The Cutaway by Christina Kovac

Author:Christina Kovac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria / 37 Ink

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WITH LITTLE MORE than thirty minutes to air, I worked the phone for last-minute statements, putting in calls to the police and the attorney representing Ian Chase, who was unavailable. I dialed the home number for Ian Chase until he picked up the phone. I read him a summary of our report and asked if he would comment. He told me to go to hell and hung up.

My final call went to Paige Linden. “An affair?” she said, groggily. “Evie and—and Ian? That’s . . . I don’t believe . . . are you sure? Who’s saying?”

“Police. Did Evelyn ever talk about Ian Chase?”

“No, that’s just bizarre. Ian? I’ve never even seen him with Evie.” She was moving around, banging into things, and then there was the sound of water running, a clink of a coffeepot onto its burner. “And you say Evie was . . . pregnant?”

“The medical examiner says so.”

“The night she disappeared, she was going to see Ian about a baby?”

“That’s the theory.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Paige?”

Still nothing.

“Are you there?”

“It’s just . . . wow . . . you think you know someone,” she whispered, and then: “I wish she’d told me, that’s all. I could have helped her. At least warned her off.”

I moved to the edge of my chair. “About what?”

She blew out a breath. “You didn’t hear this from me, but . . . Ian? He can be . . . a little rough.”

“What does that mean?” I said quickly, “and yes, this is so far off the record it’s already forgotten.”

“Okay. So. Ian and I dated years ago, and I was into him. Why wouldn’t I be? He’s smart, good-looking, politically connected. I thought we made a great couple. Come to find out, he’s into stuff. Now what, I don’t know exactly, but with me, he was a little rough. Just playing around, he called it, pushing boundaries. When it went beyond a certain point, I stopped seeing him. Now we’re friendly, because you want to be friendly with someone like him, and there’s this fear. What if he tells someone what he did to me? My colleagues would never take me seriously.” Her voice had trailed off. “Even so, I would have warned Evie.”

“You’re saying Ian Chase had a tendency toward violent sexual encounters with women?”

“Yes,” she said.

“But consensual?”

“For me, yes, until he went beyond a certain point. That’s when I broke up with him.”

“What was that point?”

She exhaled softly. “He hit me. Just missed my eye. That was the last time.”

————

After Heather finished the live shot and the studio lights went out, the newsroom staff mobbed her with congratulations. Objectively, I couldn’t complain. She’d done a fine live shot. She could read news in the most natural of ways and she would go far as long as she had good people to support her. She had it, whatever that magical, mysterious it was. That had to be admitted, too.

Sighing, I got up from the desk, and the group that had swarmed Heather now turned in unison to me.

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