“After that dinner, did you leave by yourself or did someone drive you home?” Mr. Cary asked.

Liz swallowed. Oh, God, what did he know? Or what did he think he knew?

“Where is all this going, Mr. Cary?” Liz asked. She tried to keep the tension and anger out of her voice, but wasn’t sure how well she did.

“Just simple questions Ms. Dougherty. Fact-checking,” he repeated. “You were at a dinner with Congressman Maxwell and left with him after the event, correct?”

“I can’t confirm that,” Liz said finally. Nothing had happened that night with Brady, but no one else had been there. “No comment.”

He continued on, unperturbed by her reluctance to answer the last question. “Do you happen to know where you were the third weekend in October last year?”

October always triggered a bad response from Liz. October had been the month of her first fight with Hayden. It had been when she had called Brady and they had kissed. It had been the start of her self-torture with the guilt of feeling like she had cheated weighing down on her.

“That’s rather specific. I’m not certain.”

“Did you leave Chapel Hill in October at all?”

“I’m sure I did,” she said.

“Did you leave North Carolina? Were you out of the state at the end of the month?”

“I was here for Halloween,” she said in an unhelpful fashion.

“Did you see Congressman Maxwell at that time?”

“At Halloween? No.”

She heard him sigh in frustration. She was purposely avoiding his questions and he knew it.

“Based on the Congressman’s travel plans, he was in Chapel Hill the weekend of the eighteenth of October. Can you verify that he was in fact there?”

“If you’ve already verified his travel plans, why would you ask me about it?” Liz asked.

“Can you comment at all on your contact with Congressman Maxwell since he has been in office?”

“Absolutely,” she said cheerily. “We’re very happy to be able to make our relationship official and tell the public.”

Obviously not what he wanted to hear by his soft sigh. “Thank you, Ms. Dougherty. I’ll be in touch if I have other questions. Is this an okay number?”

“Sure,” she said, making a mental note to program his into her phone so she wouldn’t answer his calls in the future.

“Wonderful. Thank you for your time.”

Ted Cary hung up and Liz stared at her phone dumbfounded until a text came from Victoria asking her not too politely where she was. Liz jumped as if someone had just run into her, and started walking to their designated meeting spot.

Something didn’t add up. Ted Cary knew too much personal information. That was rather obvious. But how much did he know, and why did it matter? She and Brady were together now. That was the story. What spin could he put on something like that?

There were a million scenarios, but she didn’t know which one to even consider without first knowing where he would get that kind of information. She mulled it over on the drive home with Victoria, and as soon as she walked through the front door, she gasped like someone had just knocked the wind out of her.

She was dialing Brady’s number before she even drew another breath. He answered almost immediately. “I thought I wasn’t going to hear from you until later,” Brady said.

“Erin.”

Chapter 8

ONE STEP CLOSER

What?” Brady asked in confusion.

“Erin talked to a reporter,” Liz told him. Erin was Brady’s ex-girlfriend. They had broken up after he had visited Liz in October.

“What makes you think that? She’s not the type to get involved with the press.”

“She is the press,” Liz reminded him. Erin worked as an anchor for Baltimore Mornings, though it was kind of a stretch in Liz’s mind to call her press.

“So are you, and you’re not eager to talk to anyone about our relationship. I highly doubt that Erin is either,” Brady answered confidently.

“I received a call from the Washington Post,” Liz explained.

That clearly got his attention. “About Erin?” he asked.

“No. Not exactly.”

“Then why do you suspect her?”

Liz launched into everything that had happened between her and the Post reporter who had called her. She could almost hear the silence on his end growing heavier by the end of the conversation.

“When I suggested that you get more comfortable around reporters, I didn’t mean that you should start confirming facts when we don’t even know what the article is about,” Brady said.

“I didn’t confirm anything but what was public knowledge. I was at the colloquium, I was in charge of it, and you were there. Anything about us being together afterward or seeing you in October, I avoided. He wouldn’t tell me what the article was about, just that he had simple questions for me.”

She had felt so confident when she had dialed his number to tell him about what had happened. Now hearing his frustration made her feel unsure. Should she have just directed the man to Heather? Her first instinct had been to find out what he knew. It was the reporter in her.

“Liz, you can’t just do what you want. Even if it might not seem like he was leading you into questions, he was. This is why I have a press team.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I still think it’s Erin, though.”

“There are a number of explanations,” Brady said.

“But she was there at the dinner. I didn’t tell anyone else I was there. Not even Hayden. You broke up with her right after your visit in October. It fits,” Liz encouraged. She had to be right about this.

“I doubt Erin would do that,” he said curtly.

“What? Why? If Hayden would do it . . .”

“Erin isn’t Hayden,” Brady said simply.

Liz ground her teeth together. “No, she’s not,” she said, trying to keep controlled, “but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t say anything.”

“Erin is one option. But we don’t know for certain it was her. I’m going to have to get Heather on this right away, since the press is on this now.”

Liz groaned. She did not want to talk to Heather. Liz wasn’t a “Heather approved” choice for Brady. Heather was here for the long haul, and she wanted Brady to be with someone who would further his career. So far Liz was just a black mark on Brady’s otherwise impeccable record.