Front Page Love

by Paige Lee Elliston

  She closed her book and held it in her lap. Ken—with his Snickers bar and his kindness. With the way he seems to understand me, to know what I’m feeling—the way he makes me laugh. He’s a good, good man.

  The clicking and whirring of the old classroom-type clock on the wall marked the passing of time. Julie found it was a good idea to stop glancing at it. She’d look once, read or think some more, and check the clock again, finding that perhaps five or six minutes had passed.

  After what seemed like several eons, the sun began to recede. Julie ate the few remaining scraps of her candy bar. When the night security lights came on, they startled her from a light doze. Her throat was dry, and she needed a restroom.

  “Could I bum another bottle of water? And is there a bathroom on this floor?”

  Tom, as alert as ever, tossed Julie a bottle of springwater. “Just past the offices on the right-hand side.”

  Julie stood up and stretched. “You do surveillance well, Tom. The waiting doesn’t seem to bother you.”

  “This one’s easy. Once, I was sitting in a car I couldn’t leave for two shifts because my relief couldn’t get to me. But this . . . hey! What was that?”

  Julie lowered the water bottle from her mouth and listened intently. She could hear a deep, low, faraway rumbling sound. Tom’s and Julie’s eyes met. “Was it thunder?” Julie asked, not quite believing it.

  “I dunno. There wasn’t any lightning that I could see. It might have been a jet breaking the sound barrier. There’s an Air Force base not far from here, right?”

  “There is, but it didn’t sound like a sonic boom to me. Let’s hope it was thunder.”

  On the way back from the ladies room Julie felt rather than heard the sound again. It was the slightest bit louder this time, and it set up minute vibrations in the floor of the steel building. A surge of anticipation, of energy, ran through her, and she hurried back to the surveillance point. “Lightning?” she asked.

  “I didn’t see any, but it could be behind us. We’re facing west, and it could be a storm approaching from the east. I’m sure it wasn’t a jet. It must’ve been thunder.”

  “Let’s keep our fingers crossed,” Julie said. “This could be a big night in more than one way. I hate to get my hopes up, but . . . well . . . I don’t think I’ve heard thunder in a couple of years.” She sat on the floor again, eyes focused on the window where the video camera was mounted. Tom, she noticed, had put his book aside and was concentrating on the window too.

  Nothing happened for a long, tedious hour. Then a jagged, hissing streak of pure white light seemed to illuminate the entire world. Julie gasped as the lightning flickered and the light strobed in the office. The crash of the thunder was louder than a cannon, a slamming, manic explosion that shredded the silence of the evening.

  The first rain struck the window like handfuls of hurled pebbles; the drops fell sharply on the glass, power-washing away the accumulated dust and grit and running it down the window surface in brownish rivulets that were quickly replaced by clean streams.

  Julie was transfixed as she moved closer to the window. She watched the rain as if it were a deluge of tiny, precious diamonds, and felt a monumental sense of relief and an ecstatic sort of joy that brought tears to her eyes.

  “It’s been so long,” she murmured to herself.

  Tom turned in his chair away from the monitor and angled to the window, watching the rain as raptly as Julie. Neither Julie nor Tom spoke for several long minutes, until the initial cloudburst settled into a more constant, life-giving downpour. Finally, Julie asked, “What time is it, Tom?”

  “Um—9:47. Why?”

  “Because I plan on saying in print, ‘On this date at 9:47 p.m., the first appreciable rain in over one and a half years broke the back of the drought that had held a large part of the state of Montana in its grasp.’ ”

  The rain continued, strongly but not aggressively, with a drenching, constant cacophony against the metal roof of the warehouse. Julie imagined she could hear the soil welcoming the rain, drinking it down, drawing life from it.

  “Julie—lookit this,” Tom called to her, pointing to his monitor.

  Julie stood and crossed the office to stand behind Tom. A pair of teens—a boy and a girl—had apparently been crossing behind the Bulldogger and now stood holding hands, looking up into the sky and letting the rain drench them. The girl’s long hair was lank and dripping and their clothing was sopping wet, but still they stood celebrating.

