"No," Tom declared, giving a hard shake of his head. "Robin, I can't let you on the air until a doctor has seen your face."

"Tom, for G.o.d's sake, it's not going to make it worse to be in front of a camera," I said. I was starting to feel frantic, penned in. "You can't make me skip the show." I looked quickly back at Stacy. "You've got concealer that will cover this, right?"

"Sure, there are tricks to use for redness. But I have no idea what's going on with your face, and I'd be afraid of making it worse."

She looked anxious. Was it just concern for me? Or was she remembering what she'd told me last week, a remark that was now flashing in my brain: Vicky had asked her what foundation I wore.

"Thanks, Stacy, we'll take it from here," Tom said bluntly. "Just text Robin the info for the doctor and copy me."

"Can someone please fill me in?" Ann urged after Stacy rushed off.

I explained quickly, stumbling over my words. I was fighting to stay calm, but I felt like the stress was engulfing me, as if someone had thrown a blanket over my head.

"This is dreadful," she exclaimed.

"Don't you see, Tom," I said. "Someone wants to totally undermine me. If I'm forced off the show tonight, they've won this round."

"You can't think that way, Robin," Ann said before Tom could respond. "You need to be treated by a doctor now. Besides, if you go on the air looking the least bit strange, it will be all over Twitter, and then the person doing this has won."

I consented finally, my fear fused with outrage.

"We have to let you leave for the doctor's now," Tom said, "but I need to hear about these other incidents."

"So you told him?" Ann said, looking at me.

I nodded.

"I can't believe this is the first I'm learning about this," Tom said. "But I'm not going to browbeat you. Get to the doctor's. Keiki should go with you. And Ann can bring me up to speed."

We agreed that I'd take the bottle of foundation with me and bring it back tomorrow. Tom would call security. He squeezed my arm. "We'll figure this out, Robin, I promise," he said. It was the first warm thing he'd said to me in days.

I decided against taking Keiki with me. I felt too hyped up to have anyone around. With the help of sungla.s.ses, I managed to escape the building without anyone doing a double take. The driver who picked me up was one I'd never had, and he paid little heed to me.

As we headed toward the doctor's Park Avenue office, I kept checking my skin in the mirror of my compact. The frost seemed more p.r.o.nounced. Who the h.e.l.l was out to get me?

As promised, the doctor saw me immediately. She was fortysomething, earthy-looking, and I felt a sense of relief at the sight of her entering the exam room. I explained what had happened and handed her the foundation.

"My goodness," she said. She opened the bottle and took a whiff but said nothing. Then she felt for the magnifying gla.s.s that dangled on a cord around her neck and examined my face through it. "I'm pretty sure the foundation has been mixed with TCA- trichloroacetic acid."

"Acid?"

"Don't worry. It's used in facial peels and won't cause any lasting damage. I'm going to apply steroid cream, which will help eliminate the redness and the frosting. Your face may feel tight for a few days, but the discoloration should go away within twenty-four hours. Until then your makeup artist can use a quality concealer under the foundation."

Relieved, I let out a ragged sigh.

The doctor took a tube from the gla.s.s case along the wall and began to apply it gingerly to my face. As gentle as she was, each touch felt like a pinch.

"How would a person get their hands on this stuff?" I said when she'd finished.

"You can purchase it in small concentrations over the counter at a drugstore," she said. "But for it to cause this amount of redness, the concentration would have to be stronger. It was probably bought over the Internet."

"Is there any chance that it was added to the foundation accidentally-by the company?"

"I highly doubt it," she said. "If you haven't already, you need to report this situation immediately."

She wrote me out a prescription for steroid cream and gave me a sample to last a few days.

Back home, I texted Ann with an update and then turned on the TV. I couldn't believe that at ten minutes to seven, I was sitting in my living room and not on the set. I wondered how they would handle the up-front part of the show, where Carter and I chatted together. I decided Tom would probably shorten it and let Carter riff on his own for a bit. He was one of those TV guys who could make shopping for new socks sound exciting.

But he wasn't alone. A girl named Sherry Boggs, a reporter from one of the other network shows who sometimes did subst.i.tute hosting, was six inches to his left. Sitting in my freaking place.

"So nice to be filling in, Carter," she said, beaming. I shut off the TV and tossed the channel changer on my coffee table. I couldn't believe it. It was like I'd been evicted, kicked off and immediately replaced.

