by Diane Capri
“Jordan….”
Claire’s tone warned her to stop, but she couldn’t. “My job is on the line here. I can’t even tell you how many things I got in trouble for today. It’s been a terrible first day actually. I broke a phone, I got demote—”
“Yeah, you know who else had a terrible day? The guy who got decapitated.”
“Claire, please.”
“I said NO!”
Then, silence on the other end.
Jordan pulled the phone from her ear and looked at the screen. Call Ended.
It was the first time Claire had ever hung up on her in all the years they’d been friends.
Jordan dropped her head back against the building and closed her eyes. She’d pushed Claire too hard and she knew it. But she’d been desperate. Her whole world was falling down around her again and her best friend had the ability to at least prop it back up for another day. That’s what best friends are for, aren’t they?
Apparently not tonight.
Jordan glanced at her watch. Time to get the news on the air. Maybe Sal’s seriously foul mood could mean he did know something. Maybe that’s why he was being so strange. Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Jordan would call Claire tomorrow. Maybe Sal would be willing to talk then. She’d need to call back anyway to apologize.
Right now, though, she was late for the eleven o’clock news. She dropped the phone into her pocket and dashed back inside.
CHAPTER 6
Antonio headlined Channel 12 News at 11, live from outside the casino. Drew must have been nearby. Probably watching and learning how to use all the high-tech equipment a live shot required—a live truck, a real camera, microphones, and lighting.
Jordan recognized the green-eyed monster that swelled her chest and masqueraded as wounded anger. She should be the one on the scene, not Drew. This was her story, dammit. Why did no one seem to understand that except her?
She scanned the row of monitors that hung above her chair at the assignment desk, each tuned in to a different local news station. They were all leading with the Florida Casino Incident. Every news station probably began flocking to the Casino around the same time Jordan was running away.
Why hadn’t she stayed put? She should have guessed Channel 12 would already have the first bits of news. Hell, if she’d stayed instead of running like a scared kid, she’d at least have been able to observe and take notes until someone with a working camera arrived. How could she have been so dense?
Jordan shook her head as if she could shake the self-defeat out of her mind. Then, she squared her shoulders and got to work. She had half an hour left on her shift. She intended to make the most of it.
Chronology suggested the body could be the missing man, Ted Garfield. She wouldn’t be able to positively identify the body, but maybe she could find something that would rule him out.
Jordan pulled up pictures of Garfield from police press releases to start. Too bad he hadn’t been a swim coach instead of soccer. Every photo she found showed him fully clothed.
An older, white-haired guy named Barry had replaced Patricia on the assignment desk for the night shift. Jordan had instantly felt comfortable with him. Besides Drew, Barry was the closest Jordan had come to making any friends at work today.
“How will we find out if Ted Garfield has, like, tattoos or scars or anything like that?” Jordan asked him. “Will the police tell us?”
“If we’re lucky, they’ll issue a press release before the weekend.” Barry’s slow Southern drawl was as musical as it was slow.
Tomorrow was Friday, last day before the weekend. Tomorrow could be newsworthy. Which meant tomorrow could be a good day.
But Jordan wanted answers now. Or at least progress. At 11 p.m. on a Thursday night, there wasn’t much she could do except go back to the internet.
She searched the station’s archives, which turned up a few newspaper articles from several years back. Garfield was once a soccer coach at Knightly High School, one county north of Tampa’s Hills County. Garfield had also been a soccer coach for at least one year at James High School, a nearby private school. He’d been quoted in an article about the team heading to the State Championship.
James High. That’s where her ex, Paul Wolfe attended high school. And Paul had played soccer. Jordan scanned the article. The story was focused on the first time James’ soccer team had been to the State Championship. She did another quick archives search and found James High hadn’t been back to States since.
Which meant Ted Garfield was her ex-fiance’s soccer coach.
Yes! She did a fist pump and then glanced around to be sure no one had noticed.
Paul was in New York City now pursuing his own journalism career, a phone call and two thousand miles of pride from where she sat now.
Jordan cringed and sunk down in her seat.
After he dumped her on her college graduation day, she swore she would never speak to him again. A vow she’d kept with no difficulty whatsoever. But…maybe she should make an exception when her entire career was at stake. Bile rose in her throat.
Still, what choice did she have?
She was dying to know anything at all about Ted Garfield. A dozen questions popped into her head that Paul could easily answer. For example, if Ted had tattoos across his chest or arms, she’d know the tattoo-less body couldn’t be Ted’s. Was Ted in any way suspicious? Did he engage in any risky behaviors? Have mental problems? In short, did Paul know of any reason why he might have gone missing?
Her shift had ended a couple of minutes ago. Her co-workers were filing out.
Jordan pulled out her ancient cell phone and scrolled through the stored phone numbers. Maybe one of Paul’s high school friends could be found among her contacts and she could call one of them instead. But all the way from A through Z, she found no one. Except Paul Wolfe.
Still, she hesitated. Paul had used her. Humiliated her. It had taken weeks for her to stop crying after he dumped her. She never, ever intended to speak to him again. Not even once.
