The training session had been a breeze. Nora had filled her brain with drug names and pharmaceutical formularies, with side effects and off-label uses, with the laws on distribution and accounting and reporting. The class spent about ten seconds, seemed like, on ethics.
After each session, she’d approached her fellow novices individually, casually, getting to know them, making sure she’d be remembered as supportive. Enthusiastic. A team player. She’d written their names and emails in her notebook as soon as they weren’t looking: Gerri Munroe, Lydia Frost, Jenn Wahl, Christine O’Shea. Each one more attractive than the last. Could any of them be useful to her? No way to know until the time came. She crossed her fingers it would. It had to.
She took a deep, calming breath, settled into her pillow, stared at her ceiling and imagined a stage. The one back in her junior year, when she’d snagged the lead in A Doll’s House. She saw herself as if in the audience: a younger Nora, the real Nora this time. She could still recite every line.
She closed her eyes, letting her brain float back in time. A younger Nora. But not a happier one.
I have been performing tricks for you, Torvald. She heard her high-school self reciting Ibsen’s line, her voice studied and self-assured. Hair in upswept curls, her waist cinched impossibly small. That’s how I’ve survived.
CHAPTER 4
ELLIE
Ellie beeped her entry card through the security reader, amused, yet again, by the blue-uniformed “guard” Channel 11 had posted at the reception desk. An array of green lights silently blinked on his phone console, ignored, while the guard usually watched soap operas through half-closed eyes. Today he seemed to be asleep.
“Tough night?” Ellie asked out loud, though softly, so as not to wake the guy up. She’d had a tough night too, what with her unexpected visitor. This morning Ellie had found a cellophane-wrapped package of chocolate chip cookies outside her apartment door, tied with a curly pink ribbon. Thank you from Meg, also in pink, was scrawled on an attached white card, followed by three exclamation marks. Ellie winced at the enthusiastic punctuation, though she would never turn down chocolate chips. They looked homemade, but that was impossible unless Meg had stayed up all night making them. Or brought them from home. Ellie realized she hadn’t asked the newcomer where home was. She’d brought the cookies with her to work, though, idly wondering what Meg expected in return. Ellie wished she had time and space for friends again. Someday, maybe.
The guard didn’t budge as Ellie clicked the door open. Ellie was no threat, not unless she was targeting a bad guy for her next story. Like she was now.
Two flights of stairs down to the newsroom, where the door was open to the news director’s office. She winced, walking quickly. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to Warren Zalkind, it was simply that, yeah, she didn’t want to talk to him. Not quite yet. He wanted blockbuster stories. Demanded them. And had made it clear to Ellie that her job at Channel 11 depended on getting this one. The Pharminex investigation.
At least he’d understood the need for her to have flexible hours. And that she didn’t have to report her whereabouts to anyone every single minute of the day.
“We usually make reporters check in, day to day, keep me up to date,” Warren had said. “But, Ellie, if you want autonomy, go for it. I’m all about out of the box. Besides, it’s your potential career on the line. Not mine.”
“I understand.” She’d agreed, appropriately grateful. And honestly so. Her success depended on her freedom.
Now she scooted past his open door and headed upstairs for the privacy of her office cranny. No window, her one tired desk, one computer, a black metal coatrack. She swore the place had been a janitor’s closet in a former life, but in TV you took what you could get. There wasn’t room in this makeshift cubby for any memorabilia or family photos, but she’d kept none of those anyway. She was in it for this one story. This one life-changing story. Pharminex.
Sometimes the universe provided, Ellie believed, and when this job opening appeared in the online listings, she’d pounced.
She’d paid for her own ticket to Boston, presented herself to the news director as a crusader. It’s all about health care, she’d told him. What could be more important to every single human being? She’d pleaded her case, ticking off the ratings-magnet topics on her fingers: measles, vaccinations, maternal mortality, autism, allergies, the latest mutation of the flu. Opioids, marijuana. Fertility.
She’d told him personal stories, how kids in her college class had sneaked Darvon from their parents’ medicine cabinets. How one of her journalism school classmates had swiped her roommate’s Palladone and slugged a few down with half a bottle of tequila—then almost died from the combination.
“And all those opioids,” she went on. “Sure, they did what they were designed to do. But so many people, craving relief from chronic pain, became addicted. The companies who’d made those drugs totally knew the risks, and were well aware of the side effects.” She let the words sink in. “Side effects! Even the term is absurd, right?
“But what if we’d been able to warn people before their loved ones died?” Ellie hoped she was getting through to him. “No matter how much money those companies pay in settlements, it will never bring those people back.”
“You’re persuasive, Ms. Berensen,” the news director had said. “But do viewers really care? Do they want to hear—”
“Do they care? Think about the demographics of health stories,” she’d interrupted, risking it, understanding it was actually advertising dollars the station craved. “We want women, correct? Ages eighteen to forty-nine? ‘They’ are me,” she said, leaning in and selling it. “I care about my health and the health of my children—when I eventually have them—and the well-being of my family. Why wouldn’t we want to offer that? Why wouldn’t we want to help our viewers understand that?”
She knew she’d scored when Warren described her as “wholesome and fresh-faced.” She’d even managed not to burst out laughing or roll her eyes. She was a commodity, after all, and he wasn’t being sexist, he was simply being honest. She did look wholesome. Of course she did. As if her new blond bob, new studious eyeglasses—which she didn’t need—and little sheath-and-pearls weren’t artfully and carefully selected.
A week later, she’d snapped up the station’s offer of a temporary furnished apartment and soon after moved to Boston with two suitcases, one shipped box and a cat carrier, leaving most of her stuff behind. She’d go back and retrieve it if need be.
Years ago, during her first job as a TV reporter, the requisite smaller-market stint, an even more inexperienced interviewer had inquired about her core values. Flapping open an obviously brand-new notebook, the young woman had asked Ellie, “As a journalist, what one concept do you believe in, without question?”
Easy one. “Justice,” she’d said.
Now, with a lurch of a plastic handle, she adjusted her desk chair higher—had someone lowered it overnight?—logged on to her computer and pulled up her files. The sounds of the newsroom below faded to a muffled hum: phones ringing and computer keys rattling, a random burst of applause. Nothing would deter Ellie from this. If she could bring down these bastards, make their lives as miserable as they’d made hers … She smiled. Considered a chocolate chip cookie.