Her reaction cloaks me in discomfort I want to shake off.
"Emily, I'm fine. It could've been worse. It was a near miss."
"A near miss?" She gapes at me, furious. She sets down her fork, which she'd been holding on to despite not eating. "Stop. Stop acting as if it was nothing. For fuck's sake, Amelia. I swear, if you keep shoving away your feelings and pretending you don't have them, they'll bubble up and you're going to just..."
"What?"
She shakes her head, not wanting to say it. But I know what she's thinking.
You're going to fall apart again.
The double-edged sword of friendship, when they've seen your cracks and remind you of them without even meaning to, at the worst of times.
"Remember that manhunt a few years back?" I blurt out. "The one with the ranger who went AWOL and killed six people before he was found barricaded in someone's house up in Mount Laguna?"
Emily's expression softens as the memory falls into place. "Yeah...I remember."
"Remember the story I wrote my senior year of college? The one about the woman he held captive in her own living room? It was published in the Union Tribune, it's how I got the job after graduation--"
"Wait, is this the story that landed you in the hospital?"
My mouth hangs open mid-speech. I should've seen the question coming.
Emily and I had been attending the same school, but didn't meet until we both found ourselves in the cafeteria of Sharp Mary Birch hospital.
She was there for her mother, who'd nearly died from an overdose. And I was there because I'd driven myself into the ground while feverishly pursuing the story.
"Yes," I say, looking down. Why? Why did I open this can of worms? "That's the story."
"What does any of this have to do with what happened to you last night?"
"Perspective, Emily. For three days, the woman was hostage to this mass murderer who had the television on to show the ongoing manhunt for him. Police knew he was somewhere in the area, they'd found his car. So, they went door to door. They went to her door. Knocked on it five or six times. The woman stood just a few feet away, with a stranger's hand clasped over her mouth and a gun pointed to her head. She said she soiled her pants and slept in them because he wouldn't allow her to change. She was sure he was going to kill her."
Emily shifts in her seat, clearly uncomfortable.
Ugly things are hard to hear. Even harder to live.
"Three days," I repeat. "That woman lived through three days of hell. Me? It was seconds. I don't even think it was a full minute."
"What are you saying? That what happened to you doesn't count because you're holding it up to the yardstick of something else? Amelia, that doesn't make any sense. Sixty seconds or sixty days. Time isn't the unit of measurement for trauma." She pushes away her plate and bites out a weak laugh. "I mean, seriously, does anyone I know have a soul?"
I stare at her.
"You, my mother, my sister, Owen. Do you know what you all have in common? You're all dead inside."
"Well, it's a lucky thing we have you," I say, peering up at her.
Her lips quirk. "Sorry, that was a shit thing to say. Besides, it turns out Owen does have a soul, so I'm sure you have one too, down there somewhere. Deep down there. Way down--"
"Okay, I get it."
I stare down at my own food. We sit in silence for a few passing minutes, simmering in thoughts of all we've said.
There's a weightlessness to Emily I've always admired. She's resilient in a way most people aren't, in a maddening way I've never been able to emulate.
I seek out darkness; she always finds light.
When we first met, we seemed so different we almost repelled each other, and yet we clung together instead. We each recognized in the other what we were missing, subconsciously bonding over our absent mothers. Over the gap they left behind inside of us. Forests that were only fields, filled with mere stumps where bigger things were supposed to grow but never got the chance.
I was five and a half when the courts found my biological mother, charged her with abandonment, and forced her to relinquish maternal rights. Years later, I was adopted by a couple who'd lost three babies, back to back, and wanted nothing more than to have a child to place in their empty nest.
My parents braved the adoption system to quell the pain in their hearts and they ended up with me. I was small for my age and distrustful, having been shuffled through foster homes all of my life. And though I can't remember much of what happened to me before my adoption, if I strain my memory enough, I come up with vague impressions of a deep urgency to hide.
While Emily's mother was an addict who never wanted children, my adoptive mother wanted nothing more than to have a child. But from the moment I'd stepped into the beautifully decorated room meant for a baby girl who didn't make it past her second week of life, I knew I was the impostor child.
Children are intuitive and they know when they are not truly loved, when a mother is too hesitant for fear of her own heartbreak.
I'm sure my mother wanted to love me, but she held me at arm's length, instead. It was my father who had convinced her adoption would help them heal. My father loved me and broken as he was inside, he managed to be the glue that held our family together. But after his death, my mother and I reverted to being strangers. From a desolate tree to just another stump in a field of things that were never meant for me.
"I just don't get it," Emily starts up again, as though there was no break in our conversation. "I wish you'd understand that just because only the worst stories go to print, it doesn't mean--"
Emily halts mid-sentence because I sit up, like a dart of lightning shoots through me.
Don't print it.
"Shit," I say under my breath.
I've got more on him.
"What?" Emily snaps her fingers in the air in front of me. "Hello? What are you--"
I get to my feet. All day I've been floating in the aftermath of my attack, but quite suddenly, the reminder of the lead hovering overhead comes crashing down on me, shaking me with urgency.
