"Maddy, of all people."

What the h.e.l.l was she up to now? "She's not snooping around, is she?"

"No, no. Not as far as I'm aware, anyway. As I mentioned, she's been coming to me for help lately, trying not to repeat her mistakes. There was the Baylor f.u.c.kup, and she admitted that when you'd given her a research a.s.signment, she asked for help from a producer on Vicky's team."

"True," I said, frowning. I'd told Maddy not to talk to anyone about it.

"Since she'd opened the door about Vicky's producer, I asked if the guy liked his job. She told me he'd never revealed much other than the fact that no one should ever underestimate Vicky. He said that she was fluent in Spanish and French but never let on-better for eavesdropping-and that she was a whiz with technology."

"So she could have known how to attach the botnet."

"For sure. She may not have needed any accomplices."

I thought for a second. "That doesn't explain the brownie. Vicky was in D.C. that day, so if she is behind everything, a cohort must have put it there."

"Then we need to find out who on her team accompanied her to D.C. and who stayed behind." He glanced at his watch. "We should split. We want to be the first to arrive."

Though breakfast hours were long over, the smells of bacon grease and syrup greeted us as we opened the door to the IHOP. We were ahead of Sharon, so we took a booth and waited. I sat with my back to the door, and Alex, across from me, kept watch. I was anxious, but I knew I couldn't let it show.

At two minutes to four, I saw Alex's body shift expectantly. "I think this is her," he said under his breath. He lifted his hand in a wave and slid out of the booth to introduce himself.

As soon as Sharon approached, I could see why he'd recognized her from her old video clips. She'd put on weight but not a lot, and her hair was still long and blond. The almost luscious prettiness she'd possessed in her twenties was gone, though. She'd been in the sun too much, and her skin showed it. And that sparkly quality she'd had on the air, the phenomenon that happens when you think of yourself as the luckiest girl in the world, was gone as well.

Alex gestured for Sharon to sit where he'd been, and he scooted in next to me. He introduced us, and we shook hands across the booth. She looked as nervous as I felt.

"Thanks so much for meeting with us," Alex said.

"You drove an awful long way to see me," she said.

Her tone was defensive. Great, I thought. Don't tell me we're going to need a pickax to extricate anything from her.

"There's a lot at stake," Alex said. "Like I mentioned on the phone, it appears that Vicky has sabotaged Robin's job."

The waitress swung by at that moment. None of us ordered anything other than coffee.

"First I need to know what you want to do with the information," Sharon said.

"Right now we'd just love to hear your story and compare notes," Alex said. "Hopefully, we can use it to help Robin reclaim her job."

Sharon lowered her head so that she was staring straight down at the table. Was she having second thoughts? Had she lured us up here for nothing?

"Sharon, we so need your help," I said as gently as I could. "My career may be beyond full repair, but at least we can make sure Vicky doesn't do this to anyone else."

She kept studying the table, her eyes flicking over the surface.

"Please, Sharon," I pleaded. "I know it must be hard, but-"

Alex pressed his shoe against mine, warning me not to push too hard. At the same moment, Sharon looked up.

"It's not that," she said. "It's just such a relief. Vicky Cruz ruined my career, and for twenty years, the only people who believed me were my mom and a few pals from the station. I feel vindicated."

I wanted to yelp with grat.i.tude.

"Can you tell us what happened then?" Alex urged.

"When Vicky was hired, I immediately thought we were going to be good buds," Sharon said. "The other women at the station were all married, and it was nice to have another single gal around. We started going bar-hopping occasionally after work. I even fixed her up with my friend Neil."

She shook her head in dismay at the memory. "But before long, I got this weird vibe from her. She seemed kind of sneaky, and she started verbally bashing other people at the station to me. Then Neil stopped seeing her and told me that it was partly because Vicky had bombarded him with questions about me, even mocked me to him. I started making excuses not to grab drinks with her, though I tried to be friendly toward her at work, just to maintain the peace.

