Page 28 of Kiss Me Now
“A ‘string of victims’? Maybe you better lay out that evidence.” Spoken like a law dean’s wife.
I started with the way the nursing home residents had given her five thousand dollars then moved to the strange gaps in her resume, her departure from Senator Rink’s office with a financial settlement that reeked of hush money, and ended with the inheritance of her distant uncle’s estate.
“Estate,” Gran repeated with a snort. “Hardly. He left her a house with good bones that he didn’t update once in forty years. Headache is more like it. But that girl has grit, and she’ll polish it to a shine yet.”
I couldn’t believe it. I’d laid out compelling evidence and she was still singing Brooke’s praises. This was worse than I thought.
I clenched my jaw. No matter. I’d get through to Gran because I had to. And if it meant calling in reinforcements, I’d do that too, but I really hoped I’d be able to find a way to make Gran see reason.
“Gran, doesn’t any of that smell at all fishy to you?”
“The only thing that stinks around here is your judgment,” she said. “You are dead wrong about that girl.”
“But—” I broke off as my phone buzzed in my pocket. I fumbled it out to silence it but then I saw the number. “I’m sorry, Gran, I need to take this.”
“Ian Davis Greene, you better not—”
“I’ll be quick. I promise. Hello?” I said as I stepped onto Gran’s back patio.
“Is this Graham Norton? Or perhaps I should say Ian Greene?”
I remembered Ellen Brown’s voice well. Brooke’s former boss had sounded cool when I last spoke to her, but now she sounded downright frosty.
“This is Ian.” I kept my voice neutral, waiting to see what had prompted her call.
“I received a most concerning call from Brooke Spencer last night,” she said. “It seems you aren’t at all who you pretended to be when we last spoke.”
“With all due respect, neither is Brooke.”
“If Brooke is behaving as a circumspect young woman with a maturity beyond her years and a kindness you rarely find in people anymore, then she’s showing you exactly who she is.”
“If you say so.” I would bet very little got past Ellen Brown. How had she too been taken in?
“I do say so,” Ellen Brown snapped, “and do not get glib with me. Brooke called me last night because one of her worst nightmares came true: her past caught up to her, but apparently not in the way you think. She will not thank me for making this phone call, but I’m not bound by the same non-disclosure agreement she is, and I won’t stand for that morally bankrupt senator causing her more misery than he already has. Now you listen and you listen good.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, the first tickle of discomfort whispering through my chest. “I’m listening.”
“You thought it was odd that Brooke majored in political science and biology. She only ever intended to major in biology, maybe go into research, but during her sophomore year, her roommate developed a serious lung infection from vaping and died. Brooke was heartbroken. She took a semester off school to grieve. But she’s incredibly resilient, and when she went back, she was determined to make a difference. She added poly-sci to her major and began lobbying Delegate Leeds to sponsor the bill banning the sale of the flavored vape products that tobacco companies are using to hook young people. Her advocacy caught my eye, and I recruited her to our staff when she graduated.”
The discomfort grew to something more like a prickle. “None of this is in her professional profile. Why wouldn’t she include that?”
“Modesty, honestly,” Ellen Brown said. “She felt it was a team effort, but it was her passion that was the impetus for all of it. But she was also deeply loyal to her roommate and doesn’t like her name dragged up in connection with tragedy. Brooke doesn’t feel people should be defined by them.”
“Did you verify all of this?” I asked.
“You mean did I have that dead roommate’s parents sit in my office and weep when they recounted the pain of the week their daughter spent dying? Yes.”
Her voice was a slap, and I deserved it. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “Continue.”
“Brooke’s work was tireless and impeccable. She drew a lot of notice for her passionate advocacy, and it wasn’t very long before other offices began to sniff around, hoping to recruit her. She fielded interest from several commonwealth administrations, all the way up to the governor’s office. But she’s loyal, remember? It wasn’t until Senator Rink’s chief of staff requested that she come meet with them about passing federal vaping standards that she considered what impact she could have beyond Virginia. She’d seen that with the right people, change really can happen, and God forgive me, I encouraged her to pursue the opportunity with Rink.” Her voice trembled a tiny bit.
Regret? Anger? I wasn’t sure. “Why do you think you need forgiveness for that?”
“Because I sent a lamb to the slaughter. Brooke is genuinelygood. I knew DC waters were sometimes murky, but I had no idea how truly deep the swamp could go. We’d talk a couple of times a month or get lunch sometimes. And the stories she told me about the way even her own colleagues would connive and backstab turned my stomach. I could literally feel my blood pressure rising. And that didn’t even turn out to be the worst of it.”
“The senator was.” It was clear where this story was going.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “I knew about his womanizer reputation. But the rumors were years in the past. And Brooke may be young, but at twenty-six, she wasn’t naïve. She could handle herself. And she did,” she said, a bitter note creeping into her voice. “But she couldn’t handle the senator. I’m not sure anyone could. He’s a skilled predator, and Brooke didn’t see it coming until it was too late.”
