Whisper Room by Thomas Kies

Author:Thomas Kies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

By the time I got home, Caroline had seen the newscasts about Elliot Carlson’s suicide and me finding the body. Her friends had texted her multiple times. And by then, copies of video had made it onto the internet. Not only was my name mentioned, but the name of the escort service as well, The Whisper Room.

It had all started with The Whisper Room.

When I opened our front door, she was there, her arms out, ready to give me a hug. And I was more than ready to get one. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Everyone keeps asking me that.

“About as okay as I can be.”

“It must have been awful.”

“It wasn’t pretty.”

“What do you think made him do it?”

“You mean what drove him to suicide? I don’t know, sweetie.”

I think I did. He’d reached the tattered end of his rope. He’d lost everything. He’d gone from respected newsman to a punchline.

Before I could get my jacket off, my phone was buzzing again. I picked up, “This is Geneva.”

“Genie, this is Dennis Russo. I just saw what happened on the news.”

Please don’t ask me if I’m okay. “What the hell set him off, Dennis?”

Caroline picked Tucker up from the floor and held him tightly. She gave me her “I’m worried about you” look.

I tried to offer her a reassuring smile and walked into the kitchen. I kept my voice low. “Something must have put him over the edge.”

“He called me. It must have been shortly before he called you.”

“What did he say?”

“That he’d gotten a text from someone claiming they had proof he murdered Mindy Getz.”

After everything else that had happened, I had to sit down. “Is there?”

“What?”

“Evidence that Elliot Carlson killed Mindy Getz?”

I heard the big man sigh. “I think that whoever blackmailed Elliot was coming back to hammer him one more time.”

“Jesus Christ, Dennis. They didn’t squeeze any money from him the first time, what the hell did they think they were going to do with him this time?”

“I have a hunch it was revenge.”

I put my hand up to my head. “Revenge for what? It was his life that someone ruined.”

“Look, I don’t know for sure, but this Whisper Room escort service must have taken some damage when the story got out that they’re blackmailing their clients.”

“So, Elliot thought this was someone from The Whisper Room?”

“And that wasn’t all. The text said that they were sending the evidence to you.”

“Me?” I saw Caroline standing in the doorway again, listening, that concerned look still on her face. I should have taken the call upstairs in the bedroom.

“I think that’s why he specifically called you. You know…when he decided he was going to…”

Take the top of his head off.

I finished Dennis’s sentence while I glanced up at Caroline. “Kill himself.”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus.” There was a certain logic in that. I was the only journalist that Stephanie Cumberland knew personally. Dennis was correct that the escort service was in damage control once Elliot publicly accused them of blackmailing him.

But it was also true that I was most likely the only journalist that Matt Boca knew as well.

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