Lethal Lifestyles (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery Book 6)

by LynDee Walker

  “The one time in like, ever, that I want to talk to that little weasel. Of course he’s not in.” I muttered the words too softly for Shonda to hear, gritting my teeth as I returned her half-vacant smile, my eyes on the closed door to Andrews’ office behind her.

  “Is there something else I can do for you?” she asked.

  I shook my head, feeling a bit sorry for her. She was pretty. Super sweet. Not terribly bright. Everyone assumed Andrews kept her around because their long lunch meetings more often involved a bed than any actual food, which made her the butt of constant jokes.

  “I’ll let him know you’re looking for him,” she said, jotting a note on a pink message slip. “I’m not sure if he’ll be back today though.”

  I nodded a thank you and turned back for the elevator as she stood. “I think I need more coffee.” She smiled. “Compiling these reports for Mr. Andrews is making me sleepy. So many numbers, they all run together.”

  She turned for the break room, and my feet rooted to the tonal gray striped carpet that was far chicer than the newsroom’s mottled disco-era brown.

  I glanced over my right shoulder. Shonda was gone. My left. The door had to be locked. Right? I put on my best nonchalant face, glad for once that Andrews was so pompous he kept this floor to himself and three overpaid bean counters who were never in the building.

  I twisted the knob and let out a gasp when it gave. Spinning a circle, I shot glances to every corner of the floor.

  “I don’t know if he’ll be back today,” she’d said.

  Let’s hope not.

  I ducked into the office and shut the door behind me, plunging the room into cavern-worthy darkness. Andrews had to be the only executive in the world with no windows. A view is distracting, he said. Personally, I took it as evidence that he wasn’t human.

  I dug out my phone and clicked the flashlight on. What the hell was I doing?

  Probably being dumb. I paused and bit my lip, looking back at the door. He’d fire me in a hot minute if he caught me. But I needed a better idea of what Charlie knew, and Andrews was the only person who’d spoken to her. I spun back to the desk.

  That tweet coming up on my screen made me want to shake Richard Burke, even as sorry as I felt for him. But it also made me realize that Andrews had blown an awful lot of hot air at Bob and me yesterday morning, and given us very little information about what had caused him to do so in the process. And we were both so afraid of our resident asshat, we didn’t notice.

  I disliked feeling afraid.

  I surveyed the desk. Neat as a pin (seriously, what did he do all day?). I flipped through his inbox: mail, phone message slips sporting Shonda’s big loopy handwriting, a file folder with a lot of numbers on the papers inside. No legal pad, no Post-its, no notebook.

  Scurrying around to the other side, I slid the top drawer open. Paper clips, staples, Tic Tacs, and a condom. Ew. I slammed the drawer and moved on to the cabinet in the credenza before my brain could get too far into why he needed prophylactics in his desk.

  A yellow legal pad sat atop a stack of fat manila envelopes. I pulled in a deep breath and said a silent prayer as I picked it up, my pulse taking off like I was preparing to jump a wormhole to another galaxy.

  “Come on,” I whispered as I flipped pages looking for Charlie or Parker’s names.

  Nothing.

  Just jumbles of figures, doodles, and names of a few people I vaguely recognized as being either on our board or somehow involved in local politics.

  I was ready to chuck the pad across the room and head back downstairs when the second-to-last page caught my eye.

  Because it had Sammons’s name in block letters across the top.

  And Burke’s right underneath it.

  What the ever-loving hell?

  I moved the flashlight across the page, my thoughts spinning in sixteen different directions as I tried to decipher Andrews’s personal brand of shorthand.

  Focus, Nichelle. I had time to figure out why our rat fink boss hadn’t copped to knowing the murder victim later. Right now, I needed to make out why he knew him. And what he wanted with Dale Sammons.

  None of Andrews’s scribbles, beyond the names, made much sense. There was a star next to an all-capped LAT. Like your shoulder muscles? Were they working out together? I almost choked on the mental picture, shaking my head. I flipped three more pages, two of them blank. Rewound to the lists. Members of our board of directors. Politicians. Numbers.

