The Stranger Behind You

by Carol Goodman

Genres: Domestic Thrillers; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award-Winning Author!

A chilling story set in a former Magdalen Laundry in Manhattan that explores today’s #MeToo complexities.

"In a twisting, mesmerizing story that is as beautifully written as it is utterly propulsive, Goodman keeps us breathlessly turning the pages right to the shocking and poignant end. I absolutely loved this layered and moving novel!” —Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author

You’re never really alone

Journalist Joan Lurie has written a seething article exposing a notorious newspaper tycoon as a sexual predator. But the night it goes live, she is brutally attacked. Traumatized and suffering the effects of a concussion, she moves into a highly secure apartment in Manhattan called the Refuge, which was at one time a Magdalen Laundry. Joan should be safe here, so how can she explain the cryptic incidents that are happening?

Lillian Day is Joan’s new 96-year-old neighbor at the Refuge. In 1941, Lillian witnessed a mysterious murder that sent her into hiding at the Magdalen Laundry, and she hasn’t come out since. As she relates to Joan her harrowing story, Joan sees striking similarities to her own past.

Melissa Osgood, newly widowed and revengeful, has burning questions about her husband’s recent death. When she discovers a suspicious paper trail that he left behind, she realizes how little she knew about her marriage. But it seems Joan Lurie might be the one who has the answers. 

As these three lives intersect, each woman must stay one step ahead of those who are desperate to make sure the truth is never uncovered.

Release date: July 6, 2021

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Print pages: 336

Sample

Prologue

I HAVE NOTICED in my professional capacity that when someone makes a point of saying that they’re not lying, that usually means they are.

When the realtor brags that she hasn’t lied about the view, though, I have to admit that her claim is demonstrably true: the view is spectacular. Standing at the elegant bay window it’s as if I am perched on a cliff overlooking the river. There’s nothing between me and the Palisades but water and light. A person who was afraid of heights would be terrified, but heights aren’t what I am afraid of.

“Can you tell me what ‘state-of-the-art security’ means?”

The realtor takes a nanosecond—an eon in Manhattan real estate time—to recalibrate and then rattles off the specs again: twenty-four-hour doorman, fiber-optic alarm system, security cameras.

“As I mentioned earlier, a high-ranking government official lived here. I can’t tell you who . . .” Her voice trails off, suggesting that she very well could if she chose to. All I’d have to do is raise my eyebrows, smile, lean in a little closer—all the body language that implies that it will just be between us girls. I’ve done it a thousand times before with ex-wives and mistresses, corporate CFOs and underpaid personal assistants. But I don’t. I don’t really care who the very important person was who lived here; I just want to be assured that he—or she—lived here safely and unbothered.

“Can you show me how the camera works?”

We walk to the front door—steel, fireproof, three locks including a titanium dead bolt that slides into place with the precision of a Mercedes engine—and she touches the screen mounted on the wall of the alcove. A picture emerges of the sidewalk outside the lobby. Leaf shadow dances along the pavement. A patch of the park bordering the building. We might be in a bosky glen. A uniformed doorman stands to one side, hands folded behind his back, with all the good posture and reserve of a Buckingham Palace guard.

“That’s not a bad view either,” the realtor remarks.

It takes me a moment to realize she’s commenting on the doorman’s physique. He’s young, dark-eyed with black curly hair, Irish I remember from the accent I detected when he greeted us. Probably from the Riverdale neighborhood to the north, where Irish immigrants still live. And yes, he’s handsome.

“Does the building do security checks on all the staff?” I ask.

“Of course,” she says, her voice turned chilly since I didn’t engage in her man-ogling. There’s an unwritten code that women are supposed to join in on certain subjects: hunky working-class men, chocolate, wine. I feel her eyes flick up and down my severe outfit—black jeans, boots, black blazer over plain white T-shirt, scarf wound twice around my neck even though it’s a hot July day outside. Gay, she’s thinking.

On the monitor the Irish doorman looks up and to the left—a tell that someone’s lying but in this case also a surreptitious glance at the camera. For a second his eyes seem to meet mine in an amused complicity. Not gay, they seem to say. Then the realtor swipes the screen, and the view in the front of the building is replaced by the interior of the lobby. Twelve-foot-high ceilings, marble floors, damask-upholstered couches and chairs—a bit threadbare I’d noticed on the way in, but in that old-money style of prewar apartments and clubs. As we watch, an elderly woman walks her elderly poodle—their hair the same texture and shade of apricot—from the elevator to the front door, which magically opens at her approach. The hunky doorman is on his toes.

