Andy went home. Mrs Richards from apartment 108 greeted her at the bottom of the stairs, while slowly hauling her laundry upstairs in a basket on her hip.

"Oh, Andy child," she said, "You're OK! I was so worried when the police came."

Oh crap. Police raid. Andy wondered whether her few worldly possessions had been tossed around, or worse. It occurred to her how telling it was she hadn't even thought about it once until now. She clearly didn't put much store on what little she owned.

"Does my apartment still have a door?" she asked gingerly, eyes flicking up the stairs as she followed her elderly neighbour. Andy held her arms out, wordlessly offering to take the other woman's heavy laundry. She got a wide, wrinkled smile for her efforts and the basket landed in her arms.

"Oh heavens, yes, and thank my boy for that one. He's a lawyer, you know."

Yes, Andy knew. Mrs Richards managed to insert that little factoid into every conversation without fail. She kept trudging upwards behind her and waited for her to continue.

"My boy was here when they came by, three officers, and Jason asked to see the search warrant while they were still banging on your front door asking you to open up. Well! He spotted it at once, right away! The date for the search was wrong. Oh it was just a clerical error but the law's the law and it was still illegal. And my boy told them that they could just pack right on up and drag themselves back to the office because he'd make a big old fuss if they didn't. He was recording it all too. On one of those phones you youngsters all have? They didn't look too happy but they left all right. And, I was watching out for them, but they never did come back."

Andy just bet they didn't return, given the raids had been orchestrated stunts. It's not like the mayor didn't know the source of her documents.

At the memory of those papers she sighed.

"What is it, dear? You look wrung out. Here, let me take my washing back. You look like a stiff breeze would tip you over. I thought you'd be happy the police didn't go through your little place?"

Andy nodded tiredly. "I'm very pleased. Tell Jason thanks from me. I mean it, that's … yeah."

She faded out, unable to muster the enthusiasm to be properly grateful and then she felt guilty she couldn't. She gave Mrs Richards an apologetic glance.

Gnarled fingers patted her arm. "That's alright, dear. You go have a rest and a cup of tea. Whatever it is will pass. Always does, sooner or later, sure as the sun comes up."

Andy gave the elderly woman a smile at her kindness and unlocked her apartment and stepped inside.

Everything was exactly as she'd left it. It was funny, she'd expected something to be out of place. To match her mood, perhaps? In its sameness, though, from the dusty second-hand shelves crammed with her favorite books to the old TV on an apple crate she hadn't turned on in a month, it seemed oddly disordered. Disjointed.

This used to be a place of solace. Now it felt like a vaguely sick joke. Lisa had been by here a few times. Kissed her senseless on the sofa, too. Pinned her down, laughed against her neck. Nuzzled her. Whispered adoring compliments in her ear. For a woman with a fiancé, she certainly seemed to have no problem bending a little for the ladies.

Andy kicked off her shoes and sat, staring accusingly at the exact spot they'd made out, wondering whether the whole time Lisa had been really swallowing back her disgust. If so, she'd never seen a better actress.

Andy shook her head, trying to rattle out the thoughts. She still had a deadline to meet. She dropped Gunther's documents on her coffee table and methodically went through them.

Focusing was easier said than done, though. As the minutes ticked by, her mind kept straying to every humiliating detail of her meeting. Why her? Was "gullible" stamped on her forehead? Why had the mayor's team chosen her and not the next reporter?

Her eye fell to a note Gunther had scribbled to himself in a margin, and she tilted the page sideways to read it.

"Illinois girl". The Illinois was underlined.

So. Assumptions had been made about her origins.

That's 'why her'.

She turned it over in distaste.

A stabbing memory hit her. Miranda had known. All along. From the first moment she heard who Andy's source was, she'd realized immediately something didn't add up. Why hadn't she shared her suspicions? Why didn't she tell her about bringing in Gunther to check her theory?

Instead she'd done what she always did – whatever she wanted, consulting no one. And she'd let Andy make a fool of herself in the elevator with her every day, knowing far more of Andy's private life and personal business than she'd ever shared with another living person. Even Nate hadn't known some of the things in Gunther's report. And Miranda had also known Andy was into women who looked just like her. That had been the whole conclusion of the profiling, after all. How completely humiliating.

Was that a heady thrill for her? The power? The knowledge?

Was this just a game to her as well? She'd certainly made a production out of plucking her from work just minutes before the raid. Had that been for show, too? Extra dramatic? Did it give her a thrill to swoop in and do that, playing to her enamored audience of one?

Andy frowned. Miranda's hurt had seemed so real when she'd questioned her motives. But even if she had done all this for Andy, it wasn't the point. Miranda had played her, too. Andy didn't even know why she was shocked. Miranda played everyone. It was who she was. No wonder she so quickly worked out when others were playing Andy.

The reporter's guts ached from studying the wheels within wheels. Everyone seemed to have an angle. The only one being pulled around, who had little say in the game, had been Andy. She was starting to feel like a ragdoll, tossed and twisted about for everyone's amusement or their own ends.

She rubbed her face as if that would scour away her cheeks reddened with shame, and tried to figure out her next step. What do you do when the whole world has played you as a total fool? When your whole world is manoeuvring you even now? When even the people claiming to be on your side are still pushing you down a path of their choosing, making the decisions for you. Robbing you of your own agency.

