television.”
Hayden looked up at Mila, eyes shining with unshed tears. “It was very hard,” he admitted. “I wanted to go to her, but the press coverage was so intense—obviously—so I had to keep my distance.”
Mila touched his cheek, gazing down at him so lovingly that Josie felt her stomach lurch. “And all I wanted was to see you and I couldn’t. Not until things died down.”
Mila Kates’ stalker had made her national news long before Trinity’s job was in jeopardy. Picking up on Josie’s line of questioning, Gretchen asked with the perfect note of innocence, “Was it Hayden’s idea to bring you over to his network? So you wouldn’t have to be separated?”
The motion was barely perceptible, but Josie noticed it: Hayden nudged Mila away from him just slightly. He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you get dressed while I finish up here?”
She raised a brow. “I thought I’d hear what the detectives have to say about Trinity’s case.”
Hayden smiled. “Darling, you just heard them say they can’t discuss it.”
She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him.
He added, “Trinity was my co-anchor for years. I’m well-equipped to answer any questions about her.”
Wordlessly, Mila turned on her heel and stalked off to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Hayden let out a sigh and gave one of his on-camera megawatt smiles. “You have to understand,” he said quietly. “I’ve been with the network for decades. Far longer than Trinity. She’s talented. She can get an anchor job anywhere. I wouldn’t have requested that the network bring Mila in if I didn’t think Trinity would land on her feet.”
Josie’s heart thundered in her chest. It took everything in her not to fly across the table and wrap her hands around his pompous throat. She felt the pressure of Gretchen’s fingers on her arm. Calm. She had to stay calm. Strangling the back-stabbing bastard in front of her was not going to get Trinity back. They needed information from him. She took a deep breath and a moment later, Gretchen released her arm.
Ignoring Hayden’s admission, Gretchen said, “As we told you, Trinity was working on something before she was abducted. We believe that one of the stories she was looking into was the Codie Lash murder.”
His features went slack. “Codie Lash. Wow. Well, any story on Codie would be gold. She was successful, beloved, and tragically murdered. They never solved the case, did you know that?”
“We’re aware,” Gretchen said. “Were you and Codie close? Trinity’s notes indicated she was particularly interested in the few weeks before Codie’s death. Do you have any idea why?”
“Codie was in line for a humanitarian award, I remember that. She was actually on her way to a charity gala with her husband when they were both killed. I didn’t see her much before she died even though we were on air together. There was a—” he broke off. “I’m not sure I can say.”
Josie, having regained as much of her composure as she could gather, leaned forward and touched Hayden’s hand in exactly the same manner she’d seen Trinity do countless times on air. “Whatever it is, it will stay between us. We’re just trying to do everything and anything we can to find Trinity.”
He looked at her fingers which lingered on the top of his hand. With his other palm, he patted them. Josie worked hard not to recoil. “Of course,” he said. “It has nothing to do with Trinity anyway. It was a long time ago. There was this serial killer back then. I won’t say which one because I was never supposed to talk about it. He sent a letter to me at the network. He wanted me to play some kind of sick game with him on air. I turned it over to the FBI immediately, of course.”
Gretchen said, “Wow, that must have been frightening.”
“It was unsettling, yes. Anyway, there was a flurry of meetings and such with the network brass and the FBI.”
“Codie didn’t get a letter?” Josie asked.
“No. She would have turned it over right away.”
Gretchen said, “Did you have people who went through your mail before it got to you?”
“No,” Keating said. “We opened everything ourselves. Letters and packages were rare anyway—still are. Now everything is email or social media messages.”
“Did Codie know about your letter?”
“Of course. She was my co-host. We were together all the time. She was in on all the meetings.”
“Meetings?” Gretchen coaxed.
“Well there was talk of me engaging with this… killer, as per