Meg,his first voice mail had said.Please, call me.
Meg, said the second, his voice quieter, more strained.Something unexpected has happened. If you could call me, before you look at the news today.
The third hadn’t bothered with my name. Reid spoke quickly, almost in desperation.I may not have access to my phone for some time, he’d said, as though he was seconds away from this particular fate, as though he was holding up a finger to someone trying to take it from him.But I will explain this to you. I promise—that’s three promises, now—I will explain it.
His texts had been more of the same—desperate in tone, but pointedly vague, revealing nothing more than his hope to speak with me, his concern over my seeing the news, his warning that he might be unreachable.
And because he is, in fact, unreachable—my hands shake each time I try to get ahold of him—I have to rely on the other places where I can find his name.
In the initial stories—the ones I missed when the news was breaking—Reid Sutherland is little more than a principled drone, a Coster employee who noticed something suspicious and quietly reported it. In those stories, Reid’s name is small, easy to scroll past if you were so inclined. It’s embedded—in tiny, unremarkable, roman fonts—in long columns of impenetrable detail about Coster and his scheme. Unless you knew him—unless your heart was pounding in shock and confusion for yourself and worry and fear for him—you might forget Reid Sutherland’s name altogether.
But as the story unfolds, you can see the letters stretch to fit him; you can see the moment the press learned that he was more to Coster than an employee. One sub-headline teases it in bold, brutal type:
Whistleblower Sutherland Almost Married into Coster Family
After that, Reid is everywhere, an unforgettable part of the scandal, packaged for easy consumption by a media machine looking for a more click-worthy angle than the incomprehensible numbers. A one-time child prodigy who kept himself separate from his coworkers, most of whom thought him stern, humorless, distant. A brilliant analyst who’d risen in the ranks quickly, eventually spending eleven surprising months (some coworkers had taken bets on how long it would last) engaged to Alistair Coster’s socialite daughter, until a quiet, seemingly amicable breakup not long before the wedding. A nerves-of-steel hero who spent the last six months working with authorities, never betraying even a hint of disruption to his regular work.
I spend an exorbitant amount of money to click through these stories. One part of it is the price I pay to get through paywalls, to make sure I don’t reach an article-per-month limit on any major news site I visit. But the other, more outrageous price is the fare for a sweltering, stale-cigarette-smelling cab ride all the way back to Brooklyn, because I am not losing cell service for any length of time during a subway ride. I sit in the back, sweating from the heat and the panic, barely noticing the traded honks of frustration as we crawl through Manhattan, hardly registering when we break free of the worst of the snarls, finally crossing the Bridge. I pause in my reading over and over, sending Reid messages I can sense already he won’t be able to respond to.
By the time the cab pulls up at the curb outside of my building, my battery is getting low and my once-polished presentation outfit is crumpled and damp. I barely think about my portfolio of sketches as I pull them from the back of the cab, barely remember the disappointment I felt at the Make It Happyn committee’s response. I’m sure it’ll come roaring back soon, but for now my head is spinning. I think, fleetingly, of all the things Reid has been hiding from me, all the conversations we’ll have to re-do. But mostly I focus on all he must be facing, the desperation and pressure he must have been feeling.
Not just today.
But for the whole time I’ve known him.
When I stumble into my apartment, dropping everything I’m holding haphazardly, I realize I have never been more grateful to be living alone. I’m ruthlessly sloppy as I tear through it, grateful that I don’t have to explain this to anyone, because right now,Ican’t explain it, not without more information from Reid. I change into jeans and a T-shirt, pull my humidity-ruined hair into what I am sure is an appallingly messy bun. I shove clothes into a backpack, because it’s the only thing I can think to do—to use my key, to wait for Reid at his apartment. They’ve taken his phone, apparently, but certainly he’ll be allowed to go back to his apartment? After all, it’s nothimwho’s done something wrong.
My phone rings inside my bag, and I curse its roomy depths as I try to unearth it.It has to be him, I’m telling myself, trying to force a sense of relief I don’t feel.
But it’s not him.
“Hey, Cecelia,” I say when I pick up, my voice sounding reedy to my own ears. I need to get some water before I leave; I’m probably dehydrated.
“I promise I was going to call—” I begin, because Ididpromise. I said I’d call as soon as I left the hotel. She and Lachelle are both working today, and they’ve probably been waiting.
“Meg, you’re all right?” Her voice sounds unusual—concerned, but also somewhat impatient.
My brows lower in confusion. I’mnotall right, but why does she sound as if she already knows that? Does she know someone connected to Make It Happyn, somehow? Did someone give her a heads-up it didn’t go well?
“I’m . . . look, it didn’t go great, I don’t think, and I will tell you all about it, but I have to—”
“No, I mean that . . . well, I’ve gotten a call about . . . about your name in the news?”
In a day full of ominous feelings, it’s almost surprising to know I’m capable of being even more deeply weighted with dread.
“Myname?” I repeat slowly. My mouth somehow feels both dry and full of saliva.
“I’m going to send something over to you, okay? And then I think we should talk. When you can.”
I nod, even though she can’t see me. It doesn’t feel possible that I could know what’s coming, but somewhere deep down, I do.
“Okay,” I manage.
The link comes through only seconds after we disconnect. I sit on the couch, plugging my phone in to give it some much-needed juice. I recognize the site—a Manhattan-based gossip blog that occasionally gets national traction, but mostly covers stories focused on the rarified air of the city’s elite. Even a cursory glance at the words in the link text make me swallow in fear.
I click, and read it in full.
Coster’s Scorned Almost-Son-in-Law