The realtor—Marla, why should I pretend I don’t remember her name or that I haven’t clocked her four-and-a-half-carat diamond ring, last year’s Birkin bag, and this season’s Chanel jacket? To whom am I pretending?—swipes the screen again and a view of the hallway outside this apartment’s door appears. “You can set the camera so the default is on the hallway,” Marla says.

The camera must be mounted at the end of the hallway. It shows the elevator door, the door to this apartment, and most of the hallway. It doesn’t reach the door to the one other apartment on the floor, which makes me feel a little uneasy.

“Who lives across the hall?” I ask.

Marla cocks her head and frowns. She thinks I’m a time waster despite the reference I came with. She doesn’t think that I can afford this apartment—four weeks ago she would have been right—and I’m not asking the right questions. I haven’t asked if the fireplace works or if the advertised washing machine is top- or front-loading—all the details that constitute bona fide miracles in New York City real estate. I haven’t even asked to see the clawfoot tub or the walk-in closets. “I can’t divulge any details about the residents, but I can assure you they’ve all been carefully vetted by the co-op board.”

“Is it a man?” I ask. “That’s all I need to know.”

Her eyes widen. Maybe not even gay, she’s thinking, maybe asexual. But then she smiles pityingly. “A sweet old lady lives there. In her nineties. You won’t hear a peep out of her, Ms. Lurie.” And then her eyes get even bigger and her mouth forms a round O. “Lurie,” she repeats, and I curse myself for not using a fake name. “Joan Lurie. Aren’t you the one who wrote that story in Manahatta exposing Caspar Osgood?”

I could deny it—Joan Lurie’s not so rare a name—but I’ll have to pass a financial check to get the apartment anyway. “Yes, guilty. I mean . . . he is . . . was.”

Marla throws back her head and hoots, all East Side reserve falling to the wayside. “Was he ever! Four more women have come forward to say he assaulted them. One of them was only eighteen when she interned at The Globe. The pig! What I don’t understand is how he got away with it for so long.”

“Money,” I say, “and the power money gets you. He paid off the women he could and the women who wouldn’t take the money weren’t believed because Caspar Ward Osgood, Mayflower descendant, owner of The Globe, Pulitzer Prize winner, married man with two children, couldn’t possibly be molesting twentysomething women. No one wanted to go up against him. One of the women I interviewed—an Ivy League–educated reporter with a Pulitzer nom—said after she told Human Resources that Caspar Osgood pushed her into a bathroom and shoved his tongue into her mouth she lost her job and couldn’t get another one. So who was going to report on the story?”

“You did,” Marla says, looking into my eyes for the first time this morning. I’m taken aback by the candid look, but then she says, “I wish I’d had you to talk to six months ago,” and I understand. She has a story too.

I could forestall it. All I’d have to do is break eye contact and ask to see those closets. Remind her of our professional relationship, that I’m here to buy an apartment not listen to her bad experiences with men.

But then I’m ashamed of the thought. What kind of a reporter turns away from a story? What kind of human being turns away from a person who needs to talk to someone?

So I maintain eye contact, lean in, and say, “Oh?”

She takes a step closer and lays her beautifully manicured fingers on my arm. I can smell her Chanel No. 5. “This job,” she begins as so many of my sources over the last three years have, “you have no idea what it takes sometimes. Showing men—powerful men—apartments alone, sometimes late at night. It makes a girl feel . . . vulnerable.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I say. “Couldn’t you ask a colleague to join you?”

“Ha! And split the commission?” she scoffs. But her laugh is as brittle as the light bouncing off the river beyond the windows. “I’d be done in a New York minute if I let on I was reluctant to show a prospective buyer a property on my own. I do always suggest they bring their wife, or partner, but sometimes . . . well, six months ago this Wall Street type asks to see a co-op on Sutton Place. High-end, you understand. Belonged to the widow of a coffee tycoon. Asking way too much, but there was no talking her down. He wants to see it on a Friday night, in a big hurry because he has to catch the last train to Greenwich. ‘Why don’t you come back with your wife tomorrow?’ I suggest. ‘No,’ he says . . . get this . . . ‘women get too emotional about real estate. I have to vet it first.’”

