Nowhere to Run (5 page)

It was surprising that Jerome was still up and functioning. Those nasty little bacteria were no doubt multiplying in his lungs, pushing him, though he did not know it, to the inevitable. Since this would surely be the last time they’d see each other, it was irresistible to get in a few choice words. Not too much could be revealed, no threats or confessions that would spur Jerome to look for help. Just a few words to let him know that his actions had consequences.

Jerome was in his office, pulling on his jacket and getting ready to leave, when the knock came on the open door. With tiny beads of perspiration glistening on his forehead and his face flushed, he was looking really bad. In a pained voice, he apologized. “I’m so sorry, but can this possibly wait? I feel awful and I’ve got to get out of here. The car service is waiting downstairs to take me home.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be quick. I just wanted you to know, Jerome, that I don’t appreciate that you intended to tell the world about us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I read your enterprising little masterpiece. I had no idea you were so vicious, Jerome.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I can’t really talk now. I have to get home and get to bed.”

“You should have told Annabelle to be more careful with it. She left your manuscript in her office.”

Jerome was incredulous. “May I ask what you were doing snooping around in Annabelle’s office?”

“That’s neither here nor there. I won’t have this turned around on me, making me feel like the criminal, when what you have done is so reprehensible. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Jerome stalked past. “Well, I’m not, particularly. Now get away from the door, please, so I can lock it. I’m going home.”

Lauren Adams stood on the crowded sidewalk, staring down at her new Prada boots. Though they had cost her almost a week’s take-home pay, she rationalized that the boots were a good investment, a statement. Anyone worthwhile would recognize the soft leather and fine stitching and make the assumption she wanted them to make. She was a person of quality, someone to be taken seriously.

As she waited for her cameraman to drive the car up from the garage, Lauren watched another police car pull up, and the video crews from the other networks record the latest in the situation at KEY News.

The wind blew, and she brushed her long dark hair back from her face. She was glad she hadn’t missed the staff meeting this morning. She always enjoyed the after-show postmortems Linus conducted.
KEY to America
correspondents and producers gathered in the conference room to listen to the executive producer’s views on what had pleased him on the just-aired broadcast and his tirades on what hadn’t. Since Linus never took his wrath out on her, she usually had a fine time. In fact, some of the best time she and Linus spent together was right after the meeting. He was so exhilarated then.

This morning’s meeting had been an especially good show.

The dark gray sedan pulled up to the curb, and Lauren got in, mentally cringing as her alpaca coat pressed against the coffee-stained seat.

“Where to?” asked B. J. D’Elia, bracing himself for the hours to come with the prima donna.

Lauren rattled off the address of the uptown psychologist’s office. It had been hard to get this interview, and she needed it for the series she was preparing on educational toys. Erector sets, puzzles, pocket microscopes, reflector telescopes, and levitating globes were predicted to be big sellers this Christmas season. Lauren needed a sound bite or two from the fancy-schmancy child analyst on the benefits of these types of toys.

She took out a reporter’s notebook from her Hermès bag and made a note to call the chemistry-set manufacturer and ask them to send another one over. The first promotional one they’d provided was gone.

White powder. White powder. White powder.

With all the talk this morning about anthrax, Russ Parrish could focus only on the other white powder. The one he craved.

He wished he had never tried cocaine. He’d always heard that the feeling it produced was so fantastic it was nearly impossible to avoid getting hooked. Somehow, he’d thought it wouldn’t happen to him. He would be one of the few who could control himself.

He should have known better. Occasional recreational use had turned into addiction. There was no use sugarcoating it. He was hooked, and his was an expensive passion.

Russ closed his door, glad again that he had one of the inside offices, lacking windows. Others might complain about the sunless boxes to which they’d been assigned at the Broadcast Center, the gigantic dairy which had been converted into KEY headquarters, but Russ’s space suited him just fine. He could have his privacy when he wanted and needed it.

He pulled his wallet from his pocket and took out a credit card, a crisp twenty-dollar bill, and a small, precisely folded paper envelope. Carefully opening the envelope, Russ tapped the powder down into the crease. Using his desk as his workspace, he took the edge of the credit card and rhythmically chopped at the cocaine, dissolving the tiny clumps that had formed. When he was satisfied that the powder was all the same consistency, Russ rolled the twenty-dollar bill into a thin tube and placed it against his nostril. As he bent his head down to the desktop, the currency tube became the delivery chute through which he snorted the white powder.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that hung on the wall opposite his desk. He watched, loathing himself, as his eyes began to water and his face reddened. He shot his cuff out from beneath his soft leather jacket and raised the back of his hand to wipe at his nose. Disgusting behavior, but man, the feeling that was coming over him was great.

It was almost a cliché, wasn’t it? The entertainment reporter hooked right along with the Hollywood stars and music giants who had gotten in too deep. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. Life in the fast lane.

He could tell the sweet young thing was uncomfortable, but Gavin pushed on anyway. After Linus’s tongue-lashing at the morning meeting, the veteran business correspondent needed something to make himself feel better, bigger, more important. The pretty intern with her unlined face, tight sweater, and short skirt was just the ticket to massage his wounded ego.

The college students worked for free just to spend time at a major broadcasting network. Sometimes the necessary connections were made to help with getting a job at KEY after graduation. At the very least the students walked away with an impressive credential to list on their résumés.

The interns were bright-eyed and eager and easily impressed. Gavin looked forward to the new crop of females who started working each semester. Lily was the pick of this fall’s litter.

Long blond hair, with wispy bangs that fell into her big, soft brown eyes. Bambi-esque, Lily’s eyes were. Innocent and trusting, so unlike the steely, dark eyes of Marguerite, his shrewish wife.

Resolutely, Gavin pushed from his mind the thought of the woman he had been chained to for a quarter of a century and continued making conversation with Lily.

