It was time to show him that there was a fist inside the velvet glove. “So you ignored Katie’s problems,” Allison said.
Fairview straightened up. “I did not ignore them. I tried to help her.” His face showed a trace of annoyance. “Are you saying I should have forced a troubled girl to give up the one thing that gave her life meaning?”
“You yourself said she was troubled. But you just let that go?”
“I did talk to her about it. Many times. I wanted her to see a counselor. But she would have had to do it through the page program’s providers, and she was afraid they would report back. She said I was the only one she could talk to.”
“So did you ever wish there was a way you could just—get rid of her?” Allison asked softly. “It’s understandable, really.”
His face flushed. “Are you saying I did something to her? I did not. I’ll take a lie detector test. I’ll do whatever you want to prove to you that I didn’t do anything to that girl.” He took a deep breath and calmed himself. “As we got closer to Christmas break, I was worried she might do something rash. She was depressed that she had to go home and live with her stepmother again. Valerie has strict standards, and Katie’s gotten used to being on her own.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
Fairview seemed to be holding himself carefully, choosing his words with care. “Actually, it was December thirteenth. A few hours before she went missing. I was Christmas shopping with my wife in Nordstrom when I ran into Katie. She was looking for something for her stepmother. Our conversation lasted only a few seconds.”
“What time was this?”
“The lunch hour. Around noon or so.”
“Did she seem upset or troubled?”
“Not really, no. She seemed fine. I’ve been over and over those few sentences in my memory, but I can’t think of any clues. As I said, our conversation was very brief.”
“So was this the last conversation you had with her?” Allison held her breath.
“Yes, I believe it was.”
“You believe it? Or do you know it?”
Fairview’s eyes widened. He was caught, and he knew it.
“She also called you repeatedly on that date. Correct?” Allison said.
“Well, no, that’s not true.”
“Your phone records show that. Your phone records show that a phone belonging to Katie called your cell phone repeatedly the day she went missing. Five times.”
“Well, that . . .” Fairview hesitated.
Stone seemed to be trying to look as if this wasn’t news to him. He was doing a lousy job. This was clearly a body blow.
“I mean, she might have left a message. She might have reached my voice machine, my uh . . . uh, phone company voice answering machine. She may have called and left a message.”
“Her parents are in hell, Senator,” Nicole said. There was zero sympathy on her face. “Imagine one of your own children missing.”
“I do, every day. I feel so badly for the Converses.” Tears welled in Fairview’s eyes. “Day after day, not knowing. But sometimes you wonder if not knowing is perhaps easier on them. I mean, the longer this goes on, the more likely that they are never going to see Katie alive again. Is it better for them to cling to a little hope than to be crushed by certainty?”
That was the moment when Allison knew in her gut that Fairview knew where Katie was. He knew what had happened to her.
He knew because he had been there.
CONVERSE RESIDENCE
December 28
Cassidy was scheduled for a live hit at 12:03. Never before had she had a story that led newscast after newscast. But with the Katie Converse story, it was like she had jumped on the back of a tiger.
Only sometimes she wasn’t sure if she was riding the tiger or the tiger was riding her.
Out in the field there was no teleprompter, of course, so Cassidy had to memorize everything she was going to say on camera. The voice-overs were recorded earlier in the studio, but there were still a lot of long sentences that she had to recite verbatim during the stand-up.