Eyes on You (32 page)

“Robin, I know this has been a setback,” Ann said, pouring us each another glass of wine. “I’ll help you, I promise. Tell me what I can do.”

“There’s one thing, but it won’t be easy,” I said.

“Spell it out.”

“As you know, the Internet searches were done when Keiki was at her desk, but I’ve learned there’s a way to do that remotely. I need to convince Potts to have an outside forensic firm examine my work computer. I was counting on Sharon’s story forcing him to take that step. Now I have to do it without that.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to Potts,” she said. “It will probably be better to wait until Monday, when I can do it face-to-face.”

“He won’t like you pushing on this.”

“Tough. I’m not going to let you down again.”

“Thank you, Ann,” I said. It was clear she was doing everything in her power to undo the damage to our friendship.

I helped her clear the dishes and load the dishwasher and then carry the dessert plates out to the patio. She’d made blueberry crumble.

“Why don’t we sit by the pool and have the crumble there,” she said. “I was at that table so much of the afternoon.”

It was dark out, the only illumination coming from the hurricane lamps and the light at the bottom of the pool. I looked across the field. I could no longer see the outline of the houses; only one of them had lights on. My fear returned, unbidden.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly.

“What?” she asked.

“I just feel a little nervous tonight, with Vicky free. It’s stupid to worry out here, but I can’t fight it.”

“I understand completely. Let’s go inside as soon as we’re done with dessert. I’ll lock up after that.”

We settled into two of the lounge chairs, the desserts set on a small table between us. “Actually,” she said, climbing back out of her chair, “why don’t I lock the front door right now.”

As she went inside, my phone rang from the pocket of my robe. I dug it out, expecting to see Alex’s name, but Bettina’s was on the screen instead.

“Sorry to call on a Saturday night,” she said. “There’s something I need to share with you.”

“Not a problem,” I said, on full alert. “Tell me what’s up.”

“Remember that item we ran on the survey Potts commissioned, the one that raved about you?”

“How could I forget it?”

“The writer is this borderline-hysterical columnist named Natalie, and she called me out of the blue tonight. There’s been some buzz about Vicky Cruz being questioned by the police in a murder investigation, and Natalie was all in a panic that she might be swept into it somehow.”

“But how?” I asked.

“Right after the item ran, Vicky apparently called Natalie, demanding to know who the source was. So the little fool ended up telling her. She claims she did it in exchange for other information Vicky had. Natalie has no idea if any of this is related to the murder investigation, but she wanted to cover her ass with me in case it leaked out.”

“What kind of information did Vicky share?” I asked, alarmed that info might be about me.

“Something vile about an executive at a totally different network, but that’s not the part that’s important. What I thought you should know, darling, is who leaked the original item to Natalie. It was your own PR person. Ann Carny.”

For a few seconds I was too stunned to say anything. “Did Natalie have any idea why she did it?” I inquired, my voice lowered.

“Carny simply told her she was delivering a tidbit she thought Natalie would find worthwhile.”

“All right, thanks. Let me try to get to the bottom of it.”

I glanced back over my shoulder. From far off, I could hear Ann rummaging around the kitchen. I tried Alex’s number once again. This time he picked up on the third ring.

“Hey,” he said. “Sorry I missed your calls before. I was just about to phone you.”

“I can’t really talk now,” I said, “but I need to update you. Are you going to be around later?”

“Everything okay?” he asked, his tone concerned.

“I just learned something pretty disturbing.” There were footsteps behind me. “I’ll call you back. I need to sort this out.”

I dropped the phone back into my robe pocket as Ann reemerged onto the patio, carrying a fresh bottle of wine. On her way to her lounge chair, she scooped up our wineglasses from the table. Don’t overreact, I warned myself. I needed to hear her explanation.

“Are you feeling too anxious to stay out here?” Ann asked, catching my expression.

“It’s not that,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Someone called with some very strange news.”

“About Vicky?” she asked. Before she sat down, she leaned her chair on the back wheels and angled it slightly so she’d be able to see me better.