After pouring a gla.s.s of wine, I paced the room with it. I'm just off the show for a night, I rea.s.sured myself, I'll be back tomorrow-and security will be on the case. They'll find out who's been doing these things to me.

A minute after eight o'clock, I grabbed my phone to call Tom and then stopped. There was already a text from him. Potts, he wrote, had called a breakfast meeting at his apartment, with him, Ann, Will Oliver, and me. Good. They weren't wasting any time.

I texted Tom back, telling him that I'd see him there, that my face was on the mend, and that I'd be doing the show tomorrow night. I sat at my table and considered the meeting at Potts's. I would need to play it carefully. The guy had bullied me about toning down my act off the air, and I didn't want to look like I was a drama queen. There was no way I could raise Vicky's name as a possible suspect. In preparation, I made a few notes on a piece of paper.

The intercom buzzer rang suddenly. To my shock, the doorman announced that Carter Brooks was downstairs.

"Um, send him up," I said. I didn't want Carter seeing me now, but I needed to learn what he knew, what people had been told. I dashed to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Though my face had begun to heal, it was still slightly pink and frosted. Before opening the door, I dimmed the lights in my living room.

"Sorry to barge in like this, but I wanted to check on you," Carter said after I welcomed him in. He was wearing his suit from the show, though the tie was off. "They gave some excuse about why you were out, but it sounded fishy."

"I'm glad you're here, actually," I said. "Come in and sit down, and I'll get you a gla.s.s of wine."

He didn't sit. As I poured the wine in the kitchen, I could hear him moving idly about the living room.

"Great place," he said distractedly when I reentered the room. He'd taken off his jacket and laid it over the back of an armchair. He seemed different to me, as if, away from work and midtown, he'd allowed the "hunky anchor" persona to fall away.

"Thanks," I said. "What excuse did they give for my absence?"

"They said you'd had a small medical emergency. But Tom looked weird and- Hold on, do you have a fever?" Even in the dim light of the room, he'd noticed the color of my face.

"I wish." I told him what had happened.

"Wow," he said when I'd finished. "And you think it was intentional?"

I nodded. "This wasn't the only incident." I explained about the books and the Barbie doll.

"Who could possibly be doing this?" he said.

"I don't know. But clearly, it's someone who hates my guts."

I looked away. Though it would be good to have Carter as an ally, I wasn't going to raise Vicky's name with him, either. When I glanced back, however, I could tell by his expression that he had already gone there.

"Whoa, wait a second-are you thinking . . . ?"

"It's hard to imagine, but yes, it's crossed my mind. I'm not making any accusations at this point."

"You've notified security, I hope."

"Yes, and there's a powwow tomorrow."

"Gosh, Robin," he said, stepping a little closer. "I just wish you'd told me all of this was going on. As corny as it sounds, we're supposed to be teammates."

"I appreciate that, Carter," I said. "At first I wasn't sure if I was imagining things or not."

He smiled sympathetically. "Robin, I've made it clear how I feel about you, but I'm not going to push you on that. What I'd like right now, though, is to be there for you-as your friend, okay?"

"Sure."

"You don't sound convinced."

"You shouldn't take it personally," I said. "I just figured out a long time ago that I have to take care of myself."

He c.o.c.ked his head slightly and looked deeper into my eyes. "Are we talking evil stepmother here?"

I felt a nerve p.r.i.c.k. "Why do you say that?"

"You told me the other night that you lived mostly with your aunt after your father remarried. So he must not have had your back."

I sighed and looked off. He was perceptive, I'd hand him that. "No, he didn't," I said. "My stepmother did things to make me look bad, and-" Much to my chagrin, I could hear my voice cracking.

"And what?" he asked softly.

"Nothing was ever the same after that."

Unexpectedly, I felt myself starting to tear up. G.o.d, don't go all blubbery in front of him, I ordered myself.

The next thing I knew, he had his arms around me, and I was leaning in to that soft blue cotton shirt.

chapter 12.

I arrived at Potts's Park Avenue apartment several minutes later than I was supposed to-intentionally. I didn't want to be the first one there and have to take him through everything on my own. My face, though improved, was pink and starting to peel, and I'd been forced to go industrial strength with concealer.

