by Lee Winter
“Thank you for your time.” Catherine left the room. She paused outside and considered her next move. She’d leave Lauren in peace to do her Hickory interview. In the meantime, she needed to clear her head.
Catherine headed for the dreaming tree, which was now festooned with swirls of tiny lights reflecting in the sun. The boys had done a great job. It looked covered from tip to roots. It would be stunning at night.
Reaching the tree, she lowered herself to the ground and leaned against the smooth trunk, facing away from the house. She tried to make sense of how everything had gone so badly wrong. Not just her misjudgment of the King family, but the loss of her own.
Maybe the truth was that she was terrible at dealing with all families. She couldn’t read them, understand them, or get on with them. Maybe she was the problem.
Catherine closed her eyes.
An hour or so later, she heard footsteps approaching. She glanced around the tree to see Lauren, with a face like thunder, storming up to her.
“When were you going to tell me?” she demanded. “Giving me our story. Putting it to the vote? John’s job being at risk?”
“After your interview. I didn’t want it on your mind.”
“Well, it’s on my damned mind now. What were you thinking, doing it this way? What were you thinking at all? The story comes first!” Lauren paced under the tree. “Did you or did you not spend weeks drilling that into me as we crisscrossed fucking Nevada! Is it that you didn’t want to be the bad guy here?”
“That’s not it at all.” She grew alarmed at the rising rage on her fiancée’s face. “Please, can you calm—”
“Oh, do not tell me to calm down. I’m so mad right now. And you’re going to have to explain it to me, because it looks a hell of a lot like you just took the gutless option in there. Catherine, we saw thousands and thousands of people fired by SmartPay, and you didn’t even bat an eyelid. Explain!”
“It’s just… The story doesn’t always come first.”
“What?” Lauren staggered backwards. “What the hell?”
“I’m not destroying your family for a story. I refuse to.”
Lauren gaped at her. “Millions will be affected. Millions.”
“Yes.”
“And yet you’re fine with that because the King family of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said no?”
“It’s how they feel.”
Lauren dropped to her haunches. “I still don’t understand why you did this.”
Catherine gazed at her. “You mean more to me than a story. How hard is that to understand?”
“Me? How does this become about me? And it’s our story.”
“Your story. I won’t write it either way. I’m not budging on that, so don’t ask.”
Lauren appeared truly baffled. “Look, I know it’s awful that John will lose his job. It sucks, I know. But he’s a really talented mechanic; there will be other jobs. We have one shot at destroying these assholes before they commit wholesale privacy theft. How can we ever rein it in after the FBI announces Ansom’s chip is crucial for national security? By then, it’s too late. And yet you just walk away? Leave me to it? On my own?”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then tell me what you are doing, because I’m lost.”
“Do you remember, before we left DC, how anxious you were about coming here? You recall why?”
“I was worried you and my family wouldn’t get along.”
“Yes. But specifically you were worried your family wouldn’t like me. Wouldn’t understand me. And I think you were afraid you’d have to choose. You had nightmares about that.”
“So?”
“How many times have you told me your family looks after its own? And you’re right, it does. I see that. Well, I’m still an outsider here, Lauren. Maybe they’ll accept me as time goes by, but right now, the truth is, I’m not one of you.”
Lauren said nothing.
“So think about it,” Catherine pressed her. “When it comes down to it, having some outsider imposing her will on your family, costing John his job without even talking about it—how do you think, deep down, they’d react to that? If you don’t want your family to resent me for years over this—”
“That’s what this is about? You’re afraid they won’t like you?”
“No. I don’t care whether your family likes me or not,” Catherine said quietly. “I never have.”
Lauren’s eyes widened. “What?”
“I’m used to being disliked. I told Meemaw that on day one, and it’s true. But I do know you need them to like me. You need us to not be on opposing sides. It’ll eat away at you. Even the thought of us being at war was giving you cold sweats. So this was the only way I could think to not be that Boston bitch who swept in and ruined John’s life. I made the decision theirs and the story yours so it could never be something about the Kings versus an outsider. It would all be family.”
Lauren glared. “I hate that you’ve put me in this position. You have no idea.”
Catherine looked down. “I was thinking of you. Of us.”
“You’re doing what you always do,” Lauren said with an aggrieved sigh. “Deciding for us both. Did it never occur to you to discuss this with me first?”
No. It didn’t. She’d seen the obvious path and took it.
“Yeah, didn’t think so. Damn it, Catherine, I don’t want John to lose his job, but this was supposed to be obvious. The story comes first. End of. And now you’ve made it as complicated as hell.”
“Family comes first,” Catherine said weakly.
The incredulous look on Lauren’s face reminded Catherine of her own hypocrisy. “The way it does with yours?”
Low blow. Catherine felt the sting of it in her gut. She had no witty words to rebut that. Actually, she had plenty of words for it—barbed, stinging words. She said none of them, though, as stared at her fiancée. “Well, thank you for making my already terrible day worse,” she muttered.
