Eyes On You Part 15

"Very funny," he said, smiling. "Look, I'm just trying to help. I can tell this whole thing is wigging you out."

"What do you mean?"

"You seemed a little distracted tonight on the show."

"Oh, thanks," I said. I shoved the sheet off, thrust myself out of bed, and yanked my robe down from the back of the closet door.

"Don't take it the wrong way," Carter said. "I'm concerned for you."

"Well, it's a little hard to be at the top of your game when someone is gunning for you."

He climbed out of bed. "Are they any closer to figuring this out?" he asked.

"Not as far as I can see."

While Carter slipped on his pants, I recounted my recent run-in with Vicky.

"That does sound threatening," he said. He pulled me to him. "Look. Don't be annoyed about what I said a second ago. You've been a total trouper about this whole thing. And I promise I have your back."

"Thanks," I said, relaxing a bit.

"Tell you what," he said. "I'm going to bring you a little surprise tomorrow. I guarantee you'll like it."

"Not a Lionsgate watch, is it?" I said, teasing. I needed to change the mood. If I turned into a shrew, this would be over.

"No. Not a regift, I swear."

After he left, I paced the apartment. He'd been right. The cracks were showing, and I had to superglue them closed. Then my phone rang, making me jump. It was almost midnight.

"Sorry to call so late, darling," a woman said when I answered. Bettina.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

"I wanted to give you a heads-up. My news director called me tonight and told me we're posting an item about you. Don't worry, darling, it's all very flattering. But it may ruffle feathers. It's about a survey the network did."

It had to be the one Potts had mentioned.

She promised to email me the link, and a minute later, after signing off, I read it on my laptop:

Cruzin' for a Bruisin'?

Vicky Cruz had better keep her eye on the rearview mirror. Cruz has seen her ratings go into a downward spiral since her "Punch Daddy" fiasco last year, and now, according to a top-secret network survey, The Pulse cohost Robin Trainer is turning out to be the network's new secret weapon. "There's all this buzz about the chemistry between Robin and Carter Brooks," says a network insider, "but Robin is the one viewers are really crazy about."

Oh, f.u.c.king brilliant, I thought. Someone in management at the network must have leaked it. It would surely infuriate Vicky. And what would Carter think? Hopefully, his ego was big enough to take it in stride.

I couldn't sleep after that. Potts had mentioned the survey to me. Would he think I had tattled? He couldn't. After all, he'd told me so little about it. At around four, I finally drifted off. When I woke, I felt totally ragged, my body humming with low-grade panic.

I called Ann as soon as I'd showered, but she didn't pick up. At about ten, as I stared at my computer screen in the office, she followed up. "I a.s.sume you've seen the post," she said.

"How did this get out, for G.o.d's sake?"

"I have no clue. More than a few people were given access to the survey, including Tom. You didn't say anything to anyone about it, did you?"

"Of course not," I said. "Do I need to do any kind of damage control?"

She didn't say anything.

"Ann?"

"I'm thinking. It should be fine. I'm waiting to see Potts about it. I'm sure he's irked, but I'll make clear there was no way it came from you."

Later, in the rundown meeting, people seemed subdued, awkward. They'd all seen the item. Were they thinking I was going all diva-like? Carter met my eyes once but quickly glanced away. I told myself he was being careful, but as we all filed out of the room, I sensed a chill coming off him.

A half hour before I was due on-set, I locked my office door and headed down to makeup for a touch-up of extra concealer for the expanding circles under my eyes. I flinched as Stacy brushed it on.

"Don't worry," she said. "I've been double-checking your makeup each day."

When she was done, I flew back to my office. I felt drained, desperate for a few minutes alone to jumpstart my energy. I opened the door to the anteroom and froze. In the black wire basket on the door to my private office, where packages were sometimes left for me, was an object wrapped in a white napkin. I stepped closer, wary. With one finger, I lifted the edge of the napkin. There was a huge chocolate brownie nestled inside. Written on the napkin in pen: "I thought this would make you smile. C."

Okay, I thought, relieved. Carter had said last night that he had some kind of treat for me. This meant he wasn't annoyed-though it had been stupid to leave the note out in the open this way. I carried the brownie into my office and devoured half of it, careful not to smear my lipstick. The caffeine and sugar seemed to kick in almost instantly.

"Cutting it a little close today," one of the crew said when I rushed onto the set five minutes later.

"Sorry," I said. "It's your fault," I whispered to Carter as I took my seat.

"What do you mean?" he asked. His tone was challenging and his eyes cool. I didn't get it.

"The brownie you left," I said. "I was so busy savoring it, I lost track of the time."

"I didn't leave you a brownie," he said, and looked away.

chapter 15.

Everything in the room seemed to soften, go mushy, as if there weren't any outlines anymore.

"Are you just teasing?" I asked him. "Because you-you said you were going to bring a surprise." My tone sounded plaintive, almost desperate, and I knew I had to buck up. Our mics were on. People could hear.

"Nope, wasn't me," he said. "Maybe your buddy Dave Potts left it."

He was rifling through a stack of notes in front of him, not bothering to meet my eyes. It was because of the item that morning. I'd been called the secret of the show's success, not him.

But who had left the brownie? I could feel panic flooding me, making my arms and legs limp. C., I thought. Who was C.? Charlotte? There was no way she would have done anything sweet like that. Stacy? No, no, what was I thinking? Her name started with an S. I felt loopy suddenly, listless.

"One minute," the director said in my earpiece.

I needed water. I reached beneath the table for one of the bottles kept there. My hand touched the cap, but I knocked the bottle over, and I could hear it roll away. I looked down, searching for it.

