Nowhere to Run (21 page)

November 24

Mike slept through the alarm but was awakened by the sound of Annabelle tripping in the dark over the shoes she had left strewn on the floor the night before.

“Sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered.

Their eyes adjusted to the light as he switched on the bedside lamp.

“I can’t believe you’re going to work,” he said, squinting at her.

“What am I supposed to do, Mike?” she pleaded. “Yelena made it very clear last night that everyone was expected to be in today.”

“Everyone else has an anthrax-free office.”

“So? I’m supposed to stay home? I have no excuse. There’s nothing physically wrong with me.”

“You’re so sure of that?”

“If my swab had come back positive, I’d have heard about it. But if it will make you feel any better, I’ll call this morning and make sure.”

Mike was probably right. At the very least, she should reassure him. She should alleviate his worries as much as possible. He was doing better, and she didn’t want to upset that applecart.

“Yeah. It would make me feel better. And I think you should go for the Cipro too.”

Annabelle groaned. “That stuff’s no joke, Mike, and I don’t need headaches, nausea, and diarrhea.”

“Better that than anthrax poisoning, my love.”

Annabelle had been here many times over the years. When she was a little girl, her mother would take her to the Easter Show and Annabelle would watch the glamorous dancers and dream, like so many other little girls, of someday being a Rockette herself. This year she already had the tickets to take her own children to the Christmas Spectacular. But no matter how many times she entered the cavernous auditorium of Radio City Music Hall, Annabelle was blown away by the majesty of the place.

Though it was 5:00
A.M
., all the lights were on, illuminating the stage for the Rockettes’ flawless choreography. Technicians and cameramen were setting up to record the performance. Annabelle searched the auditorium for the unit manager. She spotted Beth at the side of the stage and approached her.

“I’m here, Beth.”

Beth looked up from her clipboard. “Annabelle, good. I was worried you were going to call in sick too.”

“What? Who’s called in?”

“A good third of the staff, including Gavin and Lauren. Linus is trying to figure out what we’re going to fill their segments with now.”

So the effects of the anthrax scare are being felt,
thought Annabelle. She had been tempted to call in sick herself, but she hadn’t wanted to look like a wimp. Though, if anyone had a reason to be worried, she supposed, it was she. After all, the others hadn’t had anthrax found in
their
offices.

Sitting in one of the chairs at the back of the theater, Russ rehearsed the facts in his mind.

One million people from fifty states would attend the Christmas Spectacular, making it the number-one live show in America. Twenty-five hundred pounds of artificial snow would fall on the stage during the run of the show.

Russ had two segments now instead of one, thanks to Gavin’s and Lauren’s no-shows this morning. Not that he minded the extra airtime, but he liked having more notice, more time to prepare. Being thrown into a segment left Russ unnerved, though he wasn’t going to admit that to anyone. The newshounds prided themselves on their ability to ad-lib when the situation called for it, and they disdained anyone who clutched when the pressure was on.

The pressure was on, all right. Jerome was dead, and so was the poor guy from the cafeteria. Linus was in a particularly foul mood and watching for Russ to screw up. Russ ached for a little snort of his own soft, white powder.

After the show.
He hoped he could hold on until then.

Damn it, he could thank Jerome for getting him hooked on the cocaine to begin with, offering it to him at a party, telling him the feeling would be stupendous. The feeling was just that—so good that Russ craved more and more and more.

Yes, Jerome had gotten Russ started on the addictive cocaine, but Jerome had gotten his comeuppance, hadn’t he?

The alarm rang again. Lauren rolled over and felt for the clock. She had been able to grab some more sleep after getting up earlier to call in sick. Her throat was sore, so she hadn’t really been lying. Lauren suspected Linus wouldn’t buy her excuse, but that was tough. With a little luck, she had passed her germs along to him. If his throat started to scratch, then he might believe her.

