Was that the truth? She seemed anxious, though it might have been from just being there with me. I'd gotten fired for a reason she didn't know, and regardless of her concern for me, she was now collaborating with the enemy.

"That's good. You-you haven't felt any repercussions at work, have you?" I asked. "I mean, because you're related to me?"

"No, nothing like that. I'm not sure most people know we're related. Though Charlotte asked me if I'd heard from you, like she knows about our connection."

"Charlotte?" I said, alarmed. "What did she say, exactly?"

"She just asked if I knew what had happened to you and whether you'd landed on your feet."

"Oh, really?" I said. That was the second reference to her nosiness in twenty-four hours. "Don't tell her anything. Her concern isn't genuine."

"Okay. But is there anything I can do to help, Robin?"

"Actually, there is something," I said. "I don't want you to put your work situation in any jeopardy, but I'd like you to keep your ears open for me. If you hear something you think I might need to know, will you call me?"

"Of course."

"Enough about me. School must be starting soon, right? Have you figured out what hours you'll work once your courses begin?"

"Yes, I'm sorting that out. It's been such a fun summer, I kind of hate the idea of going back to cla.s.ses."

"Are you seeing anyone special these days?" I realized I had never asked her that question.

"There's someone I like," she said. "Right now we're just friends, but it's pretty clear he's interested, too." She drained the last bit of wine from her gla.s.s. "Well, I should go. I have to spend time on campus tomorrow morning before work."

I walked her to the door and hugged her goodbye.

"Oh, one last thing," I said. "And I won't be mad if the answer is yes; I just need to know. Did you tell anyone at work that I was in Westport last night?"

She pressed her lips together tightly and flicked her eyes to the left for a moment.

"I'm so sorry, Robin, but I told Keiki," she said, looking back to me. "It slipped out. She was packing up your office, getting ready to send your stuff to you, and I told her you might not be at your apartment, that you were at Bettina's house. But she was the only one."

"That's okay," I said.

As I was closing the door behind her, I heard my phone ringing from my purse. It was Alex. And I could see on the screen that I had missed an earlier call from him.

"You've got news?" he said after I answered.

"Yes, plenty." I relayed the information about the prowler.

"That's terrifying," he said. "Do you think it's connected to everything else?"

"Yes, but that's my instinct talking. I have no proof."

He sighed in frustration. "I felt a little weird as I was pulling away last night. It seemed so desolate, and I didn't love the idea of you being alone there. I should have tried to convince you to leave."

"I wouldn't have left then, so don't beat yourself up about it. And I had lunch with Bettina, which was good. Seeing her reminded me of my book party, and that prompted a thought on how the botnet may have ended up on my computer."

I told him about the party photos from the mysterious sender.

"That could definitely be it," he said. "When you're ready to go to management, you can have them search the address the photos came from. It's probably a temporary address, but it's a start."

"There's something else, but I can only give the bare outlines," I said. "I learned that there might be a reason Potts would want me out of there, and he could be the one orchestrating this whole thing."

"Why destroy his new hit show?"

"I can't go into the reason. But it needs to be factored in."

"Gotcha. In the meantime, I've been making calls. It's going to be a bit slow going, because I don't want to raise any red flags."

"I'll be patient," I said. "I can't thank you enough for this."

That night, despite how exhausted I was, sleep proved elusive. As I lay there, I replayed my conversation with Maddy. She'd let it slip to Keiki that I was at Bettina's. That wasn't the first time she'd shared info she shouldn't have. Was she just twenty-one and careless, or was there more going on?

The next day I left my apartment only once, to stretch my legs in the neighborhood, wearing my baseball cap and sungla.s.ses. I ordered food over the phone and had it delivered.

Later I spent time online doing research on Vicky. I read far more about her than I had that day in my office, but I found nothing truly incriminating. She was a b.i.t.c.h who liked to kick a.s.s and take names but there was no sign she'd ever gone beyond that.

I also forced myself to finally connect by email with Claire, the book publicist.

"It's so good to finally hear from you," she wrote back, clearly uncomfortable with me being M.I.A. "We would love to have a sit-down conversation with you at your earliest convenience to discuss how to proceed with our plan in light of these new circ.u.mstances. The good news is that sales are up and there's been a huge demand for interviews in the past two days."

Of course. The woman who'd written about secrets now had a big, fat one of her own. I wrote back, advising Claire to continue rolling out the guest blogs, but not to count on me for interviews at this time. I ignored the meeting request.

I thought I'd hear from Alex, but by late Thursday, there was still no word; nor from Bettina. I'd felt optimistic from the sc.r.a.ps I'd been thrown, and it was in danger of dissolving. I scrubbed my kitchen, trying to control my agitation.

On Friday night, just after eight, Alex called. "I think I may have hit pay dirt," he said.

"Tell me," I said.

"Remember what I said to you in Westport? How someone who does a bad thing has probably done the same thing in the past, that it never just comes out of nowhere?"

"Yes," I said, my heart beating fast.

"If Vicky was the one who did those things to you, you're not the first woman she tried to destroy."

chapter 22.

Yes, I thought. Finally. "Who else?" I asked. "And where?"

"Up in Albany," he said. "A reporter. Or rather, a former reporter. Her name's Sharon Hayes, and she's a real estate agent these days. After her stint twenty years ago, she never worked in TV again."

"What did Vicky do to her?"

"I'm not sure of all the details. I talked to Sharon briefly on the phone, and she said that Vicky not only targeted her but made it look like she was the one responsible. It led to Sharon being fired. She doesn't want to say anything more until she meets us in person."

I let out a long breath. "How did you find all this out?"

