Eyes on You (24 page)

There was another comment from the cops that echoed in my head:
Maybe he came back.

Would Alex have returned? The sounds had occurred a few minutes after he’d driven off. Enough time for him to park the car along the side of the road and traipse back in the darkness. His car was a dark Audi. A luxury car.

But it made no sense. Why would he want to spy on me?

For the rest of the night, I sat bolt upright on the couch, my head jerking constantly as my eyes chased any little sound. I was like a bird on a wire.

At first light, I moved the pillow against the armrest and let my head flop on it. My whole body ached—from fatigue, from stress, from being buffeted all night by fear. I closed my eyes and dropped into sleep like a performer falling toward a circus net.

When I woke, the sun was streaming through the sides of the curtains, and someone was pounding on the door.

“Ms. Trainer, are you in there?” It sounded like Nancy.

I hauled myself across the room, shoved the table over, and swung open the door.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, startled by the sight of the table.

“Unfortunately, no,” I said. “There was a prowler last night. I had to contact the police.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “A prowler?” she exclaimed. “Dear mother of God. Did he get in here?”

“No, and I don’t think the main house, either, but you’ll need to check. Do you not live on the property?”

“I do,” she said. “But my sister was feeling poorly, and I spent the night with her.”

“We need to inform Bettina immediately. And though I appreciate the offer to stay here, I don’t think I could handle another night. I’d like to take a train back to the city in the next hour or two.”

“Oh, but Ms. Lane is arriving this morning,” she said anxiously. “The cook has come in and is going to make lunch for both of you. I can take you to the train afterward.”

“Um, all right,” I said. If the chance to speak to Bettina was happening today, I couldn’t forgo it.

After Nancy left, I staggered into the shower. As I was toweling off, Bettina called to check on me. She said she would be there at one and would debrief me then.

I did my best to pull myself together. I blew out my hair and pulled on a light cashmere sweater over a pair of white jeans. I applied a little makeup, but my face was drawn and haggard, hardly something a few swipes of bronzer could rescue.

I made coffee and phoned the police station. The two cops who’d answered the call were now off duty, but according to the officer who answered, no car had been located.

Mug in hand, I wandered outside and made my way around to the back of the house to the spot where I’d seen the prowler standing. There were a few feet of lawn that gave way to woods, a mix of fir trees and deciduous. I searched the ground with my eyes, realizing how unlikely it would be for me to find any kind of clue, like a button or cigarette butt. Indeed there was nothing, just random piles of twigs and pine needles.

I examined the windows next. On one of the great room windows, there was a gap between the frame and the cream-colored curtains inside. I leaned forward and peered in. The person could have caught a glimpse of me easily.

Maybe it had been a Peeping Tom. Or a burglar. But it all seemed too coincidental. Could it have been someone from the press, I wondered for the first time, perhaps even a reporter from Bettina’s own website?

I hurried back inside and pulled out my laptop. Before heading up to lunch, I wanted to research botnets. I found several articles and learned that they worked just as Alex had described. All someone needed to do was send an email with an attachment, counting on the receiver to open it.

I no longer had access to emails that had been sent to my office computer, so I had only my memory to rely on. I thought back day by day, but it was fruitless. Anyone at the network could have forwarded me an attachment that seemed work-related—a schedule, for instance, or a company announcement—and it wouldn’t have struck me as odd.

Frustrated, I gave up for the time being and dug a notebook and pen from my purse. I jotted down the phrase “Who’s doing this to me?” I racked my brain, trying to think of anyone whose name had not bubbled up yet. I remembered a production assistant who’d been weirdly hostile to both Carter and me during the launch of
Pulse
. But I’d heard since that he’d moved back to L.A.

At five of one, I hiked over to the main house. Nancy and another woman were shuffling around the long brick terrace at the rear, and as I approached, I saw that one of the umbrella tables had been set for lunch.

“Please sit down and let me bring you a beverage,” Nancy said. “Ms. Lane will be out in just a moment.”

I took a seat as instructed and watched as Nancy filled my glass from a crystal pitcher filled with ice water, sliced lemons, and twigs of rosemary.

