Swallowing hard, I clicked the bar at the top of my screen and switched to my home Wi-Fi.
Angela Baker’s words ringing in my head, I didn’t want to look.
But I had to.
Videos. More than a dozen, from various adult sites both free and paid, with grotesque, demeaning labels in the titles.
I clicked the first one, watched about three seconds of her bound and gagged on a wide bed with dove-gray sheets, and closed my eyes. Jesus.
Swallowing hard, I opened my eyes, scanning the perimeters of the frame for her partner. Client. Whatever.
A man’s bare middle two-thirds entered from the top left. He wound one hand into Lakshmi’s long hair and forced her head back. Her eyes widened, afraid, as she looked up at him. I couldn’t see his face.
Not that I needed to, really—I had enough pieces to plunk Ted Grayson dead center in this corner of my spreading web. I’d bet my favorite Louboutins one of the videos Angela had alluded to earlier was playing on my screen.
But why? I’d searched Lakshmi’s name Friday morning and hadn’t seen a single frame of this.
I clicked “Stop”—I couldn’t take any more once he started hitting her, and Grayson was too smart to show his face. Watching would only lead to crippling nausea with a generous side scoop of white-hot fury.
I scrolled down. Checked the stats at the bottom of the page.
It had been up for fourteen hours and change. With over a quarter of a million views already.
Damn.
I clicked to the tax office website. Typed in Grayson’s name and hit the “Search” button. He would either slam the door in my face or shoot me dead if I rang the bell wherever he was, but I at least needed to go see what he was up to.
No results found. I repeated the search in six surrounding counties. The immediate DC suburbs.
Nothing.
Who gets out of prison and vanishes into thin air? Someone who’s up to no good.
My puzzle pieces all shifted at once as I closed the window and looked back at my chart.
Half the day, I’d been chasing Hamilton Baine, thinking he might’ve done something to hurt Lakshmi and then disappeared, with or without the help of the governor or my favorite detectives. Hunting political intrigue, musing about sex scandals and hot tempers.
But what if I was looking at it all wrong? That video wouldn’t so much as ding a politician’s reputation, especially with the care taken to keep the man’s face off camera.
But Lakshmi?
Instantly branded with those subtitles. And whore was the kindest word I’d seen.
“They didn’t just kill her. They’re demonizing her before anyone even knows who’s dead.” Somehow saying it out loud, even in a whisper, made it less farfetched.
What if Lakshmi wasn’t a political potshot at Baine—but instead she knew something that got her killed? And what if Hamilton wasn’t in hiding at all? What if he was actually the last hurdle for whoever wanted Lakshmi not just dead but maligned and discredited to the point of immediate dismissal?
Not a brilliant mathematician. Not a rising political statistics star.
Not even a person.
A caricature. A demon.
A joke.
I picked up the chart and drew more lines. Scribbled more notes.
A corner of my mental puzzle took a dark, nasty shape as I wrote. Taking down Lakshmi’s social media accounts, which would normally be the top results when someone searched her name, ensured that the harlot characterization was the first impression people got.
I once saw a tweet from a psych journal proclaiming that people make up their mind about you based on the first three search results your name produces. Less than fifty hours after she died, someone had worked hard to ensure that Lakshmi Drake would be scorned and hated, even vilified in some circles. Porn videos are the scarlet letters of the twenty-first century. The ultimate form of slut-shaming in a world where image can matter more than truth, and anything that makes it onto the internet is forever.
I stared at my chart until all the ink went fuzzy and unfocused.
It was the story of the year, a dead body turning up in the governor’s office. Right?
Except . . . it wasn’t. Secrets and “no comments” and official red tape had made the story about the act instead of the victim.
I’d worked hundreds of murder scenes. The victim is always the story.
Except when the body is found in what’s supposed to be the most secure room in the commonwealth.
Downright diabolical, but clever as all hell. An idea shinier than the Swarovski-encrusted Manolos I’d been stalking on eBay.
Lakshmi Drake had just had the most private public death in the history of the world. Had she been found in the river, the woods, the gutter—everyone would’ve been writing about her, and before somebody had time to alter the Google-accessible narrative.
Because she was on the governor’s desk, nobody was writing about her.
We were just writing about her murder.
Clicking my photos open, I scrolled back. And back. And back some more.
Weddings, Halloweens, and summers flashed by in a blur.
There: Lakshmi and I leaning on each other at the bar laughing, at the underground poker game where I first met her.
She had a beautiful smile and a brilliant mind. And if someone was trying to steal her voice, to redirect the spotlight to the darkest part of her story, the best way to fight that was to put her in the paper. Talk about her. Make her real. Gorgeous. Funny. Smart.
More than a handful of videos people would use to indict her character and dismiss her death.
I didn’t have a comment on the record. I didn’t know the rest of the story. I might tip my hand to Charlie.
But right then, none of that mattered.
This young woman, why she was dead, and why anyone wanted her dismissed and discredited in addition to dead, crowded my head until there was no room for anything else.
I spent my life chasing tragedy. Writing about the aftermath of horrifying events I had no way to control or predict. Tonight, with this, I could control something—maybe the most important something, if my hunch was on target.
