by Lauren Carr
“I’m not posing with any dog,” Ashleigh said. “Especially an ugly one. His face looks like he rear-ended the back of a truck.”
“At least he has a fan base,” Conner said.
Ashleigh’s eyes grew wide.
“Uh, oh. This isn’t going to be pretty,” Julie warned Nikki.
Gripped with fear of the impending scene, the party guests scattered.
Ryan held out his arm to ease Nikki back. Sensing a change in the atmosphere, Elmo stood in front of Nikki while facing Ashleigh.
“And you think I don’t?” Ashleigh asked in a low tone.
“Used to. Not so much anymore,” Conner said.
Ashleigh waved her hand. “Did you see the crowd that turned out this past July for Summer Fest? Hundreds turned out.”
“They turned out for the local pop singer whose song had made the top-40,” Conner said. “They didn’t come for you. The truth of the matter, Ash, is this. Beauty fades. Brains and talent are forever.”
He gestured at Nikki. “Nikki is a perfect example. What she lacks in looks, she’s made up for with brains and talent. Her brains will take care of her long after her breasts and butt droop. You, Ashleigh, your beauty got you to the anchor desk, but where are you going to go from there? You’re a has-been. A dog with a pushed-in face has a bigger following than you.”
Ashleigh looked around at the guests staring at her. She responded by slapping Conner across the face. “I’m not a brainless twit!” She spun around. “You just wait. All of you! You just wait. Monday evening, six o’clock news, I’m going to break a story that is going to have every news journalist across the country talking.” She gestured at Nikki. “Even the award-winning Nikki Bryant will be in awe.”
She whirled around to eye all of them before elbowing her way out the door and into the darkness.
“That was weird,” Nikki turned to her mother. “What story is she talking about breaking?”
“I have no idea,” Kathleen said while opening the back door for Lucy and Ethel to scurry out like two over-sized rodents. “Becca works pretty closely with Ashleigh.” She turned to the young journalist. “Becca, do you have any—”
“No,” Becca said. “Ashleigh has been a generous mentor, but she’s never really gone into any particulars about any stories that she’s working on.”
“Now and then, Ashleigh will talk about wanting to hunt down a big news story. It’s usually after another journalist gets picked up by one of the major hubs,” Camille said. “But then, once she sees how much work it is, she decides she’s happy where she is.”
“Is Ashleigh going to get herself into trouble?” Ryan asked Conner who was opening a fresh beer bottle. “If she doesn’t know how to go about an investigation, she could very easily end up in over her head.”
Conner lifted a shoulder. “A few years ago, I guess I got through to her. I’ve been telling her that if she wanted to move up, that she’d need to prove she was more than a talking head. Not long after that, she tossed me out of the house. While we were separated, she told me that she had gotten a lead on a huge story. She claimed it would win her all kinds of awards and make her a journalistic legend here in Pine Grove.”
“I remember that,” Camille said. “She was very excited about it. I thought that finally she would apply herself to some real journalism. I got the impression that she was actually working on it.”
“A legend?” Becca asked. “What story would make her a legend?”
“Solving Ross Bryant’s murder.” Conner nodded his head. “The cold case of WKPG’s station owner. That’s the story that she claimed she was going to break—back then. But then she never did follow up on whatever lead she’d claimed to have uncovered.”
“What kind of lead did she get?” Nikki asked. “Did she uncover new evidence?”
Conner shook his head. “Either she didn’t do anything with it or it didn’t lead anywhere. She dropped the case as soon as I came home, and we went on our second honeymoon. Or was it our third? Maybe it was the fourth.” His voice trailed off.
Camille snapped her fingers. “I remember it was after Gram got sick. Ashleigh helped me by sitting next to her bed with her to give me breaks. I remember her saying that she was working on a huge story while sitting there all those hours… But then after Gram passed, Ashleigh never talked about it again. She just seemed to drop it.”
Chapter Two
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
That voice came from directly behind her. Nikki spun around to face Art Lowell. The short, bald man reminded her of Gollum in Lord of the Rings.
“And you shouldn’t have come to our home.”
“Your mother invited me.”
“So I heard,” Nikki said. “Professional courtesy. You came. You wished Mom a happy retirement. Now you can leave.” She added, “And don’t ever come back. I’m not as courteous as Mom.”
The elderly man stamped his cane on the ground. “You are one angry young woman.”
“That’s because I have a long memory.” She tapped her chest. “I was there. Dad and I were having ice cream at the Baskin Robbins. You pulled up in that fancy car of yours and rolled down the window. Dad went over to talk to you, but I could hear you. I heard you telling him that if he knew what was good for him that he’d accept your offer to buy the station or else. Dad told you to forget it. Less than two weeks later, he was dead. Murdered.”
“And obviously, you told the police, who put me in their cross-hairs. Lucky for me, I had an alibi for your father’s murder.”
“You paid someone to do it. Maybe your hitman pretended to be a repairman or maybe you paid someone who worked for us to do it. You were behind it and I intend to prove it.”