  And in the left margin of the last page: Bob.

  I blinked, forgetting to breathe.

  Was Andrews pushing so hard to get rid of Bob because of something to do with Dale Sammons and Mitch Burke? I’d walked into the mother of all coincidences if not, and almost nine years covering cops and courts would convince anyone that true coincidences were rarer than comfortable stilettos.

  I tapped my phone to life and snapped pictures of the pages, setting the pad down and pulling the top envelope off the stack. My fingers shook so much when I went to open it I cut two of them on the paper.

  Sticking my bleeding fingertips in my mouth, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard Andrews’s voice from the other side of the closed door. Shoving the envelope back in the desk, I scrambled to the closet in the far corner, flinging his wool coat to one side and yanking the door shut behind me just as the lights came on.

  Now what?

  29.

  Sacred spaces

  My shallow breathing was louder than a Pantera concert—between it and the blood pounding in my ears I wouldn’t have heard Rick Andrews if he walked straight to the opposite side of the closet door and screamed like Freddy Kruger was under his desk.

  I closed my eyes and said a fast, fevered prayer. Snooping had gotten me in trouble before, but I’d never actually been afraid it would cost me my job.

  Holding my breath for a ten count, I followed that with a couple of slow ones. I could stay still for a while. Hopefully Andrews just forgot something and was on his way back out.

  Please.

  Closing my eyes, I listened. The chair squeaked like someone had flopped into it. Someone small and weaselly. Damn. Don’t sit. Get out.

  “I wonder what Clarke wants with me,” Andrews said, sending my pulse speeding off to the races again. Deep breath. Focus. I hadn’t told Shonda what I wanted. I waited for her to tell him that.

  “I’d bet she wants to know something about your talk with Charlie Lewis.” The nasally twang popped my eyes wide, my stomach plummeting to my toes.

  No.

  Freaking.

  Way.

  Andrews snickered. “You’d win that bet, wouldn’t you? I wish you could’ve seen her face. She always tries her hardest to stay calm for Jeffers’s sake, but she was pissed. I daresay I don’t think she likes me very much.”

  Shelby laughed, and I tamped down a nearly untampable urge to slam the door open and punch her in the throat.

  Footsteps. Slow, deliberate ones. Shelby’s voice was an octave lower. “Being liked by Nichelle Clarke is overrated, baby. Handy. But overrated. Now back to this bet. Just what would I win?”

  I got a mental image of her running a manicured hand along Andrews’s…anything…and needed a barf bag.

  Jesus. Not only was she a lying, conniving, self-serving…I couldn’t think of a word foul enough…but—Rick Andrews? Have at least a little self-respect, Shelby. I actually shuddered. Not that they’d notice if I decided to do the Macarena at that point.

  He chuckled and I clapped my hands over my ears. Bad enough, walking in on Celia and Bubba in the barn out at Calais. If I had to listen to Shelby do the wild thing with Rick Andrews, my brain might explode.

  Three hours (maybe ten minutes. Long ones) later, I loosened one hand. Nothing. I peeled the other away and leaned closer to the door. Wood squeaked against wood and someone made a low, throaty sound. Sweet mother of…They were on the desk. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ick. I pinched my eyes shut and shook my head. Not that anything could bleach th
at image out.

  “We should go before someone sees us,” Shelby breathed.

  Yes. Do that.

  Please, for the love of all that might’ve ever been holy, go.

  Andrews whined. Whined. In the middle of making out.

  Yuck.

  “We have to be smart just a little longer.” Shelby’s tone took on a wheedling edge. “Come on. I’ll meet you at your place and I’ll—”

  My hands flew back up. Nope. Don’t want to know.

  I waited three beats before I eased one palm away. “Fine. I’ll be a good boy.” Andrews sounded pouty, and I felt vomity for the second time in fifteen minutes.

  The chair rolled across the floor, the sliver of light disappearing from under the door a few seconds later. When I heard the latch click, I stayed put for a few more minutes in case they were leaving separately, then cracked the closet door open.

