fighting, the way he grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him, and me, stepping into the middle of all of it.
There are already over two hundred comments, and about halfway down, I see it.
NYpundit: Hey, does anyone think that woman in the background looks a little bit like Rory Cook’s dead wife?
“No,” I breathe into the empty room and think about the Google alert this mention has activated. To Danielle’s email. To Rory himself.
I quickly navigate to his inbox and open his alerts folder. The email sits at the top of a long list of unread notifications, and my first instinct is to delete it. But that will only delay the inevitable. Danielle will still see the alert, read it, and click on the link. She will watch the video, perhaps several times, before taking it to Bruce. Together, they’ll figure out the best way to approach Rory, to show him that the wife who was about to leave him, the one who supposedly died, is alive and well and working for a caterer in Oakland.
I check the box next to the message, along with several others for good measure, and hit Delete, and then toggle over to the trash and empty it. I’m screwed either way.
* * *
By Sunday morning, over a hundred thousand people have viewed the video, and I scroll through at least one hundred replies to the comment from last night. Most of them are chastising NYpundit for being blind, stupid, or simply a callous conspiracy theorist.
People like you are what’s wrong with this country. You hide behind your computer and throw out baseless theories in the hopes of becoming famous.
But NYpundit isn’t giving up. He posted a screenshot of my face from the video, and next to it, the same image from the Stars Like Us magazine article. You tell me, he says.
They do look similar, another commenter concedes. If you swap out the hair, maybe.
I know that despite my short blond hair, Rory will recognize me right away. The way I move, the expression on my face as I step between Donny and Cressida is unmistakable. It’s only a matter of time until Rory sees the video and tracks me down—through Tom, or Kelly—and I need to be far away from Berkeley when that happens.
But so far this morning, the Doc remains empty of the words I expect to materialize there at any moment.
Did you watch the video? Do you think it’s really her?
* * *
But when text finally appears, it’s not about the video.
Bruce Corcoran:
Charlie sent me a draft email of a press release and a sworn deposition.
Rory Cook:
What’s in it?
Bruce Corcoran:
Everything.
The word sits there, and I can feel the weight of it, whatever it is.
Bruce continues typing, and I can practically hear his appeasing tone.
Bruce Corcoran:
Obviously, we aren’t going to let this happen. We have people looking into Charlie’s background. All the way back to college. We’ll find something that will put an end to this.
Rory Cook:
There’s a lot there. Keep me posted.
Bruce Corcoran:
Will do.
A knock on the door downstairs startles me. I creep down and peek through the window and see Kelly standing on the porch, holding two cups of coffee from the coffee shop. I’m tempted not to answer, to get back upstairs to find out what everything means and what exactly a senior accountant from the foundation knows about Maggie Moretti’s last weekend with Rory.
But she’s seen me. “I thought you might need some caffeine this morning,” she calls through the closed door. “I wanted to thank you for helping the girls yesterday. They finished last night and it’s pretty good.”
We settle on the couch, the low table between us. Kelly sips from her cup, and I hold mine, the heat radiating through my hands.
“There’s a video of me on TMZ,” I tell her.
“I saw,” she says. “But it’s only online. Nothing on TV. So unless your ex likes to troll celebrity gossip sites, you’ll probably be fine.”
If she looked at the comments at all, it’s unlikely she read far enough to catch NYpundit’s. I rotate the cup in my hands, wishing I could explain that it isn’t so simple. That this isn’t going to go away so easily.
“Thanks for checking in with me, and for this.” I hold up my coffee. “But I need to get packing. I’m leaving this afternoon.” I look around the space that’s been my refuge for the past few days. My coat, thrown across the back of the chair, the stack of