Devil in the Deadline (12 page)

“I'm kinda glad you went snooping around Golightly's church this morning,” Joey said, folding one arm behind his head.

“That was the secret? I could've gone out there months ago.” I giggled.

“Timing. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say.”

I shook my head, tipping my chin up to look at him. “No more running away.”

“I don't want you to get hurt, Nichelle.” He sighed. “Selfish jackass, party of one.”

“Two. Party of two.” I snuggled into his arms and resumed tracing nonsense patterns across his skin. He took a hitching breath and pulled me closer.

I knew good and well there were special obstacles to being with Joey. But something that felt so right couldn't be impossible. “We can be selfish together,” I murmured.

I looked at him again when he didn't reply. His eyes were locked on the ceiling fan.

I laid a hand on his cheek and turned his face to mine.

“We. Will. Figure. It. Out.” I punctuated the words with kisses, hoping I was telling the truth.

He smiled. “We're smart, right?” His voice was tight. I knew why, but didn't have a good answer, so I just nodded. This moment was too perfect to let the what-if monster trash it.

Returning my head to the spot between his shoulder and collarbone that seemed tailor-made for it, I closed my eyes. That smell was a thousand times more magical from where I lay.

“I might never move.” I'm pretty sure I said that out loud. “What a way to end a rough week.”

He ran his fingers lightly up and down my arm and over my back. “Dinner will wait. You feel like a nap?”

I nodded ever so slightly and he hummed softly. His voice was exactly as I'd imagined: deep and safe, vibrating through his chest under my ear. It took me until sleep crept in from all sides to place the song: “It's Impossible.”

Maybe. But maybe not.

1
3.

  

Getting personal

  

P
eter Pan. Crowing over my head with Tinkerbell hot on his heels as Joey kissed me. From the heat in the kiss, Joey and I were headed straight for R-rated, non-Disney-sanctioned action. Tink pulled my hair. I swatted at her and returned my attention to Joey.

“Is that your phone?” Joey's voice sounded thick with sleep, a one-eighty from the urgent kisses.

Damn. My phone.

I shook myself out of the dream, still in Joey's arms. Night had seeped through my roman shades while we dozed.

I reached for the charger where I'd put my BlackBerry after Kyle and I returned from Way of Life three centuries ago. My fumbling fingers got it unplugged on the second try, and I cracked one eye at the glowing display.

“My mother, master of timing.” I grabbed for a blanket like she could see us.

Raising the phone to my ear, I pasted on a grin. “I miss you,” I said brightly. I did, craptastic timing and all. “What's going on with you?”

“I just got off the phone with Rhonda Miller.” She'd been crying and sounded half-hysterical. My breath stopped, thoughts of Kyle's big teddy bear of a police officer father—and then Kyle himself—blasting the sleep right out of my head.

My mom doesn't cry.

“Deep breaths, Mom. What's wrong?” Joey sat up and laid a hand on my shoulder. I laced the fingers of my free hand with his.

“She talked to Kyle earlier and he told her he tagged along with you to church this morning. The one that Golightly guy on TV runs.” She sobbed harder. “You can't go back there, Nicey. Promise me right now you'll stay away.”

I dropped my jaw. And the phone. Scrambling to pick it up, I shooed Darcy back to her fluffy pink bed. “Mom, are you there? What the hell is the matter? And why do you care about Simon Golightly?”

“What?” Joey's fingers tightened on mine with his murmur of surprise and I threw him a WTF look and a shrug.

“Stay away. Please.” I could barely make out Mom's words.

My brain refused to process it. I'd watched her endure years of chemo and radiation, losing the man she loved, and everything in between, and I'd never heard her bawl like that.

“Okay, Mom.” I made soothing noises until her gulps of air quieted slightly. “You going to tell me why?”

“Just promise me.”

Crossing my fingers like a child, I felt guilty anyway as the lie slid through my lips. She was in Texas. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

I plugged the phone back into the charger after I swore twenty more times to stay away from Golightly and ran mentally through thirty ways I could kill Kyle.

Hugging my knees, I tried to shake the memory of my mom's wails out of my head. “What is this guy into?” I wondered aloud. “And what could my mother possibly care?”

Joey massaged my suddenly tight shoulders. “If I knew anything about your mother, I'd tell you. Is she really religious?”

I shook my head. “We went to a bitty little church up the road from our house for most of my childhood, but she's not super devout. And she's never shown even a passing interest in TV Jesus. This is the weirdest thing ever. And I've seen some crazy stuff.”