  All clear. My breath escaped in a whoosh, the room spinning around me. I cast another look at the cabinet with the stack of papers. I wanted to know what was in them, but what if someone came back?

  Smarter to avoid tempting fate twice, right?

  Right. I might not know what I didn’t know, but I knew more than I had an hour ago. All I wanted right then was to get to Bob.

  I crept on tiptoe to the door. Shonda’s phone rang. “Rick Andrews’s office, how may I help you?” she chirped, and I wanted to hug her. Everyone thought she was sleeping with Andrews, and it turned out to be Shelby. Shelby, who’d put on a great front of pretending to be an actual human—and friend—for a year. I’d trusted her. I’d made Mel invite her to the wedding, and then let her wheedle me into an invite to the rehearsal too!

  I didn’t think she knew about Burke before my story ran on Monday, but for all I knew, she was the one who’d tipped off Charlie. Hell, she might be where my little friend Girl Friday had gotten half the information she’d driven me batshit with for months before she got bored with her blog and stopped posting on it. I tried to push down the hollow “trust no one” feeling, but it oozed around the edges of the drawer I tried to shut over it.

  I detested feeling stupid. I leaned my forehead against the back of the door, every single time I’d talked to Shelby right up through Monday morning flooding my thoughts. She’d hated me for so many years. Why had I believed she suddenly flipped a switch and wanted to play nice?

  Because I wanted to. That’s what Emily would say. My mom too. Too trusting—on a list of my faults, it had to hover near the top, which was pretty funny for a crime reporter when you thought about it.

  I liked to believe there was good in everyone, and drawing it out was rewarding. Objectively, Shelby had become a kind of project for me at some point in the past year. Not only was I trying to like her, I wanted my friends in the newsroom to like and accept her. I thought being part of the group would make her feel secure.

  Shonda’s chair skated backward, and I put a hand on the knob. Give her a minute. I listened to her retreating footsteps, still fuming.

  Maybe it hadn’t been smart to trust Shelby. Hindsight and all that.

  But self-flagellation had never been my favorite pastime. Stupid notwithstanding, I was also angry.

  And thrilled she and Andrews had no idea I was on to their game.

  Shonda’s still-lit computer screen showed row after row of numbers. I wanted to stop for a closer look, but I wanted to avoid getting caught more. Let Andrews keep thinking he was clever.

  I made it all the way to the elevator without breaking into a run, but the newsroom wasn’t so lucky. I nearly mowed down three photographers, a sports writer, and two interns between the elevator and Bob’s office, which I barreled into without knocking, slamming the door behind me for good measure.

  My editor flinched, sitting up straight and turning to face me when I flopped into my usual burnt orange velour armchair, gulping deep breaths.

  “You going to make it?” Bob’s eyebrows lifted.

  “I—” More air. Why couldn’t I breathe? Was this what an anxiety attack felt like? I closed my fingers around the ends of the armrests on the chair and nodded. “Jesus, Bob,” I huffed. “I can’t—you won’t—” I shot a glance at the closed door and wished it had a lock.

  “Nichelle?” Bob leaned forward, his bushy white eyebrows drawing down. “What? The old man has a heart condition, remember?”

  “Shelby,” I choked out.

  His face brightened. “Did she find something on Burke? I’m so glad the two of you are getting along better these days. She’d be a good reporter if she just—” He bit the word off when I raised one hand.

  “She’s sleeping with Andrews.” I managed to keep my voice relatively low, given that my blood pressure must’ve been high enough to force the words out in a scream.

  Bob froze for a second, then sat back, his shoulders slumping into the chair, eyes locked on mine. “You’re not kidding.”

  “What kind of sicko would joke about Rick Andrews having sex?”

  Bob snorted. “I’d tell you to be nice, but my fatherly need for admonishment seems to have abandoned me on this point.”

  “I wish my ability to conjure mental images would follow suit,” I said.

