“Thanks, and good-night to you, too,” it read. He’d signed it, “Joe.”
Nicky was reading it again, her back to the door, when someone walked into her office.
“Nicky. I wasn’t sure you’d be in. Nobody would have blamed you if you’d wanted to stay home today, you know.”
So engrossed was she that the interruption was startling. She almost jumped, but managed to catch herself in time. Feeling ridiculously self-conscious about the message she was reading, which suddenly felt way too personal in nature, Nicky clicked it away before turning to smile at Sarah Greenberg. Twenty-four Hours Investigates ’s supervising producer was a no-nonsense type in her early fifties, about five-five, with short, dark brown hair and hazel eyes. As a behind-the-camera type, she had allowed herself to age naturally, which meant that her face had all the usual wrinkles and her waist and hips bore some extra poundage. Today, she wore black pants with a pale blue sweater set and sensible, low-heeled shoes.
“I’m fine,” Nicky said. It was beginning to feel like her mantra. If she said it often enough, it might even start to feel true.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Sarah’s tone was brisk. “Sunday’s special got the highest ratings we’ve had all spring, by the way, so congratulations again. And your mother was wonderful. We might want to do something else with her down the road.”
“Thanks. I’ll tell her.”
“Well, no point in beating around the bush. The reason I’m here is to pass on a message: Sid wants to see you in his office as soon as you can get up there.”
“He does?” Nicky would have been excited, anticipating praise for Sunday’s special if nothing else, if she hadn’t known that Carl was also meeting with Sid just then. And there was something about Sarah’s choice of words and tone. . . .
Nicky frowned at her. “So what’s up?”
Sarah shook her head. “You’ll have to talk to Sid.”
Horror pierced Nicky’s soul as a hideous possibility occurred to her. “Oh my God, we haven’t been cancelled already, have we?”
A smile touched Sarah’s mouth. “It’s not as bad as that, but I’m not telling you anything else. Go on, go up and talk to Sid.”
There was no moving Sarah when she looked like that, and, anyway, begging was unprofessional. But something was clearly awry. Turning all possibilities over in her mind as she rode the elevator to the top floor, Nicky was still drawing a blank by the time she arrived in the reception area of Sid’s penthouse office.
Whatever was coming her way—my God, was she going to be fired?—she was going to face it with her head up, her shoulders back, and her stomach in a knot.
“You can go in now,” the receptionist said after phoning Nicky’s name through to her boss.
Nicky thanked her, did a quick check of her appearance in the brass-framed mirror behind the desk—no hair straggling from her smooth updo; makeup in place; slim black pantsuit meeting the triple test of being unobtrusive, flattering, and businesslike—then, taking a deep breath, she walked past the receptionist, opened the door, and strode into Sid’s lair.
If office space was allocated according to an individual’s status within the company, Sid was clearly master of this particular universe. His office was huge, with three walls of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the tall skyscrapers and narrow, canyon-like streets of the city. Outside, the sky was gray and overcast, and light rain blew against the building, pattering against the glass. Inside, the incandescent lighting was warm and welcoming. Plush cream carpeting stretched beneath an elegantly upholstered seating arrangement that consisted of two full-sized charcoal-gray couches and four pale gray chairs around a bathtub-sized glass-and-brass coffee table, then led on to a pair of navy leather wingback chairs that she could see only the backs of because they faced, as a kind of grand finale, Sid’s desk. It was the size of a pool table, a solid block of gleaming, dark wood that was probably ruinously expensive, and was punctuated by the presence, behind it, of the great man himself.
“Nicky, good to see you,” Sid said heartily, getting to his feet and coming around the desk to shake hands with her, his square, heavy-featured face breaking into a smile. His accent was Upper Midwest urban, and he looked as though the closest to the Mason-Dixon Line he’d ever ventured was Chicago’s South Side. Nicky knew from the office grapevine that he was fifty-four, twice married, and the father of five children ranging from adult to kindergarten age. About five-eleven, average weight, a little stoop-shouldered, and a little flabby around the middle, he had black hair with liberal flecks of gray in it and mild gray eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses. His brows were his most arresting feature—thick, black brows as furry as caterpillars that almost met above his nose. For the rest of it, he had jowls, a receding hairline, and a rumpled gray suit, and was pasty-skinned from too much time spent indoors. In other words, he was your basic average-looking office schmo.
