Black Swan Rising Page 7

  That was actually a very good question, Casey realized. It was funny, with the meds she was taking she’d sometimes lose track of things, like sentences or lines of argument, and definitely remote control units. Other times, everything felt slowed down to her, slow enough that she could grasp things that felt essential, that had always been passing by too quickly before.

  “Maybe that’s what we’re trying to find out,” she said.

  Rose nodded and made a note. “Just be careful. Because if she thinks for a second that we’re going to paint her as a monster …”

  Casey had a sudden flash of footage she’d seen of Helen Scott: a middle-aged white woman gone thick through the hips, faded brown hair tied back in a ponytail, blinking rapidly as she ducked away from a sea of microphones.

  “I don’t think she’s a monster.”

  But her son was.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he called? I told you to let me talk to him.”

  Ben wasn’t as mad as she’d thought he might be. Mostly he seemed annoyed. But he’d been in a good mood before she’d told him. His face had lit up when she’d asked if he wanted to get a beer after work. Which worried her a little.

  She wanted him to like her. Not to want her.

  Still, telling him at the brewery had been the right way to do it.

  “You were meeting with the Troika—I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  Which wasn’t exactly true, but close enough.

  He heaved a sigh and swished around a mouthful of his sour. “Yeah, okay. Good call. And … good job tracking that down.”

  She’d spent most of the day trying to decide what to do. She’d thought about not saying anything at all. They still weren’t likely to use the video, were they?

  But thinking some more, one thing occurred to her: the video had come from an event that Tracker John didn’t have access to. But somehow Wyatt did.

  That seemed important.

  So she’d saved the photo of Tegan in her yellow dress to her phone to show Ben. Told him about the party where it had been taken, and Wyatt’s call.

  “Sorry,” she said. “But he’s … a little strange. He didn’t even want me to tell anyone that he was giving me this information. Which is kind of stupid. It’s not like I know anything about him.”

  “He didn’t tell you his name?”

  She took a swallow of her stout to give herself a moment to think. She didn’t know if Wyatt Gray was his real name. Thinking about it, she had a strong feeling that it wasn’t. She’d Googled the name and hadn’t found anybody who seemed like a likely match.

  But still … he’d told her not to tell anyone. She’d already partly broken the rule.

  But telling Ben his name, even if it wasn’t his real name …

  Maybe that wasn’t a good idea.

  She shook her head.

  “Well, whoever he is, he’s got some interesting intel, for sure.” Ben finished his pint. “You think he’ll call again?”

  I’ll keep an eye out for something you can use.

  “Maybe,” she said with a small shrug.

  “If he does … we need to find out why he’s doing this. What his motivation is. He could be trying to set us up.”

  “But whatever reason he’s doing it, he’s someone close to Tegan,” Sarah said. “Or has access to someone who is.”

  That was what had finally made her decide to tell Ben, when she’d realized what Wyatt’s knowing about that video really meant.

  She needed someone else’s take on this, someone else’s understanding of the implications. She wanted to be important to the campaign, and she couldn’t afford to hide the wrong things.

  9

  SURGING GUN SALES LEAD TO RECORD PROFITS FOR US GUN MANUFACTURERS

  WASHINGTON (AP)—Sales of guns have soared following a wave of mass shootings in the U.S. in the first six months of the year, according to a new study conducted by Gun Safety For U.S. “We found that demand has been driven by rising fears of terrorism and worries over stricter gun control legislation, in particular that certain kinds of firearms will be taken off the market entirely,” said spokesperson David Monk. Sales of assault-style weapons such as the AR-15 have seen dramatic increases in the months following two high-profile mass shootings in which these weapons were used to kill a total of 47 people.

  Rose left Helen Scott a voicemail making the proposal in general terms. “We’d like to assure you that the station is not pursuing any legal actions. This is about giving you a chance to correct the record, if need be. To tell your own story.” She left a follow-up two days later.

