So Pretty It Hurts

He drained the last of his coffee cup, and I knew he was going to want to be on the move soon. I started poking with a fork at my untouched omelet in the hopes of encouraging him to hang around. But it didn’t work. He pulled his wallet from the pocket of his pants.

“Look, I know you have to split,” I said, “but I’d love a phone number for Sandy—and one for Laura too. I want to double-check with them that nothing seemed amiss.”

“I already talked to them before I left,” he said.

“But something may have occurred to them since then. If we want to get to the bottom of this, I think it’s essential to talk to them.”

“All right,” he said, reluctantly. “But I don’t want them harassed in any way.” He tugged an iPhone out of his coat pocket, asked for my cell number, and then texted me numbers for both women. “And this is a two-way street, remember?” he said. “If you learn anything important, I want to know.”

“Sure,” I lied.

I tried to pick up the check, but he insisted and tossed down a tip that was almost as much as the bill. Out on the street, he buttoned his coat with one hand and then pulled the collar up against the cold.

“Are you going to the funeral service?” I asked as people rushed by us on their way to midtown offices.

“Of course. I assume you’ll be covering it?”

“Probably not,” I said, fighting the urge to look away. “I’ve got other things to do on the story.”

“Really?” he said. “I would have thought that the funeral would be one of the plums of covering Devon Barr’s death.”

There was that goading thing again. A thought flashed in my mind: Could I have annoyed Scott so much that he’d tried to derail my career with Sherrie’s help?

I didn’t say anything, just studied his face. He didn’t give anything away.

“Well, I’m sure I’ll see our friend Richard out there,” he said. “I bet he’s all over this”

“Actually, he told me he probably wasn’t going to do a story on Devon, after all.”

“Don’t kid yourself. He was probably trying to throw you off the scent. He’s more than interested in Devon Barr. In fact, he nearly begged me to let him come last weekend. Since it meant a possible story in Vanity Fair, I was hardly going to turn the man down.”

“But—,” I said, flipping through my memory. “I thought you’d invited him—because you wanted him to do a story.”

“Nope,” he said. “I ran into him at a party, and somehow the weekend came up. He nearly foamed at the mouth when I told him Devon was going to be there. He all but guaranteed me the story if I let him freeload.”

I knew I wasn’t remembering incorrectly. Richard had made a point of saying that Scott had pressed him into coming. Why had he lied to me? I wondered.

Scott glanced toward Seventh Avenue, obviously checking out the cab situation.

“By the way, have you met Devon’s mother before?” I asked hurriedly.

“No,” he said, bluntly. “The music business isn’t like college basketball, where you have to meet the players’ mommies before you sign them. Look, I really have to go.”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks again for your time.”

He stepped off the curb and shot up his hand for a cab. Not surprisingly for a guy with his power aura, one jerked to a stop ten seconds later. Unexpectedly, he turned back to me.

“Since you and Jessie are such good buddies,” he said slyly, “my guess is that she shared the details of our little misunderstanding Saturday night.”

“More or less,” I said lightly. I didn’t want to offend the dude in case I needed him later. “But I’m not judgmental. One person’s idea of fun can sometimes be way too kinky for someone else.”

“What if it wasn’t kinky I was interested in? What if I said I just hadn’t been able to take my eyes off you from the moment we met?”

Oh, please, I thought, who was this guy trying to kid? And I’d want a date with him about as much as I’d like to be hurtling down his stairs again. At a loss for words, I smiled weakly at him.

“Maybe when this is all behind us, I can prove it to you over dinner,” he said.

“Actually, I’m seeing someone,” I said. “But thanks for the offer.”

He didn’t look so happy as he slid into the cab.

Of course it took me ten minutes to find a taxi. I should have opted for the subway, but I was too antsy. There were a couple of things I needed to do, stat.

I tore off my coat the minute I stepped through the door of my apartment and didn’t bother to hang it up. The first thing I did was call the number Scott had sent me for Laura. Though I’d requested Sandy and Laura’s numbers, I’d been creating a bit of a smokescreen; it was only Laura who interested me at the moment, and I wanted to reach her before Scott had a chance to warn her I might be making contact.

She answered with pop music playing in the background. I had the sense she was at home, maybe still in her jammies. When I identified myself, she sounded less than pleased.

“I thought I’d just check in and see how you were doing,” I said.

“How did you get this number?” she asked warily. “Who gave it to you?”

“Scott did. He knows I’m calling you.”

“I’m really busy right now. It’s not a good time to talk.”

“I understand,” I said. “But it’s very important for me to clarify a few details with you. Some of the information you gave me doesn’t gel with what else I’ve learned.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Tommy Quinn told me he went to your room just after one on Saturday night and had sex with you. That would have been good to know, because it explains why you didn’t go to Devon’s room right away.”

“What?” she exclaimed, faking shock. “That’s a lie.”

“You know, Laura, it’s against the rules to lie to the press. It’s not as serious as perjury, but you can still get in trouble.” She seemed naive enough to fall for it.

“Are you going to print this?” she asked. She suddenly sounded distraught.

“No, I’m playing nice, and if you’re straight with me, I won’t print what Tommy said. I just want to know what really happened.”

“Because if my mother finds out . . .” She was nearly wailing now.

“You have my word,” I said.

“Okay, yes. He came to my room. Right after Devon called. I was afraid if I went up there to bring her the stupid water, she’d come up with something else for me to do, and he would just get tired of waiting.”

“And when he left, you finally went up there.”

“Yes. That’s when I saw you.”

“What about what you said about the other phone call? Was there really another call?”

“Yes. I swear that part is true. But I have no clue who it was.”

I grilled her for another minute, just making sure there was nothing she was leaving out. I was pretty sure she was being truthful this time, terrified of being busted by the journalism police I’d conjured up in her mind.

As soon as I hung up, I hurried to my home office and went online. I was more than curious as to why Richard had misled me about his reason for going to Scott’s. Though I’d done a search through some of the articles by and about Richard Parkin, it had been only cursory and I hadn’t gone very far back. Time for a closer look.

There was a ton of stuff to wade through around the time each of Richard’s books had been published, and then there were large gaps in between with just a smattering of press on him, usually related to a provocative, or even incendiary, comment he’d lobbed on the Charlie Rose or Bill O’Reilly shows. He believed that religion was indeed the root of all evil, considered Gen Y the most vile generation in history, and thought there should be a fat tax, requiring overweight people to pay more than the rest of us. Nothing at all suggested he had a reason to hate Devon Barr. At her weight, she certainly hadn’t put a strain on government resources.

When I’d gone back a decade, I was tempted to stop. It seemed pointless to search any further. But there wasn’t much left—just a few UK stories—and I was curious enough to continue. Richard had come to America twelve years ago after stints at various Fleet Street papers, where he’d built a reputation for not only breaking news but also writing brilliantly.

I found a profile from fourteen years ago and opened it. There were pictures, too, including one of Richard