurie explained. “And she also knew about two of my witnesses.”
The other end of the line was silent.
“Are you there, Alex?”
“Sorry, just thinking.”
“I guess with a case that high-profile, it’s not surprising that word got out that I was asking around,” she said, wondering out loud. “And the witnesses she mentioned by name would be obvious guesses.”
“Or someone inside the production is feeding her information,” Alex said. His tone was serious.
“It did cross my mind that Ryan Nichols could have ulterior motives.”
“Or someone wants to make sure you have a hard time flipping the public’s opinion about Casey. Is your decision absolutely final, Laurie? Maybe I can help you find another case that would satisfy Brett.”
She could not ignore this feeling that he was holding something back, something vitally important. “Alex, please, if you have information-”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t, or you can’t?”
He was silent again.
“Alex, what aren’t you telling me?”
“You’re smart, Laurie. You know you’re dealing with some very powerful people.”
“Alex-”
“Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
He hung up before she could ask why.
Six hours later, Laurie woke up in the middle of the night, her thoughts racing. She reached for the cell phone on her nightstand and opened her email. There was a new message from Jason Gardner, saying he had decided to tell his story to Under Suspicion. “The more truth, the better,” according to him, but Laurie had a feeling that his first phone call had been to his publisher. She pictured a reprint of his book in the imminent future.
But Casey’s ex-boyfriend was not the reason she had logged onto her account. She drafted an email to the head of information technology at Fisher Blake Studios. Remember those old online messages I asked about re the Hunter Raleigh case? Posted by RIP_Hunter? Please send me what you have ASAP.
The RIP_Hunter posts. Mindy Sampson’s insider knowledge. Alex’s guardedness. Somewhere in her dreams, they felt connected. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow, it might make sense.
35
Casey’s mother was pacing in circles around the living room. Sometimes Casey wondered if her mother arranged her furniture with walking routes in mind.
“I knew it,” Paula huffed under her breath. “Casey, you kicked the hornet’s nest, talking to this television lady. You haven’t even been out of prison two weeks, and already you’re all over the news.”
Casey was sitting cross-legged in a chair across from her cousin Angela and Angela’s friend Charlotte. Angela had been with Charlotte in the city when Casey called her in a panic about Mindy Sampson’s latest post. Charlotte had insisted on driving Angela to Connecticut. Now that she was here, Charlotte looked as though she wanted to shrink into an invisible speck on the sofa, away from Paula’s judgmental glare.
It’s a good thing my mother doesn’t gamble, Casey thought. She wouldn’t have a roof over her head, that’s how readable her expressions are. Her mother didn’t trust Laurie Moran, which meant she didn’t trust her friend Charlotte.
“How do you know you can trust that producer, Casey?” her mother protested. “She doesn’t care about you. All she wants are ratings. It’s a conflict of interest. She’s probably feeding these little teasers to the tabloids to generate buzz.”
“We don’t know that, Mom.”