Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer

by Suzie Quint

  “If she does, it’s against her better judgment.”

  “She does have a bit of a holier-than-though streak. It’s her way of rebelling.”

  “So her mother’s a free spirit like you?”

  Annaliese opened her mouth to respond then closed it again. After a moment, she said, “Cuckoos.”

  “What?”

  “You know that some species of cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds’ nests?”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “Cuckoos are ruthless. Sometimes, they push the other eggs out of the nest, so the parent birds have to hatch and rear the baby cuckoo or wait a year to try again.”

  Alec didn’t know where she was going with this, but he didn’t think she was merely rambling. He waited, trusting the destination would be relevant.

  “My parents were Bible-thumping, God-fearing, Christian fundamentalists,” Annaliese said. “Very dour people who frowned on everything from women cutting their hair and wearing pants to working outside the home. Sundays were a lot of fire and brimstone.”

  That explained a lot.

  “I really envied kids—envy is the sixth deadly sin, in case you didn’t know—who had normal families. Parents who let their daughters go to dances and on dates with—Oh my God”—she clapped a hand to her bosom and cast her eyes heavenward—“boys.”

  He smiled. She made it easy to see the amusing side, but it clearly hadn’t been pleasant to live through. “So you and your sister rebelled.”

  Annaliese’s gaze dropped to her cup.

  It was only a slight hesitation, but he thought he sensed a lingering pain behind it.

  “It’s like a clock pendulum,” she said. “When you start from one extreme and release the pendulum, it swings all the way to the other side.” She swung her hand, pointer finger extended, to the right. “And then it swings back.” Her hand moved to the left. “I’m just grateful it never occurred to Cleo to seek out a fundamentalist church. Once they get their hooks in you, they don’t let go easily.”

  “So she rebelled by . . . what was it you said? Repressing her fantasies?”

  “Oh, she repressed more than her fantasies. She probably didn’t tell you she took a vow of chastity in high school.” Annaliese shuddered.

  And that explained even more. “That’s not a horrible thing for a high school girl to do.”

  “I’m not saying a thirteen-year-old girl should be getting laid,” she said. “But by seventeen, she should be experimenting. Cleo was uptight. So straight-laced she might as well have had a stick up her ass. I started worrying she’d join a nunnery.”

  “If it puts your mind at ease, she got over it.”

  She hiked an encouraging eyebrow at him.

  He grinned. “You should see the smut she reads.”

  She burst out laughing.

  Madre de Dios. She was magnificent when she laughed.

  “Does Cleo know her grandparents?” Alec wasn’t sure why he asked, except that he liked digging into things. It was probably a side effect of being a reporter. And, he admitted to himself, because Cleo would never share any of this with him, which gave it the luster of the forbidden.

  “Oh heavens, no. Her grandparents would hold it against her that she was born”—Annaliese finger quoted—“out of wedlock. And yes, it’s hard to believe, but there are people like that out there.”

  “So you and her mother are all she’s got.”

  “Yeah.” Her mouth twisted into a wry grimace. “Pretty sad, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know about that. You don’t need a lot of family if what you’ve got stands by you at crunch time.”

  “Cleo does do that. I don’t know that I deserve it, but she came through for me when things went sideways. Lord knows the rest of my family wouldn’t have.”

  “Not even Cleo’s mom?”

  “Cleo’s—?” She looked flustered for a moment, but then she recovered. “No, we—well, that’s a long story.”

  He almost said, “I’ve got time,” but decided not to push it though his curiosity was nearly killing him. “And you don’t think your parents would help if you reached out to them?” With his tight-knit family, the idea of parents turning their back on a child in need, even an adult child, was foreign to him.

  Annaliese’s laugh had an edge to it. “My parents disowned me when I told them I was pregnant.” Before he could comment, she drew a sharp breath, as though she’d said something she regretted.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up anything painful. Cleo told me about Patty.”

  Annaliese stared at him, her brow furrowed. “Patty?”

