A sound from the kitchen. Something falling or crashing. “Now what? Blink!” She handed Gabe the phone and raced into the kitchen, where the cat had jumped onto the counter and into the stainless steel sink, knocking the can opener to the floor and into her water dish. Blink, head tilted at a ridiculous angle, was trying to lap water dripping from the faucet.
Ellie righted everything, wiped up the spilled water, glared at the cat, then looked at her watch as she came back into the living room.
“Cat disaster,” she explained as Gabe handed back her phone. “And Meg awaits. At least there’ll be wine.”
Gabe was shoving one arm into the sleeve of his coat. “I think I’ll pass,” he said, shrugging into the other sleeve.
“Chicken,” she said.
“No, really, you two have work business, and I was only thinking that we…”
Ellie waited, curious. What did he want from her? This morning at Pharminex, they’d been co-conspirators, partners in their mutual goal of bringing down the pharmaceutical giant, Ellie using journalism and Gabe using the law. But though she was clear about what she herself was doing, all Gabe had seemingly done so far was hang around her.
“How’s your lawsuit going, by the way?” she asked.
“It’s going, thanks,” he said. “I only do the legwork, right? Work the leads they give me.”
“Had they given you leads about me?” She tried to keep her tone neutral, just curious, no big deal.
“You called us, remember? So, no, they didn’t say anything about you. But Pharminex needs taking down. You’re not the only one who knows that.”
Three raps on the front door, then three more. “Hey, you two in there! You forget about me?”
Ellie winced at Meg’s voice, and Gabe stepped aside as she went to the door.
“Cat situation, sorry,” Ellie explained as she opened the door. “Now I’m on the way. But Will has to leave. Family thing.”
Meg made a pouty-ingenue face. “We’ll miss you, Will,” she said. “Give your wife and kids my best.”
CHAPTER 49
ELLIE
It was disconcerting for Ellie to sit in a clone of her own living room. Even the furniture in Meg’s mirrored her own, Channel 11 apparently having bought it in bulk for its temporary employee housing. Ellie kept having flashes that she was home.
Meg sat across from Ellie on the familiar tweedy couch. “So Will’s, like, what?” Meg asked. “Bringing you, like, documents or paperwork? What kind of stuff is he telling you? And why’s he doing this?”
Ellie took a sip of her wine. Weirder and weirder—it was the same brand of malbec that Ellie had in her kitchen wine rack. When had Meg been in Ellie’s kitchen? It was creepy to think such minor details had been noticed, registered, remembered. An array of chocolate chip cookies, brown-edged and fragrant on a fluted pink ceramic plate, sat on a coffee table just like Ellie’s.
“Will and I just met. I’ll let you know if he tells me anything or hands over something useful, but so far…” Ellie shrugged. “You know, we’re just feeling each other out.”
“Ooh,” Meg said. One eyebrow went up. “That sounds interesting.”
“Puh-leeze.” Ellie took another sip. “Don’t even go there.”
“Okay, okay, kidding.” Meg saluted Ellie with her still-full glass. “But you mentioned a boyfriend that first night I was here,” she said. “Where is he? I never see—I mean, I haven’t heard you talk about him since.”
“Well, it’s personal, not work stuff.” Ellie knew she should never have alluded to a boyfriend that first night—so funny to remember that throwaway line during what she’d thought was a throwaway encounter. Now she changed the subject.
“How are you liking Channel Eleven?”
“Are you still mad about Abigail?” Meg chose her own subject. Selected a cookie, broke off one edge, nibbled at it.
Okay, let’s go there, Ellie thought. “So you think the interview is truly gone?” She sighed, bereft. “I mean, she was the narrative we needed. Her passion, and the harm she’s suffered.”
Every time it hit her, every time Ellie remembered what she was doing and why, it seemed all the more necessary. When she saw a baby in a stroller, or an ad for diapers or some ancestry-finder company. When families died out, it was like a species going extinct.
“It’s so awful,” Ellie went on. “Listen, Meg. If you can’t recover the audio, maybe you—we—could interview her again?” She took a bigger sip of wine now, thinking about Abigail. And how for some things, there could be no do-overs. What was done was done. “What she told us can help other people. Help us stop Pharminex.”