I lift an eyebrow and she goes on. “What a jerk, right? That should have been my first clue, but what could I do? The coffee widow needed to sell, I needed my commission, and the guy checked out—seven-figure salary at a major Wall Street firm, huge year-end bonus, wife with old family money, equity in Greenwich, Jupiter Island, and Booth Harbor, yada, yada, yada.” She twirls her hand and her four-and-a-half-carat solitaire catches the orange glow of the sun as it sinks over the red Palisades.

“So I meet him in the lobby, make sure to greet the doorman by name so Wall Street knows I’ve got backup, and we get in the elevator. Right away I can smell the liquor on him and I’m on guard. I’m giving him all the stats—professional as can be—and mentioning his wife and kids every other sentence. ‘Oh your wife will love the shopping’ and ‘There’s a park right across the street for your kids’ and ‘See how secure the locks are you won’t have to worry about your wife and kids when you’re away.’ I walk straight to the view—East River, not as spectacular as this view but still pretty great—and when I turn around he’s right there, on my heels, in my face . . . and then in my mouth. I mean, like, his tongue is in my mouth and his hands are on my ass!”

She pauses for my reaction and I give it. “Wow! What an asshole! What did you do?”

“I pushed him off, of course, and tried to laugh it off. ‘Oh, that’s not included in the lease,’ I say, and then I flash my ring.” She wriggles her fingers for me. The diamond sends a million rainbows skating across the polished parquet and dancing up the built-in oak bookcases, the marble mantel, and the cream-white egg and dart molding on the ceiling. “‘I’m taken,’ I tell him. And then you know what he says?”

I can guess but I don’t. “What?”

She lays her hand back down on my arm and digs her nails into my flesh. “He says, ‘I bet you could go on a great honeymoon with the commission you make on this sale.’”

“The implication being he would buy the co-op if you had sex with him,” I say.

“Implication my ass! He took out his checkbook and said he’d lay down a deposit right then if I lay down with him in the Master Suite.”

“A bad punster on top of being a sexual predator,” I comment, keeping my tone light. This is the point at which many women back out. I’ve learned that making a neutral but supportive comment can ease the path to confession. I’ve forgotten that I have no stake in Marla’s story. Part of me—a part that emerged four weeks ago and that I’m heartily ashamed of—wants her to stop. But coaxing out women’s stories has become second nature to me.

“So then what did you do?”

“Well,” she says, tossing her highlighted, blown-out hair over her shoulder. “I said, ‘Mr. Wall Street,’” she winks to let me know she’s leaving out his name because she respects the confidentiality of her clients, even the pervy ones. “‘You do realize that if you buy this apartment I will have multiple dealings with your wife over the next few months. I would hate for there to be any . . . awkwardness.’”

“You were letting him know that you would tell his wife if he assaulted you.”

“Yes. And it worked. He backed down. Tried to laugh it off. But he barely looked at the place and I found out later he bought a junior four in Murray Hill from a newbie realtor at another agency. I’ve always wondered what she put out for that measly fifteen percent.”

“What an upsetting experience,” I say by rote, as I have said to half a dozen other women. When did it begin to feel so useless? “Did you tell your boss?”

She shrugs. “He would have just told me that I should’ve put out for the sale.”

I open my mouth to ask if she’d reported him anywhere else, but close it. Who could she have gone to with her story? Like many women who are sexually harassed on the job—waitresses who encounter handsy patrons, spa workers asked to perform “extra” services—there’s no clear course of action. They can ask their bosses to expel the client, but once they’ve done that there’s no way to make the predator accountable for their actions or to prevent them from assaulting other women other than reporting them to the police, and the police aren’t going to take action unless there’s been a physical assault.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I say, which is what I said to every woman I interviewed. Then I would add: But your story will help other women. I don’t say that now. I no longer believe Marla’s story will help anyone else—at least, not by telling it to me.

“Well, at least your story woke people up,” Marla says. “If Caspar Osgood can be taken down, that means it could happen to any of them. I think it’s great you wrote it and I bet a lot of women are telling you that.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I’ve gotten some moving responses, but not everyone is so happy . . . especially after . . .”

