PART I

The Sting

CHAPTER 1

Los Angeles, CA Friday, May 14, 2021

AVERY MASON WAS NOT LOOKING FOR FAME. WITH A GRAVEYARD OF secrets in
her past, fame was the last thing she needed. Still, she had found it.
Whether this had been by accident or with intent was a question
that only counseling could answer. It would require a deep dive into
her tumultuous upbringing, an examination of her complicated
relationship with her father, and some honest soul-searching and
self-reflection—none of which Avery had time for. Because however
it came to be, what Avery knew for certain about fame was that it
arrived like a colossal wave rolling toward shore. You either rode it,
or let it drown you. She chose to ride it, and in spectacular fashion.
Avery Mason was thirty-two years old and the youngest woman to
ever anchor American Events, the most popular prime-time
newsmagazine program on television. Her ascension to the top of
the ratings was improbable, statistically unheard of, and something
Avery never expected. Mack Carter had been the long-running and
popular host of American Events. His death the year before while on
assignment covering the Westmont Prep slaughters had rattled the
television news industry. It also produced a vacancy at the top of
American Events. In a panic, the network tapped Avery to fill Mack’s
massive shoes until a more permanent anchor could be found. As a
frequent contributor to the show, Avery’s segments had consistently
earned high ratings. So high, in fact, that she was named as the first
co-host in the show’s storied history. Avery had held that position for
exactly one month before Mack Carter died. Thrust into the hottest
of spotlights and widely expected to fail, Avery Mason had stepped
into the lead anchor role the previous fall and killed it. American
Events not only stayed at the top of the ratings, but the audience
grew by 20 percent.
Critics explained away her success as a fluke of morbid curiosity.
People tuned in, the critics argued, to see how this inexperienced
woman would handle the crushing pressure of replacing one of
America’s most beloved anchors on television’s longest running news
program. The problem with their argument was that Avery’s ratings
never came down. That she was young and attractive certainly didn’t
hurt her rising star, and Avery admitted that her looks likely drew a
certain male demographic that might not normally tune in to a
newsmagazine show. But her looks were not the source of her
success. It was her talent, her charisma, and the content of her
show that kept the ratings sky-high. The abundance of press hadn’t
hurt either. During the past year she graced the covers of
entertainment magazines, gave countless interviews and photo
shoots, and was the subject of a three-part exposé by Events
Magazine on her natural abilities in front of the camera and her rise
to the top of the cable news food chain. And yet somehow, through
it all, she had managed to keep her past hidden.
Avery’s forte was true crime, finding an unsolved mystery and
dissecting it for her audience in a way that hooked them and refused
to let go. Her dark and edgy foray into some of the country’s most
sordid crimes was where she made her name. But to contrast the
sinister stories she covered, Avery also told stories of survival and
hope. It was these stories of miracles and beating the odds that kept
people tuning in. Not a week went by without Avery featuring some
sort of real life, plucked from Middle America, feel-good story—like
Kelly Rosenstein, the woman who sank her minivan into Devil’s Gate
Reservoir in Pasadena after a drunk driver forced her off the road.
The indomitable mother of four had not only managed to escape the
sunken vehicle, but had miraculously done so with all of her children
in tow. Avery interviewed the woman a week after the accident.
With as many as six hundred people dying each year in the United
States due to a submerged vehicle, how had this soccer mom
managed to escape? It was simple. Years earlier Mack Carter had
demonstrated the best way to escape a car after it sank to the
bottom of a lake. Kelly Rosenstein had watched the episode and
remembered what she saw.
So moved by the story, Avery decided to look up the old footage.
It was how she ended up this afternoon strapped behind the wheel
of a minivan that was parked inside a high school aquatics center,
with a television crew ready to film the action. Today, the action
would be a giant crane lifting the van over the pool and dropping it,
and Avery, to the bottom. Cameras situated under the water would
capture Avery’s attempt to escape from the submerged vehicle. She
was, without doubt or shame, scared to death.
She knew America had loved Mack Carter for the stunts he
performed, and Avery could think of no better way to wrap up her
first full season as host of American Events than with a nod to her
predecessor. Today’s taping was her rite of passage. This would be
