Somehow they had gotten through the rest of the shoot. Now Eliza was going to have to decide whether she could still work with her FRESHER LOOK producer.
Keith had been mortified the moment he saw the expression on her face after he had kissed her, knowing instantly that he had stepped over the line. He had apologized profusely, begging Eliza for forgiveness. Tears had welled in his eyes and his voice cracked as he explained that he was under so much pressure right now. There was friction at home with the new baby coming. The last thing he could afford was to lose his job.
Eliza had told Keith to forget about it. She understood. It was just one of those things. They hadn’t brought up the subject the rest of the tension-filled time they were in Dallas.
At the airport back in New York, a car was waiting to drive her home and she didn’t offer, as she might have done at other times, to drop off the producer and cameraman. She was eager to get home, she explained. That was true. She wanted to be there when Katharine and Paul arrived with Janie.
Now the limousine was pulling off onto the Saddle River Road exit on Route 17 and Eliza was trying to figure out what to do. She felt sorry for Keith and didn’t want him to be irreparably harmed by a momentary lapse in judgment. But she was the Evening Headlines anchorwoman. If word ever got out that Keith had pulled that stunt and she had stood for it, her own standing would be diminished.
But how would the word get out? Keith surely wasn’t going to tell anyone. Eliza decided that she would talk to him about the whole episode at work in the morning. They would clear the air and take it from there. She was willing to drop the matter as long as it never happened again.
The limo gilded to a stop in front of her house and the driver unloaded her suitcase from the trunk and carried it to the front entrance. Eliza unlocked the door and the chauffeur deposited the bag in the hallway and left.
It wasn’t quite dark yet, but Eliza flipped on the light anyway. She kicked off her shoes and went directly to check the mail Mrs. Garcia had left neatly stacked on the hallway table. She casually sorted through the pile as she walked into the dimly-lit living room and took a seat in the wing chair by the window. She recognized the handwriting on the thin airmail envelope. She switched on the lamp next to her chair to be able to better read Mack’s letter.
It was then, as her eyes swept the room, that Eliza noticed that all of her precious pictures were gone.