“Then we’ll have other people looking into the story. You’ll become the story. You’re already a known personality, so Boyd couldn’t possibly risk hurting you at that point. Right now, you’re vulnerable. My plan is to make you invulnerable.”
“Are we going to tip off some people about the affair?”
“Yes. Exactly. You got it. We’ll tip off people about the affair and with you missing, it will cause people to speculate. And it will give Boyd the motivation to make sure you aren’t hurt. Because if you really were missing, if you’d really been hurt or anything, it would fall back on his lap. It could ruin his career. He’s going to want to avoid that.”
“You sure about doing it this way? I’d hate to ruin his marriage.”
“Quit being so nice. This guy probably had a reporter killed for all we know.”
“Maybe. We don’t know for sure. I guess it looks that way, doesn’t it?” Drew sat in silence for awhile. “I need to eat. I’ll think better on a full stomach.”
Marc stood up and opened the refrigerator to gather eggs, cheese, and vegetables. He asked her if she still wanted to go fishing.
“Maybe tomorrow.” Drew helped him make breakfast. It took her mind off her problems for awhile. They ate without talking about serious things.
“So, pros and cons of doing a nude photo set with me?”
“Pros. It will piss off my dad. It will really piss him off. Maybe that’s motivation enough.”
“Second, it will bring you a ton of exposure. Publicity is good because it’ll lead people to the other story. You had an affair with the guy and accidentally got this thumb drive. That can be the story. Let others decide what is true or not about the research lab. We won’t have to investigate anything, and most importantly, if this goes public, he has no incentive to harm you. It’ll only make things worse for him.”
“That’s probably enough on the pro side right there. And I guess I’ll make some money. I mean, we’ll make some money, right?”
“Oh, sure. We could both make a little green. It’ll be a big story if we get lucky.”
“Alright, what about the cons?”
“First, once you have nudes published, it’s forever. You have kids someday, the nudes are there. You get married, the in-laws are seeing them. You do this photo shoot and publish it, you cannot undo it.”
“That’s a lot to think about.”
“It is.”
Drew closed her eyes and tried to imagine what her feelings would be in the future.
I’ll stay away from judgmental people. That’s all there is to it.
Drew looked up at Marc and smiled with all her teeth. Her eyes twinkled. “I’ll do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
…Always remember the acronym for “fear” can mean one of two things: Fuck Everything And Run or Face Everything And Recover.
~ Momma Chaney
Someone mentioned therapy to me once. I read a book instead.
~ Drew Stirling
Drew Stirling watched Marc drive away. He headed towards town to buy supplies and to attempt to reach Brad Novak's editor at the Post. Marc said he was going to email the files and give traction to the story. Drew was now alone.
Marc planned to tip off the press about the affair. Drew agreed it was a good way to create interest in the whole story.
After his car was out of sight, she walked back into the cabin and sat down on the sofa. She curled up with a blanket and watched the fire.
A little over a week ago, her life seemed so uncomplicated. Now she had confusing thoughts about the future running through her head. Drew reflected on being in the woods alone. It was both comforting and scary. She realized how much she was depending on Marc. Trusting him. Needing him. That was comforting and scary too.
There was no phone. If she got bit by a snake or a spider, or if she fell, she had no car to leave in. No phone to call 911. If she screamed for help, nobody would hear.
She thought about life a hundred years ago. A trapper out in the woods all alone risked his life making a living. He had nobody to call for help if something went wrong. Funny how many modern conveniences people took for granted.
The quiet was disconcerting. Drew heard the fire crackling. It was the only noise except for the occasional sound of birds. When the heavy door was shut, even the bird sounds were gone. She had never been somewhere so quiet. City noises like traffic, car alarms, people yelling, advertisements, television, radio, construction, and sirens were ubiquitous in her daily life.
Alone in nature, it was so different. The quiet calmed her, and she fell asleep and dreamt.
Boyd stood over her. He was yelling, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.
She looked and her mother was sitting across the room, but her back was turned.
She heard her father’s voice telling her that no daughter of his would ever shame the family.
Boyd reached down and started shaking her.
She heard him call her a bitch, a stupid bitch, who didn’t know what she was ruining.
He yelled at her.
“You are ruining America. You’re a traitor and a slut. A stupid slut. You’re not even pretty. I only fucked you because I was drunk.”
Drew’s body jerked and twisted, and she woke. She looked around the cabin. She felt completely alone and watched at the same time. She shivered.
The fire had died down to a quiet orange glow. The cabin was lit by dim sunlight filtered through gray cloud-filled skies. Drew worried about being alone in the dark. She thought she heard something outside. She wasn’t fully awake, so she assumed it was her imagination and the influence of bad dreams. She no longer felt alone, but abandoned.