“Don’t you get it?” Lauren said, eyes dark. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? My family voted against this. But I’m fully committed to running it. Because I put what’s right ahead of family loyalty. But now it means that when I write this, I’ll be a bigger asshole to my family than if I’d just told them about it after the fact, as a fait accompli. What you did made it a hundred times worse. Do you get that?”
Catherine stared at her hands. “They were supposed to vote yes. I had assumed—”
“That you knew my family? Salt of the earth? Do the right thing? You were dead on about their loyalty, but sometimes they’re so blinded by it, they don’t always put their priorities in order. They’re only human and I’d have been happy going to my grave never knowing how insular they can be. But great, now I know they’d put one family member, one man’s job, ahead of millions of people they don’t know, and I’m ashamed of them. And I still have to do what’s right. This is a nightmare. We’re screwed.”
Her gaze met Catherine’s. “Oh right, I forgot. Not we, me. I’m screwed. You abandoned ship on me.”
“I never abandoned you. I was thinking of you. Of them. I did what I thought was for the best.”
“Yeah? Well next time try asking first.” She stood and thumped nonexistent dirt off her jeans in angry swipes. “I’m gonna write up the story. Because the damned story does always come first no matter how you’ve twisted it in your head otherwise.”
Lauren gave her a hard look. “Oh, and my interview with Hickory was fantastic, thanks for asking. He eventually rolled over on everything. Now he knows Ansom’s going down and that Lionel sees him as a patsy, he refuses to go down with them. So he confirmed everything—on the record. And Fiona Fisher has agreed to your interview. She wants to scream blue bloody murder about her privacy being invaded. This story is golden. It’s a freaking triumph.” She threw her
hands up. “And you’ve made it taste like ashes. Thanks for that.”
She turned and strode back to the house.
As Catherine watched her go, bile rose up her throat.
Chapter 24 –
The Power of One
Five hours later, Lauren emailed Catherine a copy of the story with no note.
Didn’t even deliver it in person. Emailed it from their bedroom where she’d secreted herself in order to write it. Catherine had stayed out of her way, wondering how the hell she’d messed things up so badly.
She’d been so sure when she’d come up with her perfect solution that the Kings would do the right thing. They were those kinds of people. Decent. Meant well. They’d give Lauren permission, and it would be a little less hard on John to lose his job because he’d had a say in it. And Lauren would have been immune from fallout for the same reason.
She’d been blindsided by the family’s selfishness. Well, maybe that was too strong a word. It turned out they were just people. People who loved one of their own and wanted whatever made him happy.
Catherine ignored Lauren’s email alert and focused on giving a final read over the My Evil Twin story she’d been working on from the living room.
As promised, she’d left Lesser’s name out of it. It was a cool, cutting dissection of what had been the most popular and secretly racist app going. Her own dry tone was deliberate to make Fiona’s powerful comments reach out and grab readers by the collar. She scrolled down her story to read over the woman’s words one last time.
“I been betrayed twice,” Mrs. Fisher said. “Once by my government, who sent me to Iraq and then sent me home on a stretcher but didn’t help me as much as I needed. That made me go to desperate measures, to let them put this tech in my hand. Then they betrayed me again. The FBI and this…thing under my skin. Those soulless people at the FBI, they been stealing the essence of who I am.
They been takin’ bits of me, private pieces and chunks, my scars and my tattoos, my health business, all the things I am, all the things that make me me, and they been poking it inside some computer for anyone to look at.
Worse…they poked it in the place that’s supposed to be just for criminals. Now, that feels like a violation to me. And I don’t take it well when my own government, who I fought for, turns on me. I’m spitting mad. And if they don’t take me outta their criminal NGI thing, well, I’ll just go get me a lawyer and start a class action. Then see how much the government likes their own people poking back at them.”
Fiona was not taking it lying down. With her words, she’d make everyone forget they’d ever laughed at her in that meme of her peering at the robot’s camera. Fiona Fisher was blunt, smart, and magnificent.
The best part of it was that everything had come to light because of her. She’d demanded to know why she was being humiliated in Lesser’s app. Now Fiona could end up tearing it all apart. Now Ansom and its associates would be exposed. The FBI director would most likely be investigated. And the app which hurt Fiona so much was already dead.
The power of one.
Catherine smiled and hit Send on her phone. Even her picky editor would love it, she was sure. She opened her inbox and scrolled down to Lauren’s story and opened it.
For five minutes she devoured the words, eyes widening at everything Lauren had managed to unearth.
It was brilliant. Probably the best thing Lauren had ever written. She’d used a few quotes of Catherine’s father from the recording. She wondered what Lauren made of the rest of that conversation. Embarrassment flooded her at the thought of anyone else hearing it. Lauren now knew exactly what her parents were like. And she’d heard Catherine shredding her mother to pieces.