Meg adjusted her legs under her. “Yeah, I’ve told her that.”
“So she has answered the phone? That’s good news.”
Meg looked skeptical. “Maybe. But she’s suspicious. Hurt. Thinks no one tells the truth. She believes the drugs she was given killed an actual person, you know? Not simply her chance at having children. She feels Pharminex killed her children, her potential children. And then they get to say ‘oh, that happens sometimes. Sorry. Mistake.’” Meg shook her head, downed her wine. Paused for a beat.
“I told her I have a brother—had one, at least,” Meg went on. “He got killed. Abigail says it’s like someone murdered a potential brother, you know? I’m not saying it as articulately as she did, as passionately, but in her heart, she feels they took away her family, that’s what—what she’s trying to convey.” She puffed out a breath. “You’re right. It’s incredibly awful.”
Both women stared in silence at the redbrick fireplace that didn’t work, just like in Ellie’s apartment. Meg’s hearth was decorated with a basket of silver-sprayed pine cones and two battery-powered ivory candles, now glowing robotically.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” Ellie said. “That must have been devastating.”
“It was.” Meg looked pensive, as if remembering times gone by. “D’you have any siblings?”
Yeah, well, Ellie thought. I’m not going to talk about that. It was a long time ago, now. But time is endless when you miss someone.
“Can we not talk about it?” The too-harsh dismissal came out of her mouth before Ellie could filter her tone.
“Sure. You seem unhappy, though, El. Are you sure you don’t want to talk? It’s just us. Off the record. I don’t want to push, but it always helps me to talk about what happened. Gets it out there. Like saying to the universe—I accept it.”
“We shouldn’t have to accept grief when it’s imposed on us.” Ellie tried to change the conversation’s direction, like turning a massive ocean liner in a vast dark sea. “That’s why we’re doing this story. To prevent grief like that. Sorry if I sound like a TV promo, but that’s why we need Abigail. We have to convince her to let us interview her again. Plus, Will is secretly trying to get us a Pharminex insider to go on camera—”
“Really?” Meg clapped her hands in approval.
“Trying.” This sounded so plausible, Ellie almost believed it herself. But “Will” had told Meg he worked for Pharminex, so she had to stick to that story. “Will admits it—they tell women that bad reactions are rare, and they consider that statement sufficient warning. It’s like those side effects they rattle off in commercials. No one even listens to that stuff, let alone thinks they really happen. Will’s as angry about it as I am. As we are.”
“Ellie. I have an idea.” Meg’s eyes brightened as she spoke. “Does he know that woman you’ve been talking to? Nora Quinn?”
“I’ll ask him,” Ellie said, trying not to laugh at the crashing dominoes. She’d set them up, after all.
“Maybe she’ll talk to him. Whatever happened to her?”
Ellie shrugged. “We’ll get Will to find out. Or come up with someone else.”
“It’s disgusting, El. It truly is.” Meg put her wineglass back on the coffee table with such force that it almost tipped over. She rescued it, barely in time.
“How can they work the
re, those people? Messing with lives?” Meg went on. “Rolling the dice? Except the company never loses. The patients do. And their children, who will never exist. They should know how it feels, that’s what I think. More than just statistics on a ledger. And as a journalist, don’t you want to do everything you can to ruin them? And everyone connected with them?”
“I’m doing my job.” Ellie wondered where this ferocity came from. Maybe the wine had hit Meg too. “‘As a journalist,’ as you say, that’s not how I see it. My job is to discover the truth and let that lead where it may.”
“But don’t you think Pharminex is responsible? And everyone who’s connected with them? They’re all complicit. They’re murderers. Wouldn’t you say that? Who knows how far they’ll go to cover up, right?”
Ellie assessed her colleague’s narrowed eyes, the challenge in her tone. Wine or not, this wasn’t a casual conversation. Not even between working journalists.