Only he wasn’t.
Around Santee Productions, he was king. In the Twenty-four Hours Investigates credits, he was listed as Executive Producer. He was also listed as Executive Producer on eleven other shows that Santee Productions owned. That meant that he had the power to hire and fire pretty much everybody in the building. He could axe programs; he could axe personalities. He could also, if he took a personal interest in somebody, ignite a rocket booster under their career. Nicky had met him exactly four times: her first day on the job, when he had personally welcomed her to the team; at the office Christmas party; at Karen’s funeral; and now.
As she and Sid shook hands, Carl rose from one of the wingback chairs. He was smiling at her, which, in Nicky’s experience of him, had never yet meant anything good. She acknowledged him with a curt nod. His smile broadened.
“So, what’s this about?” Her question, which was addressed to Sid, was perhaps a little more abrupt in tone than it would have been if Carl hadn’t been standing there, looking at her like the cat who was getting ready to swallow the canary.
“Sit down, sit down.” Sid waved her toward a chair as he walked back around his desk to take a seat himself. Though she would have preferred to remain standing, Nicky sat in the nearer of the two wingback chairs, perching almost on its edge, while Carl sank back down comfortably into its twin.
Never let them see you sweat.
With that oldie-but-goodie in mind, Nicky took a discreet but deep and calming breath—the place even smelled expensive, she noticed as she inhaled—and deliberately relaxed back into her chair, too, letting her hands rest on the chair’s smooth arms as she crossed her legs.
Carl wasn’t going to beat her in the body-language department. She could project cool confidence, too.
“So.” Sid clasped his hands in front of him on his desktop and leaned forward as he looked at Nicky.
“First, I want to tell you again how pleased we are with your special. It was excellent work, just excellent, and it’s performed really well for us in the ratings.”
“Thank you.” As hard as she tried to look relaxed, she wasn’t. She was, instead, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was all she could do not to dig her nails into the leather and swing her high-heeled foot.
“Sad as it is to say, there’s also been a lot of interest in Miss Wise’s murder,” Sid continued. “The AP picked up on some local reporter’s coverage and sent it out over the wire, so that the story wound up in dozens of newspapers across the country. The murder got featured on Entertainment Tonight and several other entertainment /newsmagazine-type shows, one or two of which we don’t even own.” He grinned briefly, and Nicky, realizing that this was his idea of a joke, managed a weak smile, too. “It’s all over the Internet. The whole tie-in with the earlier murder and disappearances of those teenage girls, the ghost thing with the séance and the psychic—that was your mother, wasn’t it? She’s a real spark plug—the fact that our reporter—you—was also attacked and lived to tell the tale . . . this is a good story. This has legs. This we can build on. Our viewers want to know more.”
<
br /> He paused, looking at Nicky as if he expected some sort of reply.
I’m sure Karen would be glad to know that she basically took one for the team was the thought that popped into Nicky’s head, but she had a feeling that it might be a less-than-politic remark. Sid seemed to feel no shame, or even remorse, about considering Karen’s murder sort of like found treasure as far as the ratings were concerned.
“It was a horrible crime” was the best Nicky could come up with. She hoped it was supportive enough.
Sid nodded as if she’d said something wise. “It was indeed. And don’t think for a moment that we’re not going to do our best to make sure that Miss Wise—and you—get the justice you both deserve. Given the realities of small-town police departments, though, this crime is very likely to remain unsolved—unless we stay on top of it. Put some pressure on them. Keep their feet to the fire, as it were. What I want to do is have Twenty-four Hours Investigates follow the ongoing investigation into Miss Wise’s death. I want a reporter down there on the scene full-time, working right along with the police department, letting our viewers inside the case. We’ll do a fifteen-minute segment on the next two shows, promote the hell out of them, do some spots on our other shows—you know, tie-ins, cross-promotion, that kind of thing—then do a wrap-up—probably a full hour special like the one you just did—in which we solve the crime. Last week of sweeps. We’ll promote the hell out of that. There’s no telling what kind of numbers we’ll get.”