She found his number in her phone and stared at it.
Paul would still be awake. He was a night owl. He never went to bed before 1 a.m.
She weighed her options, which hadn’t changed. She had to do it.
His phone rang once, twice. He picked up. No words yet, and already the situation felt incredibly awkward. She almost disconnected, but he’d have already seen her name on his caller ID anyway.
Deep breath.
“Paul, it’s Jordan.” Her tone was all business. This wasn’t a personal call and she didn’t want him to think otherwise. “I’d apologize for calling too late, but I know you’re still up.”
“Actually, it is too late. So you should apologize.”
What a jerk. She gritted her teeth.
“Fine. Never mind. Have a good life,” she said.
Jordan started to pull the phone from her ear, when she heard his voice speaking up again.
“Hey, hey. Jordan. I was kidding. Kidding.”
She rolled her eyes and pulled the phone back to her ear. “No, forget it. I forgot how freaking annoying your sense of humor is. I don’t have time for this.”
Jordan hung up. She didn’t need Paul. He wasn’t the only kid who ever played soccer at James High. Tomorrow, she’d find another source. Tonight, she’d go home and pour a glass of wine and try to practice a little patience.
On the way out the door, Jordan heard laughter from a small, dim edit bay in the back corridor. Drew and Antonio had returned from their live shot at the casino. Drew was smiling, kicked back with his sculpted arms crossed, like he’d been working at Channel 12 his whole life. By Antonio’s side, Drew would rise to the top of the newsroom with almost no effort at all. Simply being associated with the only male nightside reporter gave Drew major points Jordan couldn’t possibly match.
She propped up her sinking spirits by remembering that while Drew might be the rising prince of the newsroom, no amo
unt of luck or charm would give him the first-hand experience Jordan had today.
She was still annoyed with Antonio’s diss when she offered to help. But those feelings were unproductive. She swallowed a huge dose of humility and said, “Nice live shot, guys.”
“Thanks,” Antonio said, taking all the credit. Drew beamed anyway, as if Antonio’s glow bathed him in success, too, because everyone knew it surely did.
She hated feeding their egos, but office politics was a game at which she could excel. And she’d need to, because she was going to stick around at least long enough to find everything Channel 12 had collected about her mother’s murder. They weren’t getting rid of her so easily.
“So. What do you think happened to Garfield?” Drew asked her. “Is he the answer to the headless floating man case?”
Jordan shrugged, “Your guess is as good as mine.”
The question meant Drew didn’t know. Jordan actually might. She had a lead, anyway. That was something. She bid them a friendly good night and walked to her car grinning like a canary had just landed in her mouth.
CHAPTER 7
Her dad was already asleep when she got home just before midnight. But the next morning, she jumped out of bed and told him all about her horrific yet oddly satisfying and somewhat successful first day.
“You know I’m thrilled about your byline on the home page. That’s amazing success for a rookie, Freckles. But how do you plan to pay for the broken phone?” Nelson asked. “You know I’d help you if—”
“Dad, please.” She couldn’t bear to let him finish. “Don’t worry. I don’t exactly have a plan…except…I guess I’m hoping to make a down payment in brownie points with Richard.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
She’d been dead serious, but the horrified look on his face worried her, so she said, “I’ll figure it out. I can…I dunno, sell something. And no, I don’t mean my body.”
Jordan smirked and her dad chuckled. She kissed his head on her way out to work.
On the drive, she clicked to call Claire. “I’m sorry I pushed too hard yesterday,” Jordan said when Claire answered.
She turned left to cruise down Bayshore Boulevard, the prettiest street in Tampa.
“It’s okay.” Claire sighed. “It was just a long day, ya know?”
“Of course. Still friends?”
“Always. But, before you ask—Sal still doesn’t wanna talk. I told him what you said about it’s not his fault and everything, but he wouldn’t budge. I think he might be coming down with something. He didn’t even want breakfast. I had to force-feed him a bagel.”
“No worries. If he wants to talk about it, call me immediately. Until then, take it easy and take care of yourselves, okay?”
“See you soon,” Claire said before she hung up.
By 2:28, Jordan had parked and was making the trek into the station, when her phone rang. Paulie flashed across the screen. She’d initially stored Paul’s name that way because it made him mad and he was cute when he was mad. Now, she kept it that way simply because it made him mad and she wanted to remember his less cute self.
Instinctively, she clicked to answer, and immediately felt her nose wrinkle and a frown settle over it.
“Sorry I was a jerk last night,” he said. “I was excited that you were calling so I made a joke. It was disrespectful. I’m sorry.”
Whatever. Paul was a smart guy and the whole thing was totally a case of him playing her. She was pretty sure he’d made her mad on purpose just so he could look like the good guy the next day when he called to apologize. That was the kind of game he played regularly when they were engaged. Reason number fifty-zillion to be glad that was over.
“I’m calling about Ted Garfield. He’s missing. What do you remember about him? Was he a good soccer coach? A good person?” She left out the part about the floating body. She didn’t want to imply any connections. She’d see if Paul led the conversation that way on his own.