“How’d you wind up here, Meg?” Ellie shifted on the couch, assessing the hostility she heard. No matter how small the world of investigative reporting, as Gabe kept pointing out, Ellie couldn’t shake how unlikely it was that someone as seemingly impassioned as Meg would present herself just in time to help Ellie’s research into Pharminex. Might she work for P-X? Be one of their paid informants? That specter had never quite faded from Ellie’s consciousness. Now, motivated by proximity and malbec, she thought—why not just ask her?
“Do you work for Pharminex?”
“What?” Meg put a hand to her throat.
Either she’s a terrific actor or authentically surprised, Ellie thought.
“Are you kidding me, Ellie? Where’d that come from?”
Or protesting too much. “Or are you involved with Pharminex people in any way? Know them, connected with them?”
“What? Our investigation is the most important thing in the universe to me. What have I ever done to make you suspect—?” She stood, tears welling in her eyes, staring down at Ellie. “You never liked, me, okay? I know that. Let’s get that on the table. Yes, I lied to you, kind of, sort of, that first night. I already apologized for that. But you’ve never ever given me a chance. Never. You were pissed that I went to Kaitlyn Armistead’s house. If you’d have been supportive, a teammate, you’d have applauded my enterprise. I mean, you showed up there, right? So how bad of an idea could it be? Right?”
“Well—” Ellie looked up at her, feeling almost trapped in the corner of the couch.
“No. Let me finish. For once. Without you rolling your eyes at me.” Meg whirled, ponytail swinging, paced to the edge of the living room. Then turned back, holding her hands out in frustrated surrender.
“And yeah, okay. I took those damn pencils from his floor, and the pad, right? That was awesome, an awesome find, and you should have—”
Ellie was not going to be tantrumed into giving that a pass. Stealing was stealing. “You can’t—”
“See? This is exactly what I’m saying. If you liked me, you wouldn’t make a freaking federal case out of pencils. So now I’m the one who’s the bad guy? I’m a freaking spy?”
“Meg, come on.” Ellie stood now too, arms out, smoothing the space in front of her, not quite sure how this evening had spun so emotionally out of control. “It’s been a long day for both of us, and stressful. With Lydia Frost, and then James Armistead. But this is what I do. Ask questions, worry, investigate. I don’t know you, and here you are, supposedly an instantly devoted ally and—”
“Supposedly?” Meg clamped a fist on each hip. “Let me get this straight. I should have been, what—unhelpful? Unsupportive? Unenthusiastic?” She nodded, sagely, as if she’d discovered the answer to a difficult puzzle. “Oh, I get it, I get it. You want the spotlight for you. For you! Not me. And crap, I happened to screw up, I know, and lost Abigail. But you never made a mistake? A wrong choice? You were never a beginner?”
“Sit down, okay?” Ellie patted the cushion beside her. “Let’s talk about this. Okay?”
Meg plopped back onto her couch, crossed her arms over her navy sweater.
Maybe pouting, maybe assessing, Ellie thought. Maybe embarrassed. Maybe acting.
“I didn’t mean to freak,” Meg finally said. “Sorry. It’s just because you brought up my brother.”
CHAPTER 50
ELLIE
Ellie took another sip of wine to mask her confusion. Ellie had not brought up Meg’s brother. Meg had done that herself. But now that the woman seemed to be retreating from the precipice of battle, Ellie let that go.
“I’m so sorry, Meg. Is this something you want to talk about? Or—not?” Ellie somehow felt as if she should comfort the woman, but where was the line? Especially since Meg appeared to have a volatile side. Or at least a vulnerable one. An arm’s length separated them on the couch, but their emotional distance was measured in miles. “I’m here, either way.”
“We were best pals.” Meg picked at her sweater, gathering tiny fuzz balls. “Yes, he was older, so he was cooler, and pretended not to pay attention to me. Especially around his, like, college buddies.”
Where had Ellie just heard something exactly like that? Right. From Gabe.
“But even then, I knew he’d stand up for me if I needed him to, no matter what. He loved sports and sailing and my parents—well, they doted on him. He could do no wrong. I was always the little afterthought to them, with my bad skin and all that teenage angst. They always seemed a bit surprised I was even born. Or maybe disappointed.”
