Salem smiles.
“I am.”
“Ohmigod, I am such a fan of yours; I must have listened toThe Last Con of Lynton Baltimorelike three times straight through on different road trips. It was so good! I’mbiginto podcasts, true crime all the time, and you basically started it all!”
She presses her lips closed and looks toward the conference room door, as though she’s only just realized that her excitement might be out of place under the circumstances.
“We seem to have upset your boss,” Salem says calmly.
I can tell thewelands uncomfortably with Adam, who stands and starts gathering the equipment he must have turned off as soon as Dennis Kirtenour mentioned being “considered” for some obviously nonexistent “piece.”
Ashley looks toward the door again, cautious.
Then she says, in a near-whisper, “He’s not really my boss. Or he is, but only for another week. I gave my notice last month. I’m moving to San Francisco.”
Salem raises her eyebrows. Adam is shoving stuff in his bag haphazardly, those lips I now know the texture of set in a firm, implacable line.
“He’s actually my uncle.” She casts one more look toward the door and says, “He is anightmare.”
Even I can see that this is an opportunity. Salem leans forward in her chair, sets her elbows on the conference table. To her, Ashley is the only person in the room now. Or maybe in the whole building, because she doesn’t seem in the least worried about us getting kicked out.
“Ashley,” Salem says. “How long have you worked here?”
Ashley doesn’t seem to catch on to the fact that she’s being led somewhere. She rolls her eyes and says, “Oh,forever. Since I was nineteen. So I guess twelve years or so.”
Did you ever meet a man named Miles Daniels?I want to say, which I guess means I’ve finally been swept fully into Salem’s sandstorm. I don’t know why it makes me feel as if I’m somehow betraying Adam, and I wonder fleetingly how long he’s felt a divided loyalty like this.
“Look, Ashley,” Salem says, speaking quickly now, “obviously, I brought up an unwelcome topic with—”
Ashley scoffs. “Oh, he’ssosensitive about that thing with the necklace. No one in the family is allowed to talk about it, ever. So don’t feel bad about his reaction.”
Salem doesn’t feel bad. But I guess Ashley wouldn’t know that about her.
“I’m here following up on my reporting about Lynton Baltimore.”
There’s that wide-eyed, excited look again. Ashley is closer to my age than Tegan’s, but they remind me of one another all the same. I try to picture Tegan, connecting the dots between our mother’s boyfriend and thatBest True Crimelisticle she found. It makes no sense, given how I never wanted her to make the connection, but I feel oddly bereft not to have seen her do it.
“You think Lynton Baltimore washere?”
Salem cocks her head at Ashley. “I do. About ten years ago, actually. When the podcast was first airing.”
Ashley deflates slightly. “I mean, I think I would’ve recognized him. I’m telling you, I wasobsessedwith your podcast back then.”
“He may have looked different,” Adam says, for the first time engaging in this interview-slash-ambush. “He may have been . . . ill.”
Ashley’s eyesplink. “Well, I don’t have anything to do with the”—she pauses and lifts her hands, hooking her fingers in sarcasm-quotes—“‘guests’ here. So if he was here to get”—another pause for the quotes—“‘treatment,’ I wouldn’t know.”
There’s a sharp knock on the half-ajar door of the conference room, the woman who brought us up here sticking her head in.
“Ashley,” she snaps. “You can clean up the refreshments later. I need to show these people out.”
These people. I bet Dennis Kirtenour is somewhere in a glass-walled office, pacing around and shouting into a Bluetooth. The woman doesn’t leave. She crosses her arms and waits, as if she knows only-one-week-to-go Ashley can’t be trusted.
Salem stands, all obedience, and looks at us, her “colleagues,” her recalcitrant students. She says, “I guess we won’t have a chance to finish our tea!” as though we’re a happy family being rudely treated at a restaurant we’ve casually shown up to.
She shifts her gaze toward Ashley. “Thank you, Ms. . . . ?” She trails off meaningfully, asking a question.
Ashley says, “Oh, it’s Maxwell. Ashley Maxwell.”