“About you, actually,” I said. “You were responsible for that gossip story about the survey. The one I believe they so cleverly titled ‘Cruzin’ for a Bruisin’ ’?”

Ann forced a smile. “Okay, guilty as charged,” she said. “I thought the survey was a chance to score a nice plug for you, but that moron of a reporter turned it into a Vicky-bashing item. I should have told you I planted it, but I felt too embarrassed when it backfired a little.”

“You really thought that item would be
good
for me?”

“To have you presented as the rising star of the network? Of course I assumed it’d be good for you. I’ve always done everything to make you shine.”

“But you knew Potts had accused me of seeming overly ambitious. That write-up surely didn’t help my case.”

“Potts talks out of both sides of his mouth,” she said dismissively. “He likes keeping everybody’s ego in check, but he also wants all the publicity he can lay his fat hands on.”

She was trying to justify her motives, but her defense stunk.

“And didn’t you consider how Carter would react to an item about me being the show’s real star? He was furious.” A thought took shape in my mind even as the words tumbled out. “Though maybe that’s what you were actually hoping for. You were always so eager to make sure we didn’t hook up.”

“I was right, though, wasn’t I?” she said. “Look at how that ended up hurting you with Potts.”

I shook my head slowly, thinking. “It was more than you trying to protect my career,” I said. “You seemed to dislike the sheer idea of me with Carter. What have you got against the guy?”

“I was looking out for you, Robin. That’s what friends do.”

You’re not my friend, I thought. A friend wouldn’t have shared the survey info. “Who told you about me and Carter?”

“No one,” she said. She’d picked up the belt of her terry-cloth robe and was rubbing the end between her thumb and forefinger. “I figured it out on my own.”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “We hardly left a trail of bread crumbs through the forest.”

“I’m not a fool, Robin,” she snapped. “I’d watched all the back-and-forth on the air. And then one day in the hall, I could tell just by the way he looked at you. He was practically stripping your clothes off with his eyes.”

A memory stirred. Carter talking about his ex-girlfriend, Jamie. She hadn’t liked the way he’d looked at me, because deep down she was jealous as hell.

My brain was like a lock with the tumblers falling open one by one: Ann always warning me away from Carter; Alex revealing Carter had been sleeping with someone at work months ago; Ann’s reluctance to meet men this year.

“You’re involved with Carter, aren’t you?” I said, shocked by the words even as I said them. “Or at least you were.”

Ann looked off, deliberating, and then back at me, her gray eyes dark as slate in the candlelight. “Is that so difficult to imagine?” she said. “Just because I’m not all sexy and witty, like you are?”

“Of course it’s not hard to imagine. You’re a beautiful woman, Ann.”

I felt a pang of sympathy, because she’d been wounded. And yet she’d planted the item to make Carter turn against me. “When did things start with the two of you?”

“In March, before you’d ever laid eyes on him.”

“When the show was being developed?”

“Yes. Since Carter was going to be the linchpin, Potts wanted me to work with him. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. But with the launch, we realized we needed to cool things down for a bit. We had every intention of getting back. Until you decided you wanted him.”

“What about Jamie?” I said. “Carter was dating her half the summer.”

“I endorsed that idea,” she said. “She was just a decoy. And then you had to go and wreck everything for me.”

I thought I saw a tear swell in her eye. Carter, I realized, was an even bigger sleaze than I’d thought. He’d gladly let her groom him for bigger success and then strung her along.

“Ann, I never would have slept with Carter if I’d known you were involved with him,” I said.

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you? No matter what, you’d always feel entitled to bed the star of the show. You feel entitled to
everything
.”

“Ann, that’s not true.” I was stunned by the harshness of her words. “I’ve never felt that way.”

“Of course you do, Robin. It’s always about you being on top.”

“In case you’re forgetting,” I said, “I spent a year and a half off the air, with no one interested in hiring me. And the only gigs I was offered then were infomercials for juicers and mattresses.”

“And you spent that entire time bemoaning your fate as if you’d been wronged. It’s never enough for you. You snag the book contract, but you want that
and
a show. I help hook you up with the subbing gig, and you immediately start nosing around for what might be in development. The minute you caught a whiff of Carter’s show, you started jockeying for the job. And
still
it wasn’t enough. You had to fuck his brains out.”

