“Believe me, that’s the best part.”
He didn’t speak, and Hope picked up her tea and sipped. Did she really want to tell him the entire sordid mess? Looking at the calm, steady eyes, she thought that if she was going to tell anyone, this guy would be the one. He’d keep her secret safe.
“I was lead on this shoot. We were collaborating with the conservation guys on this project involving the whooping crane. I had taken months and months of photos and he’d helped off and on. Then Jay and I, we started seeing each other. It began slow, with him just being nice and stuff, and then it kind of grew, well on my part at least.” Hope remembered how surprised she’d been that Jay was interested in her. “One night he came to my place with champagne to celebrate the project’s completion, as the presentation of all the work I’d done was the next day. It was going to be this really big deal, you know. The governor was coming, and head of the project for conserving the whooping crane.”
“I’m sensing it didn’t go well.”
She shook her head as she let herself remember that day. She wouldn’t tell Buster every detail, some she couldn’t even bring herself to mention.
“I’m not a big drinker. After what happened with you, I just don’t much now.”
Buster rolled his eyes.
“Anyway, I had a few glasses of champagne, on the second one I started to feel really strange, and that’s the last I remember.”
“No way that asshole drugged you?”
Hope nodded.
“He did, and took pictures of me drunk, and a video of me slurring my words. He then cleaned out my laptop, my stash of money, and took the proposal to my boss. Once there he explained I had a drinking problem, and that he’d taken all the pictures.”
“She didn’t believe him, surely. Not just like that?”
“He’d done the groundwork, Buster. Everyone liked him, but me… not so much. I didn’t know what he’d said or done previously, but whatever it was, and the evidence he produced, on his laptop, where he’d transferred all my work, was enough to convince her.”
“Did you try and defend yourself?”
“Sure. I tried, but Jay had got into my laptop that night and copied everything and removed everything else. It was incriminating, and I knew I was fighting a losing battle to try and fight it then and there.”
“Backups. Surely you had those?”
“Sure, but he cleaned my external hard drive and took the camera card, and I don’t think my boss was checking file dates. Jay was clever and thorough. He was a whizz on computers and got into my Dropbox, and cleaned that out too.”
“What about the others you’d worked with? They knew what photos you’d taken and stuff like that. Worked with you and seen what you’d done?”
Hope shrugged. “I wasn’t that popular, and it wasn’t like the photos were wiped or anything, so Wildlife could still have the presentation and all, just that Jay got the credit.”
“Come on, Hope, don’t tell me you just walked away. Let years of work and reputation go just like that?”
“What was I meant to do?” She hadn’t meant to yell, but it had come out that way.
“Fight,” Buster said calmly.
“What with? Everyone believed him. Jay the nice guy, Jay who was always doing things for people. They all felt sorry for him having to put up with a bitch like me. After all, I was cold and unemotional. You know me, Buster. I don’t make friends.”
Buster’s eyes went over her shoulder. Hope turned and saw Newman. She spun back to face him.
“How long has he been there?”
“A while.”
Hope closed her eyes. She heard the chair move, and knew Buster had gone.
“So you told him, but you couldn’t tell me?”
He sat across from her, and she hated how aware she suddenly was of him.
“I shouldn’t have said anything, but it just came out.”