Just thinking about it made his cheeks flush and his eyes gleam. If ever a man could be said to gloat, Sid was gloating then.
Nicky wasn’t. The purpose of her summons to Mount Olympus was becoming all too horribly clear. Sid wanted her to go back to Pawleys Island, back to where Karen had died and where she had nearly been killed, deliberately putting herself in harm’s way, raking up the dreadful memories, exposing her raw and at the moment painfully gun-shy psyche to the terror that waited for her there.
To juice the ratings.
“I’m not sure three weeks is going to be enough time to actually identify the murderer,” Nicky pointed out in as neutral a tone as she could muster. She could feel her palms growing damp, feel her insides start to twist and tighten.
She couldn’t go back. Not now. Maybe not ever. Just considering the possibility made her woozy.
Sid waved a dismissive hand. “As long as we give ’em something—a theory, a profile, maybe even another psychic session with your mother . . . now there’s an idea; that’d be great—we’re covered. At the end of the day, the point isn’t what we give ’em. The point is to get them to tune in.”
I can’t do it.
The words popped into her head out of nowhere. Nicky swallowed them before they could be said, but they scrolled through her mind in bright neon letters nonetheless.
Lazarus508 would be there on the island waiting. She felt it, knew it. . . .
Gritting her teeth, she tried to fight back the threatening tide of panic.
“You’re looking kind of pale, Nicky. Are you all right?” Carl asked.
Her gaze slid sideways to him. He was leaning toward her, looking oh-so-solicitous. Anybody who didn’t know him—like, say, Sid—might actually think he was concerned about her well-being.
But she knew him.
“Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to say to you,” Sid continued smoothly, his eyes, like Carl’s, on her face.
Nicky tried to keep her face unreadable. Day in and day out, for the entire eight years that she’d been in television, she had been working with predators. The entire industry was rife with them. They were everywhere, waiting like jackals to pounce on those who became weak and vulnerable.
There was no way she was going to let herself even seem to falter in her present company.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The idea for the special, the whole séance angle, it was all yours, and I want you to know that I won’t forget your good work on it. But given what you’ve already been through with this, we sure as God can’t ask you to do more. That being the case, I’m giving this assignment to Carl.”
11
“WHAT?” Nicky shot up out of her chair. “No! You can’t do that!”
“I had an idea you might be upset,” Sid began, but Nicky interrupted, planting both hands flat on his desk and leaning toward him.
“Upset? I’m not upset. I’m damned mad,” she roared, and had the momentary satisfaction of seeing Sid’s eyes widen as he rocked back in his chair to, it seemed, put as much space between them as possible. “That’s my story!”
“It’s just . . . it would be much safer for a man,” Sid said, blinking at her, seemingly taken aback by the vehemence of her response. “And . . . and Carl’s had more experience with crime reporting. . . .”
Nicky’s head snapped around so that Carl was in her sights. He was looking at her, his expression faintly alarmed. Or, at least, she would have thought it was faintly alarmed if she hadn’t seen the glint of satisfaction lurking in his eyes.
That glint gave her pause. Carl had known about this. Carl had probably lobbied hard for this. Carl had, in fact, played Sid like a fish. He was being vintage Carl: underhanded, backstabbing, and smart.
Okay, maybe blowing up at the Head Honcho wasn’t the best way to handle the situation, especially when she was fighting for her professional future here. Carl, the snake, would ride the wave of interest in Karen’s death as far as it would take him. As far as Nicky was concerned, the general idea of exploiting that horrible tragedy for ratings was all but unthinkable. It was sordid. It was repugnant. For her, the prospect of returning to Pawleys Island to investigate the murder was terrifying. It would be psychologically traumatic. It would probably be physically dangerous. In theory, she wanted nothing whatsoever to do with it.
But if she didn’t do it, Carl was going to.
Reining in her temper with an effort, Nicky swung her gaze back around to Sid.