  He bit back the urge to say, “You remember Patty. Your daughter.” This was weird. He had that same sense of falling down the rabbit hole he’d experienced the first time he’d spoken to her in Cleo’s apartment.

  “I saw the picture of her in your living room. Cleo said she died.”

  Annaliese dropped her head and lifted her hand to her brow, hiding her face. Her shoulders shook and a couple of faint strangled noises emanated from her as though she was trying to suppress tears.

  Mierde! He’d made her cry. He moved the box of tissue Cleo had left earlier near Annaliese and quietly left the kitchen. Cleo had told him to keep his mouth shut, but it seemed he couldn’t do that even outside the bedroom.

  ~***~

  He found Cleo lying kitty-corner on her stomach in the bed, looking as boneless as an octopus. One hand dangled limply over his side of the bed, near the pillow. The opposite foot stuck out from the covers on her side. Her other limbs were spread out. X marks the spot, he thought, remembering a game he’d played with his siblings, where one of them would create a pirate’s map, hiding some little prize for the others to find when they got to the “treasure trove.”

  Cleo wouldn’t appreciate the things he’d like to do to her treasure trove at the moment.

  The patches of unoccupied space would have required him to curl up like a dog. Even then, he’d have to be no larger than Bruiser.

  Her name got no response, so he tried nudging her, then poking, then insistent shoving, hoping she’d surface from Morpheus’s domain enough that he could convince her to move, but she didn’t even flinch. Eventually, he resorted to grabbing her feet, pivoting her into the middle of the bed, and rolling her onto her side. By the time he finally had her situated, he knew he never wanted to have to hide a dead body; it was too much work.

  He sat on the bed and looked at her. Her thick hair had fallen onto her face, making her look like Cousin It after a trip to the beauty salon. He smoothed her hair back.

  She was so beautiful when she wasn’t frowning at him that it made something tighten in his chest. Maybe someday, she’d even gift him with one of her world-killer smiles. As much as he wanted one, his heart might actually stop if he got it.

  Even now, his heart hurt a little.

  Then again, that might be guilt.

  He’d lied to her. He had done the kiss-and-tell. Jackson brought out the competitive side of him and, in the years they’d known each other, sexual conquests had become something of a sports statistic.

  It hadn’t seemed so bad because most of the women he’d been with hadn’t been looking for a big romance, and the few exceptions had sprung their expectations on him after the fact, losing what respect he might have had for them with their game-playing. Talking about them later hadn’t seemed like a violation.

  Cleo made him ashamed of that.

  Madre de Dios, was this what they called personal growth? But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe one day he’d be a grown up. Maybe then, he’d deserve one of Cleo’s thousand-watt smiles.

  Chapter 19

  Cleo woke to the realization she’d slept around the clock. She felt rested. The second realization came seconds later when she stretched and found herself alone in the bed.

  Alec. She’d left him unsupervised with Annaliese and Jada. What had she been thinking? They could have said anything to him. He cou
ld, at that very moment, be aware of everything she’d hidden from him. It was enough to make her want to pull the covers over her head and hide for another twelve hours.

  That wouldn’t make the problem go away however, so she got dressed and went to see if she’d slept through the collapse of her world. She found the three of them laughing and drinking coffee in the kitchen.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Annaliese said when she saw Cleo in the doorway. “You want coffee?”

  Like a gambling addict needed a roulette wheel, but she played it cool. “Sure.”

  Annaliese poured a cup as Cleo slid onto the stool beside Alec’s. Afraid she’d see a change in his attitude, she only meant to cast a quick look in his direction, but his open appraisal caught her. Oh, lord, he’s looking at me like he’s seeing me in a new light. That could only mean one thing. He knew. She might as well face it head on. “What?”

  He shook his head. “I’m wondering how you slept through the racket.”

  “What racket?”

  His eyes warmed as one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “You snore, sweetheart.”

  Her mouth dropped open. She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or insulted. “I do not.”

