All of Me - Leeanna Morgan (the snowy day read aloud .TXT) 📗

Tess passed Molly a bowl of Chinese takeout and sat on the sofa. They’d just watched the six o’clock evening news. Senator Gibson had made national headlines for two nights in a row. His thirty seconds of fame had evolved into forty-eight hours of political hell and interest was still running high.

Tess’ hour-long interview with Mitch Maderson on the local station had been sliced to twenty seconds in the editing room at NBC. But the message had been clear. Senator Gibson was a predator and needed to be held accountable for his actions.

“I did the right thing,” Tess said.

“Of course you did.”

“I couldn’t hide in my café forever. I had to tell everyone what happened to Evie.”

Molly speared a slice of chicken with her chopstick. “You did a good job. Mitch’s interview with you was great. Even the edited version on NBC had a powerful message.”

When Molly called Tess, she’d been watching Marcie Gibson being interviewed on CBS. According to the report, Marcie had been swamped with reporters and television crews all trying to get a sound bite from the pretty socialite. The senator’s ex-wife had known exactly how to use the media. She carefully avoided the questions she didn’t want to answer and focused on her ex-husband’s drug dealing habits. Pictures of the women he’d had affairs with had flicked across the screen.

Tess felt sick thinking her friend Evie had been part of the senator’s life. Evie believed the lies he’d told her because she didn’t have a choice. The senator had fed her addiction in the same way he’d fed everyone else’s. Carefully.

“I want to show you something.” Molly left her bowl on the table and unzipped her laptop from its case. “I had another look at the photos in the newspaper. Someone’s carefully edited them.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re my photos.”

Tess looked at Molly. “You mean Logan didn’t take them with his cell phone?”

Molly shook her head. “Whoever gave the images to the newspaper knew what they were doing. Just to check, I called the Chronicle and asked to see the original files.”

“And they let you?”

“I know someone who works there.” Molly opened two documents and put them side by side on her laptop screen. “Look at this. The one on the left is the image of Annie and Sally that appeared in the newspaper. The one on the right is the one sitting on my computer at home.”

Tess compared the photos. Someone had cropped the newspaper photo, changed the lighting and added some kind of filter over the image. Instead of being as clear as Molly’s copy, it was slightly grainy, as if a lower quality camera had taken the shot.

Molly glanced at the screen. “I couldn’t figure out how someone had copied them. They’re still sitting on my computer, waiting for me to finish the catalog. Then I re-read the story that appeared in the Chronicle. What does the reporter, Jilly Cresswell, look like?”

Tess frowned. “Short with dark brown, shoulder length hair and blue eyes.”

“Has she got a dimple in her cheek when she smiles?”

Tess thought back to when she’d seen her. She’d been so shocked that Logan had brought her into the café, that it was hard to remember exactly what she looked like. “I think so.”

Molly pushed her laptop away and picked up her dinner. “The morning after Logan’s big story came out, I had a phone call from someone. She’d read the article about Connie’s wedding and wanted to know if we could help her friend. I didn’t have anything booked for that morning so I invited her around to my apartment. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

“Was it Jilly?”

“I think so,” Molly said. “She was in her late twenties. Pretty in an understated way. She asked if she could see the bridesmaids’ dresses. I told her I didn’t have the dresses, but I did have the photos I took in your apartment. She looked through them and saw some she thought would look beautiful.”

“How did she copy the photos?”

“That’s what was worrying me. I’m really careful about not leaving images on my camera, so that wouldn’t have helped her. I was standing beside my computer the whole time we were talking. Except when I went to the kitchen to answer the phone.”

Tess put her chopsticks down. “She copied your files?”

“I can’t explain it any other way.”

“What are you going to do?”

Molly shrugged. “That’s why I’m here. What do you want me to do? You’re the one that had the most to lose.”

“Don’t worry about me. They were your photos. What do you want to do?”

Molly chewed her noodles and focused on her laptop. “At the very least I want to speak with her editor. What she did was illegal.” She glanced across at Tess. “Don’t worry about her. She was the one who did wrong.”

“It’s not Jilly I’m worried about. I didn’t treat Logan very well. I thought he’d lied to me about taking the photos.” Tess’ phone rang and she let her answering machine take the call.

“The phone’s rung at least a dozen times while I’ve been here. Are you ignoring someone?”

Tess sighed. “It’s not Logan, if that’s what you mean. Every reporter who saw my interview with Mitch Maderson is trying to get hold of me. Then there are the weirdos who want to marry me. I even had a message from someone who wanted me to star in a movie, and it wasn’t a Disney film. That guy freaked me out big time.”

“You shouldn’t be here alone. What if someone tries to break in?”

“I’ll be okay. I’ll keep my cell phone beside my bed.”

“It’s not safe,” Molly insisted. “You can come back to my apartment. Becky won’t mind.”

“I can’t stay with you. You don’t have any spare room.”

“You can have my bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

Tess picked up her bowl of takeout and frowned. “I’ll be fine. Now tell me how the catalog of bridesmaids’ dresses is looking.”

“I’ve nearly finished. I just have to drop the last image in and then we’re done. Sally came around today and modeled the dresses we got the other day.” She looked up when someone knocked on the back door. “Were you expecting anyone?”

Tess walked across to the door. “Not tonight, unless one of the men who wanted to marry me won’t take no for an answer.”

“That’s not funny,” Molly growled. “You have to be careful.”

The person on the other side of her door knocked again. “Tess?