Page 115 of Breaking News

“But it bothered you a little.”

She blinked. “Well, it just gave me a lot of extra work to do, and you know, everything was already put in place. Graham had no idea how much I had to do behind the scenes to make that work. He didn’t even notice. Or apologize.”

“Why didn’t you speak up?”

Elaine went quiet, her eyes fixed on the table in front of her.

“Is there something else bothering you?”

She didn’t answer at first. Then, very softly, she said, “I just often feel like people around here don’t even notice me. I’m an afterthought.”

“What do you mean?”

Finally, she looked straight into my eyes. “How was your birthday party?”

I blinked, remembering that a lot of my co-workers were in the Gardners’ backyard that night, but Elaine wasn’t one of them. “I wasn’t in charge of the invites. It was a surprise party.”

“Oh.” She glanced down again. “I didn’t know. I just heard the camera crew talking about it on Monday. And I thought... man, even the camera guys were there, and not me?”

I knew Meghan wouldn’t have excluded anyone on purpose—she just didn’t really know Elaine. But maybe that wasn’t entirely her fault. Elaine always kept her head down, hair in her face, never looking like she wanted to be part of the conversation.

Maybe I’d misunderstood shyness for standoffishness. But that still didn’t make her actions acceptable.

I watched her flick the corners of the pages in her book with her thumb. “Is that why you made that post?” I quietly asked.

She looked up. “What post?”

“The one that resulted in Graham losing his job.”

Elaine licked her lips, her face rapidly turning red. “That wasn’t me. If someone’s saying it was me, that’s not true. Or I could’ve been hacked or something.”

I didn’t believe her. Not for a second. But something about the desperation in her voice and the way her eyes darted around made me pause. She had shame written all over her face. And for just a second, I felt a flicker of empathy for this woman who clearly didn’t think very highly of herself.

“I’m so glad it wasn’t you,” I said with a soft smile. “That would’ve just broken my heart, because you’re probably the sweetest person around here.”

I spoke those words with the exact tone my mother used when she said“Well, bless your heart”to someone she didn’t like.

Elaine didn’t say another word, and neither did I.

I didn’t forgive her, and I certainly wouldn’t forget. However, I wouldn’t be the reason she lost her job. Maybe karma would catch up with her one day, but I didn’t want anything to do with it.

Standing up from the table, I smoothed the front of my skirt before walking away. The corners of my lips turned upward in a smile with the knowledge that Graham would be proud of how I’d handled this. All I could think about was the horrified look on his face when I’d said I wanted to extort Noah Sherman.

Letting Elaine stew in her own guilt gave me just a little taste of justice without the fallout. She knew I knew. And that was enough.

chapter forty-two

Graham

“You’re telling us this whole time you’ve been standing up there talking about hot dogs with us, you were then running off to bang Jillian Taylor from WWTV?”

It appeared the Woodvale scandal had reached Bedford and beyond, and my students wouldn’t talk about anything else. I couldn’t really blame them.

“Isn’t she like twenty-six?” Nia asked.

“She’s thirty,” I said, leaning onto both hands at the lectern. “Anyway, who wants to get back to our discussion about fact-checking?”

Nobody did.

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