Day Three.
By Patricia Spencer
Surviving war is one thing. Getting home is another.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book is independently published by the author through Day Three Fiction, LLC. Date of release of version 1.1 is May, 2012. At this time, it is only available as an e-book. Limited printed copies will be available in the near future.
Day three.
Version 1.1
Copyright © 2011 by Patricia Rivera Spencer
ISBN 978-0-9836444-0-8
www.DayThreeFiction.com
Cover illustration and design by Marida Hines
Cover photo by Michael G. Stewart
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Day Three Fiction, LLC at [email protected].
Dear Booklover,
I hope you have fun reading Day Three.
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Patricia Spencer
Chapter 1
Daniel Ellsworth’s body mocked him, waking him with hard desire when all that lay beside him was an expanse of empty bed. He opened his heavy eyes and saw her pillow. It was still his first act of the day, to look for her, the habit of fifteen years. He slid his palm across the undisturbed sheets to where she would have been. Aya.
He still couldn’t believe she was dead.
He closed his eyes, only to open them again, distracted by his intense arousal. Christ. Twenty-two months of nothing. Now this. Chronic hard-ons. Blue balls. Lust on a rampage. Last week, he caught himself ogling Mildred Pearson’s breasts, at the office. Gad. The woman was nearing retirement age. He laughed at himself, a hollow sound in an empty room. He was in heat, a prowling Tom, ready to hump anything female. He felt like a teen-ager struggling with a barely-contained body that seemed intent on betraying him.
Except that when he was a kid and he had never shared his body, he hadn’t known what he was missing. He had never heard a woman’s feral moans in his ear, never thrust himself so deeply inside her that he couldn’t tell the difference between himself and her. He hadn’t known what it was to have it all, then lose it.
God. Aya.
His hand slipped down his muscled belly. He was forty two now. He knew how it felt to nuzzle a woman’s wet heat, knew the exquisite torture of pressing himself slowly inside her while her folds grasped him like slippery silk.
A bolt of raw sexual need cracked through him. Dammit, he hissed. Rising onto his elbow, he yanked at his bedside table drawer. His body hurt for want of a woman, and he was reduced to self-help sessions. But he’d be damned before he took to sleeping around—what a dishonor to Aya, to replace her with a cheap lay.
He grabbed the dented tube of lube, gave the cap a vicious twist, and squeezed a dollop into his palm. Rolling the clear slick in his hand until it was warm, he reached beneath the sheet. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the evocative wetness.
Aya, he whispered, though he knew he shouldn’t. Aya, Aya, Aya.
He gathered momentum, speeding toward the brilliant recollection of her, conjuring her in sexual memory. He missed her, needed her, wanted her beneath him, opening herself, guiding his pelvis as he pierced her. He grimaced, desperate for release. His hips rocked, going through instinctive motions—more mockery. It was killing him, this need to mate. He needed a woman’s hands on him, a woman’s body to bury himself in. The bed trembled beneath him, mimicking his movements until at last he gasped, man bereft of woman.
At the top of his driveway, Daniel unlocked his vintage, fully-chromed ebony Mercedes 560 SEL, folded his long frame into the seat and pulled the door closed with a well-engineered thlump. The engine purred at the first twist of the key.
He drove up Connecticut Avenue against the inbound rush. In the afternoon, the two center lanes would switch direction to handle the exodus from the city core. Accustomed to the chaos of driving in Washington, D.C., he turned his mind to work.
A difficult day lay ahead of him. Sam Chisolm, his boss at the Educational Broadcasting System cable network, was trying to saddle him with Brenna Rease as Director of Photography for the pilot of his new documentary series.
Brenna Rease, for chrissakes.
U.S. Special Envoy Brendan Rease’s infamous daughter. The Queen of the Billiard Ball. The Preying Mantis. And, yeah—a Pulitzer Prize Winner.
Sam had shown up in Daniel’s office late last night, settled into a wing chair, and announced “I took the liberty of having Mildred re-schedule your eight o’clock appointment tomorrow so we could meet Miss Rease first thing, and pitch the job to her.”
Daniel flinched at Sam’s use of the term ‘Miss.’ At almost seventy years of age, Sam was very much a product of his times, very much the white-haired patriarch. Still, Daniel knew his mentor sincerely tried to be a 21st Century man. Hell, thirty years ago, the old man wouldn’t have considered hiring a female combat photographer—much less promoted her so vigorously.
“You remember François LaChance? Agence France Presse?” Sam said. “I had lunch with him and a few of the others at the club today—”
The National Press Club was Sam’s favorite haunt. He loved rubbing elbows with the press corps. It made him feel like he was part of the news world.
“—François told me in passing that Brenna Rease was in town. The minute he said it, I knew we needed her. She’s a pro, been covering the story in Kavsak all along. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner.”
