Paranoid(48)

Time to face Mercedes and deal with the stupid articles she was running on Luke’s death.

God, why now?

Couldn’t Mercedes just let the past lie?

Of course not.

As the sky darkened, Rachel steeled herself, then pushed open the door to the newspaper office, on the first floor of a two-story downtown building. Some of the buildings on this block had been refurbished, but not the offices of the Edgewater Edition. The same gold logo was emblazoned on the glass window, and inside the faded wood floors and oversized desks that had been there when Rachel was a kid, visiting for a class field trip, were still in place, the large room separated by half walls of cubicles.

“Can I help you?” asked a girl working on a laptop at her desk. Her brown hair was cut short, her face round, and she smiled as she looked up.

“I’m here for Mercy,” Rachel said, not breaking her stride as she passed the young woman’s desk.

“Wait. You can’t go back there.”

“Don’t worry. We’re friends.” At least, we used to be, before she cracked open my worst nightmare and served it up to the whole damned town.

“But you’re not supposed to go back there.”

“It’s okay. Really. She wants to talk to me.”

“No worries,” came a voice from behind a screen. “I’ll handle it, Alexa.” Mercy’s head arose from the divider, a bland expression on her face as she tucked her reading glasses into her hair and motioned Rachel into the cubicle. “I’m surprised you came in.”

“Me too.” She eyed her once-upon-a-time friend. “I felt like I had no choice. That you backed me into a corner.”

“We all have choices, Rachel.” Mercy waved her into a single visitor’s chair and Rachel sank into it as Mercy sat behind the desk. “I just want the truth.”

“You just want to sell papers.”

“Okay. That too.”

“And it doesn’t matter that a lot of people are upset about it.”

“News is news.”

“Even if it’s old news?”

“Not so old now,” Mercy said. “Violet was there that night, and now someone’s killed her.”

“So?” Rachel said, stunned at the obvious track of Mercedes’s thoughts. “You’re trying to link the two deaths?” That didn’t make any sense.

“I’m just saying it’s a coincidence, that’s all.”

“You’re pissing a lot of people off.”

Mercy let out a short, humorless laugh. “Oh, I know.” She retrieved a newspaper from the stack on her desk. “Lila’s decided to be outraged. It wasn’t evident at the reunion meeting, but you must’ve got her going or else she stewed on it and got pissed. Anyway, she’s called me and demanded that I stop writing about it. And she got her husband to send me a ‘cease and desist’ e-mail. And that’s just for starters. Then there’s Annessa. She might not have come to the reunion meeting but she’s damned certain that the articles about Luke’s murder will have a negative impact, bad publicity for the building that she and her husband now own. She sent me a furious text and threatened legal action.”

“She could have a point.”

“Maybe, but this is the type of story that will bring subscribers to the paper. This next week I’ve got several other articles about the Sea View cannery. The history, including the heyday of the plant when it was a primary source of income in the town, and the decline of the industry. And now I’ve got the Violet Sperry murder angle, as well. I can tie her to the cannery. These are solid pieces, and together, they’ve got everything readers want: drama, tragedy, survivors. And it all happened right here in Edgewater.”

“You sold out the friends you grew up with.”

“Oh, come on, Rach. None of us are really friends anymore. Acquaintances, yes. And we share a history. But, really, I’m not out to hurt anyone, and I didn’t publish anything that I can’t back up with my notes. My goal is to bring out the truth from that night. That’s the mission of a journalist: the quest for the truth.”

“I call BS.”

Mercy lifted a diet cola can on her desk, and then, realizing it was empty, tossed it into a blue bin. “You’re entitled to your opinion.”

“Don’t dismiss me. I have two kids in high school who have already heard that their mother is a murderer, thanks to the last article. How do you think they feel? You’ve got a kid, Mercy. Are you going to let Daisy read your account of that night in the warehouse? How’s it going to go down when her friends ask her if her mom was really an accessory to murder?”

“I was never formally charged with anything.”

“And I was acquitted of all charges. And yet, here I am.” Rachel jabbed a finger into the stacks of freshly printed papers. “I’m the killer who got away, in the world according to Mercedes Pope. What am I supposed to tell my kids?”

Mercy sighed. “What you’ve always told them. Look, I’m sorry if this embarrasses you.”

“You think I’m embarrassed?” Rachel’s voice rose, indignation burning through her. “That’s not even close.”

Mercedes lifted both hands. “Okay, so now, here’s your chance to tell your side of it. I’ve wanted to interview you for days, so let’s get down to it. Tell me everything you remember about that night. And since I’m doing a piece on the victim, on Luke, I’d like to hear what your home life was like. How you all got along, that sort of thing. Luke wasn’t Ned’s biological son, so there must have been some tension there.”