Liz watched Professor Mires walk through the doors and then retrieved her ringing phone from her purse. She glanced down at the number and saw that it was a D.C. area code.
“Hello?” Liz answered.
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Liz Dougherty, please,” a man said. He didn’t have a very distinctive voice and Liz couldn’t place it.
“This is Liz. Who is speaking?”
“My name is Ted Cary with the Washington Post. I was wondering if you had just a few minutes to verify some facts.”
Liz’s heart rate shot through the roof. What the hell was the Washington Post doing calling her? The bigger newspapers had picked up her relationship with Brady, but nothing compared with what had been running in North Carolina. And she had thought the news would be winding down. What kind of questions would he ask her? Should she even comment on this?
She didn’t know. The other reporters that she had spoken with had been in person, and after a few of the same responses she had blown them off. She was still in college, still had to graduate, and wanted to continue to have a life. She couldn’t have reporters around all the time.
Curiosity won out in the end. She didn’t know what they could want her to fact-check, but her reporter instincts told her that it was better to find out than to leave her wondering. She could always refuse to comment.
“What kind of facts can I help you with, Mr. Cary?” Liz asked diplomatically.
“Just a few simple questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“We’re just checking out some simple matters before we move forward with our article about your relationship with Congressman Maxwell.”
Liz felt a bit uneasy about that. It seemed every paper was writing about her and Brady right now. But she was sure that she could handle just a few questions, as she had done when she and Brady went to dinner. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to answer your questions, but I’ll do what I can.”
“Very well,” he said. “First, were you in charge of directing the UNC Political Journalism Colloquium in April of last year?”
Liz paused. “I assisted Professor Mires with the setup,” she said. She wanted to clarify, but she knew better than to provide more information than was in question.
“So, you were at the event that day?” he probed.
“Yes.”
“Did you see Congressman Maxwell at that event?”
“Yes.” At least a hundred other people had been there and seen them together.
“Can you elaborate on where you saw him?”
“He was on a politician’s panel that I attended.” Still safe.
“Did you attend a dinner afterward with Congressman Maxwell’s younger sister, Savannah?”
“I—” Liz cut herself off. Now, that was privy information. Hayden didn’t even know that she had gone to that dinner. Savannah had wanted Liz to keep it secret because she didn’t like to flaunt her family’s status on campus. Liz had wanted to keep it secret because Hayden had thought there was some kind of connection between her and Brady. He hadn’t known how right he was.
So, the question was: how did this reporter know about that dinner? Liz chose her next words carefully. “I ate dinner afterward, yes.” There—she didn’t exactly answer his question, and she hoped, but doubted, that he wouldn’t notice.
“After that dinner, did you leave by yourself or did someone drive you home?” Mr. Cary asked.
Liz swallowed. Oh, God, what did he know? Or what did he think he knew?
“Where is all this going, Mr. Cary?” Liz asked. She tried to keep the tension and anger out of her voice, but wasn’t sure how well she did.
“Just simple questions Ms. Dougherty. Fact-checking,” he repeated. “You were at a dinner with Congressman Maxwell and left with him after the event, correct?”
“I can’t confirm that,” Liz said finally. Nothing had happened that night with Brady, but no one else had been there. “No comment.”
He continued on, unperturbed by her reluctance to answer the last question. “Do you happen to know where you were the third weekend in October last year?”
October always triggered a bad response from Liz. October had been the month of her first fight with Hayden. It had been when she had called Brady and they had kissed. It had been the start of her self-torture with the guilt of feeling like she had cheated weighing down on her.
“That’s rather specific. I’m not certain.”
“Did you leave Chapel Hill in October at all?”
“I’m sure I did,” she said.
“Did you leave North Carolina? Were you out of the state at the end of the month?”
“I was here for Halloween,” she said in an unhelpful fashion.
“Did you see Congressman Maxwell at that time?”
“At Halloween? No.”
She heard him sigh in frustration. She was purposely avoiding his questions and he knew it.
“Based on the Congressman’s travel plans, he was in Chapel Hill the weekend of the eighteenth of October. Can you verify that he was in fact there?”
“If you’ve already verified his travel plans, why would you ask me about it?” Liz asked.
“Can you comment at all on your contact with Congressman Maxwell since he has been in office?”
“Absolutely,” she said cheerily. “We’re very happy to be able to make our relationship official and tell the public.”
Obviously not what he wanted to hear by his soft sigh. “Thank you, Ms. Dougherty. I’ll be in touch if I have other questions. Is this an okay number?”
“Sure,” she said, making a mental note to program his into her phone so she wouldn’t answer his calls in the future.
“Wonderful. Thank you for your time.”
Ted Cary hung up and Liz stared at her phone dumbfounded until a text came from Victoria asking her not too politely where she was. Liz jumped as if someone had just run into her, and started walking to their designated meeting spot.
Something didn’t add up. Ted Cary knew too much personal information. That was rather obvious. But how much did he know, and why did it matter? She and Brady were together now. That was the story. What spin could he put on something like that?
There were a million scenarios, but she didn’t know which one to even consider without first knowing where he would get that kind of information. She mulled it over on the drive home with Victoria, and as soon as she walked through the front door, she gasped like someone had just knocked the wind out of her.