Dancing in the Dark (2 page)

Diane waited until the researcher made her way to the rest-room exit
before pushing the button to release the hair spray. The smell of the
aerosol fumes was just reaching her nostrils when Susannah called back
from the doorway.

“Any idea why?” Diane asked as she recapped the hair spray can. But
Susannah was already gone.

The detective stood at the foot of the hospital bed in the small
examining room, his face impassive as he took detailed notes on Leslie
Patterson’s answers.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” the young woman’s voice rose
in frustration. “I never saw his face. I’m telling you the truth. I
never saw him.”

She watched the detective for a reaction, but his expression gave
nothing away. It was the way he was rephrasing the same questions over
and over that tipped her off: he didn’t believe her.

“Let’s go over it again, Miss Patterson. You were on the boardwalk
taking a stroll at midnight?” The detective stressed the last word of
his question, signaling his skepticism. “Do you usually go out alone
late at night like that?” he asked.

“I told you. I had a fight with my boyfriend and I wanted to be
alone to think about things. I thought a walk would clear my head and
maybe tire me out so I could fall asleep.”

“Your boyfriend would be Shawn Ostrander, correct?”

“Yes. I told you that too.” She picked up a spoon from the breakfast
tray and threw it back down again. Some nurse had thought she was doing
Leslie a favor by bringing in the tray as she waited to be released.
As if I would eat this
,
Leslie
thought. She sighed as she pushed back the rolling table that held her
untouched food.

“And Shawn said he didn’t want to see you anymore, is that right,
Leslie?” The detective used a gentle tone as he led her onward.

“Yes. And that he’d met someone else.” Leslie studied the red marks
the plastic handcuffs had left on her wrists and then pulled the cover
up higher.

Beneath the hospital blanket, where the detective couldn’t see, she
pinched the top of her thigh. Without a safety pin or razor blade, a
manually inflicted wound would have to do. A hard, mean twist intended
to make her feel better. As the pain pulsed, the expression on her face
never flinched.

“That must have hurt,” said the detective.

Leslie blinked, for a moment thinking the man somehow knew she was
pinching herself before realizing he was referring to the hurt of
knowing that Shawn had found someone else.

“Yes. It did. I love Shawn.” Leslie grabbed again at her hidden
flesh and pressed tight. This time, tears welled in her eyes. Not
because of the physical pain but because she couldn’t stand the thought
of losing Shawn. Didn’t he realize that no one was ever going to love
him the way she did?

“Did you want Shawn to worry about you, Leslie? Did you hope he
would reconsider his decision to break up if he realized how much he
missed you? Did you hope that disappearing for a couple of days would
make Shawn come around?”

Leslie considered her answer. Yes, she did want Shawn to worry about
her, and yes, as she’d lain in that dark, damp place for three days and
nights, she’d been sustained by the hope that Shawn was missing her.
She’d hoped that the horror she was going through would all be worth it
because, when faced with the thought of losing her forever, Shawn would
realize he loved her as much as she loved him.

But if she told the detective that, it might help confirm what
Leslie knew he already suspected. That she had staged a three-day
disappearance to get attention. She didn’t want him to think that.

“Look, Detective, someone abducted me, blindfolded, gagged, and tied
me up, and left me somewhere for three days. I feel like you’re
accusing me when you should be out there searching for a real criminal.”

“We are, Leslie, believe me, we are. I’m not the only man working on
this case. The better part of the Neptune Police Department is
involved. We will get to the bottom of this. You can count on that.”
Something in the detective’s tone made the words feel more like a
threat than a reassurance.

The hospital room door opened, and the doctor who had examined her
in the emergency room walked in and stood beside the bed. He looked at
his clipboard before speaking. He looked at the cop too. As part of a
crime investigation, the police as well as the patient had a right to
know these test results.

