Cassidy was a contradiction. She was always sure of herself when it came to covering a story, but in her personal life she needed constant reassurance. Though she exercised obsessively, she complained about being fat, and worried aloud about growing old—and waited for someone to contradict her. And she twisted herself into a pretzel to gain the approval of whatever guy she was dating.
Three years earlier, she had been a windsurfer for about two weeks when she had a boyfriend who loved windsurfing. Then she had briefly become a vegetarian when she dated someone who abstained. And there was the time she was “seriously considering” converting to Catholicism until she realized the guy she had met on Match.com expected her to stay home and have babies. Lots of babies.
Maybe this Rick guy would be different.
But Cassidy was still the same. Even over dinner with friends, she couldn’t stop looking for a story. “Jerry wants a minute-forty-five package about Katie on the news every night. That’s an unbelievable amount of time. The world coming to an end would be lucky to get a minute and a half. Normally I would start with the latest update and reverse to the B-roll—but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything new. Right?” She eyed Nicole closely.
Nicole shot Allison a look, which Allison answered with a little nod. None of this got past Cassidy, who grinned in anticipation.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Nicole shook a cautionary finger. “But you can’t use this, Cassidy. Not yet.”
“All right.” She nodded so hard that her artfully highlighted hair swung back and forth.
“I mean it. You can’t. I’ll give you a heads-up when we’re ready to release this. But Katie had a MySpace account, and she kept a blog on it.”
Cassidy’s eyebrows went up. “And her parents didn’t take it down?”
“They didn’t know anything about it,” Nicole said, reaching out to grab some of Cassidy’s fries. “It’s anonymous, or at least as anonymous as a seventeen-year-old girl can think of how to be.”
“In other words,” Allison said, “not very.” Reading the blog had left her with a residue of sadness. It brought Katie alive for her—and yet as she read her words, Allison grew even more afraid for the girl.
“Right,” Nicole agreed. “Like it’s called The DC Page, and on the part where people can leave comments, they’re all addressed to Katie. There’s only one Katie in the Senate page program. What makes it even clearer is that now that she’s missing, there are people begging for her to come home, or saying how much they miss her.”
“Are there any clues? Like ‘Dear Blog, today I intend to disappear . . .’ ?”
The counter guy set down their dessert. Cassidy was the first to pick up one of the three spoons.
Nicole shook her head. “No. I wish there were. It’s clear she had a boyfriend in the program, but it also sounds like they broke up. It was all very dramatic, very much love one minute and the worst thing that ever happened to her the next. The one thing that gave me pause is that she seemed to have a crush on one of the senators. She called him Senator X, but she also said it was her sponsor. Which would be Senator Fairview.”
Allison hadn’t known what to make of the blog. Had Fairview returned the girl’s feelings? Or had he even been aware of them?
“Fairview.” Cassidy rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard stories about him.”
“What do you mean?” Allison asked. Her heart started beating faster. She set down her spoon.
“I’ve interviewed him before,” Cassidy said, taking a bite of dessert that strategically encompassed the brownie, the ice cream, and the caramel sauce. “He’s a nonstop flirt who likes it when women are impressed by the fact that he’s a senator. His wife—I think her name’s Nancy—lives here with their two kids. She’s got an upscale children’s clothing business. So he spends his time back in DC in a bachelor pad, and maybe comes home once or twice a month. But when the cat’s away, he likes to play. . . .”
“So he’s like Senator Packwood?” Allison asked.
Bob Packwood, after decades as an Oregon senator, had been forced to resign after dozens of women came forward saying he forcibly kissed or groped them.
“No. As far as I know, all his conquests are willing. But you hear stories about him.”
“Like what?” Nicole leaned forward.
“Like him having sex in the back alley with some college girl he met in a bar, while his driver waits in the car.”
“That’s pretty sick,” Nicole said.
“The sick thing is that I heard it from the driver.Our honorable senator got a kick out of doing it right in front of him.”
Nicole made a face. “A woman in a bar is one thing. A seventeen-year-old girl is another.”
Allison was finding it hard to breathe. The food in her stomach had turned into a leaden ball. She remembered another man she had known. He had liked to take chances too. The more dangerous it was, the more he got off on it.
It felt like a big piece of the puzzle had just fallen into place.
Allison said, “I don’t think the two are that far apart. It sounds like Fairview likes to take risks. What could be riskier—or more tempting—than a seventeen-year-old?”