The old man paused, eyes narrowing at Daniel’s lack of enthusiasm. “You do know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“I know,” Daniel replied. Who didn’t?
The woman was notorious.
He wanted nothing to do with her. “I hear she’s difficult to work with, Sam.”
“But brilliant. And fearless. She accepts assignments most won’t touch.”
“Regularly trashes her gear.”
“Stop sparring with me, Daniel. She’s an attachment.”
Someone he could associate with the project to make it more saleable. Daniel knew the drill.
“There isn’t a person in this country who didn’t see that Pulitzer photograph,” Sam said.
Admittedly, it had been astonishing. Agony and ecstasy, in the face and body of one dead
Israeli soldier.
Her lover.
Allegedly.
“That was three years ago,” Daniel said.
“And the Marines landed on Iwo Jima in 1945, but everyone remembers that picture, too.” A note of impatience edged Sam’s voice. “You want to fund your series? Then tell me: If you were a corporate investor, what would impress you more? The woman with the household name and the Pulitzer Prize, or the obscure DP? She’s our hook.”
Daniel turned the Benz onto the underground parking ramp. In retrospect, he felt badly for not having acknowledged the old man’s point. Sam was right, of course. He was good at what he did, knew the business. Moreover, he knew people. Sam had nailed exactly why Daniel resisted Brenna Rease.
“You need to put aside your personal feelings, Daniel. What she did to her lover—if he was her lover, and no one’s had the stones to actually ask—has nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with this project. Let it go. I’m not asking you to marry her. I’m telling you to hire her.” Sam let the point sink in. “I want her on this project, and I want you to sign her. Have I made myself clear?”
Loud and clear, Daniel thought, nosing the car up to the garage wall. Loud and clear.
The elevator stopped smoothly at the seventh floor, opening its doors to a carpeted gray reception area.
Brenna Rease advanced. Back straight, head high.
Glass doors etched with the EBS logo lay directly ahead, reflecting her in the polished surface. She was all in black, from the toes of her Cole-Haans to her tailored wool slacks and cashmere top. Apart from her runner’s watch, she wore no adornment. Her chestnut-brown hair feathered off her face, meticulously but closely cropped.
In Kavsak, having short hair gave her an edge when she had to run. From afar, with her height and slender build, she’d be mistaken for a man and shot. Which beat being recognized as a woman and raped.
Then shot.
She tucked her black leather portfolio under her elbow and leaned into the heavy door with her good shoulder. She crossed the sitting area to the curved reception desk, not quite able to conceal her limp. Three days of home rest had made her more aware of how bruised she was, not less. Not that being contused was out of the ordinary for her—it was the way she had gotten hurt that was troubling.
“Brenna Rease,” she said, announcing herself to a young woman with cinnamon skin, who was bent over a journalism textbook. “I have an eight o’clock appointment with Daniel Ellsworth.”
The receptionist glanced at the wall clock. It was a few minutes before the hour. Lifting the telephone, she motioned Brenna to the waiting area. “His assistant will come for you. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable?”
Brenna glanced at the proffered sofas, thinking of her throbbing thigh and shoulder. There wasn’t a couch soft enough. She stood instead and idly watched unremarkable footage slide across six silent TV screens imbedded in the wall. Three minutes later, a silver-haired woman with a kindly face and what Brenna’s mother would euphemistically have called ‘a large front porch’ rustled into the reception area.
“I’m Mildred Pearson. Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Chisolm are still upstairs, but I’ve told them you are here.”
Mildred led her down a wood-paneled hallway that doubled as a gallery of the network’s awards. More than a few of them were inscribed with Ellsworth’s name as executive producer. Reaching a corner office, Mildred twisted the brass handle on the oak door and let it swing open so Brenna could precede her. “They should be here in a minute. May I bring you some coffee?”
Brenna preferred OJ, fresh-squeezed, when she was stateside. But today, the ritual of coffee sounded comforting. She accepted with a nod and Mildred disappeared.
Ellsworth’s office was large and bright, with windows overlooking the revitalized downtown core of Silver Spring, Maryland, just north of the D.C. city line. Shelves of videotapes and DVDs lined the wall opposite a polished desk that was piled with work but not chaotic. Delineated by an oriental rug, there was a conversation area to her right, with a couch, two wing chairs, and a coffee table.
She glanced at her watch, impatient to get this over with. She hated this. Hated the moments she knew were to come, when she would be judged, Exhibit A, Fallen Woman.
The door clicked open behind her and she spun, caught unanchored in the middle of the room with her feelings too close to the surface.
Two men entered. The older one, white-haired and wearing a western style suit, string tie, and cowboy boots stepped forward with his hand extended. Chisolm, she presumed. The man who had contacted her, asking if she was interested in shooting a documentary.
