Set Free (13 page)

Katie, eyes glistening, lips tight, swung back toward the camera dedicated solely to her. “The final, public statement by the American government on this matter came as a shock to everyone—especially Jaspar’s wife, Jenn. It read as follows: ‘…while the United States, along with Moroccan government officials, have cooperated fully in talks with the hostage takers in order to secure the release of American citizen Jaspar Wills, communications have been abruptly cut off and all further attempts to resuscitate them have failed. Exhaustive investigations by the U.S. military and intelligence communities, while still ongoing, indicate that Mr. Wills is
irretrievable
.” Katie visibly winced as she looked at her two guests. “Irretrievable,” she gravely repeated. “Jenn, that must be one of the most devastating words to hear about your missing husband. Can you tell us about that?”

Jenn nodded. “I can’t even begin to explain how it felt. Basically they were telling me that my husband was dead, they had no idea where he was, his body was lost, never to be found, and there was nothing they could do about it.”

Katie turned to Jaspar. “Your wife and family are at home, believing you are dead, planning your funeral. Jaspar, can you tell us what really happened next?”

Jaspar fixed Katie with a direct gaze, and stated: “I died.”

The screen went black.

“Jaspar?” Jenn shifted in her regular spot on the sofa to look at her husband. Sitting on the coffee table in front of them was a half-empty bottle of red wine and a pizza, homemade by Katie, uneaten and nearly cold. “Why did you turn it off?”

“Some of the best stuff is coming up,” Katie pressed. She was sitting in an armchair, re-positioned next to the couch for better viewing of the television. “The story about the Berber woman who saved your life, and then how you hitchhiked into Marrakech and turned up at the police station. It’s terrific stuff, Jaspar, really good.”

“I don’t want to see it,” he responded, leaning over to refill his wine glass. “I meant it when I said that interview was the last of it. It’s over. We need to forget about all of this. We have to start letting it go.”

Jenn’s response was a guffaw weighed down by heavy doubt. “I think we’ll be waiting a while before that happens. Unless we completely stop watching TV, using our iPhones, listening to radio, reading newspapers. After Katie’s broadcast tonight, it’s all people will be talking about for weeks.”

“I know,” Jaspar relented. “And I know we had to do it. But the beast will only get bigger if we feed it. Otherwise it eventually starves and goes away. Isn’t that right, Katie? You know how it works.”

Katie’s look was noncommittal. “Eventually,” she allowed. “I totally get what you’re saying, Jaspar. After a year of this shit, and everything you’ve been through physically and mentally, you
need
to let this go.” She picked up a limp piece of pizza, then immediately put it back. “I want you two to know how grateful I am that you trusted me to tell your story. Besides, the more people who associate me with the story instead of you, the better it is, right?”

“You should have some before it gets stone cold,” Jenn indicated the pizza. “After all, you made it. You should get to eat some.”

Jaspar rose and switched on an overhead light to brighten the dreariness that had settled over the room. “I’ll get more wine.” He headed for the kitchen.

Katie waited until he was gone before asking, “Do you think he’s doing okay?”

Jenn shrugged. “Hard to tell. He just got back. This is all happening so fast. Too fast. But he’s the one who wanted it done this way. You know I wanted to wait before doing the interview. But he wanted it over and done with.” She took a thoughtful sip of wine. “Still, he’s not talking much. And then of course there’s the elephant in the room.”

Katie was mildly surprised at this admission of the elephant’s existence. She thought she was the only one who could feel its trunk tightening around the house, squeezing out every last bit of air, making it almost impossible to breathe. “You mean whether or not he’s going to stay? Here? With you?”

Jenn nodded. “I guess it’s a good sign that when he came back, he came back
here
. But really, where else does he have to go? Is he here because he wants to be, or because he has to be? Right now, I don’t think I want to know the answer. So until he’s stronger, I don’t want to push things.”

Katie had sensed the push and pull between the couple—two people whose love for one another had always been abundantly obvious to anyone who spent time with them. But now, after months of tragedy upon betrayal upon physical separation, it was a miracle they were able to hold things together as well as they were. “Maybe he wants to be pushed,” she tried. “Maybe it’s like the interview. Maybe he needs to deal with all this shit right now. Get it over with, then get over it. Maybe you both need that. Push him, Jenn. It’s time.”

