by Nora Roberts
“Yeah. Ah—Liv.” He stopped her again, and she lifted a brow in acknowledgment. “She wanted me to ask you . . .” He looked uncomfortable as he hesitated.
“What?”
“Who does your hair?” he blurted out, then shook his head and fiddled with his camera. “Women.”
Laughing, Liv patted his arm. “Armond’s on Wisconsin. Tell her to use my name.”
She moved briskly from the studio, up the steps and through the winding corridors that led to the newsroom. It was noisy with the transition from day to evening shift.
Reporters sat on the corners of desks, drank coffee or typed furiously to meet the deadline for the eleven o’clock broadcast. There was a scent of tobacco, light sweat and old coffee in the air. One wall was lined with television screens, which gave the action but not the sound of every station in the metropolitan area. Already on screen one was the intro for “CNC World News.” Liv headed straight through the confusion to the glass-walled office of the news director.
“Carl?” She stuck her head in his door. “Do you have a minute?”
Carl Pearson was slouched over his desk, hands folded, as he stared at a TV screen. The glasses he should have been wearing were under a pile of papers. He had a cup of cold coffee balanced on a stack of files, and a cigarette burned down between his fingers. He grunted. Liv entered, knowing the grunt was affirmative.
“Good show tonight.” His eyes never left the twelve-inch screen.
Liv took a seat and waited for the commercial break. She could hear the crisp, hard-line tones of Harris McDowell, New York anchor for “CNC World News,” coming from the set at her side. It was fruitless to talk to Carl when the big guns were out. Harris McDowell was a big gun.
She knew he and Carl had worked together in their early days as reporters at the same station in Kansas City, Missouri. But it had been Harris McDowell who had been assigned to cover a presidential cavalcade in Dallas in 1963. The assassination of a president, and his on-the-scene reports had rocketed McDowell from relative obscurity to national prominence. Carl Pearson had remained a big fish in a sea of little fishes in Missouri and a handful of other states until he had hung up his notebook in exchange for a desk in Washington.
He was a tough news director, exacting, excitable. If he was bitter about the different path his career had taken, he was careful not to show it. Liv respected him, and had grown steadily fonder of him during her stint at WWBW. She’d had her own share of disappointments.
“What?” It was Carl’s way of telling her to speak her piece once the break had come.
“I want to follow up on Beaumont Dell,” Liv began. “I’ve done a lot of legwork on this already, and when he’s appointed Secretary of State, I want to put it on the air first.”
Carl sat back and folded his hands over his paunch. He blamed too much sitting at a desk for the extra fifteen pounds he carried around. The look he aimed at Liv was as direct and uncompromising as the look he had aimed at the television screen.
“A little ahead of the game.” His voice was roughened by years of chain-smoking. As she watched, he lit another, though a cigarette still smoldered in his overfilled ashtray. “What about Fitzhugh? And Davis and Albertson? They might question your appointment of Dell. Officially, Larkin hasn’t resigned.”
“It’s a matter of days, probably hours. You heard the doctor’s statement. The acting secretary won’t be appointed permanently; Boswell’s not the president’s favorite boy. It’s going to be Dell. I know it.”
Carl sniffed and rubbed a hand over his nose. He liked Carmichael’s instincts. She was sharp and savvy despite the born-to-the-manor looks. And she was thorough. But he was understaffed and the budget was tight. He couldn’t afford to send one of his top reporters out on a hunch when he could assign someone he could spare more. Still . . . He hesitated a moment, then leaned over the desk again.
“Might be worth it,” he mumbled. “Let’s hear what Thorpe has to say. His report’s coming up.”
Liv shifted in her chair in automatic protest, then subsided. It was pride that had her ready to object to having her assignment hinge on the words of T.C. Thorpe. But pride didn’t cut weight with Carl. Instead, she rose to sit on the corner of his desk and watch.
The Washington anchor was broadcasting from the studio above her head. It was a much more stylized set than the one she had just left. But that was the difference between the local and national news—and the local and national news budgets. After his brief lead-in, the screen switched to the location shot and T.C. Thorpe’s stand-up. With a frown, Liv watched him.