“Oh,” she says, solemn now. “You must be getting some awful hate mail. Threats even. Especially after what happened . . . Is that why you’re so concerned with security?”

I hesitate. Marla’s told me her story; I could tell her mine. But then it occurs to me. Marla knew Mr. Wall Street’s entire financial portfolio. There’s no way she didn’t look me up before agreeing to show me this spectacular river-view apartment, even though I came with a reference from Sylvia Crosley, the style editor at Manahatta, which of course meant she knew exactly who I was. She knew about the story I wrote for Manahatta; and knew about the announcement for the seven-figure book deal I got just last week, which is the only reason I can afford this apartment.

Which means Marla told her story to make a sale.

It’s not that I don’t believe her—I imagine worse has happened to her, actually—nor have I been entirely honest either. I am not here because of the nasty tweets and threatening emails I’ve received since I exposed the publisher of the Globe as a sexual predator, although I’ve certainly gotten plenty of those. Nor am I here for the view, although looking out at that expanse of sky and knowing there’s no one looking back in at me has allowed me to breathe freely for the first time in four weeks.

“Yes,” I tell Marla, “I’m here for the security.” I don’t tell her it’s not because of those nasty tweets and threats I’ve received. I’m here because four weeks ago someone tried to kill me.

 

 

Chapter One

Joan

IT HAPPENED THE night the story went live. My editor, Simon Wallace, had rented out the restaurant across the street from Manahatta’s offices to celebrate—a lavish gesture even for Simon, who ran the magazine as if it were 1989.

“You’ve worked on it for three years—it’s a damned fine story—you deserve to celebrate before the wolves circle.” He’d given the last phrase in his husky vibrato with a wink as we stood outside the door to the restaurant. He’d warned me three years ago that if I went forward with the story I’d be letting myself in for a “holy shitstorm.”

He’d delivered the warning during my interview for a job writing for the style section of Manahatta. I’d already interviewed with the Style editor, Sylvia Crosley, but apparently the “big boss” had to personally meet all potential new hires. The first question Simon Wallace asked when he looked at my résumé was “Why’d you leave the Globe?”

It’s what I’d been afraid of. No one left an internship at the Globe voluntarily. It was the plum of journalism internships. I could have lied—made up a bullshit story about wanting to work at a different kind of publication—but instead I told the truth. “I saw Caspar Osgood put his arm around his assistant and then I saw her crying in the ladies’ room. She told me she’d been sleeping with him for six months and she was afraid that if she complained to HR, she’d be fired. She had a black eye that she’d tried to hide with make-up. The next day she was gone and I found out she had been fired. I went to HR to ask what had happened to her and to tell them that I was worried she’d been sexually harassed. Then I was fired. No reason given because, of course, they don’t have to with an intern.”

Simon had been silent for a moment, and then said, “You sound angry.”

The truth was I’d been fighting back tears, digging my nails so hard into my palms I had little crescent scars there for days after. “I suppose so. Casper Osgood shouldn’t be allowed to get away with treating women that way. No man should.”

“It sounds like you’re carrying a grudge,” he had said.

“Maybe,” I’d admitted, clenching my jaw to keep it from trembling. “But someone should expose him.”

“Is that what you want to do? Expose Caspar Osgood, the darling of the conservative elite? He donates to the most powerful Republican causes and politicians and uses the Globe to crusade for reform. He’s well connected and rich enough to pay for the best lawyers. A story like that would raise a holy shitstorm. It could break your career—or make it.”

He’d said the last three words with a little upward lilt in his voice and a tug at the corner of his mouth. It felt like a lifeline being tossed to me just when I thought I was going under. “Yes,” I’d responded, not realizing how much I wanted to expose Osgood until the word was out of my mouth. I’d spent the last three weeks weeping in my apartment, sure my career as a journalist was over before it had begun. “That’s what I want to do. I’d like to write that story. But in the meantime, I’d really like this job writing for your Style section so I can pay my rent and not have to move back in with my mother and grandmother upstate.”

That had made him laugh. “Why not both?” he’d asked. “How about we hire you to write style stories for Sylvia, and in the meantime you see what you can dig up on Osgood? If you think you’ve got a story in six months, pitch it to me properly and if I think it’s got legs, I’ll back you up. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with holding a grudge,” he’d added, winking. “After paying the rent, it’s the best motivator in the world.”

