“Oh, come on, Gabe. Not a chance. Impossible.” Ellie waved him off. Just before nine now, but the Pharminex reception area was still deserted. “If Meg Weest is Brooke Vanderwald, daughter of the Pharminex Vanderwalds, that would mean that somehow, of all the cities in all the world, in all the television stations in all the world, of all the reporters in all the world, of all the investigations in all the world—”
The center elevator doors slid open. Ellie whipped her head around to see who’d emerge. But it was empty. After a pause, the elevator seemed to sigh and the doors swished closed.
Ellie shook her head. “The idea that Brooke Vanderwald would just happen to show up and become my researcher when I’m looking into the company that her family owns? Impossible.” She consulted her watch. “Detta’s keeping us waiting, I see. Anyway, Sherlock, what’re you smoking to make you think she’s Brooke?”
Gabe stayed in his chair, staring at the mums.
She poked his arm with one finger. “I’m listening.”
“When I last saw Brooke—”
“You’ve seen her?”
“Her brother, Trevor, was a classmate. No real connection, no big friendship, just the same school. He had a blowout birthday party at a country club. Years ago. And his little sister was there for it. All, you know, braces. Bad skin.” He looked at her, as if remembering, “Awkward. Fifteen. Or so.”
“Did you talk to her then?” Ellie asked.
“Not that I remember.” Gabe shrugged. “I suppose you’re right. It’s unlikely. More than unlikely.”
“Did Meg seem to recognize you?” That would be a complication.
“No reason for her to remember me. I was older, in her brother’s circle. She was a teenager. In an I hate everyone stage. When you think you’re going to be unhappy forever. You know how it was.” He gave half a smile. “Did you ever look her up, in your research about the company and the family?”
“Yeah, way back,” Ellie admitted. “But after you mentioned it, I checked again. And I saw an internet thing, like, yesterday, that after she got out of rehab, the fam shipped her off to Majorca or Málaga, I forget, someplace ritzy like that, spending her trust fund. Or maybe she’s … you know. Damaged goods. From the accident. The snooty Vanderwald types could never deal with that. Or maybe, prodigal daughter, she’ll show up at the gala. That’d be something.”
Gabe stood, unbuttoned his coat, folded it over his arm. “Where’s Fiddler, I wonder?”
“Are we finished talking about Meg Weest being Brooke Vanderwald? Because the real Meg, the TV researcher, seems to be on an unsanctioned mission into enemy territory, which makes me wonder if she’s actually the enemy. What if—”
“Nora.” Gabe’s voice changed, now formal and warning. He tilted his head toward the back of the room, where a door had opened behind the reception desk.
Ellie blinked, trying to remember if she’d even noticed the outline of a door.
Maren, Ellie remembered. Fiddler’s haughty secretary. “Maybe she’s Brooke Vanderwald,” Ellie whispered to Gabe.
“Hello, Maren,” Ellie said in her normal voice. “This is my lawyer, Gabriel Hoyt. He’s here to—”
“Ms. Fiddler will see you both now,” Maren interrupted.
I’m Nora, Nora, Nora, Ellie kept thinking, as she assumed her Nora face and her confident Nora posture, and listened to Gabe and Detta Fiddler hash out another confidentiality agreement—her second in two weeks, this one about her new mission. How would Nora feel about this assignment? Hurt, but vindicated, Ellie decided. A battered woman who’d been apologized to and offered money to secure her allegiance.
Detta’s back was to the wide window. Her view, if she ever turned to look at it, was a sliver of sky, the pointy top of the Custom House Tower, and past that, a strip of Boston Harbor, water meeting sky. Detta had barricaded herself behind her desk, her gardenias in full fragrance, white flowers without a hint of browning edges. Detta seemed to be ignoring the leather-skirted Allessandra, hovering as usual behind Detta’s shoulder.
Gabe had first taken the upholstered visitor’s chair to Ellie’s left, but stood to accept a manila file folder Detta handed him.
“Take a look,” Detta instructed. “We’ll wait while you read it.”