Though it was no more than thirty degrees with a wicked windchill factor, he wore his coat unbuttoned and had no hat. It was typical.
He had a rugged, weather-tanned face Liv associated with a mountain climber, and the streamlined body of a long-distance runner. Both professions required endurance. So did reporting. T.C. Thorpe was all reporter. His eyes were dark and intense, locking on the viewers and holding them. His dark hair blew furiously around his face, giving his report an air of urgency. Yet his voice was clean and unhurried. The contrast worked for him more successfully than flash or gimmicks worked for others.
Liv knew his visual appeal was tremendous. He had the athletic, just-short-of-handsome looks that appealed to both men and women. His eyes were intelligent and instilled trust, as did the deep, well-pitched voice. He was accessible. She knew reporters were put into slots: remote, mystical, omnipotent, accessible. Thorpe was flesh and blood, and viewers could welcome him into their living rooms comfortably and accept his word. And there was the feeling that if the world began to collapse, T.C. Thorpe would report it without missing a beat.
In his five years as senior Washington correspondent, he had built an enviable reputation. He had the two things most essential to a reporter: credibility and sources. If T.C. Thorpe said it, it was believed. If T.C. Thorpe needed information, he knew which numbers to call.
Liv’s resentment against him was instinctive. She specialized in the political beat for the local broadcast. Thorpe was her nemesis. He guarded his turf with the ferocity of a dog in a junkyard. He was rooted in Washington; she was still the new kid on the block. And he wasn’t giving her any room. It seemed inevitable that when she had a hot lead, he had been there first.
Liv had spent months looking for a viable criticism of him. It wasn’t accurate to call him flashy. Thorpe dressed down on the job, wearing nothing to distract the viewer’s attention from his reporting. His style was straightforward. His reports had depth and bite, while he remained objective. There was no fault to find in the way he worked. All Liv could criticize him for was arrogance.
She watched him now as he stood with the White House lit in the background. He was recapping the Larkin story. It was obvious he had spoken to Larkin personally, something she had been unable to do though she had pulled all the strings available to her. That alone grated. Thorpe, too, listed prospective candidates for the position. He named Dell first.
Carl nodded behind her back as Liv scowled at the screen. He felt it put a bit more power into her hunch.
“This is T.C. Thorpe, at the White House.”
“Tell the desk you have an assignment,” Carl announced, and drew hard on the butt of his cigarette. Liv turned to him, but his eyes were still on the screen. “Take crew two.”
“Fine.” She swallowed the annoyance that it was Thorpe’s influence more than her own that had gained her what she wanted. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
“Bring me something for the noon news,” he called after her, and squinted to focus on the next segment.
Liv looked over her shoulder as she opened the door. “You’ll have it.”
It was eight A.M. and freezing when Liv and her two-man crew arrived at the iron gates of Beaumont Dell’s home in Alexandria, Virginia. Liv had been up since five, preparing her questions. After half a dozen phone calls the evening before, she had elicited a promise from one of Dell’s aides that
she would be granted a ten-minute interview that morning. A good reporter could learn quite a bit in ten minutes. Sliding out of the crew van, Liv approached the guard at the gate.
“Olivia Carmichael with WWBW.” She flashed her press pass. “Mr. Dell is expecting me.”
The guard examined Liv’s credentials, then his clip board, before nodding. Without a word, he pressed the button to open the gates.
Friendly sort, she decided as she climbed back into the van. “Okay, be ready to set up fast; we’re not going to have much time.” She was reaching in her purse to take out her notes for a final check as the van wound up the drive. “Bob, I’d like a pan of the house, and one of the gates when we leave.”
“Already got one of the gates.” He gave her a grin as she smiled back at him. “And of your legs. You’ve got some great legs, Liv.”
“Think so?” She crossed them and gave them a critical stare. “You’re probably right.”