Darcy barked. I stood, pulling the blanket around me, and padded to the doorway. “I need to let her outside. You hungry?” I threw a glance over my shoulder at him.

“Starving.” He flashed a wicked grin and stretched one hand toward me. I smiled, admiring his bare torso because...damn.

“Pasta.” I leaned against the doorframe and tried for serious. Not sure it worked. Joey was in my bed. I sucked my cheeks in and bit them to keep from squealing like a schoolgirl at an Elvis concert. “I'll turn the sauce back on.”

He stared for a long minute and raised one eyebrow. “I'll get your laptop?”

“I left it in the car.” I smiled. “I wouldn't have walked away, anyway.”

“I know. Can you hand me my pants?” He waved a hand toward the top corner of my third-hand antique armoire.

“Do I have to?” My turn for the wicked grin.

“If you want your computer, it'd help.”

“Do I really want it that bad?” I tipped my head and feigned indecision before I grabbed his trousers and tossed them to him.

Yes, I did. With my mom's raw voice and Golightly's oily grin gnawing at my gut, I needed some answers.

  

Joey left his collar unbuttoned and his tie off. I sat across my little bistro table from him in yoga pants and a
Telegraph
t-shirt, sipping wine and laughing between bites of pasta. Fork forgotten, he recounted how his grandmother blew up half her kitchen making lasagna one Christmas.

“Half the side wall of their house gaping open, freezing air and snow rushing in—and my grandfather's only worry was the food.” Joey grinned, spearing a tomato. “All that is to say, I come from a long line of men who take their pasta seriously. And my grandmother would approve of this.”

I raised my glass. “I'm honored.”

He said goodnight a half-hour later with a couple of long kisses and a promise to call the next day.

“I'd stay if you'd let me.” He cradled my cheek in his palm. “Just so we're clear.”

Happy tears pricked the backs of my eyes, sending my lids into southern-belle flutter mode. “And I would love to let you.” Lord, would I. I cleared the lump out of my throat and kissed him again. “But if you stay, I won't work. And I have at least one ginormous story that needs my attention. Very possibly two.”

He pulled his thumb across my cheekbone. “Be careful. Please.”

I closed my eyes for a long blink, biting my tongue to keep from asking him back in. Damn this mess of a story. “I will.”

“Call me if you need me.” He dropped his hand to his side and stared at me for a long minute, concern and reluctance warring across his face. “And call your church buddy at the ATF if you need him.”

“He's an old friend.”

“But he wants to be more.”

Lacking a good reply, I squeezed his hand. “Today was...”

He smiled and turned for the steps, pulling his fingers slowly from mine.

“It was,” he said softly before he disappeared into the night.

I settled myself on the sofa with the rest of my wine, Darcy, and my laptop, and tried every search engine anyone ever thought of, hunting a lead on Golightly. Nothing.

Tapping my index finger on the keyboard, I looked around, hoping a fresh idea would pop out of the air. I flopped back into the corner of the sofa when it did not. Ideas are persnickety that way. Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes and hauled in a deep breath. The magical smell that fit Joey like one of his tailored suits clung to the upholstery.

What. A. Day.

I let my thoughts roam back over the better parts of it until my fingers itched to grab my BlackBerry and tell him to turn right the hell around.

Boy, was I glad Joey's friend had tattled on me.

“Joey's friend!” I bolted upright, reaching for the computer. Darcy yipped, prancing toward the front door.

“He's not here, girl,” I called, my fingers flying over the keyboard.

Slow on the uptake, party of one.

I found the list of staff members at Way of Life and copied it into a new file, then started searching the Internet for information on them, one by one.

Joey hadn't said his friend worked at the church, and I knew if I called to ask him, he wouldn't tell me.

To be honest, I wanted no part of getting his “business connections” pissed at him. I'd seen plenty of news stories (and movies) about what happened when you jacked with the wrong guy in the mob. I liked Joey's kneecaps just the way they were, thank you very much.

But who was new on the ministry's staff? That could give me a lead. The number of hits in the Google results told me the reverend wasn't interested in redacting his employees' online history.

I looked over the long list of links, then back at my docket of better than forty names. Then at the clock. Oy.

I should trade the wine for some coffee. But if there was a needle to be had in this scarecrow factory, I would find it.