Groaning inwardly, she recalled the party the night before. It was too bad Jerome was dead, but Lauren felt far worse that Yelena had walked in on her and Linus. That wasn’t going to help in her quest for Constance’s job. As far as Lauren could tell, Yelena was one uptight woman, and Lauren strongly doubted the news president would shrug off the compromising scene. If Yelena wasn’t on her side, Lauren could kiss her ambitions at KEY good-bye.

She pulled the sleep mask from her eyes and searched for the remote control.
KEY to America
was just beginning. Standing on the stage, Constance Young was resplendent in a bright red suit.

“Good morning. Today we come to you from Radio City Music Hall, home of the world-renowned Christmas Spectacular. A cast of one hundred and forty people, including the dazzling Rockettes with their famous eye-high kicks, will be with us this morning, and we’ll have a visit from Santa Claus, who has sneaked in from the North Pole, but first we have the morning headlines.”

It was so incongruous, thought Lauren, as she studied Constance. The happy banter of the scripted opening leading to the serious news. But they had to get the viewers into the tent, Linus always said, promising them a good time if they could just sit through the nitty-gritty.

“Anthrax has taken the life of thirty-six-year-old KEY News Producer Jerome Henning, a staff member of our broadcast. Henning, who had been in critical condition at a New Jersey hospital, died yesterday. Police found anthrax in Henning’s home and are investigating a possible link to anthrax taken from a lab where the former KEY medical correspondent, Dr. John Lee, shot his report on the availability of the deadly substance. In his report, Dr. Lee claimed to have obtained his own container of anthrax, but tests showed that substance to be powdered sugar.”

Lauren rose from her bed and went into the bathroom. As she splashed cold water on her face, she mapped out her morning. The first stop was the doctor’s office. Before she did anything else, she was going to get that Cipro. If this sore throat was the beginning of anything more serious than a cold, she had to be protected.

The mighty Wurlitzer organ played, more than four thousand pipes filling the gigantic hall with the strains of “Silver Bells.” It’s Christmastime in the city. Annabelle felt a tear roll down her cheek as she stood at the side of the stage and listened to the sweet music.

Jerome had loved the holiday season so. He’d been like a little kid that Christmas they’d been together, insisting they do the things that make New York so magical at this time of year. Ice skating at Rockefeller Center, touring the aisles full of toys at F.A.O. Schwarz, riding in a horse-drawn carriage through snowy Central Park. He’d told her he hoped they would be together forever as they huddled beneath the carriage robes in the back of the hansom cab.

But when she’d met Mike, she knew that he was the one for her. Even if she hadn’t fallen in love with Mike, Annabelle was sure she wouldn’t have ended up with Jerome. There were things about Jerome that had made Annabelle hold back. He was smart and creative and loved to have fun, but with Jerome, there had been an undercurrent of danger as well. She was aware that he dabbled with drugs, and Annabelle instinctively knew that, great though their times together were, this was not the person with whom she could envision having children.

Still, as the organ finished the holiday tune, Annabelle mourned the loss of Jerome. His end had come too soon and too horribly. She could not understand why he would have had anthrax in his home. Jerome may have liked to live on the edge, may have used cocaine at one time, but she couldn’t believe that he would be playing around with something as dangerous as anthrax.

It didn’t make sense.

How had the anthrax gotten there? Had Jerome taken it from Dr. Lee? But why would he have done that? Did he want to poison himself?

Annabelle dismissed the thought of suicide. Jerome had been too excited about the prospects for selling his manuscript. He had been looking forward with high hopes. No, Annabelle was sure Jerome had not intentionally taken his own life. Either he had taken the anthrax for some other unknown reason and inadvertently exposed himself, or someone else had carried anthrax into his home.

The obvious suspect was John Lee. Had Lee planted the anthrax at Jerome’s and contaminated Annabelle’s office as well? Could he have known about his unflattering portrayal in Jerome’s manuscript?

Was that a reason to kill someone?