"One week I was asked to anchor the Sat.u.r.day-night news when the regular female anchor was going to be off-that was something I did from time to time-but I woke up that morning with a terrible tummy virus and I told the news director I'd have to bail. Vicky found out and volunteered to take my place. I had to admit, she was super at it, probably better than me, but my boss was really loyal. Though they did let Vicky sub sometimes after that, they kept using me, too. I sensed that really bugged her. Before long, she stopped talking to me. And right after that is when the real trouble started."

The waitress slid the coffee in front of us. I was surprised to see Sharon's cup shake as she lifted it to her lips.

"Take your time," I told her. "We have all night if you want."

"It was awful," she said. "She-she started stalking me."

"Stalking?" I exclaimed. I'd been waiting for words of recognition, but this wasn't one.

"Yup. It started with hang-ups at night and on the weekend. Next I got these horrible letters and stuff in the mail. The notes called me a s.l.u.t and a wh.o.r.e. And then she began watching the townhouse I lived in."

"How did you know it was her doing this?" Alex asked.

"At first I didn't. I could just see a figure in the shadows. I called the cops once, but they couldn't find anyone. I told Neil about the letters, and he said that similar ones had been sent to a new girl he was dating and he was pretty certain Vicky had found out about the relationship. That's what made me begin to see the truth."

"Were the notes handwritten?" I asked.

"No. They'd been typed on a computer."

"Any chance Neil could have sent them?" Alex asked.

She shook her head vehemently. "Not on your life. We'd been buddies for years. Besides, one night I found the nerve to sneak outside when I saw the figure there. It was a woman, and I watched her jump into a car. It was Vicky's car. I recognized the press plates she had."

"Did anything happen while you were at work?" I asked, desperate for more than what Sharon was providing us. The transgressions against me seemed different from what Sharon had experienced.

Her eyes welled with tears. "Work was where the worst thing happened. I went to management and let them know what was going on. I showed them the letters and told them I'd seen Vicky outside my home. They seemed really worried at first and said they would look into the situation right away. But . . ." She bit her lip, fighting back tears. "But then they found that all the letters to me had been typed on my desktop computer. They accused me of framing Vicky and let me go. "

"Did you try to fight it?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, but I couldn't afford a lawyer for long."

"That Friday you fell sick and couldn't anchor the next day," I said, after a few seconds of thought. "Is there a chance Vicky tampered with your food?"

Sharon straightened up. "Oh, gosh," she said. "I never once thought of that. She might have. My desk was right out in the center of the newsroom, and I always had an open can of Diet c.o.ke."

"Did she ever do anything to make you look bad on the air?" I asked.

Sharon shrugged. "Not directly," she said. "I did most of my stories on location, just as she did. But I was worried about the stalking, and I'm sure it showed a little in my face."

Alex sprang the big question next. Would she be willing to come to New York, at our expense, and share her story with management at the network?

"Yes," she said. "I mean, I don't love the idea of having Vicky know I'm resurrecting this. But what can she do to me at this point? I'm a Realtor."

Alex thanked Sharon, said we would be in touch shortly, and stressed that discretion was critical. As he paid the bill, Sharon announced she intended to stay at the restaurant a while longer and have a bite to eat. She felt too worked up to leave at the moment.

"Talk to me," Alex said after we were back in the car. "Are you bothered that there's not a clear overlap?"

"Yeah. The stories are just different enough that it might seem to Potts that Sharon and I are simply two Vicky haters. Women who, twenty years apart, wanted to make it appear like she was after us."

"But it could be enough to start a dialogue again. And convince Oliver to search for a botnet."

"Wait," I blurted out, my mind racing. "Give me a second."

I flung open the car door and tore back into the restaurant. Sharon looked startled as I slid into the seat across from her again.

"You said stuff," I said, breathless from running. "That Vicky sent letters and stuff. What else did she send you?"

Sharon looked off, thinking. "There was a smashed-up lipstick in one," she said. "The exact shade I wore. And-oh gosh, this was horrible. There was a Barbie. And the eyes had been stabbed out with a knife."

chapter 23.

"A Barbie doll," I said. I had to say the words myself so they'd fully sink in.

"Yes." Sharon curled her lips in disgust. "It was a blond one, just like me."

"And it was in your mailbox?"

"Uh-huh. I had one of those with a lid, and she'd dropped it in."