“Would you care for a glass of wine?” she asked.

I said no, thank you. I wanted my wits about me at lunch. From the time I’d agreed to come here, I’d been thinking of how I should handle Bettina. Though I needed whatever help I could wrangle from her, I also had to be careful. She ran a huge website, and one of their missions was reporting on the foibles of people just like me.

“Robin!”

It was Bettina’s voice, coming from behind me, and I rose to greet her. She was dressed in a crisp white pantsuit accented with a chunky gold necklace, and her pale pink lipstick was luminescent, playing off her jewelry. Instead of a double air kiss, I was offered a hug. A little brittle, but probably the very best Bettina had to give.

“This must all be dreadful for you,” she said, taking a seat. “The prowler, the mess at the network . . . Nancy, some rosé, please. Will you have wine, darling? I’m indulging in a glass.”

“Not right this second, thank you.”

Nancy and her helper slipped away. Perhaps the request for rosé had been code for “Leave us alone right now.”

“I want to hear everything,” Bettina said. “But tell me about last night first. I’ve called the security company, and they’re coming by as soon as we’re finished with lunch.”

I explained the little I knew. The footsteps; the silhouette; the car the police had seen pulling away.

“How terrifying. It’s clearly time for me to hire a guard for nights. Other people have them out here.”

I glanced down at the table and turned the pale blue linen napkin over in my hands. “I’m not a hundred percent sure you need one,” I said, looking back up. “Because I think the prowler had something to do with me.”

She must have entertained that possibility but gave nothing away with her expression. “A reporter, perhaps?” she asked.

“Maybe. Or someone spying on me, trying to see what I was up to. I need to ask you, did you tell anyone I was here?”

She dabbed with her long slim fingers at something invisible in one corner of her mouth. “Not anyone in editorial,” she said. “I did mention it to a member of my executive team. I told him I was worried about you and that I’d invited you to stay with me.”

That annoyed me, but I didn’t let on.

Nancy returned then, poured a glass of wine for Bettina, and plunged the bottle into a silver bucket filled with ice. The other woman set down bowls of cold soup, fragrant with cucumbers.

As soon as they were gone, Bettina leaned forward. “Talk to me now—about work. I want to help you, Robin.”

I sampled the soup, buying a few extra moments to think. “First tell me what you’ve learned,” I said.

She shrugged a padded shoulder. “Not very much. That PR friend of yours has kept a tight lid on this. I heard that you acted unethically. And then tried to blame a colleague.”

Inside I flinched at the words but I held her eyes, keeping my emotions in check. “I want your help, Bettina,” I said. “But I need assurance that everything I tell you is off the record.”

“You have my word, darling.”

“For weeks, someone at work has tried to sabotage me,” I said. I told her about the note at her party, the acid in my makeup, the brownie laced with zolpidem, and how in the end it was made to appear as if I was responsible.

She leaned back in her chair, absorbing it all. A breeze blew across the table, rustling the yellow petals of the flowers in the vase.

“This is appalling, Robin,” she said at last. “I’m so terribly sorry.”

I sensed there was more, something she wasn’t saying. Her face tightened with worry.

“What is it, Bettina?” I urged.

“Your saboteur,” she said. “I think I know who it is.”

I waited, stunned by her comment. She may have heard rumors, but how could she know what the truth was?

Bettina took a long sip of rosé, tugged the bottle from the silver bucket and splashed more wine into her glass. “What I’m going to share with you is top-secret,” she said. “You asked for my confidence a minute ago, and I need to be sure I have yours.”

“You have my word.”

“Are you aware of a man named Tony Judd?”

I shook my head.

“He’s made a fortune on the digital front, and he wants a fresh project now—one that’s glitzy and glamorous. You don’t recall him?”

“Would I have met him when I worked for you?”

“Not necessarily. But he was at your book party that night, darling. I invited him myself.”

She’d tried to say it casually enough, but I felt something stir in me, the way a memory—or a warning—detaches from part of your brain and begins to surface.