  “I know exactly how those kids feel,” Tom mused.

  “Me too,” Julie breathed. “Me too.”

  Another pair of hours passed, and the rain continued unabated, as if making up for the long absence. Julie, back on the floor and leaning against the wall, stared at the hypnotic patterns on the window and sifted through her thoughts.

  I know what I have to do. I don’t want to hurt him, but I know what I have to do. I wish there were some way to—

  “Showtime!” Tom announced.

  Julie scurried to his side and stared at the monitor. A Buick—Ross Craig’s personal car—had eased around the corner of the Bulldogger and stopped next to the back door of the bar. Tom clicked on the radio and keyed his microphone.

  “Outpost one,” he said tensely. “It’s happening. Units hold and be ready to roll on my signal.”

  There were two men in the Buick. Another car—a beat-up station wagon—stopped behind Craig’s car. The rain pattered on the sheet metal of the two vehicles. Nothing happened for several moments. The bleat of a horn barely reached the office. The back door of the bar opened a foot or so, and a shaggy head peered out. The door closed. Two men climbed out of the station wagon, one on either side of it, and stood in the rain, their backs to the Bulldogger. One cradled a shotgun. The other held a long-barreled pistol at his side.

  “Units hold,” Davis said. “Be ready.”

  The back door opened again, and Rick Castle stepped out of it. The trunk of Ross Craig’s Buick popped open, and then Craig exited the car, walking to the rear. His passenger did the same. Castle joined them, leaned into the trunk, and hefted a package.

  Tom keyed his mike. “All units—roll now! Go!”

  It was a perfectly timed and choreographed movement on the part of the police. Two unmarked cars raced around the Bulldogger, one on each side, and skidded to a stop, the driver’s side of each car facing the action and the vehicles themselves serving as a shield for the officers who scrambled out of the passenger sides and rested rifles and shotguns on the roofs. The drivers of each car lobbed a stun grenade toward the Buick before hustling out the passenger door. The concussive blasts came so close together that they sounded as one report, and the explosion was stunning, as was the eye-searing burst of white light.

  Four men in black jackets marked “police” in large white letters charged around each side of the building on foot, assault rifles ready. They worked fast and they worked efficiently. In a matter of seconds, Craig, Castle, and their gunmen were flat on their faces in the swampy parking lot, hands cuffed behind their backs. Three of the men in jackets charged in the back door of the bar.

  One of the black jackets waved to the warehouse window, performed a sweeping, theatrical bow, and then turned to stand guard over the prisoners. It was over.

  “Perfect!” Tom laughed. “Absolutely perfect, and I got every bit of it. Not a shot fired!”

  Julie, still dazed by the action below, could only nod.

  A state trooper prisoner transport van pulled in behind the unmarked police vehicles. The suspects were hauled to their feet and marched into the van, under the close guard of transport personnel as well as the other police officers present. Two crime scene investigators were unloading the packages from the trunk of Craig’s Buick, and a police photographer was taking shots of the area. Tom switched on the lights in the office, and the photographer swung his camera toward the warehouse and took several pictures showing the vantage point of the video setup.

  Al
ready the scene of the takedown was clearing. Police wreckers hooked on to Craig’s car and the station wagon and hauled them away. The unmarked cars drove off sedately, like family sedans being driven to church on a Sunday morning, in direct contrast with the way they’d entered the scene.

  Tom Davis was packing up his equipment, still smiling broadly.

  “That was amazing,” Julie said. “Thanks for letting me be here with you, Tom.”

  “I guess I’ll see the story in the News-Express real soon,” he said. “Glad to have you. One other thing—Ken asked me to give you this if everything went as we wanted it to.” He held out a sealed business-sized envelope to her. “You better skedaddle, ma’am,” he added. “There’s going to be brass here soon, and I’d rather not have to explain you to them unless they ask me directly. If you’re not here, they won’t.”

  Julie took the envelope and put it in her purse, then held out her right hand to the technician. He took it and squeezed it lightly. “Take care, Tom,” she said.

  “You too, Julie.”