"You don't still have it, do you?"

"No. I'm sorry. But I have a photo of it. Will that help?"

"Yes," I said, squeezing her hands. "That will help."

After saying goodbye once again, I darted back to the car. It was raining lightly now, drops of water plopping onto the pavement of the parking lot. In the car, I blurted out what I'd learned.

"Fantastic," Alex said. "You've got more than enough to take to Potts now."

"I need a lawyer. Someone to speak on my behalf and introduce Sharon."

He rubbed his hand across the scruff on his chin. "I know someone who'd be great," he said. "A friend of mine from law school works for her." He went on to describe the attorney's success on big white-collar cases.

"She sounds like just what I need."

Alex fired up the engine and maneuvered out of the parking lot. The rain was coming down harder, pounding on the roof of the car.

As soon as we were back on the thruway, we discussed how events should unfold. Once Potts and Carey agreed to a meeting, I would arrange for Sharon to travel to Manhattan. Alex asked if I had any fears, based on her demeanor, that Sharon might develop cold feet about cooperating. It was a possibility, I said, but I was betting otherwise. This was her chance to be exonerated.

"I wonder if I should have her stay at my place to keep tabs on her," I said. "But that could also be a little awkward."

"Agreed. Are there any small hotels near you, ones that aren't so public?"

"You know, a friend of mine from Seattle just rented an apartment here for a week, one she found over the Internet. I'll look into that. It would be close but private."

"Sounds good. The sooner we move on this, the better." He glanced quickly toward me, just a quarter turn of the head so his eyes weren't off the road long. "Once they figure out the truth and oust Vicky, you'll want to be back on the show, right?"

"Yes, of course," I said. I'd waited a beat to answer, but I wasn't sure why.

"You hesitated," Alex said.

"It's going to be uncomfortable at first, I'm sure. Unlike you, most people didn't reach out to me, though I suppose I can hardly blame them. I was fired under a black cloud. But what bothers me most is that one person there betrayed me, and I don't know who it was."

"Betrayed you how?"

To explain, I would have to tell Alex about Janice. That was okay. He'd more than stuck his neck out for me and had led me to Sharon. He deserved to know everything.

"Gosh, Robin, it must have been awful to go through all that," he said after I'd shared the story. "Do you think Vicky knew about your history and tried to pull similar stuff?"

"At first I saw that as a possibility, but now, especially after talking to Sharon, I think it was coincidental. Those were just the vicious tricks in Vicky's a.r.s.enal. But I told a few friends at the network about my past, and someone tipped off Potts. It helped undermine my credibility."

"Could he have found out another way? Was there any press about what happened to you as a girl?"

"There was a small item a few months after I returned from the first summer at my aunt Jessie's. I didn't know until I was home that Janice had convinced my father I was behind everything. I guess he thought that being banished for the summer would have taught me a lesson and that we could all make a go of it again, be the sweet happy family of his dreams. As soon as school started, Janice began locking me in a closet when I returned home each day, and she'd only let me out a few minutes before my father was due back from work. Said it was for her protection. She knew I wouldn't dare tell him because it would seem like I was fabricating things again. One day I ran away, and there was a search for me. That ended up in the papers."

"Will Oliver might have found it and explored things further."

"I almost hope so. That would be easier to accept."

Alex glanced at me again. "I can't believe what you've been through these past weeks," he said. "It must have triggered a lot of scary memories."

"Yes. It's as if the old and new got tangled up somehow. I've felt at times as if I'm coming unglued. There was even a moment when I wondered if I had done those things at work without knowing I had. I worried about that as a little girl, too."

"Is Janice still with your father?"

"I believe so. I have a couple of relatives from Buffalo whom I still talk to-Maddy's mother, for one-but they know not to bring her up to me. And my father never mentions her."

"You talk to him?"

"Now and then. In the years since I lived with my aunt, I've seen him on only a dozen occasions, and the last time was probably five years ago. He emails me sometimes. And once in a blue moon, we speak on the phone. What's really sad is that for years I waited for him to tell me he'd figured out the truth and to ask for my forgiveness. I would have given it. But I saw that it was never going to happen. He'll go to his grave believing Janice."