“I was thinking that you might want to come with me this afternoon for an interview I have to do down at the NASDAQ,” he offered. “It would be good experience for you to get out of the building and see some field reporting.”

“Gee, thank you, Mr. Winston, that would be great. I really appreciate you doing that for me.”

“Call me Gavin, dear. Mr. Winston makes me feel like I could be your father.” He chuckled.

The intern laughed nervously.
My father is younger than you are,
she thought.

In the time she had between the morning meeting and her appointment with Yelena, Annabelle quickly went through her e-mails, deleting another one of Jerome’s pleas that she finish reading his manuscript, and then she called home. The phone rang again and again until, finally, Mike answered.

“I was just about to hang up, honey,” Annabelle said, trying to keep the concern out of her voice. “Where were you?”

“Lying down.”

Her heart sank. Mike was sleeping away yet another day. In all the years they’d been together, Annabelle had never known him even to take a nap on a Sunday afternoon. A day off from the firehouse meant he was really physically ill, and those days were exceedingly rare. Now, day after day, week after week, Mike’s hours were spent alone in the apartment, lying in bed with the shades pulled down, alternately sleeping and thrashing dark thoughts over and over in his mind.

Even the twins couldn’t pull him out of his misery. Mrs. Nuzzo told her that Tara and Thomas had stopped trying to go in and talk to him when she brought them home from school each afternoon. The children had been rebuffed too many times. Instead, they stayed with their baby-sitter until Mommy came home from work, waiting to tell their other parent how their day at school had gone.

“Did you get the kids to school all right?”

“Yeah, the poor things were actually excited that I was taking them.”

“They love you, Mike.” She was tempted to add, “And they’re worried about you,” but she didn’t want her husband to feel worse than he already did. Editing herself was a way of life now, choosing her words carefully so as not to upset him. She ached for the not-so-long-ago days when they could say anything to each other.

“How’s work?”

He was interested? A hopeful sign.

“Not great. I’m about to go into a meeting with Yelena Gregory and the rest to get raked over the coals for this anthrax thing.”

“What anthrax thing?”

Her hopes were dashed.

“Remember? I told you about it this morning before I rushed to work? That’s why you had to walk the twins to school.”

“Oh, yeah,” he answered dully. “Well, I’m sure you’ll work things out. KEY News is lucky to have you, Annabelle.”

“I’m glad you think so, honey,” she answered, feeling very alone. “After this morning, I hope they do.”

Annabelle took a quick look around the president’s office. She had never been in here before, and she had somehow expected something more. Television monitors, each tuned to a different network, were mounted on the bookcase behind Yelena Gregory’s massive desk. Framed journalism awards decorated the dove gray walls, and an Oriental rug covered the floor. But the room wasn’t especially large, nor was the view out the windows particularly impressive. Snarled traffic on Fifty-seventh Street.

Security Chief Joe Connelly sat in one of the chairs across from Yelena’s desk; Linus Nazareth was in another. Feeling like an errant schoolgirl called down to the principal’s office, Annabelle took a place next to John Lee on the sofa.

“Let’s get right to it,” Yelena snapped. “I want to know how this happened.”

All eyes went to Linus, but he was looking at John Lee. The force of the stare directed the others to turn in the direction of the sofa.

“Yelena”—Lee squirmed—“I realize now that I shouldn’t have unilaterally decided to do what I did, but I was afraid if I told anyone I had gotten the anthrax and was planning to bring it on the broadcast, the plan might have gotten the kibosh.”

“So you took it on yourself to make this decision? Without discussing it with your producer or running it by the executive producer?” Yelena asked with skepticism.

Annabelle felt the heat rise on her cheeks as the room waited for Lee’s answer.

“Yes. I did it all on my own. And in my defense, it was a story worth telling. America needs to know.”

Yelena’s eyes narrowed. “Be that as it may, you had no right to go on air with something of this magnitude without running it by anyone up the chain of command. Now, for legal and reputation reasons, KEY News is put in the position of having to defend you and your actions, and I resent it. If we had known what you were planning to do and gave the green light on it, we could have been prepared with a response. Now we’re scrambling with damage control. Personally, I could wring your neck, John.”

Annabelle thought she actually heard a tiny whimper alongside her. She couldn’t stand this guy, but she took no pleasure in watching him get skewered.

Linus jumped in. “You’re right, Yelena. We have to decide how to go on from here. I’ve already told the FBI that we don’t have to tell them anything.”

“And my lawyer says the feds won’t prosecute because it will make them look bad,” Lee interjected with hope. “They don’t want to be seen as beating up on a journalist who was only exposing a public danger.”

“Is that how you see yourself, John? A brave journalist whose sole aim was to protect the public?” The sarcasm in Yelena’s voice was cutting as she rose from her desk and walked to the window. “Funny, but I think that your own ambitions had a little something to do with this.”

He should have kept his mouth shut,
thought Annabelle. She was more determined than ever to speak only when asked.

Again, Linus interrupted. “Let’s face it, Yelena. Ambition is the name of the game. I can’t think of any reporter worth his salt who doesn’t want to be on the air, telling his story. That’s what a reporter does, that’s what he works for and fights for. KEY News is not going to look bad in this thing, Yelena. We look like heroes, telling the public what they need to know. That’s how we play this.” He pounded his hand on the arm of the chair for emphasis. “And though it’s the dirty little secret, that’s how we get ratings.”

With the light streaming in from the window behind her, Yelena’s large frame loomed. The others in the room waited for her to speak.

“Believe it or not, I’m not all that worried about ratings right now, Linus. My instinct is to can John. But, at the moment, I can’t. I think it’s best to stand beside him for the time being. But, believe me, it’s an uneasy alliance.”