She enjoyed his good-natured flirting. Bob was harmless, happily married with two growing children. A serious flirtation would have frozen her. She separated men into two categories: safe and dangerous. Bob was safe. She could relax with him.
“All right,” she said as the van stopped in front of the three-story brick house. “Try to look like respectable members of the working press.”
Grinning, Bob muttered a short expletive and climbed out of the back of the van.
At the front door, Liv was once again the cool, aloof newswoman; no one would dare to comment on her legs. Not out loud. She knocked briskly, leaving the crew to follow with their equipment.
“Olivia Carmichael,” she announced to the maid who opened the door. “To see Mr. Dell.”
“Yes.” The maid glanced past her with the slightest moue of disapproval at the blue-jeaned crew hauling equipment up the front steps. “This way, Ms. Carmichael. Mr. Dell will be right with you.”
Liv recognized the maid’s disapproval. She thought little of it. Her own family and many of her childhood friends felt the same way about her profession.
The hall was an elegant, refined entrance to a wealthy home. Liv had seen the same hall in a dozen homes in a dozen styles when she was growing up. There had been hundreds of teas, stiff little parties and carefully organized outings, all of which had bored her to distraction. She never cast a glance at the Matisse on the wall on her left. She heard Bob’s low whistle as he entered behind her.
“Some place,” he commented as his sneakers moved soundlessly over the parquet floor.
Liv made a distracted sound of agreement as she went back over her strategy. She had grown up in a home not so very much different from this one. Her mother had preferred Chippendale to Louis XIV, but it was all the same. Even the scent was the same—lemon oil and fresh flowers. It stirred old memories.
Before Liv had taken two steps behind the maid, she heard the sound of male laughter.
“I’ll swear, T.C., you know how to tell a story. I’ll have to make sure the first lady’s not around when I repeat that one.” Dell came lightly down the stairs, trim, handsomely sixtyish and beside Thorpe.
Liv felt her stomach muscles tighten. Always one step ahead of me, she thought on a swift rush of fury. Damn!
Briefly, potently, she met Thorpe’s eyes. He smiled, but it wasn’t the same smile he had given to Dell as they had begun their descent.
“Ah, Ms. Carmichael.” Spotting her, Dell extended his hand as he crossed the hall. His voice was as smooth as his palm. His eyes were shrewd. “Very prompt. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
“No, Mr. Dell. I appreciate the time.” Liv let her eyes pass over Thorpe. “Mr. Thorpe.”
“Ms. Carmichael.”
“I know you’re a busy man, Ambassador,” Liv turned her eyes back to him with a smile. “I won’t take much of your time.” An unobtrusive move put the mike in her hand. “Would you be comfortable talking to me here?” she asked, to give the soundman a voice level.
“Fine.” He made an expansive gesture and gave a generous smile. The smile was the stock-in-trade of the diplomat. From the corner of her eye, Liv watched Thorpe move out of camera range to stand by the door. The eyes she felt on the back of her neck made her uncomfortable. Turning to Dell, she started her interview.
He continued to be expansive, cooperative, genial. Liv felt like a dentist trying to pull a tooth from a patient who smiled with his mouth firmly shut.
Of course he was aware that his name was being linked with the position to be vacated by Larkin. Naturally, he was flattered to be considered—by the press. Liv noted he was careful not to mention the president’s name. She was being led in circles, gently, expertly. Just as gently, she backtracked and probed from different angles. She was getting the tone she wanted, if not the firm words.
“Mr. Dell, has the president spoken to you directly about the appointment of a new Secretary of State?” She knew better than to expect a yes or no answer.
“The president and I haven’t met to discuss an appointment.”
“But you have met with him?” she persisted.
“I have occasion to meet with the president from time to time.” At his subtle signal, the maid appeared at his elbow with his coat and hat. “I’m sorry I can’t give you more time, Ms. Carmichael.” He was shrugging into his coat. Liv knew she was losing him. She moved with him to the door.
“Are you seeing the president this morning, Mr. Dell?” It was a blunt question, but it wasn’t the verbal answer Liv looked for as much as the reaction in the eyes of the man she asked. She saw it—the faint flicker, the briefest hesitation.