“Thank you for the lovely time, Kathleen.” Greta Wheeler breezed out of the front door. She turned and waved to the host who had escorted her out. “Don’t forget to post lots of pictures of your second honeymoon on social media.” Roughly, she grabbed her father by the elbow. “That’s enough of your Goodfellas act, Dad. Nikki’s probably exhausted after her long drive. Now say good night. We need to get you home before your sundown syndrome kicks in.”
“Good luck with proving that I’m a cold-blooded killer, Ms. Bryant.” Art Lowell shuffled across the driveway and climbed into the passenger seat of a black Mercedes. His daughter hurried around to the driver’s side. He favored Nikki with a cocky wave of his hand as she drove away.
All in good time, Mr. Lowell. All in good time.
Most of the guests had left. Despite Trudy’s order, Kathleen, Harrison, and Julie were hard at work. They didn’t want to leave a huge mess for the older woman to clean up. Ryan and Daniel had moved to a bench in the rear garden to play fetch with Elmo.
Their tall ears forming leathery triangles upon their pointy heads, Lucy and Ethel watched the big brown dog with wide blue eyes. Resembling curious space aliens, their heads cocked to and fro as they followed the dog joyfully chasing the ball.
What is the purpose of this exercise? The human tosses the ball and the big ugly beast goes to get it and brings it back. Then the human congratulates him for returning the ball. If the human wants the ball, why does he keep throwing it away in the first place?
Ryan threw the red ball for a long pass.
A low roar from deep in his chest erupted as Elmo charged through the lawn sprinkler toward the edge of the garden near the garage. He snatched up the ball and ran back, making a second pass through the lawn sprinkler. After giving the ball back to Ryan, he shook to spray Lucy and Ethel with the water.
With loud screeches, the two cats backed away with their backs arched. Lucy spit at Elmo before the two of them stomped back into the house. They went through the back door as Nikki stepped out.
“They don’t look happy,” Nikki said.
“Those two are never happy.” Ryan threw the ball once m
ore before turning back to Daniel. “You must have missed something,”
“Do you think?” Daniel said. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Ross. I can’t unsee the sight of him behind that desk in his office with those scissors stuck in his chest. He had called me that very morning.”
“What about?” Ryan asked.
“We were going to go fishing that weekend.” Daniel shrugged his shoulders. “I had assumed he called to confirm that we were still going.”
“You assume? You don’t know?” Nikki asked.
“I was out on a call. This was before cell phones. He’d called the dispatch and left a message for me to call him when I got in.” Daniel rubbed the back of his neck. “You’ve got to understand. Usually things were pretty slow around these parts, but your dad’s murder happened at a bad time.”
“There was a good time for Dad to get killed?”
Daniel sighed. “I’m talking about for the police department and the community. Noah Harper was run down just the Friday before.”
“Noah…” Ryan groaned. “I’d forgotten all about that. He was only three years older than us.” Seeing the blank look in Nikki’s eyes, he reminded her. “He was riding his bike home from a party when he got killed in a hit and run out by Bedford Elks.”
“He was in Julie’s class in school,” she said in a soft voice. “I remember how he had been killed, but I had no idea that it happened in the same time frame. I… I must have blocked it all out.”
“Who could blame you?” Daniel asked. “Anyway, I was working night and day trying to track down whoever’d done it. We had evidence that could have proved who’d done it, if only we had someone to lead us to a suspect. Whoever it was, they had hit him so hard that the passenger side mirror was ripped off their car. We found it in the ditch at the scene. We had put out a BOLO and contacted the body shops and automotive places in the area of what to look for. Every police officer from here to Pittsburgh to Philadelphia was out looking for that car. Most likely, your father called because he thought I might have forgotten or wanted to cancel our fishing plans to work on the Harper case.”
“Maybe one of the pleas for information turned something up, and that’s why he called you,” Ryan said.
“Nah,” Nikki said with a shake of her head. “The news broadcast would have directed viewers to call Crimes Stoppers if they had a lead.” She turned back to Daniel. “Did you ever turn up any suspects in Dad’s case?”
“Now Nikki—”
“How could Ashleigh get a break in the case when you couldn’t?”
“Maybe an informant contacted her directly like the way Elmo’s aunt called you.”
“Did you talk to her about the case?”
“No!” Daniel said forcibly. “We kept everything close to the vest, especially from anyone connected to the station because they were there at the scene which made them all suspects.”
“Wyatt had a meeting with Dad—”
“That afternoon,” Daniel said. “It was a routine Friday afternoon meeting to go over that week’s productions and upcoming projects. They finished around three o’clock. Ross was on the phone when Wyatt left. Ross told him to close the door behind him. Around four-thirty, your father asked Debra to go check on a shipment in the mailroom to make sure it got out before five. She went to the mailroom. She stated that she’d been gone around ten minutes. She went back upstairs. His office door was open. She went inside, and that was when she found your father’s body.”
“That leaves a ten-minute window for the murder to happen,” Ryan said.
“Exactly.”
“Debra’s desk was right outside Dad’s office,” Nikki recalled.
“So no one could have gone in or out of your father’s office without going past her desk,” Daniel said. “She swore that the only time she was away from her desk was when Ross asked her to go check on that shipment.”
