Elizabeth had spent the last week desperately trying to find a link between Robin Platt and Rick Warner. But no matter how hard she investigated, she couldn’t find anything. Her gut still told her Rick Warner might be at the bottom of this, but so far she could find no proof.
She desperately wanted to discover holes in Robin’s story, anything that might shed doubt on her version of events. Then she could hand her editors a story that would help Bruce instead of hurting him.
While she hadn’t given up on the Rick Warner link, she also knew she’d run out of time. She would have to run with the Robin Platt exclusive interview or she’d lose her job.
Now came the even harder part: admitting to Robin Platt she wasn’t Laura Christer, supportive therapist, at all, but Elizabeth Wakefield, investigative journalist.
Robin sat in front of her now, blinking.
“You lied to me?” she said, after Elizabeth had rushed through the story. “And now you want to run my story in the newspaper? But you can’t run my name! You said you wouldn’t.” Robin jumped up and began frantically pacing the room. “No one can know my name!”
Elizabeth felt a little nudge of suspicion. Robin seemed completely panicked at the thought of her name getting out there. But then, she was a victim, and unfortunately, there was still something of a taint and certainly an embarrassment to having your intimate life exposed. Elizabeth could understand that. That was the reason the media protected victims’ names—to give them the privacy they needed to bring their story forward.
“It will be anonymous, of course,” Elizabeth said. “You’ll be known only as Jane Doe.”
“Oh.” Robin visibly relaxed.
Elizabeth couldn’t put her finger on it, but something wasn’t quite right. In fact, Robin even seemed a little glassy-eyed. But maybe that was just her imagination. Or her own guilt at work. Elizabeth couldn’t trust herself to see anything clearly these days.
“I’ll do it,” Robin said after a minute, shocking Elizabeth. “I’ll give you the interview.”
“You will?”
“No, I think it’s the best thing. It’s about time my story got out there,” Robin said. “And I’ve already told you so much already. It might as well be you. As long as my name is kept out of it, I’ll do it.”
“I promise you it will be. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I’m sure,” Robin said, and her voice sounded a little bit too hard. Elizabeth clicked “record” on her tape recorder to start the official interview before Robin changed her mind. She knew that even after the interview, she wasn’t done with this story yet. Something felt wrong, and Elizabeth was going to find out what it was. No matter how long it took.