her last episode before summer sabbatical. A summer that was sure
to be the most trying of her life. She was following a lead out of New
York that she thought had potential—the remains of a woman killed
in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks had just been identified using
promising new DNA technology, and Avery wanted the chance to tell
the story. If she made it through today’s stunt, she was off to New
York to chase some leads.
At least, that was her story. She thought it was the perfect cover.
CHAPTER 2
Los Angeles, CA Friday, May 14, 2021
THE HONDA MINIVAN WAS PARKED ON A HYDRAULIC LIFT ON THE SIDE of the Los
Angeles high school swimming pool. Avery chose the make and
model because of their connection to the middle class. The minivan
was among the most commonly driven vehicles in the United States.
Sinking a sixty-thousand-dollar BMW in a high school swimming pool
might be exciting to watch, but demonstrating to stay-at-home
mothers how to escape their sunken vehicle was much better
accomplished using an average, run-of-the-mill automobile.
Avery checked the seat belt buckle for the third time in less than a
minute. Christine Swanson, her executive producer, leaned through
the open driver’s side window.
“Good?” she asked.
Avery nodded.
“Show me the abort sign again,” Christine said.
Avery took the four fingers on her right hand and waved them
back and forth in front of her throat.
“If you ever get panicked, or just can’t remember what to do, give
the abort signal and the divers will have you out in ten seconds. Got
it?”
Avery nodded.
“Words, Avery! I need to hear your voice.”
“Yes, Christine! I’ve got it, for Christ’s sake. Let’s go.”
“We’re about to sink you, and the car you’re sitting in, to the
bottom of a swimming pool,” Christine said in a calm voice, trying to
control the panicked moment. “I want to make sure your head is in
the right place.”
“Of course my head is not in the right place, Chris. If it were, I
wouldn’t be doing this. And if we don’t do it soon, I’ll lose my nerve.
So let’s get this show on the road.”
Christine nodded. “Okay. You’ve got this.”
Christine backed away from the minivan, stuck her fingers
between her lips, and whistled. It was an ear-splitting screech that
echoed off the walls of the cavernous aquatics center.
“Let’s roll!”
A loud buzzing filled the indoor plaza as the crane’s hydraulics
activated and jolted the platform, and the minivan parked on it,
upward. Avery grabbed the steering wheel and white-knuckled it as
if she were driving through a torrential downpour. She rolled up the
window and the noise outside the vehicle—the producers yelling
instructions, the engineers guiding the crane operator, the ring of
the hydraulics, and the murmurs from three hundred spectators that
filled the retractable bleachers and made up the studio audience—
went silent. All she heard now was her own exaggerated breathing.
Even the smell of chlorine disappeared.
Her ascent finally ended, and then the car jolted again as the back
of the platform started to rise, pitching the nose of the minivan
downward toward the water. A slew of engineers who consulted on
the stunt had decided that thirty-eight degrees was the most
accurate pitch angle to best represent a vehicle careening off the
road and plunging into a body of water. To Avery it felt like she was
hanging vertically off a cliff. The seat belt was tight across her chest
as gravity pulled her forward. She straightened her legs on the
floorboard to keep her position in the driver’s seat.
The whole of the eight-lane, NFHS-approved, competition-size
swimming pool came into view through the windshield as the
minivan tipped forward. The surface of the water reflected the stage
lights that were erected around the indoor pool. Red lane markers
swayed in wavy images made brighter by the underwater lighting.
She saw the rescue divers hovering near the bottom, the bubbles
from their SCUBA tanks rippling the surface as they waited for
Avery’s arrival fourteen feet under the water. She had imagined
during the planning phase that their presence would ease her
nerves. That knowing help was just a few feet away would provide a
sense of comfort as the minivan sunk to the bottom. That knowing
all she needed to do was give the abort signal and the divers would
immediately extract her from the vehicle would settle her nerves and
give her confidence. But now, as she hovered above the pool with
the weight of her body heavy against the seat belt, she felt no such
comfort or confidence. Things could go wrong. What if she wasn’t
able to successfully pull off the techniques the survival experts had
taught her? What if her mind froze and she simply couldn’t
remember what to do? What if the seat belt locked up because of
the force of the impact? What if the window did not break like it was
supposed to? What if the divers didn’t see her signal? What if