Ellie yanked her Nora-self back to this center of power, this carefully appointed room where lives were discussed like entries in a ledger. She’d been lost in angry thoughts, thoughts of retribution and revenge. Trying to understand why people made the decisions they did. For power, or money, or even because they thought it was the right thing.
“Nora?” Gabe tapped the papers in the open file folder. “This proposal indicates you’ll be reassigned as a customer service slash public relations representative. No longer actively repping products but tasked with assessing consumer reaction and protecting the company’s market position. You’d report to Ms. Fiddler directly. Are you amenable to this?”
“What do you think, Gabe?” As if she would say no. As if she would refuse this access. There was always the chance that Detta Fiddler was trying to trap her again. But it was a risk she’d take. Gabe too. Lawyers and journalists. Together they had the power to make things right.
“I think it’s likely a waste of time. But that’s not for us to assess. So. Agreed.” Gabe closed the folder. “But no promises. Ms. Quinn cannot guarantee she’ll discover anyone—reporter or other unwanted questioner—who’s approaching your employees. It may not even be true.”
“Oh, it’s true,” Allessandra finally contributed, narrowing her eyes as if trying to read the room. “We have—shall we say—people in certain pivotal doctors’ offices and other places. We know what’s going on. It’s a necessary evil. A cost of doing business.”
“Like your spy? Dr. Hawkins?” Ellie couldn’t resist saying. “The liar who cost me my job?”
“Which means our methods work, correct?” Detta drummed her fingers on her desktop, then stopped, possibly realizing the attitude it telegraphed.
Allessandra stepped forward, taking over. “We need to ensure the safety and efficacy of our products, as well as their security. The stakes are high. It’s too easy to ruin a company’s reputation. Too easy for the media to spin some fake story, gossip, essentially, exploiting so-called ‘victims’ who certainly understood—”
Ellie caught Detta’s short-lived expression of disapproval.
“What Allessandra means,” Detta rolled over the end of her assistant’s sentence, “is that we’d be infinitely grateful to you, Nora. We need to make clear to the board and to the stockholders—”
“And to the public,” Gabe said.
“Goes without saying,” Detta said.
“Does it?” Gabe asked.
“That no renegade journalist is targeting our company.”
Ellie looked Detta square in the eye, knowing that Detta was seeing Nora. The woman she’d had no problem entrapping, discrediting and discarding. Detta also apparently had no hesitation about using her again if she thought it was to her advantage.
Nora would assert herself in any discussion of her future, Ellie figured. “Detta? How can I help you stop something you’re not sure even exists? If I’m to be part of this search, we need to be clear about that and—”
Search. She stopped herself midsentence. “Detta? Did you have someone break into my apartment?”
“What?” Detta looked surprised, though Ellie assumed the woman had practice with artifice.
“Your apartment?” Allessandra frowned.
“Is that a no?” Gabe said. “Someone did.”
“Did you call the police?” Detta asked. “Did the burglar take anything?”
“Was it you?” Ellie persisted. Detta had not asked whether Nora was at home or if she had been harmed.
“Let me be clear, Ms. Quinn. And to you too, Mr. Hoyt. On the record. On the permanent record. And immutable. We do nothing—nothing—that’s in any way criminal.” Detta Fiddler stood, resting her fingertips on her desk, her chair rolling out from behind her with the decisive motion. “Yes, we employ people to make sure our company is not targeted or harmed. But—” She pressed her lips together and sat back down, smoothing her black skirt underneath her. “I assure you we would never cross that line. Clear?”
How do you know if someone is lying? Listening to Detta, assessing her earnest expression and persuasive techniques, Ellie had to wonder. She herself had spent much of her career doing the same thing. And expecting people to believe her.
As Nora, she’d lied to convince this company to give her a job in the first place, lied to further her investigation, then lied her way out when she got caught. As Ellie, she’d lied to convince her news director and everyone else that she had no agenda but to be a journalist exposing a powerful and unscrupulous business. Now she was being offered an assignment where the stated point was to keep on lying. And to discover who else was doing the same thing.
When the stakes were life and death, did a few lies matter?