She’d never experienced this feeling before. Being alone in her apartment meant a whole different kind of alone. At home, she could get on the phone, call for a pizza, go to a mall, meet her mom for coffee, or even watch something on Netflix. At home, she knew that Julie might walk in at any moment or that she’d hear the neighbors upstairs have a fight or sex. She might have a Jehovah’s Witness knock on the door or someone selling candy for their high school cheer team. Nobody was coming to this door. Not here in the woods.
Drew felt dread and a peculiar loneliness she’d never experienced before. She sensed someone was out to get her. She felt watched.
She got up and walked cautiously to the door. Like a small child she paused. She was afraid of opening the door and finding herself still alone, but more afraid that she wasn’t.
She opened the door. A cold front of air hit her like a small breaker crashing over a child at the beach. Drew shivered, turned her back to the emptiness, and closed the door.
She put more logs on the fire and used the old-fashioned bellows to stoke it back to life. She really needed to pee. She hesitated. Going deeper into the loneliness took some effort. It was much colder away from the blazing fire. Her body shook when her butt touched the toilet seat.
A sudden loud noise came from the living room. A metallic crashing sound. She froze. Her heart pounded. She held her breath and listened.
Nothing. It was completely silent.
Both men and nature provided plenty of things to fear. Fright took many forms.
Sitting in utter silence on a toilet with her jeans at her ankles, not knowing what was in the next room, she felt a unique fear. She had no idea what she would find. Drew knew she was completely vulnerable.
“Shit,” she whispered to herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Journalism can be lethal.
~ Robert Fisk
Someday I’ll write a novel based upon all the stories I couldn’t print.
~ Cindy Wells
Marc Chase parked Drew’s Camaro at the Broken Yolk Coffee Shoppe. He grabbed his laptop and logged into the internet. He checked his email. Business, business, junk mail, things that could wait, and an email from the Washington Post.
Marc,
I am
interested in your story. How did you end up with Brad’s notes?
I am his editor. Can you call me to talk about this?
Sincerely,
Cindy K. Wells
Marc called her.
“Hello. Cindy Wells,” she answered. She sounded like a professor at an Ivy League school introducing herself to a freshman class.
Marc explained who he was and the purpose of his call. After introductions and explanations, she convinced him to email the files to her.
“I see,” she said. “This is very interesting. You’re telling me that you obtained these files from a female friend who was having an affair with Congressman Boyd?
“One second. I have him up on my screen. He’s from Bristol. And — hold on…”
Marc waited in silence for a few minutes. He heard her humming. Then she talked to herself. She was researching. He was waiting.
“Anything?”
“Yes. Hold on.”
After a few more minutes she told him that she was going to need to confer with her boss. The files had too many potential legal issues for her to decide what to do next. “I need to figure out how to proceed in light of Novak’s disappearance,” she said more to herself than to Marc. “Any corroboration on the affair?”
“I’m not sure.”
“When do you think I could speak to her?”
“I’m not sure when she’s going to be ready. I’ll give her name to you, off the record, and you can investigate yourself.”
“I’m ready to write. Shoot.”
Marc gave up names. He told her his friend was the model Drew Stirling. Her father was the businessman Peter Stirling who’d been a major donor and campaigner for Boyd. They’d worked together since the early days of Boyd’s entrance into politics. Drew, he told her, had known Boyd since she was seventeen.
He speculated that corroborating witnesses might be found at the Blackstone. He filled her in on the details of Drew meeting Boyd at the Fireside Bar, both this last Saturday and the previous weekend. “Maybe someone saw them together?” Marc mused out loud.
“I’m going to follow up on this. I’m not sure where this is going to go. I might have to go to the police. Brad hasn’t contacted anyone. It’s looking really bad. All the suspicions might be true. I can’t print rumors, however. I can’t simply print his stories without him turning them in. That might change if…
“With this level of story my bosses are going to want serious corroboration. They are going to expect a whistle blower to corroborate, or better, come out publicly. The very least they are going to demand is that we prove our sources are on the level. That they really exist.
“This will be hard to do with Novak MIA. Damn. This is messy. Anything else?”
Marc asked her if it was a good idea to send those files out to a bunch of reporters or post it on Reddit.
She convinced him to sit on it longer. She asked him to give her the chance to investigate. “Let me try and get another witness or see if anybody else is willing to talk,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Please trust me, Marc. Brad was a friend of mine. I’m going to take this very seriously. Is there anything else you can think of that would be helpful to me?”
“No. I’m going off the grid again. Send me an email, and I’ll touch base with you tomorrow, the next day at the latest.”
Marc hung up and considered his discussion with Cindy Wells. He wished he could do more to protect Drew. He wanted to ease her fears. Nothing beyond what he was already doing made any sense.
Cindy Wells had asked for trust. She claimed she had other sources. She wanted him to be patient.