I can give you what you're missing.
The caller. I know who she is.
CHAPTER 7
Amelia
EMILY FOLLOWS ME TO MY bedroom, trailing behind as I head straight to the small, messy desk nestled in the corner. Notepads and papers litter the surface, and a half-empty mug of coffee lays forgotten beside the keyboard.
Emily moves closer, squinting up at the wall over the desk.
"Look at you, you serial killer," she says under her breath.
It's my brainstorming wall, covered with a slew of articles and pictures. Sometimes seeing parts of a story literally before my eyes helps me piece everything together. In this case? A picture of the mayor joins stickers of his campaign slogan, articles on his backstory, images of him reading at a local elementary school.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"
I bring my laptop to life from sleep mode with a few taps on the mousepad. I launch into an explanation as I click around folders, looking for the document I set up last week where I transcribed my voice notes.
"I interviewed Mayor Connolly two weeks ago about the opening of that massive new animal shelter he commissioned. While I was there, I picked up on a different story...one of the mayor promising to stick his member in places it didn't belong."
"A sex scandal. Me like." Emily sits on the edge of my desk and picks up my post-it note dispenser, which is shaped like a Polaroid camera.
"Yes, me like, too. I wanted nothing more than to blow the lid on the whole thing--" I pause, finding the file in a folder on my desktop. I open it and scroll past disjointed notes and names, looking for one name in particular. "I pitched the story to my editor. He killed it in half a breath."
"How did you catch wind of the story?"
I hesitate. My hunches tend to be intangible.
I pieced together a slew of abstract impressions into a solid theory.
The energy in the office was tense. The women, on edge. The interactions between him and his female staff felt off, razor sharp, disingenuously cordial.
"I had an inkling, so I started poking around, joined two of the women for lunch. They weren't exactly dying to talk to me, but getting people to tell me things they don't want to is sort of my specialty..."
I'm distracted by having reached the end of the file without finding what I was looking for. These notes are the text transcriptions of voice recordings, but I also carried a small notepad where I wrote random things. I start shuffling through the papers on my desk, searching for it.
Emily watches me in silence, waiting for me to continue. I find the notepad under the cup of coffee and begin flipping through the pages.
"I got a call yesterday from a woman. She seemed to think I was gearing up to publish the exposé--which I wasn't--and told me to hold off because she had more information. She said, 'I can give you what you're missing.' And that got me thinking...there are rumors swirling as to why the mayor's secretary lost her job after years in his service." I stop on the next page I flip and set a finger over a name scribbled in the margins of the page. Susan Levine. The name is underlined and underneath it, I had scribbled the words, Fired due to an affair?
"It has to be her," I think aloud. "I spoke to all of the women in the mayor's office, but the voice that called me? I keep replaying it in my head and I'm pretty sure I've never heard it before. There's an accent I can't really put my finger on. Canadian? The women in the office gossip like no one's business. I don't doubt someone tipped her off to a reporter asking questions about the mayor's behavior."
Something makes me glance up at Emily just in time to see concern dart across her expression.
"What if...?" she starts, trailing off quickly.
"What?" I ask.
"If this Susan lady was able to piece together that you were writing an exposé, do you think the mayor would've come to the same conclusion?"
The suspicion on her face is spelled out clearly enough for me to read. But she shakes her head again, as though trying to dismiss her own thoughts.
Our gazes remain locked.
"What are you saying?"
"You get that call, urging you not to print what the caller seems to think is an inflammatory story on the mayor, right in the throes of his reelection campaign, and hours later you're attacked? Did you tell the detectives about the call?"
I hesitate, having to think. "No. I didn't see how it was relevant. Honestly, I'd forgotten about it. But, would the mayor of San Diego really orchestrate an attack on me, just to keep the news of his indiscretions out of the press? That's extreme."
Even as I say it, a small voice whispers in the back of my mind.
Except, he doesn't know how little or how much you know. How little or how much you've uncovered. Maybe he has much bigger things to hide.
"Okay, forget the attack. What if Susan was just saying whatever she could to keep you from printing the story? What if they're still together?"
"First things first," I say, "let's find out if Susan really was the one who called me."
"Do you think you can convince someone at the mayor's office to give you her number?"
"No need, I'm sure I can find it myself. I don't want anyone at his office to find out I'm contacting her."
Emily busies herself sifting through the contents of my desk out of boredom, while I click around the screen, mumbling under my breath. Minutes later, just as I'd expected, I find Susan's number listed in the header of her resume, which is posted on an online job search site.
Emily hands me my cell phone and I dial the number straight away. The difficult part is figuring out what to say to her.
After a few rings, a woman answers with a wary, "Hello?"
"Susan Levine?"
Her tone only grows more hesitant. "Yes. Who is this?"
"My name's Amelia Woods with the Union Tribune. You called me yesterday and I want to know why."