The door was answered by a housekeeper or maid in the kind of silly black and white uniform that generally turned up only in movies from the 1940s. She ushered me through the humongous living room to a humongous dining room, where the group was seated around a polished mahogany table. Tom, I noticed, was wearing a tie, something I rarely saw on him.

"You know Will Oliver, don't you?" Potts asked me after I'd said good morning.

"Yes," I replied, nodding at the security chief. He was tall, African-American, and shrewd-looking-a guy who could probably give a dead-on description of the doorman and anyone else he'd pa.s.sed entering the building. I sat down at the table and accepted a cup of coffee from the maid.

Ann was perpendicular to me, and smiled warmly. It was good to have her there. I felt a sliver of guilt over the fact that I'd had another tete-a-tete with Carter and would be keeping it to myself. But nothing naughty had happened. I'd simply hugged Carter back, he'd finished his wine, and then he'd headed home.

"Robin, as you can imagine, we're terribly concerned about what's going on," Potts said. "I wanted to meet out of the office so people wouldn't be buzzing about why we were all congregating. Ann provided Will and me with details last night, but why don't you take us through everything that's happened."

He was all Mr. Nice Guy now, compared to the pompous b.u.t.t-head he'd been a few nights ago. Of course he was concerned. If anything bad happened to me, it would be a blow to the network.

I described it all, even the water bug incident. When I finished, Oliver, who'd been taking notes, asked if I had the makeup with me. I handed the bottle to him in the Ziploc bag I'd stored it in.

"Okay," he said, his dark eyes sober. "We'll have this tested by a forensics firm and see if your doc's guess is right. We'll also examine footage from our security cameras. What about the note? Do you still have that?"

"I'm sorry, but I tore it up," I said. "Unfortunately, I also tossed the book jackets."

"Is it possible the rips in the book jackets happened accidentally? Perhaps that incident is unrelated."

"At the time I thought that, but in light of what else has happened, I hardly think so now." I didn't want to come across defensively, but I couldn't let them dismiss anything.

"By the way, I have the doll," Ann announced. She reached into a bag at her feet, drew out the Barbie, and slid it down the table.

"Jesus," Potts said as he took a look. "This is completely sick."

"Yes, this is very disturbing," Oliver said. He turned to me. "We're going to quickly figure out who's doing this and deal with them accordingly."

I nodded, feeling a sense of relief just from hearing those words.

"I need to ask you a few more questions, though," Oliver said. "Has anyone on the show or at the network acted at all negative toward you lately?"

How would You had no f.u.c.king right to use one of my guests stack up in his opinion? I wondered. Though I hadn't planned to raise Vicky's name, it was going to be hard to avoid doing so.

Fortunately, he expanded the question, so I didn't have to go there. "Think about beyond work as well," he said. "There could be an acquaintance, or even a stranger from the outside world, who resents you and has an accomplice in the building. Have you received any hostile emails or tweets?"

"Nothing I would categorize that way," I said. "As for work, things become tense on the show at times-a producer might not like being criticized for a weak segment, for instance-but that goes with the territory. Oh, and a few reviewers have had to eat their words lately," I added, making a little joke. I forced a laugh, which came out sounding like a seal bark.

Oliver glanced toward Tom and then back to me. "Tom and I had a chance to speak last night," he said. "He tells me there was an altercation recently between you and Vicky Cruz."

Good-her name was on their radar now and I hadn't placed it there. But the word "altercation" made it sound like I was partly to blame, that I was on the same level as a female Jell-O wrestler.

"Well, I wouldn't call it an altercation," I said, trying to strip any emotion out of my voice. "Vicky was upset that we'd booked one of the guests from her show, and she was very vocal about it."

Out of the corner of my eye, I'd seen Potts's sausage-y lips begin to part.

"Good G.o.d, Will, you can't possibly think that's relevant," Potts said. "That's simply a case of Vicky being Vicky. We're looking for a sociopath, here, if you ask me."

"Possibly," Oliver said. "What really concerns me is the way the actions are escalating. We've gone from pranks to bodily harm. I'm wondering if we should bring in outside security for Robin."

Potts looked ready to sputter and then caught himself. "Of course we need to protect Robin. But that will set off all kinds of alarms."

"I'm fine without that, at least for now," I said. "I just want you to catch this person."