  “Like a lumberjack coming off a three-day binge. I think there may have been reports of a minor earthquake.”

  “I do not snore.”

  His digital voice recorder—the kind all reporters carried—lay on the counter. He picked it up, tapped the play button, and set it down. The sounds that emanated from it were definitely snores, but they weren’t that bad. Then a loud one, almost an elongated rumble, seemed to fill the room. It sounded like an eighteen wheeler barreling down the highway. She buried her face in her hands. So that’s what they’d found so amusing. And they were still laughing.

  He rubbed her shoulder. “It’s okay, cariño. I’m sure it was the allergy. You didn’t snore any other night.”

  It could be worse, she decided, dropping her hands. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

  “Once I put a pillow over my head.”

  She slapped his arm as Jada and Annaliese laughed. “Is that what you were all laughing about when I walked in?”

  “No, honey.” Annaliese said. “We’d moved on from that. Alec was telling us about The Inside Word. It sounds like a fun place to work. Almost makes me wish I’d become a writer like you.”

  Annaliese had never wanted to be anything but a dancer, but she would have fit in well at The Word. It wasn’t a compliment, but neither was it the insult it would have been a week ago.

  “It’s never too late,” Alec said with a grin.

  “I’ll keep that in mind if I’m suddenly unemployed.” Annaliese rose and rinsed her empty cup in the sink. She grabbed a piece of paper from under a magnet on the fridge. “See? I’ve already started. Think they’d want to publish my grocery list?”

  Alec laughed.

  “No? Well, I guess I’ll take it to the store and see what they think of it.”

  As Annaliese gathered her things, Cleo cocked her head. Was that her phone ringing?

  “It’s in the bedroom,” Alec said as though reading her mind.

  She slid off the stool and followed the sound. Her phone was on the bureau, recharging alongside his.

  “Good morning,” Martin said when she answered it.

  “Good morning to you,” she replied as she crossed the room to close the door.

  “It’s a gorgeous day out.”

  She refrained from mentioning that with an average annual rainfall of less than four inches, most days in Las Vegas were gorgeous.

  “I’ve booked a ten o’clock tee time for two,” Martin said.

  “Am I one of the two, or is this announcement something you thought I needed to know on general principle?”

  The line was silent for a moment, and she mentally kicked herself. She usually kept her smart-mouth comments to herself when talking to Martin. Either Alec was a bad influence or she’d stopped caring what Martin thought of her.

  Before she could apologize, he said, “I thought it would be a good opportunity for us to continue our conversation about you coming home to Tucson.”

  “Oh. Yes.” Tucson. Home. “Which course?”

  Was it good luck or bad that he’d booked the one that was right outside Annaliese’s patio? “That’s great. I’ll see you then.”

  She’d barely disconnected the call when Alec asked, “Meeting someone?”

  She hadn’t heard him open the door, but of course, he’d followed her. Did she subconsciously want to get busted? “Yes. A friend from school. We’re doing brunch.”

  A smile started to spread across his face.

  “Don’t even think about it. You’re not invited.” She stepped into the bathroom and examined her face. Her eyes were still puffy from the allergy attack. “We have catching up to do, and yes, your name might come up, so you can’t be there.”

  He dropped onto the bed. Stretching out on his side, his head propped on his fist, he asked, “What will you say about me, cara mia?”

  Relief that he wasn’t going to insist on coming along swept through her. “Fishing for compliments?”

  She glanced at him in time to see an eyebrow shrug. “Just curious.”

  Was there anything the man wasn’t curious about?

  She opened the case that held her makeup and pulled out her concealer. “I’ll say I’m here with a man who thinks Elvis lives, people are abducted by aliens on a regular basis, and Bigfoot roams free in the Pacific Northwest.”

  He blew out a skeptical pfft. “You will not.”

  Of course, she wouldn’t. And not only because that would mean admitting she now worked at a tabloid.

