by Kara Lennox
“So, who’s your source? I have a right to know who is saying these terrible, false things about me.”
He flashed a disarming smile. “Now, you know a good journalist doesn’t reveal his sources.”
“Who says you’re a good journalist?” It was a low blow, and though she was fed up with Griffin Benedict and his lying source, she immediately regretted her words. Griffin Benedict might be tenacious, and he might be distractingly sexy, but he appeared to be a good journalist.
So far.
“I guess you’re not a fan,” he said, not seeming troubled by the fact.
“The funny thing is, I am. I mean, I’ve read a few of your articles. Although the stories you pursue are…out there, and your writing style is…irreverent, you don’t strike me as careless or foolhardy. You don’t pander. I would go so far as to say you don’t even go for sensationalism.
“So why this story? It doesn’t seem your style.”
“Anything that involves human emotions, human weaknesses, is my style. I’ve found that subjects intriguing to me also draw in my readers. For whatever reason, I find you and your possible ethics violation highly intriguing.”
“Well, your publisher isn’t going to be so intrigued when the Telegram gets slapped with a libel suit. And don’t start with your ‘public figure’ nonsense.” Public figures had to prove malice in order to win a libel claim—a pretty high standard. “I’m not a public figure. I’m simply doing my job. I have never sought fame or publicity.”
“Even if you were a public figure, I wouldn’t print anything that wasn’t a provable truth. You have my word on that.”
His word. As if that counted for anything. She didn’t even know the man. Yet, for some reason, his promise did reassure her slightly.
Oh, man, where was she going with this? Could a handsome face and a charming smile disarm her to the point she could no longer use her brain?
“I’m happy to hear you won’t print lies about me. Now, then, about this phone bill. I have a theory.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“If that’s Leo Simonetti’s number, then this isn’t really my bill. Someone got a copy of my bill and doctored it, adding in this suspicious phone number. It’s incredibly easy to do. We have a guy on our staff, Mitch Delacroix, who specializes in all kinds of computer and document fraud. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that can be done with a good graphics program.”
“Nice try.”
“I’m serious. And if I’m right, I can prove it. I just paid this phone bill. I have it filed away. We can go to my apartment, and I’ll show it to you.”
Benedict’s eyes lit up. “That’s an excellent idea. I’ll drive.”
Griffin could hardly believe his good luck. Raleigh Shinn had just invited him to see inside her home. He could learn all kinds of things about a person by seeing what they surrounded themselves with, what was important to them. Family pictures displayed on the mantel, mail left carelessly on a table, trash in a wastebasket all could speak volumes. Even a subject’s housekeeping habits were revealing about character.
But his excitement over Raleigh’s invitation was tinged with unease. What if she was right? Obviously his anonymous source had an ax to grind with either Raleigh or Project Justice. But what if the ammunition they were using was bogus? Manufactured? And he’d fallen for it?
Not only had he fallen for it, he’d bet his career on it. If he called Pierce Fontaine and told him the story was a nonstarter, he could kiss the anchor job goodbye.
He tried not to think about that. Surely Raleigh hadn’t expected him to call her bluff, go to her apartment and look at her phone bills. Surely at the last minute, she wouldn’t be able to locate the pertinent bill.
“Turn right at the light,” Raleigh said. She had spoken a bare minimum to him since they’d climbed into his Mustang. Smart lady. Most people, when being nailed to the wall by a reporter, tended to talk too much, digging their graves deeper and deeper.
This subject, at least, knew when to keep her mouth shut.
Or maybe she simply couldn’t stand him and didn’t want to talk to him.
He didn’t like that idea. Yeah, his reporting made plenty of people mad. But a woman, he could usually charm. Women liked him, even when he was putting them through the wringer. A smile, a wink, a touch of sincere interest, and they spilled their guts. Some of them seemed relieved to release their burden of secrets. He had learned more dirt by spending time with some guy’s wife or girlfriend than by any other method.
His charms didn’t seem to work on Raleigh. He couldn’t deny he felt something there, some spark of sexual recognition. The fact she was such a hard nut to crack made her even more appealing. But she wasn’t going to slip up and admit anything. She was too skillful with her words for that. He bet she had seen all the ways a criminal can mess up, and learned from their mistakes.
Raleigh finally broke the silence. “Next block. The tall white building with the—oh, wait, you already know where I live. Hard to find street parking this time of day.”
“I’m lucky when it comes to parking.”
If he was really lucky, he would leave her building with something he could run with. She had no idea how dangerous he could be, let loose in her home. And if he was really lucky, they would take a looooong lunch…
Hell, he had no business thinking like that. The CNI people were watching his every move. A sexual liaison with the subject of his story, or even a background source, would be just the sort of thing they didn’t want to see.
Still, his fantasies persisted. He would take off those glasses, unbutton the suit jacket, which was far too warm for this mild day. He would slide his hands inside that silky blouse—
“You just missed a parking space.” Raleigh sounded exasperated.
Griffin slammed on his brakes. He waited until traffic cleared and put the car in Reverse.
