Arliss said, “Yes, of course the NSA sent me the photo. However, before I could consult with the president and Mrs. Black, it was leaked to the British press. Who was responsible for this, I don’t know.”
“And yet you never let Mrs. Black or the president know about the photo, even after it was released,” Savich said. “You followed that with the crass email you arranged to have sent from Mrs. Black’s private email account to George McCallum that made it appear she was abandoning him because of his son. You had corresponded with Natalie on that account for years, enough for you to find out her password if you didn’t already know it. You forwarded that forged email to the press as well.”
Arliss cocked her head to one side, then smiled at him. “Another absurd tale you’re weaving without any proof? I suppose your fantasy includes some kind of motive?”
Savich said, “The motive, Mrs. Abbott, yes, the motive was the difficult part. You knew Natalie hadn’t looked at another man since her husband’s death until she met and fell in love with George McCallum. You knew all her hopes for the future were centered on him, as George’s were centered on her. You saw that Natalie was looking forward to that future, saw that she was happy again, and how you hated that. When the photo from the NSA came to your desk, you realized William Charles McCallum’s photo presented you with your chance to end it.
“The press was thrilled with the photo, of course, with being able to label the son of a peer of the realm, the man who was slated to marry the ambassador to the United Kingdom, as a terrorist. Naturally, Natalie told you the circumstances, told you she and George were handling it. You hoped it would break them apart, hoped even more that the mounting pressure from the scandal would force her to resign her post. To make sure you upped the ante, you arranged for that email you’d forged to George McCallum to be sent anonymously to the papers.
“The point of your email wasn’t to fool him. The first thing George did was call Natalie and find out it wasn’t from her. The point was to leak the email to the press, to have Natalie’s private life, real and imagined, dragged through the tabloids. Could she survive that?
“I imagine you were pleased with the serendipity of George McCallum’s car going over a cliff near Dover, Mrs. Abbott. The autopsy was inconclusive, and his death was ruled accidental. He probably suffered some kind of cardiovascular event with all the stress he was under. Perhaps he lost consciousness. We will never know. But you didn’t want the scandal to end with McCallum’s death. No, you wanted it to go viral, and so you planted more rumors. Shortly after George’s funeral, it didn’t take the press long to happily announce that George McCallum had been driven to kill himself because Natalie had ended her engagement to him.
“You sat back and watched as the headlines made her out to be the Black Widow, a woman callous enough about her career to cause a viscount to commit suicide. She was becoming a pariah, more than you had hoped. You were thrilled the bad press embarrassed the president, embarrassed the State Department, and you tried to convince the president to call Natalie back to the U.S. and force her to resign.”
Arliss said to Hainny, “Eric, you told me the president wants me to hear this man out, and I have, but he simply won’t stop. Why are you a party to this . . . slander?”
“I think you will be interested to hear what he says next, Mrs. Abbott,” Hainny said. “The president was.”
Day stepped around his mother, his face flushed, his voice shaking with outrage. “This is crazy! Listen to me, Mr. Hainny, all of you—my mother wouldn’t do anything like this. What Agent Savich is saying is insane. She doesn’t hate Mrs. Black, they’ve been friends forever. Perry and I were practically raised together.”
Savich ignored him, kept his focus on Arliss, but she said, “You will stop this now. I don’t wish my son to hear any more.”
“He is free to leave, Mrs. Abbott,” Hainny said. “You can ask him to.”
“Dammit, I’m not going anywhere!”
Arliss lightly laid her hand over his, squeezed it. Then she looked beyond Savich to Natalie. “You,” she said. “You talked him into this, didn’t you? I know you’ve hated me forever, Natalie—admit it, you’ve been jealous of what I’ve accomplished. You talked him into believing your outlandish story. I am guilty of nothing.”
She turned back to Savich. “I will say, though, that I did believe it was because of Natalie that George committed suicide, and I was not alone in that opinion.”