“I grew up on Pawleys Island,” she said in an even tone. “I know the layout and history of the Old Taylor Place—the house we did the show in, where Karen and those three girls were murdered—because I was there as a guest as a child. I know just about everybody on the island, certainly all the old-timers. My mother—the psychic you want to get to do another séance on the wrap-up show—owns a house there. In addition, she is my mother.” She resisted the urge to glance at Carl again. “You tell me how Carl can compete with that.”
“Miss Wise was murdered, and you were attacked,” Sid said, sounding unhappy. “We just can’t take a chance on sending you back down there.”
“The killer might try to take you out again,” Carl added. He was leaning forward in his chair now, his hands gripping the ends of the arms, his gaze intense as he transferred his attention to Sid. “Not only am I the more experienced reporter, but I won’t have that problem. No serial killer who’s interested in chicks is going to mess with me.”
“I have access. You don’t,” Nicky shot back, straightening to glare at Carl. “You’ll find you have a hard time getting the locals to open up to you. You don’t know who anybody is, or where anything is. And if you think my mother is going to do a séance for you, you’re wrong.” Her gaze switched back to Sid. “She won’t do it. Trust me.”
“There are lots of psychics out there,” Carl growled.
“Psychics are a dime a dozen. As for access, all it takes is a good reporter, which you would know if you were one.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nicky planted her fists on her hips and smiled at him. It wasn’t a nice smile. “I already have a source in the police department and inside information that you’ll never get. Inside information that no one has but me.”
“She’s lying,” Carl said to Sid.
“He wishes,” Nicky said to Sid.
Sid held up a stubby-fingered hand, looking from one of them to the other with a frown.
“You’ve done a good job on this for us,” Sid said to Nicky. “I hav
e absolutely no problem with anything you’ve done on camera the whole time you’ve been working for Twenty-four Hours Investigates, and the special was fantastic. Taking you off the story is not a punishment of any sort. I want you to understand that. We just want to keep you safe while providing our viewers with the best information we can.”
Carl looked smug. Nicky, who interpreted this speech to mean that she was about to be told that the story was now irrevocably Carl’s, felt desperate.
“He’s been contacting me,” she said. “The killer.”
A beat passed while both Sid and Carl stared at her.
“What?” Sid said finally.
Nicky nodded. “First he called me. Then he sent me an e-mail.”
“You’re lying,” Carl said.
Nicky shook her head.
“Now that’s a story,” Sid said. “What did he say?”
Nicky smiled.
“I’ll talk about it on the air—if the story is mine. If not, I’m afraid I can only talk about it to the police. Carl can try to develop a source in the police department who’ll tell him all about it, of course, but . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged. “These things take time. And you said three weeks?”
“That’s blackmail,” Carl burst out angrily. To Sid, he added, “You aren’t going to let her get away with that, are you?”
Sid looked reflective for a moment.
“If she doesn’t want to tell us something, I don’t see how we can make her,” Sid said in a reasonable tone. “And she’s right about the local access. And the psychic being her mother. And the time frame. And if she’s in contact with the killer . . . admit it, Carl, you can’t compete with that. And if she’s not concerned about her safety . . .” His voice trailed off as he shrugged. He looked at Nicky, snapped his fingers, and pointed a stubby forefinger at her. “Okay, Nicky, the story’s yours. Go get it.”
HAVING A PIG WATCH HIM while he ate his breakfast was the antithesis of a digestion aid, Joe reflected as he sat at his kitchen table, downing a plate of bacon and eggs while the possible kin of half his meal stared at him through the glass window in his back door. The damned thing must have been able to see through the mini-blinds—hell, he could see through the mini-blinds, so there was no reason it shouldn’t be able to. Its round, black snout was pressed to the glass, and its beady little black eyes were staring right at him. The really weird thing was that it hadn’t appeared in the window until the bacon had started sizzling and splattering in the skillet. Then he had gotten the prickle-between-theshoulderblades feeling that meant he was being watched and whipped around, the fork with which he had turned the meat still in his hand. There the damned pig had been, looking at him almost as though it knew what he was cooking.
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