  Helen didn’t return the calls.

  Not exactly a surprise.

  “If we can’t get her, we can just go back to Plan A,” Rose said. “Focus on the victims. Tamara John’s parents are anxious to speak with us. They’ve gotten very active in the gun safety movement.”

  Casey nodded and sipped her tea. Rose had come over later in the day, so Casey had served the new harvest high-grade Dragon Well from Hangzhou that her sister had brought her back last month, in the proper clay pot. Because you might as well do it right.

  “Well, I want to give them the platform,” she said. “But I don’t want to give up on Helen Scott. We’ve seen Tamara John’s parents on the news. We haven’t seen Helen Scott.”

  “This tea is like crack.” Rose waved the steam rising from her cup toward her nose and inhaled deeply. “Okay, she’s ignoring our phone calls. What do you suggest we do next?”

  Casey thought about it. They knew where she worked—at a corporate records storage company in Mira Mesa. They knew where she lived—just off Clairemont Mesa Boulevard near Clairemont Square. But you couldn’t really go to either of those places. Trying to catch someone going to or from work, entering or leaving the house … They could get some BS ambush footage of her not answering their questions. But you weren’t going to get a conversation that way.

  Casey had a sudden flash of Helen Scott outside her house, holding two dogs on a leash, struggling to pull them inside her house and slam the door shut against an onslaught of cameras.

  “She has dogs, right?”

  Rose nodded. “Two, I think.”

  “Well, she has to walk them. Can we find out where?”

  Being outside was weird.

  Helen Scott took her dogs to the North Clairemont Community Park, a ten-minute walk from her house. Rose and an intern had staked out her house and observed her routine: Home by five thirty, fifteen minutes to change and get the dogs on a leash, out the door and on the way to the park by five forty-five.

  Okay, it’s not like you haven’t been outside, Casey told herself. You’ve been outside lots of times. You’ve been to the station, to the doctor, to the physical therapy place, to the hairdresser, even a few restaurants.

  But sitting here on this concrete bench under a sycamore tree, the foot of her cane scuffing at the packed dirt, it just felt different, somehow. More open. More dangerous.

  Which is silly, she thought. There were kids kicking a soccer ball around. Smaller kids on the swing set, getting pushes from their parents. Teens playing basketball. Couples on the tennis courts.

  Ordinary people in an ordinary neighborhood, going about their ordinary lives.

  Of course, that’s what those people at Crooked Arrow Brewery were doing too.

  It was a pretty evening, still light. The marine layer had already moved in, making the air feel soft.

  Who here might be carrying a gun? Casey wondered. That black teenager with the basketball? The middle-aged white man sitting at a table across the way, eating a Subway sandwich?

  “You sure you don’t want me to wait with you?” Rose had asked. “Get somebody else to watch her house?”

  “No. Just text me when she’s close. I need a little time to stand up.”

  She wa
nted to be ready.

  “Well, I’m going to be close by. You won’t be on your own, okay?”

  It was nice of Rose to be concerned, she thought, if slightly annoying. Helen Scott wasn’t Alan Jay Chastain, and Casey wasn’t a delicate flower.

  Nothing was going to happen to her here. Was it?

  Casey sighed. The truth was, she was glad Rose had her back. It didn’t matter sometimes, how much she tried to boost herself up, to tell herself that things were okay.

  They weren’t. She wasn’t.

  Her phone buzzed. A text from Rose: She’s enroute. I’m right behind. Dogs are cute.

  Good to know, Casey thought. Because getting attacked by dogs at this point would really suck.

  You can do this, she told herself.

  She’d been cleared to work “light duty.” No prolonged standing, the doctor had cautioned. She’d told him she’d just be sitting, doing interviews.