Marc decided to follow her advice. He could always change his mind later. Electronic information could be copied and sent around the world. There were skilled people that could make stories look authentic. There were ways to search metadata to see if things had been faked. There were also ways to make fake things look real. Unfortunately, there were also ways to make real things look fake.
Marc knew Drew needed to be cautious and trusting Cindy Wells seemed prudent.
One thing that he knew for sure was that Brad Novak was still missing. That hadn’t been faked. He might have gone missing of his own accord, but he wasn’t at work and he wasn’t at home. That was uncontroversial.
Another sure thing was that Drew was scared.
She’d spent time alone with the Congressman, and her story was enough to derail his career. Boyd’s conservative base talked about the forgiveness and mercy of the religious, but politics was a different animal.
A politician that collected money based upon family-value politics and then screwed the daughter of a major supporter was going to be in trouble.
Marc headed over to the grocer’s. He felt a sense of urgency and he wanted to get back to Drew.
He knew from experience that being alone for hours up on the isolated mountain could make someone feel depressed and overwhelmed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Do not put your faith in such trinkets of deceit!
~ Bram Stoker
I realized that faith in anything but myself was misplaced. It was both a sad and a happy realization. I do wish I could have made it out of my teens before I had this epiphany. It seems everything in life came to me early.
~ Drew Stirling
Drew Stirling waited in silence for two minutes. She didn’t make a sound. No more noise came from the living room. She looked at the toilet paper and decided it was worth the risk. She moved like a hunted fawn. She pulled up her jeans and tip-toed to the door. She waited and listened.
No sounds. Nothing to indicate the presence of another person or animal, but the fine hairs on her neck and arms stood up. She crouched as if she was playing hide-and-seek.
She peeked out, leaning an inch beyond the door jamb. She peered down the hallway towards the living room and saw nothing. She heard nothing. Not a thing appeared to be out of place.
Her heart rate increased, and she realized she’d been holding her breath. She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. She moved into the hall and walked towards the living room. There was no door between the hall and the main room of the cabin, and her view expanded as she approached. Still nothing.
When Drew reached the living room, she started to breathe easier, but then she smelled something burning and her heart rate skyrocketed. She feared being trapped in a burning building and sprinted towards the front door. Getting outside was all that mattered. As she passed the sofa, she saw the source of the smoke. Two logs had rolled out of the fireplace and had landed on the rug near the hearth.
The logs and the rug still smoldered. The fireplace tools had been knocked over, the source of the metallic noises. She breathed easier and swallowed.
In the tool stand there was a set of big tongs. She picked them up and placed the logs back into the fireplace. This time she closed the screen. She scolded herself for not doing this before, but she enjoyed the view of the fire a lot more without the black screen in the way. She got a damp towel and blotted the smoldering spots on the rug. Drew sat down on the sofa and watched the fire.
She got herself potato chips, a Diet Coke, and a paperback. People flew to exotic places and spent thousands of dollars to be able to relax and read a paperback. She knew she needed to calm down, relax, and take advantage of her circumstances.
She entered a mental zone in which her reading became effortless and the story took her mind elsewhere. The contrast of this against feeling so anxious a short time ago gave Drew a sense of peace. She felt safe again. Instead of hoping Marc would walk in any second, she hoped she’d have time for one more chapter. Maybe two or three.
She was so immersed in the world of fiction that when the door opened she jumped and screamed.
Marc laughed and said, “It’s just me. A bit jumpy? You hungry?”
“Just a little. I’ve been into the chips.”
“I have news. Give me a hand
with these.” He handed her a bag of groceries.
They made sandwiches, and Marc told her about his conversation with Cindy Wells of the Post. He explained all the issues that needed to be dealt with like corroboration for the story and legal issues if Brad Novak didn’t show up. He told her that Wells had convinced him to wait and not send the files to anyone else. He looked at Drew and asked her what she thought.
“I think we’ve done the best we could. I’m going to do a photo set with you today. I’ve decided that it’s a good decision. It’s good for my modeling career if I continue, and it’s good for me if take the money and retire from modeling altogether. I think I want to go to college and start working on a long-term career. I want something I can take into the future, something I can feel pride in.
“I don’t care if the people in my future can look back and see me naked in a photo. It’s not a big deal. I’ll be much older if I ever have kids, so the pictures won’t even look like me anymore. If anyone judges me, if I have to deal with that, I’ll just move on. I don’t need or want judgmental people in my life. My mom will be embarrassed, mortified, in fact. That’s the one thing I’m going to feel shitty about. In time she’ll put it out of her mind. She’ll pretend like it never happened in the first place.”
“And your dad? You sure about dealing with him?”
“Yes.” Drew told Marc that she was done trying to live up to any expectations he had for her. This was her life.
Undressed To The Nines: A Thriller Novel (Drew Stirling Book 1) Page 10
