by Meryl Sawyer
If anyone was a lost soul, it was she.
"Matt, let me put the photos and the story I've written on the FedEX plane. Look at them and tell me this isn't the scoop of the year."
"Kelly, I didn't mean—"
"It's all right. I know you weren't crazy about Daniel. This isn't about Daniel or about us. This is about the son of a man who might be our next president. It's about a national nightmare—abducted children."
The long silence made her wonder what Matt was thinking. Once they'd been inseparable, destined to marry and live their lives together. B.D.
Before Daniel.
"Kelly, if this is as good as you say, I'm going to put Logan on the cover."
"Wonderful!" Kelly said, relieved to be discussing the article again. "But I'm worried the press conference the Stanfields called tomorrow will scoop us."
"News conference? No one called Exposé!"
Kelly explained why the Stanfields hated Pop and the Sedona Sun which ran scathing editorials critical of Haywood Stanfield. Logan must have told Benson Williams that Kelly had mentioned Exposé, and he had taken the magazine off the A list.
"Exposé doesn't hit the stands until Monday. TV reporters will have the story Friday night on the late news. Then they'll broadcast it all day Saturday and Sunday," she said, hoping Matt would volunteer to do a special issue.
"Don't worry," Matt told her. "I'll wallop them with the power of the Internet. Our Website will publish some of the details and a photo, beating them to the punch and encouraging readers to rush out to buy the special edition of Exposé."
"Perfect, Matt. Thank you." She didn't know what to say exactly. There was an undercurrent to their relationship that she didn't know how to handle. "This really means a lot to me."
He hesitated a moment, worrying her. "If I blast through cyberspace with this, are you positive it's the truth?"
Ordinarily, Kelly would have trusted her instincts and said, yes. But her horrible experience with an unreliable source had taught her a bitter lesson.
Verify every story.
She couldn't lie to Matt, the man who'd found her wandering the Yale campus, a homesick freshman from the Southwest thrown in with Eastern preppies. He'd encouraged her to join the Yale Herald staff, and he'd introduced her to all his friends.
Somewhere along the way—probably that first day—she had fallen for Matt. They'd been inseparable until Daniel Taylor appeared to eclipse the other men in her life. Still, Matt had remained her friend, being Daniel's best man, seeing her through Daniel's funeral, and understanding when she'd made a mess of her career and everyone else deserted her.
"Matt, I only have Logan's word that there is a press conference."
"Let me make a few calls, then I'll get back to you."
Kelly hung up and waited, going into the darkroom to check the print. Awesome, totally awesome. A picture could be worth a thousand words. A man and his dog, at least that's how it would appear. There was a connection between them, an emotional bond that the camera had captured. Not only was Logan handsome, he was the type of man that readers would want to know.
She even found herself wanting to know him, not just his story, but know what he thought about things like movies and books and the ozone layer. His compelling blue eyes gazed up at her from the photograph, seeming to speak to her alone. Get a grip, she told herself. It's just a picture. The reality is very different.
"Kidnapped!" she said out loud. "The perfect title. People will wonder just what it means when they see a grown man."
If only she could be positive Logan were telling the truth, she would be assured of a Pulitzer Prize caliber story.
If only.
Using the 45mx enlarger, she made the picture 8 x 10. That would leave room for the Exposé masthead.
Seven minutes later her telephone rang. Matt's clipped voice came over the line. "Your information is correct. The barbecue/ news conference is set for tomorrow afternoon. Everyone who's anyone has been invited—except Exposé. People believe Haywood Stanfield is announcing his bid for the presidency. No one has a hint of a missing child. If we run with that story and it isn't true, I'm fried—big time."
The nervous tremor in Matt's voice surprised Kelly. She couldn't remember when he hadn't been cool even in a crisis. She wondered if her fall from grace for not substantiating a story had also taught him a lesson.
"Kelly, you need a corroborating source."
"Without announcing to the Stanfields that I'm a step ahead of them, there isn't anyway to verify this. You look at the pictures of Logan and tell me that he isn't Haywood's son." She'd saved her ace for last. "One other thing. This is an exclusive interview with Logan McCord. He's just taking one picture with the entire family. I have the only photos of him alone and the only interview."
"Christ, Kelly. That's awesome." He hesitated a moment, then his tone changed becoming disturbingly somber. "After the special edition is on the stands, I want to come out there and talk to you."
She said good-bye and hung up, convinced Matt was coming here to offer her a job. If this story was even half as big as she suspected it would be, she would be in a position to return to New York. How could she leave Pop? He needed her and listening to Logan describe his life made her feel even luckier that Pop had raised her.
Sedona was a beautiful town, the perfect place to bring up children. If Daniel had been alive, she would be happy to live here and run the paper for her grandfather. But Daniel was gone, and the children they'd put off having were never going to be born.
A weight settled on her chest that made it hard to breathe, and tears blurred her vision. She'd always counted on having a big family. Growing up as an only child had been lonely despite Pop's love. She'd promised herself when she married, she would have at least three children.
With Daniel gone, her biological clock had become a time bomb. But men didn't interest her. Actually, nothing had interested her until this story.
