“Nancy, how are you coping with the media onslaught?” Cassidy asked. “Do you read everything? Do you listen to everything? Or are you tempted to put your hands over your ears and not take it in?”
Nancy’s mouth crimped. “They have completely lost sight of Katie. Instead, they want to make it about innuendos and half-truths and out-right lies about my husband.”
Fairview shook his head. “It’s ridiculous that we are even being asked these questions. Katie is a troubled young woman, and I have tried to help her. And this is the payback I receive? To be accused of her murder?”
Was this the first crack in the fa?ade? Cassidy felt like she could levitate out of her seat. “Troubled? What do you mean by troubled?”
He sighed. “When you first meet Katie, she seems older than her years. I mean, how many people her age want to talk about how bills are made? But the longer you know her, the more you can see how lonely and insecure she is.”
Cassidy shook her head. “But Katie has gotten straight A’s, she was president of several clubs at her high school, and she got into this competitive page program that takes only a handful of students from across the nation. By every account, Katie is a success.”
Fairview made a gesture with his hands as if he were brushing all that aside. “A lot of these young people look successful on the surface. But inside they’re hollow. Inside they are filled with turmoil and weakness and self-loathing.”
Cassidy suddenly knew that Fairview was talking about himself as much as he was Katie. Nothing was hidden from her, there were no shadows, everything sparkled. And it wasn’t just the studio lights. She was in the zone.
“So you are saying—what? That Katie was . . . depressed?”
“Katie was a very troubled young woman. And seeing a friendly face from home, she reached out to me. I was afraid to turn her away. Afraid if I did, she might do something rash.”
“Rash? What do you mean by rash? Do you mean you were worried she might run away? Do you think that’s what’s happened?”
“I have no idea what’s happened to Katie. But yes, Cassidy, I was worried that she might run away.” Fairview’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Even that she might possibly go further and choose the ultimate method of running away.”
Cassidy let her eyes widen. Her mind and her mouth were operating on two separate planes now. She was weighing her next words, searching through her mental data banks, anticipating the senator’s response, while her mouth and tongue simultaneously shaped the words she had chosen a second earlier. “Are you saying Katie was suicidal?”
“I’m not a professional counselor. All I know is that Katie is a very troubled young woman. She can be in tears one moment and then bouncing with happiness the next.”
“But doesn’t that describe a typical teenager? You yourself have a fifteen-year-old son and a thirteen-year-old daughter.” Cassidy watched the skin around Fairview’s eyes tighten. She only hoped it showed on camera. “As a father, don’t you feel that these types of mood swings are common to every teen?”
She hoped the viewers caught the unspoken corollary: As a father, can’t you see that you wouldn’t want an old guy like you hanging out with his daughter?
“These moods of Katie’s were more than that. A few times, she talked about how she didn’t feel like she could go on. I tried to get her to go to a counselor, but she adamantly refused. She said I was the only one she could talk to. And I was afraid if I forced her, she might act on her threats. Frankly, I got caught up in the intensity of it.”
“Senator, excuse me, but I have to address this.” Cassidy drew a deep breath. “There are rumors that your relationship with Katie was sexual.”
It was clearly the question Fairview had been waiting for. His practiced answer flowed out of him as if she had just pulled a cork from a bottle.
“Well, Cassidy, I have not been a perfect man, and I’ve made my share of mistakes. But I’ve been married for twenty-four years, and I intend to stay married to this woman as long as she’ll have me.”
He and Nancy looked at each other, and Nancy even managed to squeeze out a smile for the cameras.
Fairview turned back to Cassidy. “But out of respect for my family, and out of a specific request from the Converse family, I think it’s best that I not get into those details. That’s not what matters now. What matters is that Katie is missing.”
“So you are denying that you had an affair with Katie Converse?”
“Let me just say this. I may have made some errors in judgment, but I have done nothing illegal. I never touched a hair on Katie’s head. But the fact of the matter is this. I’ve been married twenty-four years, I’ve made some mistakes in my life, and I’m not a perfect man. But out of respect for my family, and out of a request, a specific request from the Converses, I will not go into the details of my relationship with Katie Converse.”