She forced herself not to dwell on that and keep reading. Because Lauren had some incredible quotes from Hickory. He even admitted he’d been rehearsing a speech given to him by the FBI for when the crisis actor got “caught” about to commit terrorism. How on earth had she gotten that out of him?
Pride swelled in her. A day ago, if she’d told Lauren how incredible this story was, Lauren would have been bouncing out of her skin with delight. Now she probably wouldn’t even acknowledge her reply.
Catherine typed out her two-word answer.
It’s brilliant.
She hit Send. And waited. And waited some more.
No reply.
She pocketed her phone, then rose from the sofa, deciding a coffee couldn’t hurt. Catherine almost backed out of the kitchen when she saw John talking to Meemaw. He stopped immediately when he saw her, his head doing what it usually did, dropping, eyes examining his boots.
Christ. Things were turning to water because of this one shy man who loved his job more than his country.
She was probably being uncharitable again.
“John?” Catherine said.
He looked up.
“I’d like you to read something.” She fished her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through it. “It’s Lauren’s story.”
Meemaw frowned. “I thought there wasn’t going to be a story. John voted no. And we backed him.”
“Lauren has written it in case John changes his mind.” Catherine decided the lie was better than the truth—that his sister was going to run it regardless. “But I thought you should know exactly what it is you’re saying no to.”
John shook his head and took a step away.
Anger flared within her. “I didn’t take you for a coward, John.”
Meemaw’s head snapped around. “Manipulating my grandson, Catherine? I thought it wasn’t your story anyhow. So what’s it to you?”
“Lauren’s tearing herself apart over this. And she’s angry with me for putting her in that position.” She looked at John, who was now his usual stoplight-red color. “So I think the least you can do is own the decision you made, not stick your head in the sand. If you read this and still say no, I promise I won’t say another word about it.”
John’s head slowly lifted, and she met his gaze for the first time. His eyes were startlingly blue, more so than his brothers. He held out his hand. Catherine placed the phone in it and watched as he read.
Meemaw made Catherine a coffee, gaze sliding between John and her as she did so, then pushed the mug across the table. “Here.”
Catherine thanked her, sipped silently, and waited.
Meemaw peered over John’s shoulder, reading. “What does a ‘crisis actor’ mean?”
“It means they play the part of victims or perpetrators at a crisis scene. The scene is set up by someone, usually a government agency, to test out a scenario of, say, responding to a bomb or a terrorist attack. It’s used in training exercises. This one was meant to have tricked everyone into believing it’s real.”
Meemaw’s frown deepened. “That is not right.”
“No.” Catherine glanced at John, who hadn’t said a word.
After five more minutes, he put the phone on the countertop and pushed it back to Catherine.
“I love my job.” His words were barely a whisper. Finally, he met her gaze. “Do you get how much?”
“I do.”
“But this”—he pointed at the phone—“is seriously messed-up stuff. I couldn’t keep on going to work like nothing had happened, knowing all that. It’d make me sick every day. How could I enjoy my work there after that?”
Catherine tried to tamp down the surge of hope. “So what are you saying?”
“Do it. Run it. Whatever you need to. It’s okay. That’s all I’m saying.”
There was a silence.
Finally, Catherine spoke. “Thank you, John.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“I should have said yes first time. I was…afraid.”
“You said yes now,” Catherine said, her tone kind.
He looked d
own again and focused hard on his boots. That, she supposed, was as much eye contact and social interaction as he had in him. He left the room.
Catherine turned to Meemaw. “Did you agree with him about not running it? Earlier, when John made his decision.”
“It wasn’t up to me.” She looked at her cautiously.
“Did you agree, though?”
“No.”
“Did the others? I know you’d know what they were thinking.”
She regarded her. “No, I don’t think so. Owen definitely disagreed. Not even Lucas, and he’s closest to John.”
Her gaze hardened. “You were all prepared to let millions suffer because of one man’s view?”
“I don’t think you understand how family works, Catherine.”
“I’m disappointed you don’t see your whole country as family.”
Meemaw snorted. “Don’t play naïve; it doesn’t suit you. You know that’s not how things work. This whole country’s a patchwork quilt of divides, this group and that, them and us. So you pick your tribe, and that’s who your loyalty’s with, and that’s it. Those are your people. My people are my family, my friends, my neighborhood, and my church.”
Catherine exhaled at that.
Meemaw’s eyes became narrow. “Are you judging us? Even though every single person, everywhere else, does the same as us?”
“On this? Yes. That insular view is why nothing ever gets done. It’s why our political system is a gridlocked, useless, partisan joke.”
“Well.” She straightened. “I’m not gonna disagree on that. Yes, I’m glad John did the right thing in the end. But I’d have stood with him either way.”
Catherine gave a hollow laugh. “My family stands by only the things my father decides. Everyone and everything else can go to hell.”
“Then I correct my earlier statement. I don’t think your family understands how family works.”
“No. I’m fairly sure they don’t.” Catherine finished off her coffee and put the mug in the sink, running water into it.
