“All right. We’ll check it out,” Carl said, making notes in his notebook.
I had yet to ask Carl what he knew (or didn’t know) about Arthur’s relationship with Libby or Bennett Nichols, but since we were both there with David, I brought up the subject. “Did you know anything about a relationship your father had with a woman named Libby Nichols?”
David rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I knew.”
“What do you know about it?”
“I think he was taking care of Libby’s husband when the two of them started up.”
“Did it end badly?” I asked.
“Do things with a married woman ever not end badly?” David gave me measured look. “I think her husband found out and freaked. But I don’t know a lot about it. Dad didn’t really tell me about that part of his life.” His fading voice trailed off. I wanted to ask him about Shaylene Lancett too, but he was tired and it seemed like it was time for us to leave.
“All right,” Carl said, taking a step toward the door. “You get some rest now. We’ll be in touch.”
After we closed David’s door, Carl turned to me. “You can forget about the Bennett and Libby Nichols angle, Riley. Trust me.”
“Why?”
“The Nicholses have airtight alibis for the time Arthur Davenport was killed. And before you go guessing that they are each other’s alibi—let me inform you that that is not the case.”
“Wait—what?” I thought Libby said she and Bennett were home alone at the time of the murder. “Did something change?”
“Let’s just say that we have proof of Libby and Bennett’s location on the night Arthur was killed, and it was nowhere near the Davenport estate.”
“Where were they?”
“You’re on a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know that.”
“Fine,” I said, irritated. “What do we do next?”
Carl sighed. “The mayor is hell-bent on the prosecutor filing charges against Thad PDQ, and if she hears that we’re looking into something new, well, I’d rather not have to explain that till we know a little more. She and Toby are crawling all over me about this.”
Even though I hadn’t had a chance to verify it yet, I told Carl what Libby had said about the mayor. It seemed like important information for him to have, especially in light of the pressure her office was putting on him.
Carl sighed again, this time louder and longer. “If that’s true—emphasis on if—we’re going to need to know about it. It’ll be tricky for me to ask those sorts of questions without garnering more heat”—and suddenly the reason Carl wanted me here became crystal clear. He needed me to look into the things he couldn’t. “Do you think you can ask around about some of this more sensitive stuff—just to get a taste of whether this is just a bunch of smoke and no fire?”
I bit my pinky nail, a nervous habit I hadn’t reverted to in years. It felt like I was at a crossroads. On one hand, I was off the story. Kay Jackson had been clear about that. On the other hand, I had come to the hospital knowing full well that I was violating the order my boss had given me because I also knew if this led to a break in the story, it’d be a huge scoop for the paper and a way to get me back into Kay’s good graces. Of course, if she found out I disobeyed her, she’d be furious. Maybe so much so that she’d fire me? And losing this job was not an option—not after I’d left my job at the library and made such a big point about starting a new career. It would be the talk of the town, and I’d be Riley Bless Her Heart once again.
“Do you think you can do that for me?” Carl asked.
I stared back at him silently, trying to decide what I should do. What would Holman tell me? He’d probably say something annoyingly vague and Yoda-esque like, “Your instincts, you must trust.” My instincts were being annoyingly quiet, so I thought about what Jenna B said. What was it—Power isn’t given to you, you have to take it. Maybe she was right. This story felt like it was mine, and I wanted to take it back.
A feeling was building inside me as the moment stretched on. It was time to decide what kind of reporter I was going to be: the kind who took risks and followed my instincts, or the kind who obediently stayed inside the lines. I thought of Thad and Tabitha sitting in jail cells and David lying in a hospital bed. I thought of Holman and Granddaddy and their passion for telling the truth and then of Flick, who seemed strangely afraid of it. All of a sudden, it didn’t seem like much of a choice. I decided to forget following the rules and forget being afraid. Breaking this story, even if it meant breaking a few rules, would be my chance to prove to Kay Jackson—and to myself, too—that I belonged at the Times.
CHAPTER 22
The first image that popped up when I typed “Invigor8” into my browser was a headshot of a middle-aged bald man with a large black tattoo of a bird on his forearm. An electric buzz zipped through my veins. How many big bald dudes with arm tattoos could there be running around Tuttle Corner, especially with connections to Invigor8? This had to be the guy Dr. Davenport’s patient Susan described as having fought with Arthur on the street. The caption identified this man as Brandon Laytner, age forty-two.
I read article after article and learned a few key things. Invigor8 was a small-cap biotech startup headquartered on the western edge of Tuttle County. Brandon