“You’re going to get a ticket, driving like that on a busy downtown street.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” He got lots of tickets. The Houston police knew his car on sight. Fortunately, he had a lady friend who was a judge. Even though they were no longer involved, she usually made his tickets disappear.
“So, how do you like living downtown?” he asked, just trying to get the conversational ball rolling. He wouldn’t have pegged her as a downtowner. She seemed more the type to live in a cushy condo in Memorial or the Galleria area. “What made you move here?”
“The path of least resistance,” she said, more under her breath than to him. She got out and, quarters already in her hand, started pumping them into the meter.
“I can do that.”
“My idea to come here, I’ll pay the parking fee,” she said. “Besides, I wouldn’t want you to write that I’d accepted payment from you.”
Touché.
“What do you mean, the path of least resistance?” he asked as they climbed the stairs to the ornate, brass front door.
“I needed a place to live. I found this one at a good price, close to work, so I took it. No big mystery.”
But it was. He sensed she wasn’t telling him the whole story.
The lobby of her building was 1920s Art Deco splendor, with vaulted ceilings, square columns, potted palm trees and brass accents. The old-fashioned elevator was trimmed in brass, with one of those inner metal doors that had to be closed manually.
Inside the elevator, Raleigh stood as close to the wall as she could—as far away from him as possible—and looked anywhere but at him.
This was no good. He wanted her to be comfortable with him. When people got comfortable they let down their guard. Did this woman ever let down her guard?
They got out on the third floor. Raleigh extracted her key chain from her purse. The key chain was a basic, utilitarian ring with a small LED flashlight attached. It told him nothing about her except that she was practical. No tiny frames with pictures of children or a boyfriend, no souvenir trinkets from vacations, not even a symbol
of her work.
He fully expected her apartment to be the same—dull, functional. So when she opened the front door and admitted him, he had a shock.
Clean, neat, organized—it was all those things. No surprises there. But it was colorful. Her walls were painted in vibrant shades of turquoise, moss green, rich gold. The hardwood floors were covered with good wool rugs in contemporary geometric patterns—no fusty Oriental rugs passed down from family. The sofa and two matching chairs were upholstered in cream-colored silk, with throw pillows in every shade of the rainbow.
She had art on the walls—real art, not just some boring framed picture of a mountain to fill a spot. The abstract paintings screamed emotion.
The room was such a contrast to the woman he had so far seen that he was confused.
“Do you live here alone?” Maybe a roommate was responsible for the decor.
Before she could answer, a rust-colored ball of fur streaked into the room, barking wildly.
“Copper! That’s enough,” Raleigh scolded. But she leaned down and scooped the tiny dog—a Pomeranian, Griffin thought—into her arms and let it lick her face. “Yes, baby, I’m home at a strange hour. I surprised you, didn’t I?” Her sweet, maternal-sounding voice was totally different than the voice she used with humans.
Finally she turned back to Griffin, looking slightly embarrassed. “Yes, I live alone except for this little guy. Why?”
He shrugged. “No reason.” Except that you have a split personality. “I never expected you to have an ankle-biter yappy dog.”
Raleigh set the dog down on the rug with a quick scratch behind the ears. “He’s an excellent watchdog. A woman living alone needs some protection.”
Griffin tried not to laugh. “Oh, yeah, he’s a big threat.” He stooped down and held his hand out. The dog eyed him warily. “I won’t hurt you, little guy.”
“If you’ll wait here, please, I’ll go get the phone bill. I know right where it is.”
As soon as she left the room, the dog ventured closer, sniffing the air. But when Griffin tried to pet him, he skittered away. That was when Griffin noticed an antique walnut table in a far corner of the living room that was covered with framed pictures and all manner of knickknacks—a potential gold mine of data.
Forget the dog—although the fact she had a pet was an interesting tidbit.
On closer inspection, he realized every one of the half-dozen or so pictures on the table was of a man—the same man. Some were formal portraits at different ages, others casual snapshots. In some, he was with a beautiful woman.
With a start, he recognized the woman as Raleigh. She wore her hair in a completely different style—loose and wavy. In one picture, it fell in loose auburn curls well past her shoulders. She didn’t wear glasses, clunky or otherwise, in any of the pictures. And her figure?
Yowza. Just as he’d suspected, she was a hot babe.
He quickly came back to earth, however. The man, obviously, was her dead husband, and this table was a shrine to his memory. There were framed ticket stubs to a Broadway show, dried flowers, a smooth stone probably plucked from a river or beach. A poem written in a girlish hand.
A widow was allowed to honor her husband, he supposed, but this was way, way over the top. It had been more than six years. Was she still that hung up on the guy?
It was hard to know what she must feel. He had never lost anyone that close. Maybe he’d never had anyone that close. He felt a pang of sympathy for the pain she must carry with her every day, though she didn’t let it show. He also felt a thread of regret for something in his own life that could never, ever be.
Not that he stood much chance of getting past the woman’s facade, given that his goal was to seriously tarnish her reputation and possibly cost her her job. But now, he didn’t even feel comfortable fantasizing. Her handsome husband, who would forever be young and smiling in her mind, would always stand squarely between them.