He snorted. "I called friends, and friends of friends, at Vicky's former workplaces, saying I was exploring my next step professionally and wanted to pick their brains. Then I shifted the conversation around to a little gossip."

"That must have been tough," I said. "You seem like the least gossipy person I've met."

"Somehow I managed." I sensed him smiling. "I started with the Chicago station. When I told this producer on staff that I knew Vicky Cruz once worked there, he jumped at the chance to bash her. Said she was pure evil, the type who ran over everyone in her quest for the six and eleven anchor jobs. Then I went on to Albany, one of her first jobs, and the person I talked to there coughed up Sharon's name."

"What's the next step?" I warned myself not to get giddy, but I couldn't tamp it down.

"She's willing to meet tomorrow. I thought we could drive up to Albany together, if that works for you."

"Of course," I said. After feeling paralyzed, I was now on a train that was moving fast.

"A word of warning, though," Alex said. His tone sounded suddenly playful. "She wants to meet at International House of Pancakes. Are you going to be okay going into one of those?"

I laughed, the first time I'd done so in days. "If she tells me what I need to know, I'll eat a double stack of flapjacks with whipped cream."

"I'll believe that when I see it. She wants to meet at four, so why don't we leave the city around noon? It should only take about three hours to drive there but I want to allow extra time."

"Should I come to you?"

"No, I'll swing by and pick you up."

"Okay. But wait, what about your volunteer work?"

"Huh?"

"Your work at the halfway house on Sat.u.r.days. Is it a problem to miss it?"

"Oh-it's a slow time right now. I wasn't planning on going in."

"I'll see you tomorrow, then. Thank you, Alex. I feel completely grateful about all of this."

He picked me up right on time, dressed in his casual weekend look. I'd opted for black pants and a simple short-sleeved blouse. I needed to make a connection with this woman, and it wouldn't help to strut through the door of IHOP in head-to-toe Michael Kors.

"How about listening to some Neko Case?" Alex asked as we pulled away from my building.

"Sure," I said, surprised. "I love her." I fastened my seat belt and stretched out my legs. For the first time in days, I felt emboldened, in charge of my destiny.

"And I picked us up a couple of sandwiches," Alex said, c.o.c.king his head toward the backseat. "Help yourself."

"Perfect. I've been so hyped up about today, I hadn't even factored in lunch."

"I don't blame you. This is important, and we have to play it right."

"How exactly did you find Sharon?"

"Through a guy named Nate, a friend's uncle who had been the promotion director for the station while Vicky was there. He's retired now, so I felt I could pump him without being cagey. He left the station for another one in the area a year into Vicky's stint, but it was enough time to get a bead on her. As you'd expect, she was a real fireball. People were impressed, he said, but also intimidated. Vicky took no prisoners. You didn't dare cross her. And before long, there were rumors that she played dirty."

"Dirty how?"

"He said she'd steal message slips off people's desks, looking for story tips to hijack, that sort of thing. Management let the stuff slide; they were intimidated by her, too, but they recognized her value. Before long, she was subbing as an anchor. I pressed Nate whether there had ever been specific problems with another woman, and that's when he told me about Sharon.

"She'd grown up in the area and had been covering sports for about three years before Vicky arrived. Nice girl, he said. She wasn't aiming for the big time, but she had a lot of natural charisma, and viewers liked her."

"I found a couple of old clips of hers on YouTube last night," I said. "She was a natural at sports."

"I checked them out, too. As you know, sports isn't generally a track to anchoring, but she ended up pinch-hitting one weekend, and she was good at it. She often worked a sixth day in the week just for a chance to anchor."

"Ah, so a rivalry was born the minute Vicky walked in the door of the station."

"In Nate's opinion, Sharon was never the ferocious type, like Vicky. He said she underestimated herself, and when Vicky was tapped to anchor, Sharon tended to think, She's good, she's better than me, and I just need to work harder. About six months after he left, Nate heard that Sharon had been let go. According to the grapevine, she'd accused Vicky of hara.s.sment. That's what we need her to share with us."

Please, I begged silently, let it be close enough that there's a clear connection to my situation. This was the biggest thing I had. "How do you want to play the interview?" I asked. "I've talked to my share of bratty celebrities, but you know the best way to deal with a witness."

"We need to avoid coming on too strong. Even though she's volunteered to talk, she could pull back if we pounce. I think it's key for you to try to bond with her. The overriding message should be: 'What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again to someone else?'"

"Got it." I settled back into the seat and tried to will the ride to go faster. I just wanted to be there and find out what had happened to Sharon Hayes.

We reached Albany forty-five minutes before we needed to. Alex suggested we grab coffee from a small cafe about a mile from the IHOP. It had been sunny when we left New York, but the sky was overcast now, and when I stepped from the car, the air was cool.

"So much for the dog days of summer in Albany," I said.

"August is tricky up here. You can end up with scorching days, but you also start to get that first hint of fall."

"Have you spent much time in this area?"

He smiled. "Summer camp in the Adirondacks. Farther north, but we always drove by here on our way up from the city."

"I thought you were from the Philly area," I said, realizing I had never asked.

"I went to Penn undergrad, but I grew up on the Upper West Side. My father taught at Columbia."

The cafe was just a quarter full; the only customers seemed to be nearby office workers taking a break. We ordered and found a small Formica-topped table. I took a sip of coffee and then set the mug down, staring into the blackness.

"You look worried," Alex said.

"I am, a little. Right now this is my only lead. Except for those photos someone emailed me. And they could simply be from a person whose address I didn't recognize."

"Wait-I was so caught up talking to you about Sharon Hayes, I forgot to mention this. It turns out Vicky is a bit of a techie."

"You're kidding. How did you find out?"