Another call came in after midnight. Against Joe’s advice, Eliza demanded that he play it back for her. Her face paled as she listened to the whispered words.
“Eliza, you are beautiful, even without your makeup. I dream of waking up beside your scrubbed face each morning. Your daughter can join us in our bed and we will all snuggle together.”
Without her makeup? Who had seen her without her makeup? Was he looking in her windows, watching her as she played with Janie out in the yard? Had he seen her come into the Broadcast Center one morning when she hadn’t had time to apply her makeup?
Eliza felt physically ill. She ran down the hallway and vomited.
She had to do her job. She had to.
Keith wanted to go over the FRESHER LOOK shooting schedule. Could they go to the Bronx Zoo this weekend, interview the bat expert there and get man-on-the-street sound bites about how people felt about bats? The weather was expected to be good over the Columbus Day holiday weekend and there would be plenty of zoo-goers.
Eliza tried to think. There was absolutely no way on God’s green earth that she was going to leave Janie this weekend.
“I’ll do it, Keith, but I’m bringing Janie with me,” she said firmly.
If the producer was surprised, he didn’t show it. Actually Keith hoped that he would be as devoted to his baby when it finally arrived.
“Sure, Eliza. That sounds great. I hear they have some Halloween things going on there. Janie should love it.” Keith looked at his clipboard. “Now, about the Linda Anderson story. We can go out and interview Mrs. Anderson next Tuesday. Will that work for you?”
Eliza was having a hard time thinking past this afternoon. “Check with Paige. If I’m open, fine.”
Keith’s research had convinced Range that the Linda Anderson story would make good TV. Though Eliza had been uncomfortable when Range insisted that they do it as a FRESHER LOOK, she now felt almost compelled to face it head-on. Linda Anderson had resembled Eliza, she had a similar job and, because of Linda’s high profile and large audience, the police thought almost anyone could have become obsessed with her.
People who had known Linda for years were called in and questioned after she disappeared. Co-workers, friends and acquaintances. The police conducted over four hundred interviews and followed up on twelve hundred leads. In the end, though, the authorities were convinced that an obsessive fan had targeted Linda as an object of desire. The very phenomenon that had helped Linda in her career—the fact that even if you had never met her, you felt you knew her—had led to her death. And all the investigations, manhunts and cadaver dogs had turned up nothing.