“And it was shortly before five when she’d found the body,” Nikki said. “He was going to leave at five to pick me up from my softball game. We were going to go get pizza.”
“Would you object if I took another look at the physical evidence?” Ryan asked the retired sheriff.
“Would you be willing to do that?” Nikki felt her heartbeat quicken at the notion of Ryan playing the role of her knight in shining armor coming to her aid.
“It’s an open case and I’m in charge of the crime scene unit. It’s the least I could do for my sister.” Ryan wrapped an arm around Elmo, who grinned up at him.
Some dogs have all the luck.
An hour later, Nikki settled down in her old bed with Elmo’s big body draped across her lap.
Her cell phone dinged where she had placed it on the nightstand. She suspected who it was.
Well? How was it? Was it as bad as you thought it would be?
She placed her fingers on the screen to answer NerdyGuy’s questions, only to freeze.
Even though they had been messaging each other for over a year, Nikki had never met NerdyGuy.
She wasn’t into forging friendships with faceless people online. She had covered too many horror stories about psychopaths who had lured in their victims via social media friendships.
Nikki had thousands of followers via various social media platforms. It was considered good public relations for her career. NerdyGuy had friended her through her joint account with Elmo, in which her handle was ElmosMom. His first direct message was a simple admiration for her taking in Elmo after the murder of his human. She had no idea what it was that had drawn her in to respond to him.
NerdyGuy posted no pictures of himself. Even if he did, how would she know the pictures were of him and not stolen from the account of a male model? He said nothing about his personal life. Usually, his social media posts consisted of shared articles about new advances in science.
For several months, their relationship was arm’s length—and safe. Nikki appreciated that he never got nosy. Rather, he praised her work on her news stories.
It was she who crossed her own line in the sand.
Nikki was following the murder of a young woman who had moved to Las Vegas from Nebraska. She had been found beaten to death with a brick in a motel parking lot. Since bricks were not great material for collecting fingerprints, the police had no physical evidence to lead them to the killer.
The young woman was about Nikki’s age. She had left her small hometown with dreams of becoming a dancer on the Vegas strip. The similarities were not lost on Nikki. The case had gotten to her.
Depressed after her last lead dried up, Nikki went home, had a few stiff drinks, and vented to NerdyGuy.
Did the police vacuum the brick for physical evidence?
Vacuum a brick? Is that even possible?
Moments later, NerdyGuy forwarded a link to a forensic article about a device similar to a shop vac to extract DNA evidence from items like bricks.
Nikki took the link to the detective in charge of the case. A month later, they had the DNA profile of the killer. Weeks after that, the police had their guy.
After giving NerdyGuy the news, Nikki messaged, Your wife is one lucky lady to be married to such a smart and compassionate guy.
I’m not married, was his reply.
She pulled her hand back from the cell phone—afraid to respond. She kicked herself for opening the door to a personal exchange. It wasn’t like he didn’t have enough personal information about her. She was a public figure. He knew where she worked and what she did. She knew nothing about him. How was it that she felt safer not knowing anything about him? Ignorance truly is bliss.
The love of my life got away, he messaged after a long silence.
I know exactly how you feel.
As soon as she had sent the message, she chastised herself. Now he knew that she was a lonely woman who had buried herself in her work. She was rip
e for an online psychopath to lure her into a trap.
Thankfully, NerdyGuy never requested to meet. Their discussions about their first loves, the relationships that had ruined them for other romantic relationships, were suitably vague.
There were gentle things that NerdyGuy would say to her that made her question if his claim that there was another woman from long ago was actually true. Was it all a ruse to get close to her—the real object of his affection?
Kathleen’s announcement that she was retiring eliminated that suspicion. NerdyGuy urged her to return home to run the television station. This is your chance. It isn’t every day you get a second shot at your first love.
It was with that in mind that Nikki turned her life on its ear.
Virtually, NerdyGuy was there for her all the way—offering words of encouragement every time she threatened to change her mind. On the day that she was to give her two weeks’ notice to the news station, she messaged NerdyGuy:
This is insane.
No, it’s not, NerdyGuy replied instantly. People quit their jobs and return home every day.
Her fingers flew across the screen. I’m going home to try to reconcile with an old boyfriend to whom I have not spoken in 15 years. He’s probably got a lover already. I’m probably the furthest thing from his mind.
He replied, I can’t believe Nikki Bryant could be the furthest thing from anyone’s mind.
If you think looking up old loves is so sane, why aren’t you chasing down the girl who got away?
A minute later, his answer came. What makes you so sure I’m not?
The word “stalker” flashed through her mind. Her fingers retreated from the screen.
I’ll make a deal with you, NerdyGuy messaged. You turn in that notice and go home to make another go at Ryan, and I’ll take another shot at my first love.
With that, their pact was made.
Nikki had held up her end. She was home, and she had seen Ryan.
NerdyGuy wanted a status report. There was a part of her that wondered if she was setting up some poor woman, NerdyGuy’s old flame, to be stalked. At the very least, could she be setting up NerdyGuy to have his heart broken?