"Stop wasting time feeling sorry for yourself."
She returned to the darkroom and developed the remaining six prints. They were all winners, but none could compare with the shot of Logan with the dog. Now if she could just write the text and have it be as good.
A sharp knock startled her, and she opened the casita door to find Logan McCord. A thought flashed through her mind: no man could do for denim what Logan could do. He was handsome, yet he projected a rough masculine look that assured her no one ever considered him a pretty boy.
Behind a smile rife with charismatic charm that had garnered his father countless votes, Logan's eyes were sharp and assessing. Cold. For all his 14-karat smiles, and the striking appeal of his face, Logan McCord was a calculating, dangerous man.
A very strange man.
He kept all his worldly belongings in a backpack that would have been hard-pressed to hold her toiletries. Odd, very odd. He'd told them a bare outline of his life, the details he wanted them to have. Nothing more.
He walked into her bungalow without being invited, saying, "How'd the pictures turn out?"
His words stunned her, and surprise must have shown on her face. He chuckled, a rich masculine sound that escalated into a laugh.
"Sweetheart, no one gets the drop on me. Not even a pretty blonde. I knew you were shooting pictures through the kitchen window."
He's a gifted actor, she silently reflected. She would have sworn he was being completely natural. Be very careful of this man, warned an inner voice.
Leaning against the counter separating the bedroom area from the kitchenette, he said in the gravel-like voice she'd come to associate with him, "Pop told me you were an amateur photographer. He says you have a darkroom set up out here."
She silently cursed her grandfather for falling under this man's spell. No doubt, he'd told Logan a lot of things that she would rather he not know. She didn't have time to examine the reasons, but she felt threatened by him.
Logan had barged into her life, and in a matter of hours had won ove
r her grandfather. All through dinner she'd been acutely aware of how taken Pop was with Logan. She wasn't jealous; she was concerned.
"Would you like to see the pictures?" she asked, more than a little uneasy to find herself alone with him, but she had intended to show him the pictures.
"Sure." He sounded as if it didn't matter, but she didn't necessarily believe it. He'd already proved how adept he was at concealing his feelings.
He followed her into the makeshift darkroom, and she showed him the six photos she'd selected. She couldn't tell what he thought; his face remained expressionless.
"Which one are you putting on the cover?"
"What makes you think this will be a cover story?"
He studied her for a moment, in that disturbing way of his, then said, "It's a kick-ass story. An American soap opera—a real one. Love, lust, infidelity, money, politics, and a kidnapped child. What more could you want? Murder?"
"It's up to Matthew Jensen," she informed him, suddenly aware of how close they had to stand in the small closet. She backed out the door. "I'm overnighting everything to him."
"Use the shot of me with Jasper. John Q. Public will lap it up with a flavor straw. They're suckers for cute dogs."
She didn't tell him that she'd reached the same conclusion. Coming from him in such a snide tone, it seemed to be the type of deliberate manipulation of public opinion that made people distrust the media.
A niggling suspicion returned. What wasn't Logan McCord telling her?
"I haven't written the story yet. It would help if I had more background. You know, stuff about your childhood, any career information that isn't classified."
His eyes drifted over her face, then moved downward, a dark glitter in his eyes as the pupils dilated. She crossed her arms over her breasts and stared him down—or tried to. She wondered if he mentally undressed women for the fun of it, or was he trying to distract her?
If so, it was working. An unexpected weightlessness filled her chest. She was acutely aware that they were alone together in a bedroom with a small sitting area and a kitchenette off to one side. If he thought she was some easy piece, he was dead wrong.
Daniel's position as the South American Director of the Universal News Syndicate meant he spent a lot of time in Venezuela where the regional headquarters were located. Often he was gone for weeks at a time. She had plenty of opportunities, but she never had been unfaithful.
"I've said all I'm going to about my past," he said in his gruff voice. "You have an exclusive interview with me. That puts you way ahead of the pack."
With the back of his hand, he lifted the hair off her neck and peered at the scab below her ear. His thumb slid gently over the small cut, then down the side of her neck. He'd touched her before at the office, but she'd been too on edge to notice his touch had a delicacy she never expected. Beneath her bare feet, the floor seemed to shift.
He's trying to manipulate you, she warned herself. Be on guard. She moved away, asking. "What's wrong with your voice? You sound hoarse all the time."
"I haven't had any women complain about it."
Indeed it was a bedroom voice, but she refused to admit she found him attractive. No doubt women fell all over him. Well, she wasn't joining the ranks.
"Oh, then you deliberately try to sound as if you smoke ten packs of cigarettes a day," she said to provoke him.
"No, it's not deliberate," he responded. "A couple of terrorists poured battery acid down my throat. I'm lucky I can still talk."
"Oh, my God," she cried. "I'm sorry. I had no idea."
He merely shrugged as if it meant nothing, but he gazed into her eyes with such intensity that she battled the urge to run out of the room.
"Don't be sorry. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
Something in his eyes told her the terrorists had died a bloody, violent death. She heard herself whisper, "What happened to them?"