"Thirty seconds . . . Robin, what are you doing?"

I started to answer, but then Carter was talking to the camera. Fragments about the fall TV lineup and the number of new shows about serial killers. We were live. I stared at him, clueless. When he turned and asked me a question, I didn't understand what he'd spoken. Just say something, I thought.

"I bet-I bet you love serial killer shows, Carter," I said.

"Oh, really? Why do you say that, Robin?"

"I mean, you're a guy, right?" My words sounded slurry, and I urged myself to slow down. "And jeez, guys, they love that stuff. All the blood and everything. Gore, gore . . . gore. Blood everywhere. What is it with guys and gore, anyway?"

"Not all guys are like that, are they?" he said. "Some of us even like schmaltzy stuff occasionally."

"Nah, you just say that, you know. Tryin' to seem sensi- I don't know. Maybe some do. I knew a guy who shwore, I mean swore, he loved Little Mermaid."

"Jesus," someone said in my ear. "Cut to Carter. Carter, just fill. We are going to a commercial in thirty seconds."

I touched my hand to my head and closed my eyes. I couldn't think anymore. Then someone was by my side, taking me by the arm and leading me off the set. I stumbled. My arms and legs felt as floppy as rubber bands. What was happening? Was I dying?

"Find Will-Will Oliver," I begged. "Please." I sank to the floor, my eyelids too heavy to lift open anymore.

After that, I was aware only of being laid down on a cushiony surface and then being lifted and jostled. The sound of car horns. Dreams about houses that had no doors. Then light nudging me awake.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in bed, high off the floor in a pale blue room. A dull light seeped through venetian blinds. I tried to move my arms but couldn't. For a terrifying moment I thought I was strapped in a straitjacket. But then I discovered my arms were just wedged between the sheets. I wrestled them free.

"h.e.l.lo," I called out. My voice was hoa.r.s.e. I tried again, but no one answered, though I could hear noises outside the room, hospital ones-echoing footsteps, the squeaking and rolling sound of a trolley. I twisted around and found a call b.u.t.ton and pressed it once, then again. And again. A few moments later, a nurse appeared. She was about forty, Latina, dressed in blue pants and a smock top.

"How are you doing this morning?" she asked, smiling kindly.

"I don't know," I said. My brain felt like a giant marshmallow. "I just . . . What day is it?"

"It's Thursday, about nine a.m. You came to the ER here at St. Luke's just before eight last night. Why don't I arrange for you to have breakfast now? Some tea and a little food should help."

As the nurse raised the back of the bed, I flung other questions at her. She told me that the doctor would be in shortly to discuss my condition and determine when I could be released.

I remembered a few s.n.a.t.c.hes. Sitting next to Carter on the set. Trying uselessly to talk. Stumbling off the set. I'd been drugged, I realized.

"By the way, there's someone waiting in the lounge to talk to you," she said. "A Mr. Oliver. Are you up for that?"

"Yes, please," I said. "I need to see him now."

"Why don't you use the bathroom first?" she suggested. "And then I'll bring him in. Just so you know, people have called to check on you. Your friend Ann more than once."

I wobbled as she escorted me toward the bathroom. I couldn't believe my face in the mirror. My eyes were puffy, almost slits, and there was makeup smudged all over the lids. I used a paper towel to scrub off what I could. Two minutes after I'd returned to bed, Oliver entered the room. He nodded somberly and lowered himself onto the fake leather guest chair. "You've had quite a night," he said. "We were all very worried."

"Do they know yet what I was given-what made me pa.s.s out?"

"It appears you were under the influence of some kind of a tranquilizer or sleeping medication, though more than a normal dosage. The tox results should be in later today."

I felt my eyes brim with tears, as much from anger as anything else. I pressed a fist to my lips and then pulled it away. "It must have been in the brownie," I said.

"Mr. Brooks mentioned a brownie. He said you told him you'd eaten it right before going on the air."

So Oliver had already debriefed people on the set.

"Yes," I said. "Someone left it for me in the basket on my office door. There-there was a note. Otherwise I never would have eaten it."

I realized how stupid I sounded. Like Alice in Wonderland, gobbling cake and mushrooms because the messages told her to.

"What did the note say?" Oliver asked.

"Just that the person thought the brownie would make me smile. It-it was signed C. So I a.s.sumed it was from Carter."

Oliver had drawn a notebook from his suit jacket pocket and jotted a few words down. He seemed so calm, too calm, as if we were discussing the theft of a stapler from my office rather than a threat to my life.

For the first time, I focused on what I must have looked like last night on the air. To anyone watching, I had probably seemed plastered or stoned. The thought mortified me.

"Has the network issued a statement?" I asked.

"They put out a release this morning saying you may have had a reaction to medication. Do you still have the note?"

"What? Uh, no-it was on a napkin. And I threw it away after I ate the brownie. Wait-I think the cleaning lady had already been in, so the napkin would be in the trash can in my a.s.sistant's area."

"Okay, let me have an a.s.sociate check immediately." He sent a text. As he slid the phone back into his suit jacket, he studied me intently.

"Ms. Trainer, are you involved with Carter Brooks?"

I tried to form a look of utter stupefaction.

"I told you the other day that I wasn't," I said firmly.

"But someone may think you are. And jealousy could very well be behind the attacks on you."

I shook my head.

"They might have simply counted on the fact that Carter and I are friends and that I wouldn't be surprised to find a treat from him. Ultimately, what does their motivation matter? You've got to do something about this. I ate only half the brownie. What would have happened to me if I'd eaten the whole thing?"