Chapter Eight

Mason Gentries walked into his apartment, threw his keys on the kitchen counter, and headed straight to the liquor cabinet to pour himself four fingers of whiskey over ice before he slumped down in his armchair.

“Un-freaking believable,” he muttered aloud to no one. He wanted to rant, yell, throw things.

But what would that accomplish? Precisely nothing. No good whatsoever. And this is partly my fault, for not thinking ahead enough to arrange daily back up of all the files onto a portable drive that I could keep at home. I overlooked a vulnerable spot, and they exploited it.

He ran his right hand over his face then through his hair as he considered his next move, but he felt adrift in the middle of a waking nightmare, with no safe harbor anywhere in sight.

And to make things worse, every spare cent of operating capital was tied to this project, he reminded himself. Allen and Jennifer and I are the only three that know that. If I can’t salvage this, Gentries Unlimited will have to shut down, and my entire staff will be out of work. They don’t deserve that. None of them do. They’ve all busted their asses for this.

But I can’t think of any way to keep it from happening.

He threw back his whiskey, set the tumbler on his coffee table, and put his head in his hands.

***

Maddie woke the next morning and was surprised to realize she’d managed to get some sleep. Then she walked into the bathroom, saw the empty wine bottle on the counter, and remembered why restful sleep had come so easily.

I also, vaguely, remember dispensing with the glass at some point and finishing off the bottle directly…

“Yeah. Can’t do that again,” she murmured, as her head began to throb. “The aftermath isn’t worth it.”

She took as hot a shower as she could stand, then dressed casually for the morning meal at her parents’ house she’d promised she would attend.

Moving swiftly down the staircase, she scooped up her purse and keys, and headed toward the garage before she remembered she’d parked her car in the half-circle drive in front of the house.

The moment she opened the door, Maddie was greeted with several flashbulbs going off and by her count at least eight microphones thrust rudely in her face. A barrage of questions shouted at her from the various national news media representatives rolled over her like a tsunami.

Overwhelmed, she immediately stepped backward into the safety of her home, closing and then deadbolting the front door with shaking hands.

Maddie backed away from the furor on her front lawn, eyes wide, breaths coming in gasps. When the house phone began to ring, she yelped, clutching her chest.

She moved back upstairs, away from the more brazen reporters and their cameramen now daring to peek in through the first floor windows, and called Detective Kenney from her cell phone.

“Please help me,” she gasped. “There’s reporters all over the place. I can’t even leave my house.”

“What?”

Maddie repeated what she’d said.

“Hang tight, Mrs. Nibless, we’re on the way.”

She hung up and called her parents’ house.

“Mom,” Maddie said, “there’s people – “

“All over your front yard, too?” Deborah replied. “Same thing over here, honey. Something about Eric must have made the news. Your dad’s flipping channels right now, trying to figure out what the hell’s going on.”

“I called Detective Kenney. He said he’s on his way.”

“Good thinking, hon. Maybe the police can get them to disperse.”

“I’m stuck here until they’re gone, Mom. I didn’t put my car in the garage yesterday, I left it in the driveway. I couldn’t even see it from the front door because of all the people outside. No way I want to try to shove my way to it.”

Downstairs, the phone just off the kitchen continued to ring non-stop. Then Maddie noticed multiple unknown numbers ringing into her cell phone, disrupting her ability to hear what Deborah was saying.

“Mom. I’ve got call after call after call beeping in. I need to get off my phone. I will call you back when this is over, okay?”

“Maddie,” Deborah said, and it was strained. “Your dad found something. Channel five. You might want to see this.”

Maddie hung up the phone and switched on the television in the master bedroom. Then her knees buckled, and she slumped down, hand over her mouth in disbelief, her back resting against the footboard, as she watched and heard some of Eric Nibless’ darkest secrets being openly discussed on a nationally televised newscast.

***

In his apartment, Mason Gentries had also happened upon the broadcast, and winced, partly from his hangover and partly from what he’d just heard.

“Man,” he muttered. “Feel sorry for that guy’s family. Their whole world must be turned upside-down right about now.”

***

It took four officers each at Maddie’s and her parents’ residences to move along the hordes of trespassing reporters. Even then, the mass of fact-seekers didn’t leave completely, just returned to the public easement side of the property line.

Man, I hope he never looks like that because of me, Maddie thought as she watched Detective Kenney’s glowering expression. He was speaking to someone at Flower Mound’s police headquarters, and Maddie could tell they were trying to figure out who had leaked information.

“Dammit. You sure?” he huffed, then listened a moment longer, then replied, “Got it,” and hung up.

“Well, no one in our department leaked it, Mrs. Nibless,” he told her. “Wyoming’s officials swear they didn’t either. I still need to confirm this, but we think the killer sent at least one network a full copy of the same packet you were sent.”

***

Mason left the TV on as background noise while he worked through an idea to try to save both his project and his company. At eleven a.m. the broadcast repeated, using previously recorded footage from a residential area.

The on-scene reporter intoned, “Our attempts to speak with the victim’s widow about the revelations that have surfaced have so far been unsuccessful,” as footage from the morning’s events scrolled across the screen.

Mason’s jaw dropped when he glanced at the screen and saw whose shocked face had been captured briefly on camera. She’d only been visible for three, perhaps four seconds. But that was long enough.

I’d know that face anywhere.

After all, he’d been in love with Madeleine Kay Smithing since the fourth grade.

Maddie was in the back of his mind the rest of the day. Mason finally worked up the nerve to try to reach out to her that evening to check on her and offer his condolences, since he knew firsthand what being widowed was like.

But he couldn’t find her. All her social media accounts had been closed, and he had no idea where she lived.

She’d disappeared from his life all over again.