Jenn stared at her friend, surprised at the comment, caught off guard by the idea. Katie had come to her a year-and-a-half ago as a new client, fresh from a bad break-up with a long-term boyfriend who’d left her high and dry. He’d taken everything, even their cat. She didn’t care about the “stuff,” she’d said, but she really wanted that cat back. Unfortunately, with Massachusetts not recognizing common law relationships, there was little Jenn could do for her. From that frail beginning, their short-lived professional relationship had somehow morphed into friendship. During that time, Jenn had come to suspect that Katie had a dark, wounded side when it came to men—and here was another sign of it.

Jaspar was back, topping up glasses. No one was touching the food.

“Jaspar,” Katie began, “this might not be the right time to bring this up…or maybe it’s the perfect time, I dunno.”

Jenn nearly choked on her freshly-poured wine as she listened to the words spilling out of Katie’s mouth. She’d thought they’d been talking in abstractions, possibilities for an uncertain time in the future—not
right now.

Katie kept on. “It kind of goes along with what you said about wanting to wash your hands of all this. It mainly concerns you, Jaspar, but I wanted to bring it up with both of you here.”

Jenn, a questioning eye searching the other woman, held on to a sigh of relief until she was certain it was deserved.

“First, you should know the idea wasn’t mine. I was approached by someone.”

“What’s this about?” Jaspar, as confused as Jenn, asked while settling into his seat.

“Of course I immediately thought you’d be the best person to do it, not me. But now, well, maybe that’s not the case.”

“What idea are you talking about?” Jenn asked, swallowing more red wine than she probably needed.

“A book.” Katie let the two words sit in the room for a second or two, using the time to gauge reactions. If there was one thing she was good at, it was measuring the mood of her audience. Jenn was perplexed, Jaspar uncomfortable.

“What are you talking about?” Jaspar’s voice was uncharacteristically harsh. “What book?”

“Your book,” Katie said. “Yours and Jenn’s. And Mikki’s. Your story.”

“Somebody asked you what exactly?”

“If I’d write it.”

“What?” Jenn knew she sounded incredulous, but didn’t care. “You?”

“I know,” Katie quickly countered. “Crazy, right? Jaspar’s the famous author. He should do it. Of course he should do it. That’s what I told them.”

“My publisher already asked me,” Jaspar said, downing a healthy swig. “Not recently, of course, but after the trial. They wanted the story even back then, before the rest of this crap happened. I told them no. Then I tried to write it anyway.”

“You did?” Jenn asked, still not sure what was happening. She wondered if maybe she’d had too much to drink.

“I tried. I couldn’t do it then. I can’t do it now.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Katie chattered on. “Not that you can’t, but that you shouldn’t. Not if you want to get away from all of this. But you know how it works, Jaspar—they’re not going to let it go. It’s too good a story. For a book. Even a movie. If you don’t do it, someone else will.” Katie hesitated, counted to five, then: “Maybe… maybe it
should
be me. With your help, of course. I’d need your input.” She turned to Jenn for support. “And yours too. We’d only put out there what you want out there. It’s the perfect way to end this, once and for all. On your terms, but without having to relive it all over again.”

In an instant, the atmosphere in the room changed. The air sparked with electricity, like a storm about to hit—fed by Jaspar, but sensed by all. Katie grew wary, Jenn bewildered.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Jaspar was on his feet, roaring. “Get out!”

Jenn’s body pressed back against the sofa, aghast at her husband’s sudden ferocity. Katie leaned in, ears perked, attracted to the outburst, but at the same time thinking:
Where the hell is this coming from
?

“Now! Out!” Jaspar menaced, inching closer to Katie as if he was about to physically pick her up and throw her through the front window if she didn’t move. “I want you out of this house. You’re nothing but a soul-sucking user, and I want you gone.”

“Jaspar!” Jenn cried out as she leapt from the couch, only partially recuperated from her initial shock. “What is wrong with you? Why are you being like this?”

Katie rose too—slowly, like an attacked animal, instinctively knowing she needed to be on even ground to stand any chance of survival. “Jaspar, exactly what is the problem here?”

“You know damn well what the problem is, Katie Edwards, star of network news. Haven’t you paved your road with enough of our blood and tears? Isn’t your career big enough yet? Or do you need something else horrible to happen to us?”

Rows of silent consternation furrowed Katie’s brow. She felt for these people, she really did. She knew Jaspar had been to hell and back and somehow lived to tell about it. But none of that gave him the right to treat her like some kind of predatory bottom feeder. She got enough of that at work and from social media.