  

Two ticks past three, I came across something. Blinking my bleary eyes to make sure I was reading right, I scrolled back to the top of the police blotter from the
Redway
(California)
Register
, looking for a date.

Nine years ago, one of Golightly's top muckety-mucks had been about as far from the fold as a guy could get, picked up on indecency and weapons charges. Or at least, someone with his fairly unusual name had been.

“Indecency with a minor and assault with a deadly weapon, Darce,” I raked my fingers through her fur, “is often code for ‘armed child molester.'” In some places, word choice saves the paper from being responsible for a lynching.

But was this Edwin Z. Wolterhall Golightly's Edwin Z. Wolterhall? How many of them could there be?

I clicked to the newspaper's complete archives. Nothing but the obits and crime blotter went back that far.

Damn. It was midnight on the west coast. No one would be in the newsroom at a bi-weekly that called a town of twelve-hundred home. I punched the number on the header into my BlackBerry for morning.

Back on the Way of Life site, I saved Wolterhall's grinning, coiffed-and-Sunday-suited staff photo to my growing WOL folder. I re-read his bio. An accountant. My inner Lois Lane danced, my physically-exhausted self satisfied enough to head to bed.

I took Darcy out and halfheartedly tossed her squirrel a couple of times. She didn't care. She was tired, too.

Drying my freshly-scrubbed face, I stared into the violet eyes in the mirror. Golightly was into something shady. Jasmine had abandoned Golightly's ship.

What else did I know? Money—truckloads of it.

Holy cow.

Jasmine talked about getting moving money.

Was she trying to blackmail the reverend?

14
.

  

Unfair advantage

  

Sk
ipping body combat in favor of sleep, I still dragged ass into the news budget meeting five minutes late. Bob alternated disapproving glances with a rundown of the day's copy. When all the section editors had rattled off their lists, he turned to me. “You have anything to add this morning, Nichelle?”

“I'm sure I will, but I don't know yet,” I said through a yawn that probably showed off the pop tarts in my stomach.

“Late night?” Eunice's tone was one of genuine sympathy, but Spence's derisive snort narrowed my eyes.

“Some of us don't mind going above and beyond, Eunice,” I said. “I know you understand.”

Spencer rolled his eyes, but stayed quiet. Thank God. On four hours of sleep and less than two cups of coffee, one sarcastic retort was all I could muster.

“Hang out, Nichelle,” Bob said. “The rest of you, go find me something to print.”

I was too beat to care that his abbreviated dismissal of the staff meant he was annoyed.

And entirely unprepared for him to close the door and hand me his iPad when Spencer finished glaring at me and strolled out.

“He should see someone about his grudge issues,” I said before I looked down at the screen.

“Richmond PD close to arrest in gruesome murder case,” the latest blog headline screamed.

“The hell they are,” I said, scrolling down. Girl Friday had more “unnamed police sources” saying the detectives had honed in on a lone suspect and were tearing the Bottom apart looking for Jasmine's killer.

“What is this? I thought you were inside this police investigation, so how could this blogger have an arrest when you don't?”

Telling him I'd spent the day before on Golightly wouldn't get me anywhere but chewed out, so I skipped over that. “First of all, since when do we run ‘impending arrest' stories? I don't write them, because they strike me as stupid. Criminals read the paper. Especially ones looking to stroke their own egos. Why tell him the cops are coming for him before they get him?”

I took a breath and kept talking. “Second, they are not. Aaron would have called me.” I said it with utter conviction. I better be right. I was lying to my mother and risking my neck chasing leads for Aaron—if anyone had a headline before me, I'd be pissed on my own. Bob was just frosting.

Bob sank into his chair and took the iPad back, staring at it for a long minute.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm not mad at you.” His chin dropped to his chest and I leaned forward.

“What's up, chief?”

“Eh. My birthday's coming up,” he said.

“A big one this year?” I tried to remember how old Bob was.

“Sixty-five.” He grinned. “I don't feel a day over fifty.”

Birthday. Blogger. Barking at me.

“Andrews.” I sat back in my chair.

“He wants me to retire. He's dropping not-very-subtle hints.”

“He wouldn't know tact if it bit him in the bottom line,” I smiled at Bob's chuckle. “Do you want to retire? Please say no.”

“No.”

“Then don't. The staff will mutiny if he tries to force you out.”

“You think?”

“You always have our back, chief. Let us get yours.”

He smiled. “Thanks, Nicey.”

