Mistress(34)

The copy editors all sit in a row down the far left-hand side of the room, their enormous monitors displaying the soon-to-be-published stories in huge type. The sales department—the only department that actually receives visitors at this location—is the most visible and most comfortable. There’s a reception and greeting area immediately to the right of the entrance in front of well-appointed cubicles furnished with large screens for displaying online advertising at each station.

I reach the large cubicle of Ashley Brook Clark, who runs the politics department and shares White House duties with me, and poke my head in. I’d called ahead and asked her the big question.

She spins on her chair and looks up at me. “Never heard of it,” she says. “Operation Delano, you said?”

“Right.”

“Don’t know it. Want me to cast a net?”

“I’m not sure. I think I like you in one piece, Ashley Brook.”

She draws back. “It’s that serious?”

I tap the side of her cubicle. “I’ll get back to you.”

My office is in the back, the only one with actual walls, though they’re all clear glass, so there’s not much privacy, anyway. The door reads BENJAMIN CASPER, EDITOR. I don’t need a title with “chief” or “executive” in it. At least an “editor” sounds like he works for a living. Of course, since Diana…well, one of the perks of owning the business is that I can count on Ashley Brook to run it for me while I’m away. I’ll need that perk for now.

Everyone wants to talk to me about the plane crash—my phone exploded with e-mails and texts after the news leaked out—but I brush them off because I’m tired, and it’s only a fraction of the story of my life over the last week.

I called ahead and had my secretary buy me some shirts, pants, underwear, and toiletries—on the company card, of course, which means on my dime—so I could stay mobile. I pick up a set and head for the bathroom.

When I turned this place into a newsroom, I blew out the walls in both bathrooms and added showers, a feature that suits the lifestyles of employees with irregular hours. Good for me now, because I need a hot shower. I’m going to wash up, change, and get the hell out of this office before whoever’s chasing me finds me here and shoots up the place. I’m radioactive right now.

When I’m done, I feel better, refreshed, and I wish like hell I could put my feet up in my office and snooze.

The buzzer on my intercom cries out. It’s the new person up front. Our last receptionist would just turn and yell back to me across the entire space.

I’m not sure I even remember how to use this thing, but I push a button and say, “Yes?”

“Mr. Casper?”

Who else would it be? “Yes.”

“Someone named Anne Brennan to see you,” she says. “She says it’s urgent.”

Anne Brennan is Diana’s best friend.

“Send her back,” I say.





Chapter 38



I greet Anne Brennan at the door of my office and offer her a chair. She looks like she could use it. She looks tired and out of sorts—frazzled, as Diana used to say.

I don’t know Anne very well. I met her just a handful of times, but other than Randy she was the only person Diana ever talked about in terms of personal intimacy. So I feel like I know her through Diana.

Anne is cute, a petite woman with curly brown hair to her shoulders, attractive in a warm, nonthreatening way. Mary Ann to Diana’s Ginger. That would make me Gilligan.

“I’m not sure why I’m here,” she says. “I’m not sure where to go. Diana trusted you so much.”

“Tell me,” I say. I’m debating what I might tell her. She should go first.

“I mean, first it’s Diana, and now people are coming around, asking me all kinds of questions about her.”

“What people?” I ask.

“The CIA,” she says. “They want to know what I know about Diana. Why she would kill herself. Was she romantically involved with someone? Things like that.”

“What did you tell them?”

I admit, I’m hoping her answer will be, You, Ben. She was romantically involved with you.

“I—I didn’t—” She gets out of the chair and starts to pace. She’s been shaken up by the feds. They have a way of doing that. “I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to tell them, y’know? I wanted to keep her privacy. But it was like they knew I was holding back. And then they start threatening me. They say they’ve pulled all my tax returns for the last ten years and they’re sure they can find something wrong with them. ‘You can always find something,’ they said. They said I could lose my home and my catering business and—”