“The rape kit came back negative. So we have that to be grateful
for, Leslie. Even though you didn’t claim to be raped, it was good to
have done the test. You can never be too sure in a situation like this
one. You could have been drugged or knocked unconscious and not even
known it.” The doctor smiled reassuringly and put his hand on her
shoulder. “So, physically, you check out fine. Those scrapes on your
wrists and legs will heal in few days. So will the cuts at the corners
of your mouth. You can go home, Leslie. You are going to have to talk
to someone, though, get your feelings out. Do you need a reference for
a therapist? We have some excellent ones on staff.”

“Thanks, but I already have a therapist.” Leslie nodded, knowing
that it made no sense to protest. Sure, she’d go back to therapy, and
she’d fool Dr. Messinger the same way she was fooling the emergency
room doctor right now. He had no idea that she was pinching herself,
over and over again, beneath the white hospital sheet.

In August, other television news executive producers might be out
playing golf in the Hamptons or relaxing in the south of France, but
Joel Malcolm was at his desk, clicking the remote control at the half
dozen television monitors mounted on his office wall when Diane knocked
on the back of the open door.

“Ah, good. You’re here,” he said, waving her in. Joel nodded toward
one of the TV sets. The identifying tag at the bottom of the screen
read ocean grove, new jersey. A reporter was doing a stand-up report
from a beach, the ocean in the background. His face was flushed, his
shirt collar was open, and his hair didn’t move. If there was no breeze
to ruffle this guy’s hair, Diane thought, it must be brutally hot, even
at the seashore.

“You know about this girl that’s been missing from the Jersey
Shore?” Joel pointed at the television.

“I haven’t been paying that much attention to the story,” Diane
said, taking a seat on the leather sofa, “but I bet you’re going to
tell me all about her.”

If Joel detected any sarcasm, he ignored it. “Well, she’d been
missing for the last three days, but she turned up last night. Matthew
got it, off the record, from the local police that they think this girl
is making it all up—that she faked her own abduction. Apparently, she’s
a real head case.”

Diane felt her pulse quicken.
Here it comes,
she thought.
With
Hourglass
segment
correspondents already working on two stories similar to this one, Joel
had been rooting for just one more. In Michigan, a college student had
disappeared for six days, afterward telling police she had been
abducted at knifepoint. In Oregon, two teenage sisters were reported
missing after their mother found blood-covered sheets and a broken
window in their bedroom. Frenzied searches had been launched for all of
them. But police were convinced that the young women hadn’t been
kidnapped at all—that they’d staged everything.

It was perverse, but Diane was certain Joel coveted another
misguided soul, one with her own twisted tale. Someone new and
something timely to kick off the show’s season opener in September.

“This is perfect for us, Diane. It’s a third girl who’s cried wolf.
I want you to do the story.”

“I’m going on vacation tomorrow, Joel,” she said, crossing her legs,
trying to stay calm, and hoping he had merely forgotten that she had
the next two weeks off. Yet she already knew he hadn’t. Joel didn’t
forget a thing.

“This is important, Diane. Your vacation can wait, can’t it?”

“No, it can’t wait, Joel. This trip has been planned for months.”

“You got travel insurance?”

Diane was tempted to lie but thought better of it. One lie always
led to another, and usually the truth came out, sooner or later. Lies
were what had gotten Philip in so much trouble.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “But I bought it in case one
of the kids got sick or something. I didn’t buy it to cancel our trip
out west so I could work more.”

Joel frowned the frown that had intimidated countless other
reporters and producers before Diane. The creator and executive
producer of the award-winning newsmagazine program was a television
legend. With forty years of broadcast journalism experience under his
trim belt, he’d gotten to this point by virtue of his quick mind, keen
visual sense, and refusal to give in or give up, ever. From his
earliest days in the business, when film, not videotape, was the news
production medium; even in the days when news lagged hours and,
sometimes, days in getting to the public because airline schedules
dictated the arrival of newsreel footage in New York before it could be
broadcast around the country; in those simpler days before satellites
and cell phones and computers on every desk in the Broadcast
Center—even when there had been so much less to control, Joel had been
a control freak. Throughout his career he’d wanted everything his way,
and he was accustomed to getting what he wanted.