“Let me see what Detective White has to say for himself.”

“I'm looking forward to reading all about it.”

“I'll have it to you as soon as I can get it.” I stood.

“I'll watch for it. This Girl Friday has sent our deadline structure out the proverbial window,” he said.

“Indeed. It's damned annoying.”

He winked.

I opened the door and nearly walked smack into Shelby Taylor.

“Eavesdropping is tacky, Shelby.”

“I just wanted to see if you were in there.” Her voice was weird. Like, normal. Absent the Splenda-coated bitchy edge she reserved for me, I barely recognized it.

“Um. Do I want to know why?”

“We need to talk,” she said in the creepy-nice tone. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

I glanced around, but Ashton Kutcher and his camera crew were nowhere to be seen.

“Why not?” I needed caffeine. And if something serious enough for Shelby to be nice to me was going down, I wanted in the loop.

I dug my keys out of my bag and followed her to the elevator.

  

Shelby sat across a round teak table from me stirring her latte, her face betraying some seriously conflicting emotions.

“If you're waiting for me to die of curiosity, I'll admit to wondering, but you've got stiff competition for my attention this week, Shelby,” I said.

She looked up. “I want to help.”

I blinked. “With what?”

“The blogger. It's not you. I know it's not you. I only tried to make Andrews think it was you because I want your job.”

“Are we playing true confessions? Because I knew all that already. I also know it's not you. You'd rather run naked down Monument Avenue than climb across Belle Isle to sneak into a bloody murder scene for video.”

“Indeed.” She smiled.

I sipped my white mocha, waiting for her to elaborate.

“This whole thing is making me feel wretched,” she said. “It took me days to figure out why. But I'm pretty sure it's guilt. I've never been very nice to you, but I love the
Telegraph
.”

I raised one eyebrow and she nodded. “I do. I've let my opinion of you cloud my better judgment, and I regret that. But I'll be damned if an amateur is going to beat us to a story this big. So how can I help you?”

I left the eyebrow up, staring at her. She looked and sounded perfectly sincere. But Shelby had knifed me in the back (thigh, arm, chest—she's not picky) so many times in almost eight years working together that I didn't trust my eyes. Or my ears.

“You don't believe me,” she said, returning the stare without blinking.

“I'd like to, Shelby, but I don't know.”

“I suppose I deserve that,” she said. “I'll prove it to you. Really. Give me something to do.”

“I'm not sure what to tell you. Aaron's got the PD's cybercrimes unit on it. They'll find her. I'm sort of surprised they haven't already.”

“They can't arrest her.”

“No, but they'll haul her in for questioning and probably scare the shit out of her. If she doesn't have a j-school or legal background, she won't know what she—or they—can and can't do.”

I hadn't really stopped to consider until I said those words out loud what would happen if the PD caught up with Girl Friday. Somehow, championing Aaron putting the smackdown on someone who was reporting—sort of—made me feel squicky.

“What if I can figure out who she is?” Shelby asked.

“And do what? Us catching up with her likely won't do much but piss her off. And turning her in to the cops feels childish.”

“She's putting information out that's irresponsible and wrong,” Shelby said. “She's going to incite a panic.”

“True.” I fiddled with a sugar packet.

“What if we could explain in a way that keeps her out of hot water with the cops but also keeps her from doing it?” Shelby's wide eyes looked downright earnest. It was creepy. I dropped my gaze to my coffee, considering.

“That would be the best thing all around, I suppose,” I said slowly. “I don't have time to hunt for a Lois Lane wannabe this week, though.”

“I'll do it,” she said. “I don't have a life anymore, anyway.”

Her last words were so glum, I felt sorry for her in spite of myself.

“All right,” I said, smiling. “See what you can dig up. And let me know if you want me to talk to her.”

“I want to come with you if you do,” she said. “Is that okay?”

I checked the corners for Ashton Kutcher again. No cameras. So weird.

“Sure, Shelby.”

“Thanks, Nichelle.” She stood. “I know you have work to do.”

“Tons of it. Thank you for the latte.”

“It was the least I could do.”

I followed her out into the sunshine, still waiting for someone to jump out and tell me I'd been punk'd. Talk about a day I never thought I'd see—Shelby Taylor seemed to actually want to help me.

  

Aaron was my first call when I got into the car.

“It is definitely Monday,” he said when I wished him good morning.

“That doesn't sound good,” I said. “What's up?”