  She left the warehouse from the door she’d entered. The rain was still falling and showing no sign of abating. Puddles had formed in the gutters and were seeping into the streets. Julie sloshed to her truck parked on an adjacent side street and noticed how its red finish glistened under the streetlight. She didn’t hurry through the downpour—she’d missed rain too much to scurry away from it, regardless of her hair and her clothing.

  She sat behind her steering wheel and started her engine. She flicked on the interior light and used her thumbnail to open the slightly wet envelope and then unfolded the single handwritten page inside it.

  Dear Julie—

  I’ve very much enjoyed our time together. You’re a great lady and a wonderful friend. You’re a great reporter too, but I’m afraid you’re not so hot as an actress.

  Danny was in your heart every moment we spent together. When you kissed me the other night, you were kissing Danny, whether or not you fully realized it. But I didn’t have to be a genius to see how much you cared for him. I tried to convince myself that wasn’t true—but it is.

  I wish both of you the best. I mean that, although it’s a little hard to say it just now.

  You wouldn’t be reading this unless the operation went very well. As I was setting things up with the troopers, I was offered an undercover position with them, predicated, of course, on the outcome of the Craig/Castle takedown. I’ve accepted that job. I’ll be able to do lots of good in the position. I’ll be based out of Twin Buttes, which is only a couple hundred miles from Coldwater. So—maybe I’ll be seeing you and Danny before you know it.

  Be well and happy, Julie.

  Your friend,

  Ken Townsend

  Julie sat for several minutes, her own eyes shimmering as much as the rain on her windshield. She took a crumpled Kleenex out of her purse and blew her nose. Then she tugged out her cell phone and punched a pre-entered number. She listened as the number rang once and then again.

  “Dr. Pulver. May I help you?”

  “I’m sure you can, Danny. I’m about starved to death. Can you meet me at the diner for a burger?”

  When Danny finally spoke, his voice was slightly raspy. “I’ll meet you anywhere you want, any time you want, sweetheart. See you in ten minutes.”

  Before starting up her truck, Julie lowered her window and stuck her hand outside, letting the rain fall softly on her palm.

  Watch for Book 3 in the

  Montana Skies Series!

  “Big Sky Country, my foot,” Amy Hawkins grumbled as she watched sheets of rain skitter across the vast expanse of burgeoning grass that was her front lawn. When the lawn—the full two acres of it, including the front and the back—went in almost three weeks ago, the rain had started. At first, it was gentle and nurturing, and Amy welcomed it. Now it seemed like the sort of deluge Noah had faced, and the uniform drab gray of sodden day after sodden day was depressing. This certainly wasn’t the glorious Montana weather that had brought her so eagerly to the state.

  Amy stepped back from the window, and her foot found a home on the spiked tail of Nutsy, the kitten she’d adopted not a month before. Nutsy reacted as cats—regardless of age—do: he yowled with a wail that was far too big and too loud for his diminutive body, arched his back, hissed, and dashed off to cower under the couch, his favorite fortress against the confusing outer world.

  A hissing streak of chain lightning flickered outside, followed immediately by a sharp crack like the report of a gun, which preceded the now-familiar hollow boom of thunder. Amy walked across her living room and stood gazing out of the picture window into her front yard. The house smelled new, as did the furniture, and the fine scent of the good wall-to-wall carpeting was still strong. She smiled at the aroma.

  Amy, with an architect friend, had designed the house. It was modest-sized two bedroom, one and a half bath, but seemed like a luxury cottage to Amy after living the last few years in a small and terribly overpriced New York City apartment. Her parents’ mansion in Connecticut, where she had spent her childhood, had always seemed like a cruise ship run aground—a look and a feeling Amy had strived to avoid in her new home.

  Starting a new life is a great concept, Amy thought. But is it possible at thirty-five? She grinned. It sure is—and I’m doing it. A geographical change didn’t eliminate or even alter the baggage of the past. All of that stayed solidly in place, she knew. But because the weight existed back there didn’t mean it had to be hefted and carried every day. Being an itinerant book editor and all that went with it was then—this is now.