“Changing the subject for a second, Diane…” He picked up a pen and
began doodling on the yellow legal pad on his desk. “Your contract is
up for renewal in a few months, isn’t it?”

“In January,” she replied, her lips tightening.
The
conniving cheat
.
This wasn’t playing fair. Joel knew her
situation and was using it to his advantage. Everyone at KEY News was
aware of what had happened to Philip. It had been in all the New York
newspapers, it had been on the Internet, it had even been on their own
network television and radio news. That Joel was using Diane’s
misfortune to get what he wanted shouldn’t have surprised her; still,
she found herself dumbfounded at his audacity.

Joel knew that she was the head of household now. He knew that her
salary kept her family fed, clothed, and housed. With Philip gone, she
had no other income to fall back on. Though Joel wasn’t coming out and
saying it, he was clearly trying to tie the certitude of her contract
renewal, and therefore the financial security of her family, to her
acceptance of this assignment. She resented him for it, deeply.

“Well, you know how these things go, Diane. The front row will come
to me. They’ll want my opinion before they get back to that agent of
yours, who undoubtedly will be lobbying for a hefty pay increase for
his star client.”

Joel tossed the pen on top of the legal pad. “Of course, I’ll want
to tell them how valuable you are to KEY News, how important it is to
Hourglass ratings to have that great-looking face of yours on the
screen, to have you delivering our stories. I’ll want them to know one
of the reasons we have to keep you is that you are such a team player.”

Diane leaned forward on the sofa. “Listen, Joel. Can’t you please
understand? You know my children and I have been through a lot these
past months. We all need to get away.”

For a moment, she thought the executive producer was actually
considering her plea as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the
office ceiling. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If you want to bring
your kids along with you, that’s all right with me. In fact, I’ll even
find a way to pay for it from our budget.”

“You’ve got to be kidding, Joel. Michelle and Anthony are counting
on this vacation. It’s the only thing they’ve shown any enthusiasm for
since everything happened. And going to Ocean Grove won’t be a
vacation, not for me anyway. I’ll be working and worrying about getting
back to the kids all the time.”

Joel tilted his head downward and stared directly at her. “No. I’m
not kidding, Diane. This is my final offer. I can make it only because
Hourglass
did so well last season
and the finance department isn’t about to give me any flak about
booking some extra rooms. As for you, I’m sure the quality of your work
won’t suffer. You’re a pro. You can straddle both worlds. That is, if
you want to.”

She knew Joel was fully aware of the fact that she didn’t want to,
and she also knew he didn’t care. He just wanted what he wanted… a
ratings winner. Another edition of Hourglass that attracted the
audience share that determined the advertising rates the network could
charge. That was what it was all about for him. His ego demanded that
his broadcast remain the nation’s premiere newsmagazine show. To feed
that ego, he was not beyond bullying when he felt the occasion called
for it.

Diane rose from the sofa, knowing she’d lost. She pushed away the
thought of breaking the news to her children. They were just going to
have to accept the inevitable. She wished they didn’t have to learn the
hard facts of life so soon, but it was unavoidable, just as the other
rough lessons they’d learned lately were. Canceling their vacation out
west was another blow, but in the larger scheme of things, it was
nothing.

She had read somewhere that children who had tumultuous childhoods
could just as easily grow into healthy adults, stronger for their
experiences, as develop into maladjusted misfits. Diane prayed every
night that was true. Prayed that Michelle and Anthony would benefit
from learning early that life goes on despite disappointments. Prayed
they’d be resilient and learn to make the best of things. Prayed they’d
get a valuable lesson from the example of a mother who was trying to
hold everything together and doing what she had to do to support the
family.