I’d never had a clue to her bitterness. It was like one of those scenes in a sci-fi movie when a character’s face splits open and there’s a hideous, snouted alien underneath.

And had it gone beyond pure resentment?

“Did you mention to Vicky that I was seeing Carter?”

“Why would I do that?” she said. Her expression seemed truly perplexed. “You know I loathe the woman.”

“Someone clued her in,” I said. “I ate the brownie because it appeared to be from Carter. As far as I know, you were the only one who knew about us at that point. Maybe you told her in order to stir things up, just like you tried to do with the item.”

She stared at me, holding her head very still, as if afraid of jostling something free. I looked down at my plate, at the blueberries oozing beneath the crumbly topping. Ann, the devoted cook and baker. There it was—the truth.

“You left the brownie, didn’t you?” I said, my heart pounding hard.

“Oh, please,” she said.

“No, you did,” I said. I shook my head, trying to make sense of it. “I told you at lunch that I’d heard Vicky talking about Ambien. So you made the brownie with it and left it for me. You knew I’d think it was one more of Vicky’s dirty deeds. You didn’t realize she was in Washington that night.”

“All right, fine,” she said, pure triumph in her voice. “But you’ll never prove it.”

“Why, Ann? Why would you hurt me that way?”

“Because I could stand you having almost everything in the fucking world, Robin, but not Carter, too. He was supposed to be mine.”

I thought of the formula that had sprung into my head on my run: The person who left the brownie had also killed Sharon.

“You murdered Sharon, didn’t you?” I whispered.

I wanted to snatch the words back but it was too late. Terror squeezed my chest, cutting off my breath. As Ann stared back at me, I tried to calculate the distance between my chair and the sliding glass door behind me. Would I have time to get inside and lock her out—or should I jump up and start to run? I thought of the houses so far across the field.

“You must be feeling frightened right now,” Ann said, her voice flat.

“A little,” I said. Calm, I warned myself. Don’t freak her. “I also know how smart you are, and that you probably want to dig yourself out of this before it grows any worse.”

She bent her head so I couldn’t see her face. I knew she must be gathering strength, preparing to strike. My legs were limp with fear, but I slowly swung the right one off the chair, lowering my foot to the ground.

Ann glanced up. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I
do
want this all to end,” she said softly. “I can’t take it anymore. Can you help me, Robin? Please?”

“Of course,” I said. I needed to keep the talk going. “Why don’t we call someone? Not the police. But a lawyer, someone who can advise you best.”

“Okay,” she said. She wiped the tears away, using both hands. “I need someone who can understand and not hate me. You have to realize I didn’t mean it. Everything—it just flew out of control.”

“How did you even know about Sharon?”

“From Vicky. Someone from the stupid station in Albany told her that Sharon was headed to New York to expose what had happened years ago. Vicky didn’t come right out and admit she’d done all those things to you, but she implied she did. Said you were too big for your britches. She told me I had to find out where Sharon was staying and talk sense into her. That day I brought you the flowers, I’d followed you to the building earlier, the one where Sharon was staying. I went back afterward and kept hitting buttons on the intercom until I found Sharon. I told her I was working with you and needed to talk to her.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would you feel the need to aid Vicky?”

“She found out about the brownie. I don’t know how, but she did. I was in a panic, thinking she’d go to Potts. Then I realized it was just going to be something she had on me and could use when she wanted. She wanted to make me her bitch.”

“Did she also send you to Westport to check on me?”

“No. Carter took the night off, and I thought he was with you. Keiki knew where you were staying, so I drove there.”

“Okay, I understand,” I said. I could barely hear myself over the thumping of my heart. “I know how desperate you must have felt. Vicky made me desperate, too.”

She started to cry again. “The woman’s a monster. She told me that if she was caught, she’d bring me down, too, that I had to sort it out. I tried to reason with Sharon. I even offered her money, but she wouldn’t listen. She told me to leave, that it was over for Vicky. I couldn’t let that happen.”