Nobody had written or spoken one word about Lakshmi Drake.
So I could control her story if I told it first.
I opened a blank file. Clicked into my contacts and called Les. He mumbled something that might’ve passed for “hello” to someone who was really listening on the fifth ring.
“How much is a replate at this time of night?” I asked, my eyes on the clock.
I knew the ballpark: a lot, that’s how much. It was after midnight. We’d be tossing half, maybe two-thirds of our press run. And for Sunday, to boot.
“Clarke?” My question was better than a mainline injection of espresso. Les was good and awake in less than a dozen words. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You spent half an hour this morning yelling at me about the potential for losing to Charlie today. You want to kick everyone’s ass tomorrow? Call the pressroom and tell them to watch for an email from me. We can replace the lead story on the Sunday front with an exclusive that will blow everyone else on the East Coast out of the water.”
“You’re talking about thousands of dollars. Can’t we just put it online?”
“I’ve got her name, Les. Trust me, you want it in print.”
“Send it to me first,” was all he said before he hung up.
I put the phone on the table and started typing.
I knew all the way down to my bones this was bigger than even I had a handle on right then. Which is how I managed to ignore the downright obnoxious warning bells in my head.
Kyle’s tears. Joey’s mystery rendezvous.
The story on my screen was the riskiest thing I’d ever done, career-wise. I didn’t have a quotable source. I was breaking a stone-set journalistic commandment. But standing up for Lakshmi took precedence over everything else as my fingers flew over the keys,
my coffee still scenting the air with cinnamon spice as it cooled in the mug next to my keyboard.
I was one thousand percent digging into something I didn’t yet fully understand, poking a bear I couldn’t gauge for size or ferocity. I’d never jumped knowingly into harm’s way. But some things were more important than safety. Wasn’t that why Eunice climbed into a chopper that crashed and almost got her killed in Iraq? To get the story, even if it meant she didn’t get to see it published?
I knew the stakes: If someone was trying to destroy Lakshmi Drake even after she was dead, and I put her on the front page of the Sunday paper, how long would it be before they decided to destroy me?
I was all in anyway.
17
Lakshmi Drake wanted to be the next Nate Silver. She liked bright colors and good wine and had a light, wonderful laugh that seemed to float all the way up from her perfectly polished toes.
Her professors described her as a “brilliant” young statistician. Studies and articles she conducted and authored suggest her gift was in seeing the patterns not just in numbers but in human behavior.
Lakshmi was found dead just before dawn Friday, her body discovered laid out across the wide oak desk in the center of Virginia Gov. Thomas Baine’s private office.
I left out exactly what she’d been working on—there is a place where righteous crosses paths with stupid, but I didn’t think I was there yet. Charlie could find that herself. The rest of the story filled out with the same stuff we’d had since yesterday, about tight-lipped cops and official investigations and a secured area. I scrolled back to the top and read it a third time, tweaking a word choice here and there and fixing typos before I copied it into an email. Cropping myself out of the selfie from the poker game, I attached the image of Lakshmi, gorgeous and relaxed and laughing.
Pressroom. Les. Send.
From my phone, I thumb-typed, It’s in your email.
Hands shaking, I reached for my coffee and took it to the microwave, closing my laptop and leaning both hands on the counter.
What the hell had I just done?
And done it was—there was no stuffing that genie back in any bottle I had access to. Les would run it, no questions asked, because it gave him the chance to be the big shot and scoop the whole state while Bob was out of town.
I closed my eyes, picturing Bob’s face, hearing his voice in my head.
He wasn’t happy, even in my imagination.
Journalism Since Forever 001: important facts need attribution.
It’s not optional. It’s not a thing you forget.
It’s a thing you do. Every time.
“This is definitely what you’d call a special circumstance, chief,” I said out loud, opening the microwave and pulling out my cup.
Every word true. I believed it with everything in me.
If I’d seen another way, I’d have taken it. Taking the focus off the murder and putting it on the victim, making this story like any other murder story, was more important than following the rules today. Because it was the only path I could see to some answers. Even if said path led smack through the middle of a professional and personal minefield.
My phone buzzed. I put down the coffee and snatched the phone off the table. Les: Holy hell, Clarke. I have to tip my hat to you. I’m not sure that’s ever happened before.
Jackass.
I didn’t type that. Thanks. Send.
Buzz. The uptick in rack sales on the Sunday issue will make up for pulling the plates and breaking the web. And the numbers will give me plenty of clearance for raising the ad rates for next week, too. Keep it up.
I dropped the phone on the table, my nose squinching up as I wiped my hand on my Telegraph T-shirt, a crushing, breath-stealing urge to shower settling heavy around me.
When Bob was pissed even in my imagination and Les was sending me virtual high fives . . . well. My weekend had officially gone off the rails.
I laid the phone down and folded my arms on the tabletop, resting my head on them, my eyelids heavy. I could just close them for a minute.
Five hours later I bolted upright in the chair when Darcy pounced on my bare foot.
I scrubbed at my eyes with both fists, arching my back before I glanced around the kitchen. Damn. I’d slept too long.
