If word got out about their project, Aaron knew, like almost happened with Waverly, not only would the whole scheme collapse, so would all their careers. Aaron knew properties from other banks were involved, too. They’d be reading headlines about the bank crisis from their cells at Sing Sing. Theft, conversion, fraud. Bank robbery, essentially. So far, their secret had been contained. But now Lizzie McDivitt, genius daughter of the president of the damn bank, had discovered it.
From moment one, Aaron had known she could never be allowed to tell. But that was Ackerman’s department.
“So hey. I did my part,” Aaron said. “Got her here, got her upstairs. Et. Cetera. Now back to you in the studio, Walter.”
Ackerman was pacing again, his back to Aaron as he headed toward the dinky fireplace, then around the lumpy couch and past the sagging wing chair, its armrests so faded and threadbare they were a different brown than the seat. He didn’t answer. Asshole.
“Ack? Hel-lo. I’m serious. What is-?” He remembered to keep his voice down. Started over, quieter. “What. Is. The plan? Or are you gonna stall until Lizzie McDivitt comes down those stairs and joins the conversation?”
He was gratified that Ackerman flinched, checked the stairs. Not so gratified when he rolled his eyes again. Jerk. Weren’t they in this together?
“So let me get a few things straight,” Ackerman said. He stopped by the chair, now leaning against the back of it, his body hidden behind the stripes. “You brought her here from the bank parking lot, and left her car there?”
“Yeah.”
“And what, pray, was going through your mind when you made that decision?”
Incredible jerk. “Well, there’s only one parking space here, you know? I had to get her to leave her car to get her here.”
Ackerman nodded, agreeing. “I see. You wouldn’t want her car to be towed from here for violating Brookline’s overnight parking laws. Leave a record that she’d been here.”
“Exactly.” Aaron had thought it all out. Get her here, get her inside and out of sight, see what she knew. If nothing, fine, game over. If something, not so fine, bring out the cupcake or whatever. Call Ack, and assess what to do next.
“And what was your thought,” Ackerman said, his voice still at almost a whisper, “about the security cameras in the bank parking lot? The ones that certainly captured the bank president’s daughter getting into your car with you? And driving away with you?”
“The-?” Crap.
“Exactly,” Ackerman said. “So, my young Lothario, back upstairs with you. And good luck. We’ll all see young Lizzie McDivitt at her desk tomorrow morning. Won’t we?”
Aaron looked up the stairway, at the slightly open bedroom door. Behind it, his future lay zonked in a stranger’s bed.
“Crap.”
“Exactly,” Ackerman said again. He came out from behind the chair, and headed for the front door.
“At least tomorrow morning, she’ll remember only what I remind her to remember,” Aaron said.
“Possibly.” Ackerman turned, one hand on the front doorknob. “If you’re lucky.”
“But after tomorrow morning,” Aaron continued, “after she’s back at her damn desk and it’s all back to normal-”
“Not your department,” Ackerman said. He opened the door, peered into the hallway, then looked at Aaron over one shoulder. “And Gianelli? We’ll handle her from here.”
35
“No, Jane. Absolutely not. Not one word.”
“But I think we should-” Jane was not happy with the direction of this morning’s meeting in Marcotte’s office. “I mean, I could write a terrific-”
“You certainly grasp the logic here, don’t you, Jane?” Marcotte, interrupting, ripped the top page from a yellow legal pad, crumpled it, tossed it into a leather-covered wastebasket. “If this”-she consulted another legal pad-“Gordon Thorley? Is indeed a suspect in the Moulten Road killing? Lucky you weren’t killed.”
“Well-” True, certainly. “But I wasn’t-”
“I pitched having you write a first-person about the whole incident, of course, it’s fabulous reporter involvement. Talk about buzzable,” Marcotte continued. “But legal says no. So it’s no. Understood?”
“But-” Jane wasn’t making any headway in this conversation. Peter had called her from police station Siberia about four in the morning, giving her the outline of what happened with Thorley, and telling her, “Detective Brogan says thank you so much, and he’ll be in contact if he needs you.”
So far, no call. Not a word from Jake. Did that mean he didn’t “need” her? She thought about that suitcase, still packed in her bedroom, like the last memory of a fading dream. Had Jake backed out of their trip for some reason he wasn’t saying? The assignment in Washington had suddenly appeared-then disappeared. What was that all about? Why didn’t he trust her with the truth?
Last night, she’d been too tired to think about it clearly.
She’d ripped open a can of evil-smelling lamb-and-rice for the complaining Coda, grabbed three hours of sleep after Peter’s call, hit the shower, slugged down two coffees, and dragged herself into Marcotte’s office, banishing all thoughts of Jake, fueled by the prospect of a big story. She was expecting a pat on the back, since she’d scored the big Thorley-as-Moulten-Road-Killer scoop, such a headliner she could bang it out no matter how tired she felt. She’d planned to leave out what took place in Hardesty’s living room. Since it was all a “misunderstanding,” according to Peter, there’d be no police report, no record of it, as if it never happened. She could still be objective.
Now Marcotte was saying no.
“But, Victoria? Legal’s got to understand the episode with Thorley wasn’t reported, formally, so it doesn’t count. Doesn’t affect my objectivity. In fact, you only know about it because I told you. If I hadn’t-”
“If you hadn’t what?” Marcotte, interrupting, seemed to look straight at Jane for the first time that morning. “If you hadn’t, we’d be having quite a different conversation, I expect. You don’t think I wouldn’t find out, do you?”
Backpedal time. “Well, of course, and I did tell you,” Jane said.
“And so it goes,” Marcotte said.
This conversation wasn’t the only thing derailed in Jane’s life. Maybe she should go home, get some sleep, and start the day again, not exhausted and not bummed out.
She could work on Sandoval, and also the foreclosure crisis story that started this whole thing. A memorial service for Emily-Sue Ordway, the girl who’d fallen from the window, the teenage victim who’d started Jane’s interest in foreclosure families, was in the works, and might be a good peg.
“However,” Marcotte was saying. “Even though legal’s yanked you off the Thorley story, all is not lost. I have a favor to ask, and I know you can handle the assignment. We need to front-burner it for the Sunday editions. Get it in-by Friday? Two days from now. Use TJ for video.”
A favor? An assignment? Okay, that was the challenge of reporting. You never knew what was around the next corner. Usually that was the exciting part, but right now, it was the confusing part. Still, she could do it, whatever. It was also a convenient way to get back into Marcotte’s good graces, if such a place existed.
“Sure,” Jane said. She’d hear what Marcotte had in mind, get more coffee, be a team player.
“Chrystal Peralta is out sick,” Marcotte said. “Flu. She’s been working on a consumer story about banks and their evolving customer service departments. How they used to give toasters and the like for opening a new account? Now they’re all about personal service.”