“Miss Rease,” he said, “I’m Sam Chisolm. We've ‘howdied’ but not shook yet.”
He pumped her hand effusively, unaware that each shake sent waves of pain to her tender shoulder. She grimaced, hoping it passed for a smile.
The second man, the younger one, had hung back to re-close the door. Now, he appeared next to Sam.
“This is Daniel Ellsworth,” Chisolm said, “the Executive Producer in charge of the series.”
Brenna turned to him. Her breath caught. He was tall, broad-chested. Face charmingly imperfect, his spiky black hair was traced with gray at the temples. His charcoal suit and black turtleneck were casual. Deceptively, impeccably, casual. Armani, at least. If not an actual tailor, hovering over him with chalk and straight pins. On any other man, such fastidious clothes might have looked affected, but Ellsworth had an open-faced quality that negated artifice. At ease, she guessed, he would be engaging.
At the moment, however, he was not at ease.
She was Brenna Rease, the Envoy’s spectacularly debauched daughter, object of gossip, headline-maker, back in the U.S. for the first time since she’d fled in shame. And she was standing in his office. In the flesh.
No matter how disconnected from the reality of who she was now, everyone had an opinion of her. She watched him closely, waiting to see what his was.
Steel blue eyes rose behind gunmetal frames and studied her.
What would his reaction be? Please don’t let it be titillation. Better to be despised than fantasized about.
His mouth tightened, and the corners flickered downward.
There.
Disapproval.
She stepped forward, heart thumping from the insult he thought he’d concealed. She extended her hand as if it didn’t hurt.
“Ms. Rease.” He squeezed her hand briefly and dropped it. To his credit, he didn’t wipe his palm off on his slacks. “Please,” he gestured toward the seating area, his urbanity obviously habitual. “Have a seat.”
Using the distraction of Mildred’s arrival with the coffee tray, she eased herself into a wing chair, uncomfortably shifting her weight onto her uninjured thigh.
Chisolm, announcing he had to leave in twenty minutes to catch an air shuttle to New York, monopolized the next few minutes, animatedly pitching EBS’ concept to her.
The series, A Human Condition, aimed to transcend politics and sectarianism to look at the essential, and complex, human experience. The pilot, which he personally wanted her to shoot, would examine violence and the human spirit—what made people able to perpetrate it, what made them survive it. The concept was Daniel’s. The pilot would showcase the series.
And was she interested?
Yeah, she was interested. It was the story she’d wanted to do for the past thirty months, her core reason for being in Kavsak. But she nodded noncommittally. No need to reveal her passion. There was still a deal to negotiate.
Chisolm waxed on, his enthusiasm for hiring her shining like a marquee on Times Square. She parsed life into frames, separating one moment from the next in fractions of a second, always looking for the instant that best revealed character or situation. If she’d had her old 35mm with her, she could already have shot a roll on Chisolm and pulled out five or six revelatory shots.
Cowboy outfit and ‘Aw, Shucks’ style notwithstanding, Sam Chisolm was all businessman.
But Ellsworth—her gaze drifted to the sofa, where he was bent over her portfolio, carefully turning the pages.
Identifying the image that represented him would be tricky, if only because he was so obviously guarded around her. Physically, she pictured him as a swimmer—cutting through water with a constant, measured stroke, then pulling himself onto the deck in one fluid motion. She’d like to see him that way, all but nude, the bulk of him gathered in thin wet fabric and the water running down his muscled legs… She stopped, surprised by the sexual pull, and ordered herself to focus.
Superficially, he seemed easy enough to peg.
Solid, respectable, decent.
A man who found her repugnant but was too polite to say so.
For all his apparent open-faced quality, however, there was something else, a somber undertone at odds with the tracery of laugh lines at the corners of his eyes.
She gave herself a mental shaking. Never mind that he was attractive. Never mind what his reserve might conceal. If he had his way, he would be the first of the Americans to exploit her. She was coming home to an industry that packaged and sold news like entertainment. Given the opportunity, even the relatively benign Educational Broadcasting System would feast on the things that made her marketable: on her talent, her looks, her prominent family and, indirectly, her scandalous past.
That was the beauty of licentious behavior. No one had to actually mention it. It had already made the front pages.
Still, there were worse things than having all that dredged up again.
The great Brenna Rease had balked.
And she had the bayonet wound to prove it.
Chapter 2
Daniel set Brenna Rease’s open portfolio on the tea table next to the sofa and stood for Sam Chisolm’s departure. He had become so engrossed in her collection that he had lost track of his mentor altogether. Her reputation for excellence, at least, had not been overstated. Her volume was filled with stories of human tragedy and triumph, each captured in the fleeting instant of her choice. It must be true, what they said, that she worked instinctively, and that her cameras were an extension of herself.
Day Three Page 1