The first rays of sunlight trickled in through the windows, the dog disappearing through the plastic flap leading to the backyard.
I opened my computer and checked the newspaper’s website.
Exclusive screamed in seventy-two-point Times from the screen. Under that, smaller: Telegraph learns identity of capitol murder victim.
I scrolled down.
Les didn’t miss a moneymaking trick. There was a paywall just on that story, and a note at the top that said full details and information could be found in the print edition of the Sunday paper.
Darcy’s nails scratched on the back door, her tiny black nose poking into the kitchen, sniffing, before she scurried back to my feet. I stroked her head. She yawned and flopped across my ankle.
Draining the rest of my coffee, I opened my email. Stared alternately at my screen and my phone.
And nearly jumped out of my skin when the onslaught I was braced for came from the front door.
Joey met me in the hallway, still shirtless, heart-stoppingly sexy as ever in his boxers and disarrayed hair.
“Does nobody have any concept of Sunday anymore?” he grumbled, half stomping toward the door.
“No, I’ll—” I didn’t get the “get it” out before he flipped the locks and jerked the door inward. Just as Kyle raised his fist to bang on it again.
“Miller.” Joey didn’t step backward, blocking the way into the foyer, and most of Kyle’s view of me. “Awfully early to have to deal with you.”
Kyle ignored the annoyance in Joey’s tone, only paying any attention to his presence at all because he was between us.
“What did you do?” His voice was high and tight, like someone had pinched off his airway. I couldn’t tell if he was holding back anger or fear.
Or both.
“What I had to,” I said when my voice would work, putting a hand on Joey’s shoulder and moving him out of the way. “Come in. Let me make you some coffee and I’ll explain.”
Joey’s head swiveled between the two of us for two full cycles. “Why do I feel like I missed something important?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said.
“So you decided you’d go on ahead and ruin everyone’s life? That’s a cure for insomnia I haven’t heard of.” Kyle stepped past Joey, his voice still weird but his eyes flashing.
“I did no such thing. And I didn’t mention you at all. Why are you so pissed?” I turned back for the kitchen, waving for him to follow.
He pulled a folded-up front section of the paper out of his back pocket, brandishing it like a newsprint sword. “I trusted you!” Pretty sure he screamed it loud enough to rattle the beach glass on the hallway shelf. “After everything we’ve been through together, I thought you understood I was telling you something I shouldn’t be. And then I begged you yesterday to stay out of this. And this is the conclusion you drew from that? To dive in headlong without knowing what the fuck you’re doing?”
Kyle grabbed my shoulder and spun me away from the coffee maker to face him. “Dammit, Nicey, this isn’t a game.”
Joey lunged, good arm out stiff, shoving Kyle away from me.
Kyle staggered backward but kept his balance, his head whipping around as a low “Don’t start with me this morning, I am not in the mood” slid between his teeth.
Joey opened his mouth and I raised one hand, keeping my eyes on my old friend. The last thing I needed was to referee a Joey/Kyle cage match in my kitchen on an hour of sleep and an empty stomach.
“If you trust me so much, why do you think I’m so stupid?” I asked Kyle softly, holding his gaze, unblinking.
He opened his mouth. Closed it again. The coffee maker beeped and I turned to retrieve his mug.
“I didn’t say you were stupid,” he said finally, the words huffing out on a long sigh.
I pushed the cup into his hands and crossed the kitchen to pull milk and cream from the fridge. “What else do you call barging in here at seven o’clock on a Sunday to scream at me about a story?”
He leaned against the counter, his chin dropping to the opening in the collar of his royal-blue polo. “I’m worried about you.” He said it to his shiny brown loafers, but I caught it.
I could feel Joey pounce without him moving an actual eyelash. Kyle being worried would be enough to scare him. He crossed the room and stopped behind me, wrapping both arms around my shoulders and pulling me back into his still-bare chest.
Did he not realize he was having a conversation with a federal agent in his underwear?
“Would you fill me in on what the hell is going on here?” he asked.
Maybe he just didn’t care.
Kyle pinched his lips into a thin white line and handed Joey the paper before I could get a word out.
He let me go and unfolded it. I scooted two steps to the left and turned my head away because I knew he was going to yell, too.
When I didn’t hear anything after a minute, I peeked over my shoulder.
He stared at the page, the only clue that he was even reading his furrowed brow.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “We’ve been talking about this all weekend.”
“Nobody’s supposed to know who the victim was,” Kyle said.
Joey let the paper fall to the floor. “Nichelle?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “I have a theory.”
“Me too. You’re trying to get yourself killed,” Kyle barked. “I told you. Yesterday. I warned you. Hell, I apologized for calling you in the first fucking place.”
I rounded on him. “You knew who you were talking to when you made the decision to call, though.”
“I assumed you knew the meaning of the words ‘off the record.’”
My cheeks heated. “Some things are more important than keeping your word. Not many. But some. And I left you out of it.”
Joey put an arm out, pulling me into his side. “Time out. Why don’t we let everyone’s temper cool off.” He glanced down. “I’ll go find some clothes, and then someone is going to explain what kind of trouble y’all are talking about.”
Deadly Politics Page 15
