Page 21 of In Her Path

For a moment, Natalie said nothing. Her hands, resting on the arms of the chair, had gone very still.

“Agnes told you,” she said finally.

“She’s concerned,” Jenna replied. “As am I. Curtis Paige was stabbed with something sharp and thin—something that might match the description of a letter opener.”

Natalie’s laugh was sudden and sharp. “You think I killed Curtis Paige? With a letter opener from the newsroom?”

“We’re exploring all possibilities,” Jake said. “Including the one that your conversation with Mr. Oswinkle might have been more than just talk.”

Natalie shook her head, a strand of dark hair falling across her face. She pushed it back with an impatient gesture. “Look, I was angry. We all were. Paige had been destroying lives in this town for decades, and nobody could touch him. He had the system rigged in his favor.” Her voice had taken on a hard edge. “So yes, I said things I shouldn’t have. Things about making him pay. But it was just talk. The kind of dark humor people use when they’re powerless.”

“Where were you last night, between midnight and two a.m.?” Jenna asked.

Natalie met her gaze without flinching. “I was at the all-night laundromat on Maple Street from eleven-thirty until after two. The washing machine ate my quarters, and I had to wait for the attendant to show up at one. Security cameras cover the whole place. Check the footage.”

Jenna made a note. It was a solid alibi, if true—one that would be easy to verify. But something about Natalie’s response felt somehow incomplete, as if there were more to her story than she was telling.

“We’ll do that,” Jenna said. “In the meantime, I’d like to ask you about another matter. Agnes mentioned that you’d been working on an exposé about Curtis Paige—one that you stopped researching or writing shortly before his death.”

The change in Natalie was subtle but unmistakable. Her posture stiffened. “That’s not relevant to your investigation.”

“Everything is relevant until we determine it isn’t,” Jake said. “Why did you kill the story?”

Natalie’s composure, carefully maintained until now, showed its first real crack. “I told Agnes, it wasn’t ready,” she said, but the words lacked conviction. “There wasn’t enough there.”

“Agnes says she didn’t believe that,” Jenna pressed.

“Agnes doesn’t know everything,” Natalie said, a defensive edge creeping into her voice. “I’m the one who was working the story. I’m the one who made the call.”

“What happened, Ms. Grasso?” Jenna asked, leaning forward slightly. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The question hit its mark. Natalie’s face drained of color, her eyes widening slightly. For a moment, she looked younger, vulnerable—a woman carrying a burden too heavy for her.

“It’s nothing. It’s got nothing to do with Paige’s murder.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Jenna said.

Natalie took a deep breath before she replied, “It was blackmail.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jenna studied Natalie Grasso’s face as the reporter took a deep breath, then began explaining the word she’d just used: blackmail.

“It started when I was working on a series about the misuse of city funds,” Natalie said. “Not sexy stuff, just following the money, the way my old editor at the Gateway Herald taught me.”

She got up and crossed to a small desk in the corner of her living room, pulled open a drawer, and removed a thick manila folder. The papers inside were arranged carefully, each sheet separated by yellow tabs and annotated with a red pen.

“The Mill Street redevelopment,” Natalie continued, placing the folder on her coffee table with a quiet thud. “That’s where I found it. About eight hundred thousand in grant money that was supposed to go toward revitalizing the old downtown corridor. Paige was overseeing the allocation.” She tapped the top page. “But the work never got done. Just empty lots and promises.”

Jenna watched the reporter’s face, noting the way her eyes brightened when speaking about her work, the way her gestures became more animated—a glimpse of the journalist Natalie had once been.

“I found three more just like it,” Natalie said, flipping through the folder to show them similar records. “Different funding sources, different projects, but the same pattern. Money would get approved, paperwork would get processed, and then nothing much would happen. I mean, there might be some activity, but no project got very far.”

“And you traced this back to Paige?” Jake asked, leaning forward to examine the documents.

"Not just him. Paige controlled the process. He presented the information, made the recommendations, and steered the votes. The others trusted him. They had no reason to think he was lying about the properties or the developers." She hesitated, then added, "I interviewed eleven sources, got copies of contracts, and reviewed six months of city council minutes. It was solid."

“So, you were going to run it?” Jenna asked.