Simon had been true to his word. He put me on staff, practically unheard-of at the e-zines I’d freelanced for since graduating from journalism school two years earlier. When I’d been working there for six months I went back to him with the names of two more women who said that Osgood had sexually assaulted them when they were working at the Globe.

“There does seem to be a pattern of behavior,” he said. But he still seemed unsure and I thought I knew why. I’d learned since I began working for him that he’d gone to college with Caspar Osgood.

“I understand if you feel that you can’t pursue the story because of your personal connection with Caspar Osgood.”

He had bristled at that, as I had perhaps known he would, and said, “I would never compromise my journalistic objectivity. Keep working on the story but make sure you have contemporary corroborating evidence to back up every allegation.”

We agreed that I’d stay in the Style section until the story was done, though. “It will be good cover for what you’re working on and you’ll need the distraction of shoes and gallery openings when you get deep into this.” He’d been right about that. Writing about fashion and style might have seemed superfluous at times while I was listening to stories from victims of sexual assault, but “Put lemon in your water and drink at least sixty-four ounces a day” was a nice change from “He put his fingers in my mouth and told me to suck like a baby.” Now, three years later, I was coming out with a groundbreaking exposé—a story that, as Simon had said, would either make or break my career—and my skin had never looked better.

“AREN’T THE WOLVES already circling?” I remarked to Simon as we stood in front of the restaurant. We’d both gotten cease-and-desist letters from Osgood’s lawyers the day before. Simon had made a big production of lighting them on fire with the vintage cigar lighter some old reporter at the Times had given him when he started out.

“Oh, they’re at the door, Joannie,” he said, grinning. “All the people who have enabled Caspar Osgood all these years and overlooked the rumors and the gossip as they lined their pockets with his money are going to say you’re an angry feminist who’s attacking Osgood for his politics and who’s bitter she’s working for a two-bit rag instead of the great Globe. In fact”—he turned to me, his grin sobering to a wistful smile that melted the icy trepidation in the pit of my stomach—“it’s not too late to back out. We posted the story to the staff’s private online site half an hour ago, but it won’t appear on the public site for”—he checked the vintage Patek Philippe watch on his wrist—“ten minutes, and the print edition won’t hit the stands until tomorrow morning. I could tell Sammy to stop the presses. You could probably still get a job at the Globe if you played your cards right.”

I snorted—then saw he was serious. “I’d rather work at this two-bit rag,” I told him, my own voice turning hoarse.

He held my gaze another moment, as if testing my conviction. I felt the force of that gaze like a magnetic attraction—not, as I had realized over the last three years, a romantic or sexual attraction. It was his approval I wanted, the validation of his faith in me. I felt it now as he nodded. “Good,” he said. “Let’s give ’em hell.”

He pushed open the door to the crowded restaurant, then took my hand and raised it over our heads as if I were a prizefighter who’d just gone fifteen rounds.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press,” he boomed, “I present the reporter who’s just taken down Goliath. All hail to our own David. Hang on, kids, the ground’s gonna shake when this giant goes down.”

The ground did shake as my colleagues and friends pounded the floor with their feet and applauded. A dark-haired server handed me a glass of fizzing Champagne and someone thumped me on the back. Marisol from accounting shouted, “Let’s take the fuckers down!” and everybody laughed and Simon gave my hand a squeeze that I felt all the way in my chest. Then he let go and I drifted untethered into the crowd.

Everybody was pushing forward to congratulate me, but they all parted for Sylvia Crosley. In a black Chanel dress, Louboutin heels, and her signature round glasses, Sylvia looked as cool and collected as always, but my stomach clenched in trepidation as she approached me. She’d been my boss for three years—and a good one. I’d learned more about how to write from being line-edited by her sharp blue pencil than I had in journalism school. I’d also learned how to go barefoot in pumps without getting blisters (spray-on deodorant), what to order at a business lunch that won’t go to your waist or stick in your teeth (poached salmon on Bibb lettuce), and where to get this season’s couture at half price (I can’t reveal that last one; she made me sign an NDA). But I hadn’t told her about the story that I’d quietly worked on for the last three years and I was afraid she was feeling betrayed.