“I can’t find the damn bill,” Raleigh announced as she reentered the living room. “I tried going online, but my password isn’t working—” She came to a halt when she spotted him standing before Jason’s shrine.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snoop,” he said, actually meaning it.
“If I didn’t want people to see Jason’s pictures, I wouldn’t put them in the living room.” The frost was back in her voice.
Yeah, but how many people did she actually invite into her home? Not many, he guessed.
Griffin felt he ought to say something. “It must have been awful. You obviously loved him very much.”
Raleigh blinked several times. “I did… I still do. He was the—” Suddenly she hardened. “Oh, no you don’t.”
“I’m sorry?” What had he done now?
“You aren’t going to weasel personal information out of me using the sympathy card, just so you can exploit me in your damn newspaper.”
“I wouldn’t,” he said. He never claimed to be a paragon of virtue, but he wouldn’t stoop to exploit a woman’s grief for her husband. Her former marriage had nothing to do with the story.
“Convenient, you losing the bill.”
“I pay it online. It’s possible I didn’t get a paper one, and didn’t notice. Someone could have stolen it from my mailbox. The lock isn’t all that secure.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He congratulated himself for predicting the outcome of this meeting so accurately. Was he a good judge of character, or what?
“Of course you don’t believe me.” She shook her head. “I guess I can’t blame you for your suspicions. It looks bad. The phony bill, the deposit…”
“Yes, what about that deposit?”
“I don’t know where that deposit came from!” she said hotly. “It simply appeared. I called the bank, and they say it wasn’t an error. I can put you in touch with any number of bank personnel I spoke with, right on up to a vice president. Some of them, I spoke with long before my first meeting with you. The day after the deposit was made, in fact, I was on the phone, trying to figure out where that money belonged, because I knew it wasn’t mine. I took detailed notes during the conversation.”
He pulled out his notebook. “Okay, let’s have the names.”
“Mr. Temple. He’s a vice president. He’s the one I spoke with most recently. The others are written down at work. I’ll e-mail them to you.”
“Okay. We’ll do this the slow and painful way. Sure you don’t want to just tell me the truth now?”
“I can’t confess to something I didn’t do. Don’t you see? Someone is trying to ruin my reputation. And they’re using you to do the job.”
That statement made him pause. What if she was right? What if someone had made Raleigh Shinn the target of a smear campaign based on lies, making Griffin a patsy? If he went public with something he hadn’t independently verified—and thank God he wasn’t that stupid—he would be in the unemployment line and possibly the defendant in a libel lawsuit.
Part of him wanted to turn loose of Raleigh. She seemed genuine. But if he let go of this story now, after he’d promised it to CNI, he wouldn’t have a shot at the anchor job.
Unless…unless he figured a way to turn the story to his benefit.
Maybe, if Raleigh thought he was on her side, she would let down her guard. “I’ll talk to the bank employees,” he said, trying to inject some sympathy into his voice. “If someone is trying to ruin you, we have to stop them.”
“We?” She looked at him as if he was crazy. “There’s no ‘we’ here. I believe our business has concluded for now.”
“Raleigh, maybe you don’t realize the seriousness of what’s going on here. You could be in danger.”
“Please.”
Griffin sat up straighter. If she was telling the truth, this could be an even better story than he first thought. Someone was going to a great deal of trouble to ruin Raleigh Shinn and, by inference, the whole of Project Justice. Why?
He took out his notebook. “Who are your enemies? Whose bad side ha
ve you gotten on lately? Who might want to hurt you?”
“Oh, no. You’re not turning this into another story.”
“We could help each other,” he pointed out. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I can figure out who’s doing this and stop them before he or she does permanent harm to your career.”
“I don’t partner with journalists.”
“You don’t understand. I’m being considered for a national TV job. A hot story like this would help me land it. And I could give Project Justice some positive press.”
“Talk to our public relations coordinator, then.”
But he could see the indecision playing on her face. She knew he could slice and dice her in the press, or make her look like Joan of Arc.
“If you’re really innocent of any wrongdoing, your cooperation could—”
“No,” she said suddenly. “I want you to leave. We’re done.”
That’s where Raleigh was wrong. She didn’t know it yet, but things between them were just getting started.
CHAPTER FOUR
BETH STUCK her head into Raleigh’s office. “You up for lunch?”
Raleigh was tempted. But she looked at the huge stack of paper on her desk that was the transcript from the original Simonetti trial, and shook her head. She’d been reading the transcript for hours, and had many hours to go. The original trial had lasted a ridiculous six weeks.
“I can’t. Too much work.”
Beth stepped inside. “Daniel wouldn’t approve. You know how important it is to rest and refuel.”
Raleigh pulled off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Beth was right. But work seemed to be the only way she could keep Griffin Benedict off her mind. It was like the guy had planted a seed in her brain, where it had firmly taken root.
You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
She had emailed him all the names of the people she’d talked to at her bank, and she had given the bank permission to discuss the matter of the mystery deposit with Griffin. And she’d finally gotten into her cell phone provider’s website and emailed a copy of the phone bill in question. She assumed she wouldn’t hear from him again, a thought that should have pleased her.