“I may have been introduced to him,” I said. “But it doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Well, he asked me to assist in his efforts, and I’ve been working with him, trying to find just the right thing. He’s decided to buy your network.”

The last line practically blew me off my chair. I hadn’t heard a single rumor about any kind of takeover.

“Needless to say,” she added, “that’s making a few people, particularly Dave Potts, extremely unhappy.”

Of course it would. If the network were sold, Potts’s job would have next-to-zero shelf life, which might explain why he’d acted more gruff than usual lately. And if the network were rebranded, almost everyone would be impacted.

I couldn’t see how that connected to the attacks against me, though. “When is this supposed to happen?”

“It’s in the early stages, but it’s picking up speed. So far we’ve contained the information, but it won’t be long before news leaks out.”

“Who’s my saboteur, and what does the sale have to do with any of it?”

Bettina took another long sip of wine. “It’s a guess,” she said. “And for now it must stay completely between the two of us. I’m wondering if Potts is the guilty party.”

“
Potts
?” I exclaimed.

“Deep down, David is a
nasty
man. I wouldn’t put it past him to want to wreak havoc with you.”

“But for what purpose?” I said.

“With you gone, your show will be in a tailspin. He may think that could discourage Judd as a buyer and thwart the sale. Or he’s exacting revenge on the network, making sure we end up with damaged goods.”

“We?”

“I’m an investor, darling. But just a small one.”

That, I realized, was why she was so keenly interested in aiding me. She wanted to know exactly what was going down and what the ramifications could be for her and her partners. She might be using me, but still, I needed her. If she was right, we were in the same fight, which meant there was a chance she would want to save my ass.

“Tell me what you think I should do,” I said.

Again the dabbing at her mouth. “I have to mull it over, darling. Let me figure out the best way to attack this. I’m going to make a few calls, and then I’ll follow up with you.”

Two hours later, I was in the back of Bettina’s black Mercedes, headed toward the city. She’d told me to take advantage of her car and driver since she would be working out of her Westport house for the next day or two while she dealt with the security situation. Over the poached salmon, she’d pressed me for any theories I might have about the episodes, but I claimed to be clueless. There was no way I was going to raise Vicky’s name with her. I didn’t know how far I could trust Bettina.

She had also urged me to stay another night, saying I could use a bedroom in the main house, but she hadn’t seemed surprised when I’d declined.

Before I packed up, I’d phoned my doorman. The vultures had dispersed, searching for scraps elsewhere.
Vultures
. Without thinking, I’d used that word to describe people who were basically in my line of work.

I was mystified I hadn’t heard back from Maddy, so I emailed her a second time, alerting her that I’d be back in the city that night and would appreciate it if she could call or, even better, stop by my apartment. As I ducked into the car, she texted me, saying she would come by after the show.

I let my body sag back against the seat. Despite the shower I’d taken earlier, I felt grubby. I was also tired, my eyelids begging to close. I couldn’t sleep now. I had to think about the bomb Bettina had tossed on the table at lunch.

Maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched to believe in Potts blowing up my career for his own needs. In the back of my mind, I could hear remarks made about him after I’d been hired: “He can be a real a-hole.” “Don’t cross him, because he’s vindictive as hell.”

If it were true, he would do everything in his power to block my access to my work computer so an outside firm could examine it.

Despite Potts’s possible motive, my thoughts were tugged back to Vicky. What if she were working in conjunction with Potts? One way or the other, I wasn’t going to discourage Bettina from assisting me. It was another hand reaching down into the rubble, and I would grab it.

I chuckled to myself as a thought shot to the front of my brain: That was why Bettina had thrown the book party for me. It had been a sneaky little tactic for placing Judd in a room with Potts and all the major players from the network. He’d be able to size people up firsthand.

On my fingers, I counted backward. The party had been only three weeks ago, but it seemed an eternity. I’d been so smug during the early part of the night, reveling in the return of my good fortune and certain I’d never lose it again.
Ha!
I doubted I’d ever look at the photos again, the ones of me beaming at the camera in my sexy black dress and fuck-you shoes.