  “Okay. Hm.” She pressed her forefinger against her lips and struck a thoughtful pose. “I suppose I could say that, while you’re not all that bright, you’re incredible in bed, and I’ve decided to keep you around until you’re a worn-out husk.”

  He laughed. “I’d like that. But we both know you won’t own up to it.”

  Right again.

  “Okay.” She applied the concealer to the tender skin under her eyes. Maybe it was the way she looked that made her mood suddenly head south. Her mouth turned down in a bitter frown. “How about this? I’ve sold my soul to the devil, and I’m condemned to cover only lurid stories. Your job as Satan’s minion is to make sure I don’t stray from the path. I will forever and always be barred from polite society and shunned by true reporters.”

  The amusement was gone from his face, replaced by a scowl. “Is that how you see it?”

  She felt a little guilty for inflicting her vision on him, but not guilty enough to lie about it. “In my darker moments.”

  Alec shook his head. “You’re not a reporter, and you never have been.”

  Her stomach clenched. She was surprised at how much it hurt to hear him say it. Afraid to look at him because he was so observant, she pawed through her makeup bag for eyeliner and mascara.

  The bedsprings squeaked faintly, and suddenly, he was there, turning her toward him.

  “There’s a world of difference between a reporter and an investigative journalist. You know that, right?”

  She stared into his chest, refusing to lift her eyes. “Yes, of course I do know.”

  “Do you? Most reporters at major media outlets report what’s happening. Breaking news it’s called. And there’s a place for that, but an investigative journalist develops a story no one else knows is there. One that matters.”

  “I know that.” Why was he explaining this to her like she was a rookie?

  “Yeah. It’s what Woodward and Bernstein did with Watergate, and it’s what you did with your border story. Those are the kind of stories that can change our world.”

  He didn’t know it but he’d just touched her childhood dream. She couldn’t speak around the lump in her throat.

  “You may think you’ve become a pariah in the world of journalism, but you’ve got about a thousan
d percent better odds of getting to write those kinds of stories at The Word than you ever had at The Sun.”

  “Sure I do.” Her voice was thick with disbelief.

  “Oh, come on. You told me yourself they never sent you on interviews you had to compete for. And I checked your bylines before you walked in our doors. You’ve written nothing of significance since your border story.” He tried to lift her chin, but she turned her head away.

  “The Word hired you because they want what the National Enquirer has,” he said. “They told you that in that first meeting. They want to be eligible for the Pulitzer. That’s why they paid you the big bucks up front. That’s how much they believe in you.” He leaned in. “If you want it, you can write your own ticket. Nigel won’t care if you invest six months in a story if it’s a story like the one that pulled in a Pulitzer nomination. That’s how investigative journalists work. Not reporters.” He ducked his head, trying to catch her eyes. “You won’t get that kind of latitude anywhere else and you know it.”

  What she knew was that he was wrong. The Word didn’t have that kind of faith in her. They couldn’t. She might have one great story under her belt, but she didn’t have the track record that would justify such a belief. She wasn’t going to kid herself; Nigel had hired her because they hadn’t been able to get anyone else to abandon their career, their future—their integrity—for something as crass as money.

  So while she knew better, tears filled her eyes anyway because Alec sounded as though he actually believed what he’d said. Keeping her head ducked, so he wouldn’t see how affected she was, she gave him a brief but fierce hug, then shoved him out of the bathroom with a mumbled excuse about having to finish her makeup.

  As she did just that, she tried hard not to feel twinges of guilt about going to meet the competition.

  ~***~

  At ten o’clock sharp, Cleo pulled up in front of the Pro Shop. In spite of the heat, which was already over ninety degrees, Martin stood beside a golf cart dressed in white, loose-fitting chino shorts that ended at his knees and a red, short-sleeved shirt with thin white stripes. He looked like sweat wouldn’t dare break out anywhere on his body. His bag with his left-handed Titleist clubs was already in the back of the cart. He picked up a second bag—rented for her, no doubt—and swung it in beside his.