“You see that blog this morning?”

“I did. I'd like to know what's going on there, as a matter of fact.”

“I don't know who this person is, but someone's ass is about to hit the door for leaking classified information about an open murder investigation.” He sounded both pissed off and resigned.

I swerved into a parking lot on Grace, drawing irate honks from the two cars I cut off, and dug a notebook and pen out of my bag.

“I think you should start talking, Aaron.” I fought to keep the edge out of my voice. We got along well. We'd worked together for years. But Emily was right: they wanted all access to what I'd been able to find out, and it looked like I wasn't getting what he'd promised in return. Yelling at him wouldn't fix it, though. And there were those journals, even if they weren't any help.

“I'm sorry, Nichelle,” he said. “I know it won't make you feel any better, but my orders come from pretty far up the chain. I told them I'd promised you. Hell, Landers even spoke up on your behalf, flashing the notes you sent him last week. They said no media leaks until we'd made an arrest.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “No comment.”

I tapped a finger on the steering wheel, trying to get a handle on my temper.

“You're mad,” he said.

“I'm disappointed,” I countered, impressed with the softness of my voice.

“I'm sorry.”

“How did Girl Friday get it if you weren't allowed to give it to me?”

“As soon as I find out, you'll be the first to know. I've never enjoyed watching someone get fired before,” he said.

“You really think this is a cop?”

“Or someone who knows a cop pretty well,” he said. “It has to be.”

“I haven't looked at today's reports,” I said. “Anything good?”

“Something horrifying, at any rate,” he said.

“I'm listening.” I clicked my pen back out.

“About eleven-thirty last night, we got a call on an abandoned car.”

“I heard that one.” I'd been up to my ears in Golightly research, but I remembered my scanner bleeping around that time. And I remembered something else, too. “They were awfully quiet about it, come to think of it.”

“Call came from a retired Chesterfield cop. A nineteen ninety-four Buick sat abandoned in front of his house for two days. He recognized the smell coming from the trunk when he was cutting his grass last night. Picked the lock.”

“Oh, shit. Description?”

“Caucasian female, between twenty and twenty-four years old. Dark hair. Green eyes. Advanced decomp thanks to the heat. They're working on the dental.”

I scribbled all that down, the description I'd typed ten times in eight days making my stomach twist. “Is Landers on this?”

“Strictly speaking, there's little reason to think the two are related. But I'd be lying if I said he wasn't watching.”

“Does anyone else have it yet?”

“Charlie hasn't called me, but she will. I imagine everyone else will when they have time to go through the reports, too.”

But I could still get it on the web first. Unless Girl Friday's “unnamed source” helped her beat me to the punch again.

My whole life was turning into one big deadline.

“How did the car check out?”

“As stolen.”

Of course it did.

“Thanks, Aaron. I'll call you if I have any more questions when I find the report.”

“I really am sorry,” he said. “About the other thing.”

“We're not through talking about that yet,” I warned him. “But we can table it for now.”

I sped back toward the office, questions flashing through my head. A second body, same race and age range as Jasmine. Same hair color. Landers might have a serial, after all. Where did that leave me with Golightly?

I threw my car into park and jumped out, racing to the elevator. Bob would be happy with being first to a body dump. Though who dumps a body by leaving it in the trunk of a car in the middle of summer, in front of a cop's house? Either this was the unluckiest criminal alive or they wanted the girl found.

I tapped my foot as the elevator climbed toward the newsroom. So many questions, Monday. If I had one answer by Tuesday, I'd call it a win.

Plopping into my chair, I flipped up my laptop screen. The report was close to the top of the list in the PD's online database. The officer's narrative gave a bit more detail to the picture Aaron had painted for me—but the contact information for the caller had been redacted.

Not. Amused.

I snatched up the phone and dialed Aaron's cell again.

“Are you serious?” I said in place of hello. “Why did y'all black out the contact info for the cop who found the body?”

“I need more coffee if I'm going to keep getting my ass chewed for other people's decisions,” he said. “As far as I know, it was professional courtesy, because he asked us to. Nothing more interesting than that.”

“I want the name, Aaron.”

The line fell silent.

“You owe me one, and you know it.”

“You'll stop being pissed about the other thing?” he asked finally.

“Deal.” If no other reporter had the contact info, my story would be first and better. There are worse ways to start the week.

“You didn't get it from me,” he warned before he rattled off the guy's name and phone number.