“Garfield’s missing? Damn. I was a freshman when he was the coach so it’s been like eight years since I’ve seen him. But he was just a normal coach, ya know? Nothing weird, nothing special, except that he got us to State. Which was probably more because we had this senior on the team, Sal, who was incredible.”
Jordan’s pulse quickened. A little breathlessly, she said, “Sal?”
“Short for Salvador.”
It couldn’t be a coincidence, but she had to check. “What was his last name?”
“Caster. Salvador Caster.”
Claire’s Sal went to James for high school? Made sense. It was one of the best private schools around. His parents could afford it.
“So did you ever, like, see Ted Garfield without his shirt on?” Jordan asked.
“What?!” Paul laughed. “Where are you going with this? Is there something I need to know?”
“Can you just answer the question?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you there. If I saw him topless, it made absolutely no impression on me. I like girls, remember?”
She could almost feel his flirtatious eyes burning her the way they’d done so many times before. She resisted enjoying it.
The call had already resulted in Jordan learning something possibly even more important than tattoos or creepy behavior or lack thereof: Salvador Caster knew Ted Garfield. If that was Ted’s body in the tank, which was a big ‘if’, but if it was Ted, it might explain why Sal was behaving so oddly.
The call went on longer than expected. Jordan asked about Garfield and Salvador, trying to wring every memory out of Paul as she walked up the stairs to the second floor, as she logged in at a computer at the assignment desk, and as the nightside crew straggled in. Some of what he said was worth following up. She took notes as he spoke, then happened to catch a glimpse of her watch. The hour was 2, and the second hand was ticking toward the 12. But what minute was it? She’d lost track of time. Again.
Two forty-seven. Two minutes after the start of the Afternoon Meeting. “Damn! Gotta go thanks for your help, bye!”
Jordan speed-walked across the newsroom and slid into a chair. She felt all eyes on her. She bit her lip and made cautious eye contact with Richard. He said nothing. But he noticed she was late. Dammit, what was her problem? Hopefully they wouldn’t chop her right away. Surely not. She was practically free labor for the station at this point. Except that so far, she was in the red. She had cost them money. Jordan bit the cap of her pen, then caught herself and stopped the bad habit she’d once worked so hard to quit.
Patricia asked, “Jordan? What are you pitching today?”
Jordan had gotten so caught up in her phone call, she almost forgot she’d have to pitch something. She started piecing together her pitch aloud, incorporating her new findings from Paul. “I know the top story is still the casino incident and the second is the missing Ted Garfield. I’m working on a lead to identify the body. I found out that the guy who was being honored at that reception in the Aquarium Room, Salvador Caster, actually played on Ted Garfield’s soccer team at James. So, could it be a huge coincidence that Caster has ties to both of our top stories? Sure. But it may be worth investigating.”
“That’s one option.” Richard jotted down a couple notes. “Not a promising one…it’s a little out there…but if we can find a way to confirm it, it might be a way to link the top two stories together. Not that we need to link them. We’re still following the search for Garfield either way.”
“No, I didn’t mean that we only care about Garfield if he was decapitated. I meant—” She had dug herself into a hole. Her cheeks warmed. The chuckles from yesterday resumed. Her life was a disaster.
Tampa was a small town in many ways. There were probably three degrees of separation, max, between any two people. So it could be a total coincidence that Sal had connections to both stories. But what if there was a connection? She had to find out before Drew and stop her downward spiral into career oblivion.
CHAPTER 8
; The meeting wrapped up with the decision for Jordan to be on standby. Which was a somewhat polite way of saying, sit at the assignment desk until somebody thinks of something to do with you.
Drew, on the other hand, would be going with Antonio to cover a sinkhole in central Florida. Exciting? Check. Guaranteed good video? Check. Chance to use expensive equipment? Check. The good news for Jordan was that it sent Drew far enough away that he probably wouldn’t make it to other local breaking news if something better came up.
The shrill ring of the phone shook Jordan out of her head. She picked up. “News Channel 12. Can I help you?”
A woman’s voice, maybe middle-aged, and friendly. “I was watching your news about the body in the aquarium and I just wanted to let you all know, because Channel 12 is my favorite station, and we’ve been watching religiously for years, I wanted to inform you all that I do have video of the event.”
Had to be a hoax. Either that or a crazy lady looking for attention. Even Jordan didn’t have video of the event. Plus, Jordan didn’t recall anyone being there with a camera. Then again, she didn’t recall that creeper staring at her from the corner, either.
“Could you repeat that?” Jordan asked. “Are you saying you have video of the body?”
“Yes. I took video of the body. I had my camera with me.”
“You shot cell phone video?”
“It’s video but it’s from a real camera. I always carry one with me.”
Jordan felt her eyebrows shoot up. Nobody carried a real camera anymore. Especially not a woman at a semi-formal event. Most women carried small clutch bags to those types of functions. No room in a small bag for a real camera.
Jordan tried to test her. “I thought they made everybody leave the room immediately.”
“I already had my camera out to capture the moment when young Salvador was going to take the podium. I was recording before the body even appeared.”
She had the timing right, Jordan would give her that.