“Possibly.” Dell extended his hand. “A pleasure talking to you, Ms. Carmichael. I’m afraid I have to run. Traffic is so heavy at this time of the morning.”
Liv lifted a hand to signal Bob to stop the tape. “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Dell.” After passing the mike to the soundman, Liv followed Dell and Thorpe outside.
“Always a pleasure.” He patted her hand and smiled with his old-world southern charm. “Now you be sure to call Anna, T.C.” He turned to Thorpe and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “She wants to hear from you.”
“I’ll do that.”
Dell walked down the steps to the discreet black limo where his driver waited.
“Not bad, Carmichael,” Thorpe commented as the limo pulled away. “You do a tough interview. Of course . . .” He looked down at her and smiled. “Dell’s been dancing his way around tough interviews for years.”
Liv gave him a cool stare. “What were you doing here?”
“Having breakfast,” he answered easily. “I’m an old family friend.”
She would have liked to knock the smile from his face with a good swift punch. Instead, she meticulously pulled on her gloves. “Dell’s going to get that appointment.”
Thorpe lifted a brow. “Is that a statement, Olivia, or a question?”
“I wouldn’t ask you for the time of day, Thorpe,” she retorted. “And you wouldn’t give it to me if I did.”
“I’ve always said you were a sharp lady.”
Good God, she’s beautiful, he thought. When he saw her on the air, it was easy to attribute the nearly impossible beauty to lighting, makeup, camera angles. But standing face to face in harsh morning light, she was quite simply the most physically beautiful woman he had ever seen. The incredible bone structure; the flawless skin. Only her eyes were hot, giving away the fury she was controlling. Thorpe smiled again. He loved to watch the ice crack.
“Is that the problem, Thorpe?” Liv demanded as she stepped aside to let the crew pass. “Don’t you like reporters who happen to be women?”
He laughed and shook his head. “You know better than that, Liv. ‘Reporter’ is a word without sex.”
His eyes weren’t intense now, but filled with good humor. She didn’t like them any better. More accurately, she refused to like them any better. “Why won’t you cooperate with me?” The wind was tossing his hair around his face as it had
the night before. Thorpe seemed untouched by the cold as Liv shivered inside her coat. “We have the same job; we work for the same people.”
“My turf,” he said quietly. “If you want a share, Liv, you’re going to have to fight for it. It took me years to establish myself here. Don’t expect to do the same in months.” He saw her shudder against the cold as she continued to glare at him. “You’d better get inside the van.”
“I’m going to have my share, Thorpe.” It was half threat, half warning. “You’re going to have a hell of a fight on your hands.”
Thorpe inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I’ll count on it.”
It was obvious to him that Liv wasn’t leaving until he did. She would stand there shivering for an hour out of sheer stubbornness. Without a word, Thorpe walked down the steps to his car.
Liv stood for another moment after he’d driven off. She was aware—and annoyed by the fact—that she was able to breathe with more ease when he was no longer standing beside her. He had a strong personality; it was impossible to be indifferent to him. He demanded definite emotions. Liv decided hers were all unflattering.
He wasn’t going to block her way. She wasn’t going to put up with it. She walked down the steps to the van slowly.
Anna, she thought suddenly, remembering the name Dell had mentioned to Thorpe. Anna Dell Monroe—Dell’s daughter and official hostess since the death of her mother. Anna Dell Monroe. Whatever was going on in her father’s life, she’d know about it. Moving quickly now, Liv climbed in the van.
“We’ll drop the tape at the station for editing; then we head for Georgetown.”
2
Liv typed furiously. She had given Carl the Dell interview for the noon news; but she had more, a great deal more, for the evening show. Her hunch about Anna Monroe had paid off. Anna knew the details of her father’s life. Though she had been careful during the interview, she wasn’t the trained diplomat her father was. Liv had enough from her half-hour interview in the parlor of Anna Monroe’s Georgetown row house to give her viewers a story with touches of glamour and suspense.