  Confined too long by the weather to sit comfortably, Amy paced through her home like a lion in a cage. She stopped at the sliding glass doors off the kitchen and looked at her reflection in the glass. Her hair, brunette and shoulder length, framed a finely sculpted face—high cheekbones, a nice nose, and a generous, smiling mouth. And Amy considered her eyes—a rich, liquid brown—to be her best feature. Tall for a woman at five foot ten, Amy had decided early on not to give in to the tall girl stoop, the mildly hunched stance many taller girls opted for in order to appear shorter. That, Amy thought, made as much sense as a man calling attention to his baldness by wearing a cheap toupee.

  Amy’s laptop was on the kitchen table, where it’d rested since yesterday afternoon. As an editor now branching out into the world of writing fiction, she had few demands on her time other than those she imposed on herself. That was at least partially what the Montana move was all about—a place to see if the novel she’d fantasized about for years could actually turn into anything that might snare the reading public’s attention.

  The problem with all that, Amy admitted, was writer’s block—a crippling state of mind for a writer that steps on creativity, joy in writing, and progress on a project. Amy had never actually believed in writer’s block in the past. She’d attributed it to either fatigue or simple laziness on the part of the writer. Now, she realized, it was neither. It was a very real and quite frightening problem with which she now wrestled on a daily basis. Writer’s block was doing a fine job of robbing her of sleep and casting shadows of self-doubt into her days. “I can beat this” had become a mantra-like affirmation, but it often felt to her like she was whistling as she passed a cemetery on a dark night, attempting to push away her fear.

  Everything for her career change had clicked into place like the movement of a fine watch—at least until now. Her reputation as an editor—and three best sellers she’d worked on, two of which were made into major box-office hits—had gotten her a famous and very effective literary agent. Inheriting a significant amount of money from a great-aunt she had met a grand total of two times as a preteen had made the move and the home possible. The money, however, was finite, and Amy quickly learned that anything and everything having to do with building and furnishing a new home was astoundingly expensive. The advance on her novel her agent had been able to negotiate had been sizable—not in the six-figure range that heavy
weights such as King and Updike garnered, but a good sum nevertheless. Now, though, her bank balance had dwindled to subsistence money, and the numbers kept her awake late at night. Her novel, she knew, could save her. But the way it was going . . . Amy shuddered.

  A gust of wind slapped the side of the house. Amy smiled—not a window rattled. The rain continued to beat down, sweeping in gray sheets across her property and onto that of Jake Winters, her horse-farmer neighbor. There’s a strange one, Amy thought. Perfectly content to ride around on his Quarter Horses and grow his thousand or so acres of hay, and live alone, except for the cowboys who worked for him. Takes all kinds . . .

  Jake had ridden over when the construction people were digging Amy’s basement and beginning her landscaping and introduced himself. He was a good-looking guy, maybe a couple of years older than her, who was dressed in a faded denim jacket, jeans, and boots. His eyes were a pale blue, which in some faces could have appeared weak or submissive. But the depth of Jake’s tan and the strong line of his jaw made his eyes look open, friendly, almost mischievous somehow, as if only he knew the coming punch line of a joke.

  “What are those fellows doing there?” Jake asked, pointing at a small backhoe that was digging a dog-house-sized pit every dozen feet or so and following a line of white twine attached to short metal rods stuck into the ground.

  “I have a load of bushes coming in the next couple of days,” Amy said. “They’re going to follow the driveway up to the house.”

  “The bushes are already mature?” Jake asked. “Most folks buy seedlings and—”

  He cut off the comment before finishing it.

  “Patience isn’t my strongest virtue,” Amy said with a smile.

  He met her smile with his own. “I can’t say it’s mine, either.”

  Jake let his eyes roam over Amy’s property. “Fine piece of land. I didn’t even know ol’ man Woerner was selling it until I saw you up here walking around with the realtor from town.” He shook his head, smiling. “Mr. Woerner never much cared for me since my friends and I tossed a string of cherry bombs into his privy one Halloween night a bunch of years ago.”