“Ever since Mikki was taken, you’ve done nothing but use us,” Jaspar rallied on. “You’ve built your entire fucking livelihood out of our misery. And now you want to keep on doing it by writing a book about us. Not only do you want to take advantage of my dead daughter and my dead marriage, now you want to take over my dead career too!”

“Jaspar!” Jenn screamed, tears streaming down burning cheeks.

Katie was silent, listening carefully.

“Well, you’re never going to have it. There is no way I’m going to allow you to have any more of this story—for TV, for some fucking book, or in your fucking goddamned dreams—do you understand me? It’s over!”

Katie understood all too well. She’d have to change the book she’d already started. But that was an easy fix. All she had to do was add one word to the title: unauthorized.

When the phone rang, Katie debated letting it go to message. She’d just gotten in. Spread-eagled on the bed and soaked to the bone with sweat, she wanted nothing more than rest—and hotel air conditioning. It had been a good day. She’d talked to scores of people throughout the
medina
, leaving them flyers with Jaspar’s picture and her contact information should anyone want to…
Shit!
She jumped out of bed and grabbed the phone. Her first lead could be calling right now!

“Hello? Kate Edwards here.”

“Kate,” the voice on the other end growled. “What the fuck is going on? Did you know about this?”

It was Carl Daum, her agent. Unlike her employer, he’d fully supported her taking an unscheduled, five-day absence from her on-air responsibilities to fly to Morocco to research the book. She was using up vacation days, so it wasn’t like the station was paying for her absenteeism. Still, they weren’t pleased to have their popular new “face of the evening news” suddenly out of the picture. In conciliation, she’d promised them big things—the least of which was major buzz when their star anchor published a book brimming with first-hand, never-before-revealed details about the biggest story to hit Boston—hell, the whole state; maybe even the country—in a decade.

People were desperate for juicy, behind-the-scenes secrets. And everyone knew that Kate Edwards was just the person to deliver them. She’d been in the know and on the front lines from the harrowing first hours of Mikki Wills’ disappearance right up to the final hours of Jaspar Wills’ escape from his own kidnapping drama in Morocco. The story had everything. A missing child. International intrigue. Mystery. Celebrity. Violence. Sex. Heartbreak. Betrayal. Could any book be better positioned for the top of every bestseller list in the country? Katie didn’t think so.

There was only one problem:
getting
the first-hand, never-before-revealed details. Since that horrible night, when Jaspar made it abundantly clear that he would not be cooperating with her on the book, Katie knew she was on her own. She had to get something new, something flashy, something big. To guarantee the book’s place on every must-read list, she had to dig up intimate facts about Jaspar’s time in Marrakech—something no other blog, current affairs program, or clever reporter had yet uncovered.

She had one thing going for her: big story or not, times were tough. No one was willing to foot the bill to send a news team to Africa on an exploratory mission. No one, that is, but Kate Edwards.

This was her next best chance to climb another rung up the ladder of success. Each one had been successively more difficult to reach than the last, but so what? Nothing worthwhile was easy to get. Katie was ready for a big move. No more local hoo-ha. No more network affiliate. It was time to reach for the stars. She wanted permanent national exposure. If her take on the Jaspar Wills story worked out the way she planned, she’d be on her way—perhaps even eclipsing the fame of her subject. She didn’t need Jaspar to make this happen. It would have been easier, she had to admit—but, like everything else she’d accomplished in life so far, she could, and would, do it on her own.

Five days wasn’t a lot of time. Katie knew she had to go hard. She’d need to shake bushes, dig in dirt, employ feminine wiles or even bribery—whatever worked to achieve her goal. Five days was the longest she could stay away from work, and most definitely the longest she could put off her responsibilities at home. In five days she had to catch a big fish and reel it in. Nothing less than a whopper would be acceptable. She was feeling the stress—and so, apparently, was her agent.

“Carl, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m on another continent, for Pete’s sake. So why don’t you calm down and tell me what’s up?”

“What’s up? What’s up? Check your messages, why don’t you? Then you’ll know what’s up.”

Katie scrambled for her iPhone. “I’ve been out all day, I haven’t…” She stopped short when she saw the unusually long roster of messages on the screen. Publisher. Publisher. Agent. Publisher. TV station. Publisher. TV station. Publisher. Agent. Agent…A cold tremor of worry slithered up her spine. “What is this? What’s going on? Just tell me.”

