Jess looked up at the ceiling until the full impact of Lindsay’s statement seemed to dawn on him. “Oh Jesus. Melanie Locke?” He lowered his voice, even though it was only the four of them in the room. “Is that seriously what we’re talking about here?”

Ellie rose from her seat and began pacing the path between the living room and kitchen. “I knew a girl in school who said her sister had something happen to her at that camp, but her name wasn’t Lopez. So there could be other victims—not just Emilia.”

“We’re working on that,” Lindsay said. “I think it’s possible Melanie Locke has been paying them to keep quiet.”

“But if Alex had come forward—,” Ellie said.

“No more Senate campaign. No more book tours. Maybe even no more LockeHome.”

Jess looked up at his sister. “What if we call—”

Ellie shut down the idea with a stern shake of her head.

“We can’t pull anyone else into this yet,” Lindsay said. “I do have one idea, though. Melanie Locke is speaking at Wharton Business School tonight. It’s open to the public.” She had found the information on Melanie’s campaign website.

“What time?” Ellie asked.

“Six thirty,” she said, “but it’s scheduled to last an hour.” Philadelphia was two hours away. “My car’s out front.”

36
Wednesday, June 23, 7:24 p.m.

“So if you were president—” The questioner had to have been in her late eighties, wearing an oversize black linen sundress and hot-pink Crocs. She looked tiny in the well of the lecture hall, taking her turn at the mic. “Would you do for all workers what you’ve done at LockeHome—equal pay for equal work? Because we sure as hell have waited long enough!”

When the audience broke out in cheers, the woman turned to face her new admirers and pumped her fists in the air as she returned to her third-row seat.

Lindsay turned her head to see Ellie Hatcher smiling. They had slipped into the back of the room ten minutes earlier during the applause that followed Melanie Locke’s speech, blending into the standing-room-only crowd.

Melanie Locke was as effortlessly put-together as she always appeared on television. Her hair, dark-brown with just the right number of highlights, swooped perfectly into place at the neckline of a purple sheath dress that showed off tanned, toned arms.

“Well, first of all, thank you very much for that question and for your absolutely infectious enthusiasm. Can I take you on the campaign trail with me?”

The older woman raised one hand in the air from her seat while she let out a wolf whistle with the other.