Page 44 of The Business Trip

But it was his last tweet that truly intrigued me. I peered at a group picture of about ten men and women in what seemed to be an outdoor courtyard at the conference hotel.

“The Lunch Bunch, best News Directors in the country!” it said.

The woman next to him was clearly Stephanie, but her head was turned to the side so that all I really saw was her hair. I did recognize her pink blazer. She was not tagged in the post like the other news directors were. There were twenty likes on this one. Clicking to see who, I noticed that all eight of the other tagged people who seemed to be at the table with Trent and Stephanie had liked it and retweeted it, but she had not done either.

It was as if Stephanie herself were trying to tell me something.

Lying down on my yoga mat in the savasana pose, I was exhausted but not ready to sleep. My mind whirred, but I forced it to slow down as I began to meditate. After twenty minutes, I felt much better and shifted my mind gently back to a place of contemplation.

Think, Lucy, think.Steph’s texts about Mark Ruffalo were so weird, but clearly she had been in Atlanta. She was sending Bruce and Robert voice memos and photos and texts. Her cell phone was found there, and Jasmine’s was now traced to the nearest tower to Trent’s place too.

An idea hit me.

TMZ had identified Steph’s tablemates from the first day of the conference as Dorothy Robinson from Boston and Alan Kozinski from Kalamazoo. They were among the last known people—other than Trent, a maintenance guy, and strangers on the flight to Atlanta—to see and talk to her.

Dashing to my laptop, I returned to LinkedIn and sent direct messages to Dorothy and Alan, explaining who I was and that I had some strange texts from Steph during the conference and wondered if something wasn’t adding up. I put my phone number, asking if they could talk.

I didn’t expect an answer right away, maybe ever. I figured I might get a curt “thanks but no thanks” response, if anything, but just thirty minutes later, as I was unpacking my travel bag in my bedroom, my cell phone rang. The area code was unfamiliar.

“Hello?”

“Is this Lucy from WISC in Madison?” a deep woman’s voice asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Dorothy Robinson. You wrote to me on LinkedIn. I’m absolutely sick about your coworker, and I’m so very sorry. Anything I can do to help. What would you like to ask me, and what’s this about weird texts to you?”

So we began to compare notes. Dorothy made little clucking noises or said “hmm” as I detailed for her what we had seen back in the newsroom and how we began to wonder if someone had her phone. Then she told me how Trent had been awful from the get-go, flirting with Stephanie.

“But Stephanie seemed rather uninterested,” Dorothy summed up. “Which is part of the reason I’m so confused by this.”

“Me too,” I agreed. “So then came lunch?”

“Yes, and we sat at opposite ends of the outdoor portico. Then she was gone. I never saw her again.”

“Anything else?” I asked, starting to feel desperate. “I just feel like it wasn’t her sending those messages to us.”

“No, that was it,” said Dorothy. “I’m sorry I don’t have more for you.”

“Did you see what she was wearing or eating?” I was flailing for anything now, trying to visualize her on this patio having lunch.

“A pink blazer and a black dress. As for food, no, I didn’t. Wait… actually, now that you mention it, I just remembered. Trent told me and Alan afterward that he and Stephanie both had chicken.”

A ripple of adrenaline shot through me.

“Chicken? But she’s a vegetarian! Steph wouldn’t have chicken. Did they offer a vegetarian option?”

“Why yes, they did,” said Dorothy. “Do you think this means something?”

“Dorothy, can I ask you a favor? Can I send you a recent photo of Stephanie, and can you confirm that it was her you saw at the conference?”

“Certainly, I’ll do what I can. It was such a brief time sitting next to her and we were focused on the speakers, but I’ll try.”

I fumbled for my photos and pulled one up from just a few weeks prior: a going-away party for a coworker where Steph had her arm around the woman’s shoulder, both grinning for the camera. Texting it to Dorothy, I held my breath.

“OK, hold on, I’m putting my glasses on,” she said. “Hmmm… if memory serves, that’s her. Same hair, for sure. I’m sorry I don’t have a really clear mental image of her face that differs from this picture. There is one other thing we could try, though. We all had to sign in when we got there. Do you know what Stephanie’s signature looks like? I could call the National Press Foundation and ask for a copy of the sign-in sheet. We could compare.”

“Yes!” I cried out. “That’s a good idea. Steph is a lefty. Is there anyone who can help us confirm that a lefty signed in?”

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