“You know the highly-anticipated, behind-the-scenes, tell-all book you’re over there researching?”

“Carl, if you don’t fucking spit it out right now, I swear…”

“You got it, sweetheart. That book you’re writing? That book we promised to deliver to the publisher in return for big bucks…of which I get ten percent? That book you’re missing valuable on-air time for? Well, that book is coming out in hardcover next month.”

For a moment, Katie was too stunned to speak. “Wh-what? Did…how can that be? I don’t even have a first draft finished. How can they publish what I haven’t even written yet? A month isn’t enough time. I’ve never written a full-length book before. You have to negotiate.”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,” he reassured, his tone anything but soothing. “Because somebody else is writing it for you.”

“What?” Katie pulled the phone away from her ear, looking at it as if Carl had suddenly begun to spout gibberish. After a long, hot day of dealing with people, most of whom she could barely understand, her patience was wearing dangerously thin. She took a deep breath, swiped a hand across her slick forehead, and then said, “I don’t think I heard you right. What did you say? Exactly who is doing what?”

“Jaspar Wills, that’s who. Jaspar Wills is writing the book, that book, your book. Now it’s his book.”

Wedging the hotel phone into the crook between her shoulder and her neck, Katie frantically began punching buttons on her iPhone. “That can’t be,” she argued. “He swore to me he wasn’t going to write about this. That’s the only reason I agreed to do it. That’s why the publishers agreed. That’s why I’m in this fucking sweat lodge of a country being jostled about by unwashed hordes and eating couscous and lamb
tagine
until I puke!”

She stopped dead when she saw it. Amazon. The online retailer was already listing Jaspar Wills’ upcoming book,
Set Free
, available for pre-order. “Oh. God.” The two words came out as a tortured whisper.

“I hope you were wearing protection, honey,” Daum said mercilessly. “Because it looks like your best friend and confidant just screwed you royally. And, worst of all, me too. I suggest you forget about your research and the fuckin’ couscous, and catch a plane back here so you can prepare yourself for what you’re
really
going to do next.”

Katie fell back on the bed, eyes closed tight. “What’s that?”

“What you do best, sweetheart: a live, prime time, network interview with Jaspar Wills to talk about
his
newest bestseller.”

Katie blanched at the words, simultaneously replaying the vivid memory of being verbally and nearly physically assaulted by Jaspar, right before he kicked her out of his house. And now they were supposed to appear on live TV together? How was that going to work? A few times since the altercation, Jenn had lamely attempted to broker peace between the two, but Jaspar wouldn’t budge. In the weeks that had passed, he’d steadfastly refused to see her or talk to her about the book or anything else. Now she knew why. He was planning to betray her all along.

“Screw that,” she bawled into the phone. “I’m staying right here and getting my story. There’s something good here, I know it.”

“Yeah, there is,” Carl agreed. “And Jaspar Wills has a first-person account of it. He was in the front seat of this thing, Kate, not you. How can you possibly do better than that?” he reasoned.

“I don’t know, Carl. I just feel it. There’s something here. I just have to dig deeper. I know you took a chance on making this deal with the publisher. I’m not going to disappoint you. I’ll be back next Monday like I planned. I’m going to bring back a big story and everyone is going to go crazy over it. Maybe I can’t write and publish a book in a month’s time, but I’ve got millions of people sitting in their living rooms, just waiting to hear what I have to say. If I put this thing together right, if I sell it right, every publisher is going to be shitting their pants wanting to cash in on it.”

She could hear the big man breathing heavily. She could picture him sitting behind his desk, belly protruding over his lap more than ever since he’d quit smoking cold turkey. He’d given up cigarettes, but not the heavy glass ashtray on his desk—which he was probably caressing right now, a pathetic replacement habit. “Yeah, well,” he grumbled, “you better dig real deep and get something real good, real fast. I’ll get on the horn with the publisher and make nice. I’m sure they’re about as happy as a blind mouse in a cat house right now.”

Katie smiled. “Thank you, Carl.”

She hung up just as another call came in.

“Hello?”

“This is the journalist, Kate Edwards?” Heavy French accent.

“Yes, it is.”

“I am Mehdi Ahmadi. I know about your friend.”

“My friend?”

At first Katie worried she’d lost the connection, but then: “Jaspar Wills. I find him.”

After the news she’d just had, she hadn’t thought she’d be capable of it for a very long time, but Katie was definitely smiling as she mouthed the word: bingo.