Beside me, Emily shoots me a wink, her lips curling up. She knows what I'm doing. It's the oldest trick for getting people to admit to something you already suspect to be true.
Don't ask for confirmation, ask for clarification.
Susan's reaction comes in a beat of silence before she speaks again.
"How'd you get my number?"
"I got it online. I figured you wanted me to get ahold of you."
"I did, sorry--I wasn't in a place where I could talk. I did mean to call you back but I...I got busy."
"Why did you call me, Susan?" I ask again.
"I heard about your story."
There's a sudden drop in my stomach for a moment when I think for sure she's going to say I heard about your attack. But when the word story registers, I rebound with the satisfaction of being right. She was the one who'd called me.
I wait, letting my silence tilt her toward divulging more. She seems to wait, too, so I decide to fold and let her think she has the upper hand.
"Why did you warn me against printing the story? Did you know..." I don't want to reveal my attack if she doesn't yet know. "Did you fear something would happen?"
"I wasn't trying to warn you. I was trying to help you. You shouldn't print the story yet because you have the wrong story. You think the worst thing the mayor's up to is sexual misconduct? There's more. There's so much more."
I look up at Emily, who gestures a circle with her hand, urging me to encourage Susan to keep talking.
"Susan, if you know something, if..."
"Do you know why I got fired? Because I got tired of fucking him. He's married, do you know that? He thought I was this stupid little girl, buying into all his vapid promises about leaving his wife for me one day. He'd talk about taking me on vacations. About buying me things. All empty promises. Yeah, maybe I believed him at first. Then I realized I wasn't the only one. I was stupid. But not for long. I opened my eyes, and I realized what he was really doing. He thought he could control me, thought he had me where he wanted me. That's why he made sure I was the one scheduling all his meetings, witnessing all of the transactions. He'd have me amend notes on checks to hide what they were really for, and whom they were really from. He's a crook. I figured out what he was up to and I knew I'd need leverage. That's what you're missing. The leverage I have."
"Leverage? Of what?"
"Everything."
That one word, she speaks triumphantly. Like she's been waiting to say it out loud, in this very context. Like the everything she's referring to is the crown jewel in her possession.
To me, it is. Even before I know what it is, I want it. So much that my pulse races in my ear. And I know I need to focus. I know I need to play this right or this lead will slip past my fingers.
"Are you willing to give me what you have?"
"I need something in return, first."
I drag a hand over my tired face. Of course she does. Nothing ever comes easy. Nothing real, anyway.
She goes on without prompting. "He has leverage against me, too. He has...photos of me I want returned."
"Susan, I think you're aware that there's no getting back digital photos--"
"They're Polaroids," she cuts in, then snaps, "I'm not a complete idiot."
Emily clasps her hand over her mouth to stifle a snort. I glare at her and she bows her head in a silent apology.
"Where are the pictures, then?" I ask Susan.
"In his office," she says and just as my brain works quickly to devise an excuse to visit the mayor's office again, she adds, "His home office."
Damn it. That complicates things.
"How do you know he hasn't already made copies?"
"Because he's overly confident. He doesn't think of holes in his own armor. He thinks there's no way those pictures are leaving his possession."
"And how are you so sure they're there?"
"He'd call me late at night and talk about them, about how he'd..." She clears her throat in discomfort. "He'd do things after hi
s wife went to sleep...I--look, they're in there, okay? Trust me. I know him and I know that's where he'd keep them. His wife knows not to go into his office. And he wouldn't keep them at City Hall."
"Right," I agree. "Mayor's too classy for that."
Emily slaps my arm and I cringe at my tone. I shouldn't have made light of her situation. But Susan doesn't seem to take offense. She actually laughs, a small, bitter laugh.
"He's so much worse than you could ever imagine."
"Susan, if I'm going to agree to do this, you need to tell me exactly what you have on him."
"I kept my own records of all his transactions, all his meetings. A ledger with times, dates, amounts, names--"
"Why haven't you gone to the cops?"
"The cops?" she scoffs. "Because I'm not stupid. The mayor's got the chief of police in his pocket. Look, I've got everything, Amelia. Everything you'll need to bring him down. I just haven't been able to use it before now because I want to make sure my name is nowhere near this. You can do that, right? You can keep my name out of it?"
Holy fucking smoking gun.
"I can. And I'll get you those photos," I say.
"Good, because I'm dying to see that motherfucker burn."
Emily and I share a look.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
CHAPTER 8
Reed
I LEAN BACK AND THE old, worn office chair emits a groan of protest. Four squares of black and white video play out on the screen before us.
The footage from the day of the latest attack doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. Amelia Woods enters the building. She ambles around the newsroom, disappearing occasionally when she settles behind her desk and out of view. She's one of the last people to leave the building, walking into the parking lot and right out of the video frame, where we know her attacker waits. The next time someone exits the building, it's a light-haired woman in a cardigan, and we know she's the one who found Amelia passed out behind the wheel. We don't catch so much as a single frame of anything useful to our investigation.
What She Did Page 4