Ellie blinked at her, smoothing a row of silky fringe on a striped throw pillow, just like the one on her own couch.
Meg took a deep breath, let it out. The living room was so still Ellie heard the soft sound of her sigh expelled into the dimming light, saw the fake flickering candles in the fireplace, the random glare of passing headlights catching the edges of the half-curtained windows.
“I knew he loved me and that when we were grown-ups—sorry, that’s how I thought of it back then—we’d be friends, and our families would spend summers together at the shore, just like ours always had.”
“What shore?” Ellie asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
Meg waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter, wherever. Anyway, he met someone in college, and they were madly in love. I mean, he couldn’t see anyone else but her. She was all flossy and golden…” Meg spiraled her finger in the air. “Fancy. Everything I wasn’t. Looking back on it now, I was so—so envious of her. She had everything. I had nothing. And then they decided to get married.”
Meg dropped her head into her hands, and Ellie watched her back rise and fall. When she looked up again, she was smiling.
“Am I not the goofiest?” Meg’s rueful laughter barely made it the length of the couch. “Give me one glass of wine and I’m off down memory lane. Whew. Sorry. You’re going to think I’m a complete basket case, Ellie, and I am so—” She grimaced, looked at Ellie from under her lashes. “Embarrassed. What happened in the past is long gone. I’m fine now.”
“No worries.” Ellie yearned to look at her watch, longing to get out of this mirror-image apartment and away from this woman who’d just related a deeply unsettling story. Almost exactly what Gabe had described when he’d thought she was—
“Question for you.” Ellie tried to behave as if Meg’s outburst had never happened. “Did you ever meet the Vanderwalds? Or know them?”
“Who?”
Ellie frowned, surprised. “You know, the—”
“Oh, the Vanderwald Vanderwalds, who own Pharminex?”
Ellie nodded, risking another sip of wine.
“I know them from our story, sure.” Meg furrowed her forehead. “And the gala. How come?”
“Brooke Vanderwald, the daughter? Had an older brother,” Ellie said. “From what I’ve seen in my research, they had the same kind of relationship you describe. He died too. He’s the one they’re having the event to honor, right? Your story is … an odd coincidence.”
“I suppose so,
” Meg said. “But kinda textbook, I guess: gawky younger sister, cool older brother gets married and leaves her behind.” Ellie saw the shadow fall over Meg’s face. “I never even got to say goodbye.”
“Brooke was an awkward teenager too,” Ellie had to go on. “And younger than her brother. And the brother married his beautiful college sweetheart. According to Google. And then he died.”
“Huh,” Meg said.
This silence was impossibly thick, Meg’s distress almost visible between them.
“We have to go to that Vanderwald event,” Meg finally said. “I can’t get it out of my head. How they’re showering affection on that family. Those people who’ve ruined so many lives. Hideous. We can go, right?”
“Maybe,” Ellie said.
“We’re TV!” Meg put her arms out, entreating. “We can get in, somehow, we have to! It’s our story!”
It was all Ellie could do not to leap up and run. Meg had flared, in an instant, from her remembered grief to this … insistence. She checked her watch. “It’s almost eight. We’re both exhausted. And now the wine. I should go. We can rethink tomorrow. Okay?”
Meg’s posture deflated, and she put her hands to her cheeks. “Whoo. I am so sorry. Went a little overboard there, right? You are so patient to put up with me. Sometimes I…” She smiled at Ellie, almost wistful. “I had hoped we’d be friends, somehow. Now I’ve blown it. Yelling at you, so unprofessional. Then my brother. Then the gala thing. You’re gonna tell Warren I’m a nut.”
“We all have bad days.” Ellie shifted on the couch and put down her wineglass, signaling her exit.
“No, no, stay.” Meg stood, walked toward the kitchen. “I’ll get more wine, and maybe cheese. We need sustenance.”
Ellie heard the refrigerator door opening, wondering if what was inside was a duplicate of her own food.
“We were supposed to talk about the Pharminex story.” Meg’s voice sounded muffled; maybe her head was in the fridge.
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