  They’d started stepping back on the opiates. She was still hurting a lot, but it was the only way she could convince him she was ready to go back to work. “Pain level is definitely improving!” He’d given her a prescription for another three months of Zoloft. “If you’re feeling good, don’t stop taking it all at once. We’ll need to ease you off it. But if returning to work increases your anxiety, well … we’ll need to re-evaluate whether you should be doing that.”

  “Oh, I’m not planning on doing anything that’s going to make me anxious,” she’d said, giving him her best smile, heart fluttering in her throat.

  Another text from Rose: Coming thru tennis courts.

  Time to stand up.

  One hand on the bench, the other on her cane (the boring, practical one), she pushed herself to her feet. Pain pulsed from her side, below her ribs, down her spine and leg and foot.

  Maybe this was not the best time to be cutting back on the opiates. She needed to think straight, but it was hard to think straight when everything hurt this much.

  Deep breath. Then another.

  “Better now,” she said aloud.

  Do you see her? I’m right behind.

  Casey focused on the path that ran past the tennis courts. And there she was: Helen Scott, wearing baggy sweats, two midsized dogs straining at their leashes in front of her.

  Yep, gotcha, she typed.

  Showtime.

  She waited for Helen to draw closer. The woman looked exactly how she remembered her from the TV appearance, the lines of her eyes and cheeks and mouth pulling down the flesh of a face constructed in slabs, her washed-out brown hair in a ponytail, as it had been before. Not a lot of makeup, but a slash of old lipstick that was a fluorescent shade of coral.

  The dogs were a floppy-eared Aussie shepherd mix and some sort of beagle/hound. They seemed friendly enough. Casey hoped.

  “Ms. Scott?”

  Helen flinched. Drew back and stared at her. With recognition, Casey wondered, or just the expectation of an attack? She couldn’t tell.

  “I’m sorry,” Casey said, “I don’t mean to disturb you. I just … ”

  Helen yanked on the dogs’ leashes and started to wheel away.

  Fuck it, Casey thought, I do mean to disturb you. She stepped in front of Helen, in front of the dogs, trying to keep the pain that shot down her leg from showing on her face. The dogs barked and wiggled, tails wagging.

  The shepherd mix jumped up, its paws landing hard just above her hips. She gasped, seeing nothing but white for a moment, doubling over, one hand clutching her cane, the other braced on her thigh.

  “Casey! Hey, you okay?” It was Rose, whose arm circled her shoulders.

  “Oh, sure. Sure, I’m fine.” She managed to straighten up. Pasted on a smile. “Just, the dog. The dog caught me in a bad place. It’s okay.”

  “He’s just friendly,” Helen said. “He didn’t mean anything.” She sounded frightened.

  “Maybe you better sit down,” Rose said.

  Casey shook her head and faced Helen. “Do you recognize me?”

  From the expression on Helen’s face, Casey couldn’t tell. She looked scared. Hopeless. Or maybe just tired.

  “Your son shot me.”

  She could hear Rose let out a little groan. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that.

  Dial down the blunt, cowgirl.

  “You’re the reporter,” Helen said. “I didn’t recognize you with the short hair.”

  “Right, that’s me.” She forced a smile. “Look, Ms. Scott, I’m not here to harass you. I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”

  “I got your phone calls,” Helen muttered. “If I’d been interested, I would have called you back.”

  Casey took a step forward. The dogs wagged their tails and the shepherd mix tugged hard on the leash. She lurched back, nearly stumbling.

  “Santos, sit!” Helen hissed.

  “It’s okay,” Casey managed. “He’s a cute dog. I wish I could play with him.”

  For a moment, she could see a crack of sympathy in Helen Scott. She pushed on. “I just want to talk to you. I just want to understand why. Why this happened.”

  “I don’t know why it happened!” Helen said, and then she began to sob, standing there stiffly, taking in shuddering breaths, one hand covering her face, the other clutching her dogs’ leashes.

  Casey felt two things at once: an impulse to hug her, and a sincere regret they hadn’t brought cameras.