I eyed the flute of Champagne balanced between her lacquered fingernails and wondered if I was about to get it in my face. Instead she lifted it to me. “You sly dog,” she said. “All this time you were filing fluff for me you were busting balls with the big boys. Brava!”

“I learned from the best,” I said.

She lifted her chin up and clinked her glass against mine. We each took a sip—a mere lip-wetting kiss for her and a long sizzling gulp for me. I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been about how she would take my story. Sylvia Crosley wasn’t only a style editor; she knew everybody in New York, from the wholesaler in the Flower District who could get her Casablanca lilies out of season to this season’s chair of the Met Gala. She kept a little book with the names and phone numbers of everybody from the concierge at the Carlyle to the mayor. I didn’t want her for an enemy; I was about to make enough of those.

She sidled in closer to me and whispered in my ear. “You might have told me what you were working on. There are some sources I could have directed you to.”

“Simon thought we should keep it as confidential as possible until we were ready to go public with the story.” What Simon really had said was Sylvia’s a doll but she trades information like currency; there’s no way she’d keep a story like this to herself. She held my gaze a moment, as if she could hear me thinking, and then gave me a tight nod. Then she smiled and touched my arm. “Truly, you did a remarkable job—tracking down all those interns, finding corroborating evidence from their friends and families—it’s all very . . . solid.”

“Simon insisted we have contemporary corroborating evidence for everything,” I said.

“Of course he did,” she said. “Any editor worth his salt would have done the same. I was just a little surprised he’d give you the go-ahead on a story about Cass Osgood. You know they went to college together.”

“Yes,” I said, bristling a little at the implication that I wouldn’t have known this. Simon was right: Sylvia liked to be the one who knew everything.

Sylvia gave me a small, pained smile. “It could look as if Simon were seeking revenge. The rumor is that Cass got Simon fired from the Times back in the ’90s and then there was that thing with the club three years ago.”

“What thing?”

Sylvia smiled, clearly glad to be the one to enlighten me, and leaned in to whisper: “I nominated Simon for membership to the Hi-Line Club but he didn’t get in. I found out that Caspar Osgood had blackballed him.”

“Oh,” I said, reassured. “Surely Simon wouldn’t care about something as frivolous as membership to some club.”

“Honey,” Sylvia said, her voice dripping with condescension, “never underestimate the pettiness of men and their egos.”

We were interrupted then by Sam, one of the interns who had worked with me on the story. I looked apologetically toward Sylvia, but she shooed me away with a wave of her Champagne flute and a benign smile. I tumbled into the crowd of young reporters and interns—all bubbling with my success, genuinely glad for me because I’d gone out of my way to be kind to them and at twenty-eight I wasn’t that much older, so if it could happen to me, it could happen to them. Their happiness added to the glow from Sylvia’s seal of approval.

“Look.” Sam showed me her phone. “The article is live! There are already pictures on Twitter of Melissa Osgood receiving the news at that fundraiser of hers.”

“What?” I ask, the warm glow fading. “Do you mean her fundraiser for suicide awareness?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you cover it last year?”

“Y-Yes, but . . .” I remembered spending the whole night of the fundraiser trying to avoid Melissa Osgood. A better reporter might have tried to get her on record saying something about her husband’s reputation with women, but I’d been afraid of compromising the story. Or maybe I’d just been too mortified to shake the hand of the woman whose husband I was working to destroy. I should have remembered the date of the fundraiser, though—the summer solstice because it was her son’s favorite day—

“Oh no,” I said, remembering the history of the foundation. “I feel awful. The fundraiser is for suicide awareness because their son tried to kill himself. If we’d known—”

“Oh, Simon knew,” Khaddija, Simon’s assistant said, looking around to make sure her boss wasn’t within earshot. “He always had me keep tabs on the Osgoods. You know he used to be friends with them.”

“Wow, some friends,” Atticus, one of the graphic designers said. “I’ve heard there’s always been a rivalry between him and Caspar.”

“Oooh,” said Lauren, a style reporter, “I heard a rumor that Simon was in love with Melissa but she married Cass because he had the money. . . .”

The chatter around me became a cacophonous blur of he-saids and she-saids, exactly the kind of rumor-mongering I’d tried to avoid in my story. Why hadn’t I remembered Melissa Osgood’s fundraiser? Why hadn’t Simon said anything about it? ...