Chapter 76 "Lunatic on the Loose"
The wedding was beautiful, and Emily spent the next morning lazing around the house since the party had gone late into the evening.
She was trying to teach her new puppy different commands, though the training devolved into a game of tug-of-war with a chew toy when Byron finally woke up and joined them in the living room. He was even more groggy than she was.
“No more parties for a while...” he said, settling down on the couch and sipping a cup of espresso.
“What happened to your healthy morning smoothies?” Emily asked.
“I need this... There was way too much alcohol last night. I guess I’m getting old.”
Emily grinned. If he was getting old, he didn’t look it with his smooth, glowing skin. “Are you also going to do your workout on the couch?”
“Yeah, why not?”
He picked up a tablet instead and started going through the financial news and answering emails.
“What the hell...” he suddenly pronounced.
Emily looked up to see the familiar frown lines cross his face as he examined something on the tablet.
She let Shandy have the chew toy, and the pup instantly grew bored. It followed her as she moved towards Byron instead.
“A friend of mine alerted me to this heinous article from some tabloid,” Byron said, pointing to the screen. “It’s about me.”
The headline was “Lunatic on the Loose.” Shandy climbed up into his lap and sniffed the tablet but found it unappetizing.
“Byron Pomeroy has proven himself to be mentally unstable more than once,” Byron read aloud, “most recently when he put his considerable wealth behind the doomed Chipfairies franchise. He has admitted to suffering from depression, but one has to wonder whether delusion is also one of his symptoms. Is the world safe while subjected to the whims of this mad billionaire?”
Emily was outraged. Admittedly, the Chipfairies revival might seem a little crazy, but this was clearly being blown out of proportion. “Who wrote this?”
Byron scrolled back up to the author’s name: Megan DeLorme.
“That doesn’t sound familiar,” he said, “Who is this Megan DeLorme, and how does she know I’m crazy?”
At least the magazine in which it was published was not exactly credible. It also ran stories about aliens appearing in a supermarket and zombies conspiring to take over the world. This was why Byron had not been aware of the article until someone brought it to his attention.
“If I was really crazy like in the old days,” he said, “they would have known the full force of my wrath. But now... Dr. Williams says I should not let people provoke me.”
“And he’s right. I’m proud of you,” Emily said. “A few months ago, you might have smashed this tablet to pieces.”
“Maybe it’s just that it’s published in such an insignificant, junky magazine. Who even reads this stuff?”
“Are we just going to ignore it?” Emily asked in uncertainty.
“Definitely not,” Byron said. “I want to know who this writer is and why she has it in for me.”
Emily considered whether it was wise since the media had mired them in scandal before. But in some way Byron was right. It was better to know what they were up against in case it blew up into something bigger.
“Are you going to use your newspaper contacts?” she asked.
“No,” Byron said with a decisive look, “I’ll go down there myself and find out what’s going on.”
“That’s not a good idea, considering they probably know what you look like. They won’t tell you anything. I should go.”
“They probably know your face too,” Byron objected, “You’ve been seen with me countless times. I know! I’ll get Fred to check it out.”
“Fred is not exactly the smoothest operator,” Emily said, remembering the time Fred was supposed to be following her for her protection but she easily scoped him out.
“He can get the job done,” Byron said. “He just needs another chance to shine.”
“Or not to shine. He’s supposed to keep a low profile.”
“He’ll need an excuse to get in there. How about a story of a flying saucer?” Byron suggested.
“Or being abducted by aliens,” Emily added. “I just hope he can do it with a straight face.”