  10

  CHICAGO (AP)—An altercation at a party that escalated to armed violence led to the shooting deaths of two men early this morning in Gage Park, police officials said.

  “Mom, it’s no big deal. Just … ”

  The last thing she needed was to get into it with her mom right now. Sarah took a deep breath.

  “Just use a different email address, okay? So I know it’s from you and not … Russian spammers or whatever.”

  Her head throbbed. It had been a busy morning, getting the flyers, emails, tweets, and Facebook events created, scheduled, and promoted for a series of fundraisers and house parties, plus reminders about the community fair that Matt was attending this weekend. And since the office was officially closed tomorrow for July 4th, she had even less time than usual to get everything done.

  “I have to go,” she said into her cell. “I’ll call you later.”

  She didn’t want to change her email address again, not yet. So far they’d only spoofed her mom’s address. To have to call up all the people she’d white-listed, tell them she was changing it again …

  She was so sick of it.

  Though if it hadn’t happened, she probably wouldn’t have had the money to do what she was doing now. Wouldn’t have been able to come to San Diego, rent a place, work her way up from volunteer to staffer, and it wasn’t like she was making a lot on the campaign.

  I deserved that money, she thought.

  She had to keep telling herself that.

  The office phone rang—the Communications trill. She picked up the handset.

  “Communications. Sarah speaking.”

  “Sarah. It’s Wyatt. How are you doing?”

  “Fine,” she said. “How are you?” She felt better, actually—the little rush of excitement when she heard his voice had cleared her head. Maybe Wyatt would give her something really good today.

  “Well, I don’t have a lot of time to chat right now, but I’ve got some news. You’re going to have an independent running on your left.”

  Well, this might not be good, but it was big.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Not sure. They don’t have to file for another six or seven weeks, till late August. But there’s going to be some money behind them, Sarah. Big money. Enough to cause you some problems. You better get ready for it.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” she said. “But Wyatt … ” She drew in a b
reath. She wasn’t used to confronting people. “It would really help if you told me where you’re getting this information. And why you’re sharing it with me.”

  “I told you, I’m not burning my sources. And I like your guy. I want to help him win.” He sounded amused. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “He called again,” she told Ben, when he came back to his desk.

  Ben sighed through his teeth. “And he’d only talk to you?”

  “He doesn’t want to talk to anyone else,” she snapped back. “And no, I don’t know why that is.”

  “Okay, okay.” Ben held up his hands like he didn’t want an argument. “What did he say?”

  She told him.

  “Shit. We’d better take this to Jane.”

  Jane’s response was to take off her glasses and massage the bridge of her nose. “Well, that would suck,” she said.

  “Do you think he means Kat Oren?” Ben asked. “I mean, if it’s for real?”

  Kat Oren had been their primary opponent, the former Green.

  “If it’s for real … no. She wouldn’t do that. She’s got her eye on a city council run next time out, and now that she’s in the party she wants to stay here. Hey, we win this thing, maybe we’ll even help her.”

  “We’ll still win,” Ben said. “Somebody to Matt’s left, in this district … they can’t win.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

  “No, probably not. But they can wound,” Jane said. “I imagine that’s the point—to try to peel away enough support to tip this thing to Tegan.”

  She suddenly focused on Sarah—that merciless stare of hers, the one that seemed to measure everything. “And we have no idea who he is, the guy who’s calling you? Or what he wants?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I asked. He just says he wants to help Matt.”

  She was telling the truth. It felt good to do that, for a change, like a knot in her belly had begun to dissolve.

  The house was about as ordinary as it gets: a beige one-story stucco ranch from the late fifties or early sixties, as almost all the houses in this neighborhood were. Some were nicer, better kept up, some had minor updates, like new windows, and a few had second stories added. Some looked a lot worse. “That’s a rental,” Helen Scott mentioned, waving at the run-down, weed-choked house on the corner. “Nothing but trouble. I think they’re heavy into meth.”