What do you do?

An idea struck her that was so shocking, so audacious, so risky that Andy gasped.

Did she dare?

What would it cost her?

Did that even matter?

With shaking hands, Andy unpacked her laptop and began to type furiously.

The next day dawned far too early and bright for Andy. She hadn't slept much and, with little enthusiasm, she picked her cell phone to check the time. It was the original one she'd had, and she'd rammed the battery back in last night after realising her arrest was no longer imminent.

She'd had it on silent mode.

15 missed calls.

She scrolled through them. Doug. Her mom. Her brother. Colleagues at The Mirror made up the rest. She checked her new phone, too: The twins. Miranda. Four times. Nigel.

She supposed she'd better face the music.

Or not.

She knew what was coming today but facing her looming public humiliation could wait another hour. So she rolled over and went back to sleep.

Three hours later she was more successful at attaining vertical. She rose and showered and dressed and had a straight black coffee. (The milk was off and she couldn't find the sugar.) She checked her old phone. Now it said 22 missed messages. A few unknown numbers were in the queue now. Plus her editor had rung.

Shit. OK. She dialed Greg first.

"Sachs!" he bellowed. "I was starting to think you'd burrowed in a hole somewhere, never to be seen again."

"Tempting," she said. "Really tempting."

"Ha!" he laughed. "Well, helluva piece you filed. I mean it. Knocked everyone's socks off. Bravest damned reporting I've ever read, and I've read a lot. Christ! You could have just run the real documents. I realized that as soon as I read what happened. Hell I'd never have known you never had the real ones. But you gave us both sets!"

"You ran them both?" Andy checked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "I meant for you to. Sorry, I haven't had a chance yet to check how The Mirror treated the story."

"Did we run them both?" Greg guffawed. "Ran them side by side as a page one splash to show the extent of the scam, with the details of the con on you printed in a breakout panel, down the side. We broke out the details on how they'd profiled you and what Lisa Cantrill did on Page 3, and ran some before and after pics of her to prove it. You know – pics of her hanging off her boyfriend all lovey dovey a few weeks back and then with her new hairdo matching the boss you said you were in love with. Hey who was she, by the way? You never said."

"How is that relevant?" Andy said archly. "Besides anyone with my résumé could figure it out in three seconds. Naming the boss Lisa emulated was not the point. The seduction scam was."

"I suppose," he said, sounding disappointed. "But I don't think Cantrill's 'do looks anything like Anna Wintour's so that rules her out."

"Greg, for the last time, I never worked for Vogue."

"Oh. Right. Oh, by the way, I rang because if you haven't got your TV on now, you really should."

Andy's eyebrows shot up, and she fumbled for her remote control. After a few minutes the picture cleared on a press conference. A furious looking Cantrill was just leaving the stage, with three of his four children in tow. Suspiciously absent was Lisa.

"He just resigned," Greg said with enormous satisfaction. "He resigned! Lord how he was spitting it. I thought he was going to throw the microphone over some of the questions. Bob Mason at The NY Daily asked whether pimping his kids out to seduce unsuspecting reporters was his usual MO or just a one-off. Some other wag asked if Lisa's middle name was Mata Hari. Oh God, his venomous expression was worth it for the admission price."

"I'm glad my ongoing humiliation is giving you such a good laugh," Andy grumbled. "I'm sure I'll be mocked just as much as the Cantrills in coming days. My reputation will be in the toilet. They'll call me stupid, gullible, weak and probably find a way to hammer me for my sexual preferences."

"Ah, sorry Sachs. I know. I know you copped a shit sandwich to bring him down. I gotta ask though: Why'd you go for the thermonuclear option? You really could have just swapped in the real docs. No one would have ever known except the mayor."

"I know," Andy agreed. "But New York's First Family is twisted. People who voted them in have a right to know everything they're up to.

"I also realized there was no way any of the Cantrills could deny what happened if the journalist making the allegations had so much to lose from them. If they'd said I'd lied, it wouldn't be believable because I had nothing to gain and everything to lose by telling my story."

"You left him absolutely nowhere to wriggle," the editor said.

"That was the point."

Greg gave an impressed grunt. "Oh, by the way, Sachs, TMZ's reporting Lisa Cantrill's wedding's off. The fiancé dropped her like a steaming pile of something this morning. The boy was telling anyone who'd listen that he was shocked and devastated and she wasn't the woman he thought she was."

"Fancy that," Andy said with a small smile. She yawned. "Sorry. Been running on vapors for a few days."

"I'll bet. Tell ya what, file Steve something on your reaction to the resignation, maybe six or eight pars, and then take a few days off and recuperate. We'll talk on Monday. And if anyone gives you shit, point them my way. Geez, Sachs." She could almost hear him shaking his head. "Bravest damn story I've ever read. OK, later. Great work."

The phone went dead.

Great work, she repeated hollowly in her head. Then why did she feel exposed and like she'd been flayed in public? Everyone now knew everything. Her deepest secret was out there, too.

Her eye slid to two names who had tried to call. Her mother. Well, she'd always said honesty was the best policy. Andy might be able to spin that particular chat.

And Miranda.

She had no clue at all how that conversation was going to go. She stared at the number on her phone display and wondered what she should do now. And how she even felt. Neither question had an easy answer.