He moved closer, never breaking eye contact and she felt the heat emanating from his body. "Off the record?"
She nodded, unable to speak. There was something so compelling, so overpowering about Logan McCord. On one level, he frightened her, yet on another, she found him more exciting than anyone she'd ever met.
"I slit both their throats."
She didn't know what to say, but now she was convinced that she would have to write two articles on this man. She didn't have time to unravel his past, but when she did, she was positive she would discover a story just as fascinating as his link to the Stanfields.
"I need to write the article," she said, ashamed of the way she'd teased him about his voice. "I'll have to have everything at the airport at 2 A.M. when the last FedEx flight leaves. Do you want to read it before I send it in?"
A strange heat unfurled in her stomach as he leaned toward her with a caressing masculine glint to his eyes that usually preceded a kiss. She wanted to pull away, she honestly did, but she couldn't move. His warm palm circled the nape of her neck, sending chilling goose bumps across her breasts.
His gaze held hers as his fingers skimmed the back of her neck, barely stroking her, but his touch scorched her tender skin. Their lips were a scant inch apart now. His smoldering, brooding eyes mesmerized her.
She inhaled sharply, filling her lungs with the faint woodsy smell of his shaving lotion. Minute flutters of heat feathered through her body. What was she doing? Backing up, she groped for something to say.
Any second he was going to kiss her.
He whispered in a raspy undertone. "I don't have to read the article, but I'm going with you to the airport. Remember, a little boy was kidnapped not far from here. You never know who's out there or what they might do."
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
Logan cursed himself as he walked down the path from Kelly's place to the bungalow where he'd put his things. What in hell was he doing coming onto her like that? Stupid ass! Did he want to blow everything?
Kelly was sexy as hell. But getting involved wasn't part of his agenda. Telling his story—his way—was the reason he'd sought out the blonde.
Yet something about her intrigued him besides her captivating lips. Part of her attraction was her quick mind. She was suspicious about his story, and he knew it. You're on, babe. He'd never been able to resist a challenge.
Kelly's grandfather had been a total surprise. Logan had never known a grandfather—or even a father. For damn sure, the men at the camp like his uncle Jake hadn't been interested in being a parent.
He could still hear Jake's booming voice. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and make it on your own or die trying. What kind of a man said that to a little kid? He couldn't imagine Trent Farley uttering those words.
Pop had a paternalistic attitude, but he also conveyed a willingness to accept people the way they were that seemed more like a friend to Logan. But what the hell did he know? His youth had been dominated by people who did not fit the mold of mainstream society.
He couldn't help liking Pop and respecting him for sticking to his beliefs. He was a burr under the Stanfields' saddle, which added to his appeal. Pop was down to earth while the Stanfields reeked of money and power.
And total arrogance.
His old man might have been willing to accept Logan, but the rest of the Stanfields would rather see him dead. They'd hated him on sight and had made no attempt to conceal their feelings, yet he'd stake his life that they'd be sweet as sugar for the reporters tomorrow.
What a crock! He didn't need the Stanfields. The last thing he wanted in his life was a father. A politician who was pussy-whipped by a neurotic wife and dominated by a pompous political advisor, was worse than no father at all.
"Forget them," he told himself as he came into the dark bungalow. He flicked on the light and saw his backpack in the corner. It was tilted at a certain angle, so he could make certain no one had touched it while he'd been gone.
He opened the canvas pack and took out the new computer that was
much smaller than any laptop available to the general public. This prototype had been developed for military use. He could have attached a micro-antenna and contacted the surveillance satellite overhead, but he decided to save the battery for an emergency and use the telephone instead.
He plugged into the phone and booted up the computer. He typed in a message to his supervisor at the National Military Command Center.
Where do I stand?
Considering the time difference between Arizona and Washington, Logan didn't expect an answer from "the bunker" until morning. Someone could blow Washington off the face of the earth, but "the bunker" would still be operational. At least, in theory. He added his code name—Nine Lives—to the message and was ready to sign off when a response appeared on the screen.
Have conferred with the brass. You will be reassigned to the Pentagon. Your expertise is invaluable. We need you here. Meanwhile, watch your back.
"Unfuckingbelievable." His voice ricocheted off the walls of the small bungalow.
He'd given the best years of his life to the Cobras. Why was he being assigned to a desk job? Tight-asses from the Pentagon would ride herd on him, monitoring his every move.
No way! He wanted to be out in the field—his own man. He slapped his hand, palm down, on the table. Life as he knew it—and loved it—was over.
Watch my back. Why?
Logan waited a moment until the answer appeared on the small screen.
The Armed Services Committee requested your file. I took a lot of bull because it had been electronically deleted.
"Haywood Stanfield was on that committee for years," Logan muttered to himself. "The old man or one of his flunkies must have asked to see my file."
I took care of my file before I left Argentina.
Logan had never met his commander in person. All communications were conducted via computer or by "bouncing" messages off the intelligence satellite. But Logan trusted the man who went by the code name: Raptor. In Logan's experience, Raptor was professional, quickly and thoroughly doing his job. He was not an alarmist. Logan typed another line.