  Bob’s eyes fell shut and he shook his head. “Start at the beginning.”

  I did. Bob stayed quiet through the whole story, his eyes going wide when I told him I’d gone snooping in Andrews’s office, and wider when I told him what I’d overheard.

  When I stopped talking, he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I don’t have to ask if you’re certain it was her.” It wasn’t a question.

  “It was her,” I practically spat. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think she was my friend.”

  “Now don’t be too hard—” Bob began, and I shook my head.

  “Already over it. Her fault, not mine. Check. But here’s the thing: They don’t know we know. And Andrews is up to something.”

  “When has he not been? Sniveling little…Well. Let’s go back to these papers. You said you saw Burke’s name?”

  I nodded, pulling out my phone. “You don’t think Mitch was back to angling for a job here, do you? Andrews has been awfully hot for me to smear Parker in the paper this week…” I trailed off, my eyes going wide. “I thought he was just being an ass, but what if there’s more there?”

  Bob’s mouth popped into a little O.

  “Damn. I saw them together a couple of months ago. Andrews and Mitch. Thought nothing of that until just now.”

  “You what? Where?”

  “They were having coffee at a little shop I like over in Shockoe Slip. Looked like they were pretty deep in conversation. Andrews likes to feel important, and I just assumed he knew Richard Burke, and Mitch by extension, because of that.”

  What? Andrews had been trying to get rid of Bob for months, and now he was after Parker—and he’d neglected to mention he knew the murder victim?

  “Bob, what if Mitch Burke was after your job?”

  Bob shook his head. “That would sink the paper inside three months. Andrews is a social climber, but he doesn’t care about anything as much as he cares about the bottom line and looking good in front of the board.” He held out a hand. “Let me see what you found.”

  I clicked to the photo and handed the phone over.

  He zoomed in on the image and moved his finger across the screen a few times.

  “I didn’t recognize all the names, but I know some of those folks are in local politics,” I babbled. “And why wouldn’t he say he knew Burke?”

  He zoomed out and swiped to the next image, then tapped in, his face going as white as his hair. “Oh, dear God.”

  I popped out of the chair, trying to read upside down as I leaned over the screen. “What? What did I miss?”

  Bob moved one finger across the photo, his head shaking slowly back and forth. “The bottom line.” He slumped back in the chair and put my phone on his desk. “Jesus. I suppose at least I have him pegged
right.”

  “Bob,” I half-shouted, sucking in a deep breath and snatching up my phone. The jumble of letters and numbers, save the names of two of the people currently tied up in a murder case Andrews seemed keen to let Parker hang for, still didn’t click together for me like they obviously had for my editor.

  Bob leaned back in his chair, raising his eyes to mine. “Andrews only cares about the money. I’d bet those papers you saw are reports and proposals he has all ready to take to the board as soon as he can get rid of me.”

  I waved like a lunatic trying to guide a plane home. “Why? Care to share?”

  “His notes here: He’s got a majority of board members on his side, according to this list, and I’d bet my house these numbers are profit margins from the LA Times. He wants to sell the front.” Bob shook his head, disgust practically running down his chin. “Ads on the fucking front page. He knows I’d never let him get away with that.”

  30.

  Follow the money

  My eyes locked on Bob’s Pulitzer and stayed there for a good ninety seconds.

  In nearly a year of killing myself trying to keep Andrews in his cave, I’d come up with some pretty crazy reasons for his behavior, though I honestly thought it was just plain old-fashioned jealousy. But this…the front page was sacred space. I knew from long-ago history of media classes that it wasn’t always that way, but it had been for more than a century, and with good reason.

  Ads had their place and their function, but most people subscribed to the paper for news. A good front page told readers at a glance what was most important in their world today. Car prices or airline fare sales hardly kept with the theme. Moreover, the kind of money people paid for front-page ad placement often translated to not-so-subtle control of a paper’s editorial content.

  It wasn’t just selling space. Andrews wanted to sell the Telegraph’s principles. The paper’s soul.

  No. Bob would never go for that. None of us would.