by Joyce Lamb
No, the secret to success was destroying the enemy before they could destroy you.
Mission: accomplished.
CHAPTER THREE
Charlie settled at her desk and logged onto her PC, her head spinning a little from co-workers mobbing her the instant she walked into the newsroom. Once they discovered she didn’t have answers to their questions about the hit-and-run, they had returned to their usual late-afternoon business. The copy editors on the far end of the room discussed last night’s reality TV, loudly debating who should have been voted off the island. Two reporters huddled less than three feet from her desk, arguing about who was in charge of doughnut duty in the morning. It was an ordinary day at the Lake Avalon Gazette.
Except, for Charlie, it wasn’t.
A sharp clap of two hands drew her attention to the center of the newsroom, where managing editor Robert Lewis called out, “Gather around, folks. I have an announcement. Hunter, get your ass over here.”
Mac, grinning like a fool, strode to their boss’s side. This was the announcement, Charlie realized. Mac’s promotion. The thing that had ended their . . . what to call it? Fling? Affair? Comfort sex? Whatever it was, it started when Charlie fell apart after Nana’s death, and lasted two months, until her father tapped Mac to replace Lew. Which meant Mac had had to choose between their relationship and his dream job. As managing editor, he’d be Charlie’s boss, and a long-ago sexual harassment lawsuit had made relationships between bosses and subordinates a major no-no.
To his credit, Mac hadn’t taken the decision lightly. But he had greater responsibilities than the average thirty-year-old. Number one: The sister he’d raised after the deaths of their parents was about to graduate from high school, Mac had vowed to help Jennifer pay for college, and the promotion would nearly double his pay.
“Make it snappy, people,” Lew growled, impatient as always. “We don’t have all goddamn day.”
Charlie joined the rest of her co-workers as they gathered around the large square pillar that served as the newsroom’s meeting place. Lew hiked his black pants up to just under his bulging gut and cleared his throat. “As you all know, I’ve been planning to retire. Instead of taking off next month, though, I’ve decided to bug out a little earlier. My last day is Friday.”
He paused, as though expecting some kind of response, but when no protest appeared imminent, his face colored slightly. As much as they clashed, Charlie felt sorry for him. He hadn’t had it easy, being caught between the newsroom staff and her prickly father.
He cleared his throat several times again before going on. “So, effective the day I walk out the door, Mac Hunter will be your new managing editor.”
A cheer went up, and Mac’s face split into an even broader grin. Charlie joined in the cheering. She might have been disappointed that her father hadn’t chosen her as ME—they had never seen eye to eye on how the newspaper should be run—but she didn’t blame Mac. He was good at his job. Really good.
Lew slapped him on the shoulder and nodded for him to go on and revel in the kudos of his co-workers, then went back to his desk, his head drooping like that of an abused dog. Charlie felt another wave of empathy for him.
Bypassing the group crowded around Mac, she approached Lew’s desk, where he appeared to already be nose-deep in editing.
“Hey, Lew.”
He looked up at her and rolled eyes that looked redder than before. “You’re not going to harass me some more about that damn Dick’s story, are you?”
She almost winced at the reminder that he’d shot down the story before she could even finish pitching it. She’d gotten a tip a couple of days ago that Dick’s Auto Sales was cheating elderly customers. At the last minute, the dealer would switch its sales contract for a lease contract. In three years, customers were notified it was time to give back the car they thought they’d bought. Unfortunately, the story seemed destined to languish on Charlie’s hard drive: Dick’s was the LAG’s biggest advertiser.
“I actually came over to tell you how much we’re going to miss you around here.”
He glanced away, a muscle flexing in his jaw. “Sure you are.”
She knelt beside his chair so they were at eye level. “Really, Lew. You’ve been a good editor. I’ve learned a ton from you. All of us have.”
“Shut the hell up, Trudeau. You’re at the top of the list of reporters who can’t wait for me to slink off and die.”
Her heart squeezed. He was the kind of guy who’d escape into self-deprecation long before showing any kind of emotion. Not knowing what else to say, she patted his forearm.
Suddenly, I’m sitting in an office, facing a bespectacled, somber-faced man in a white coat. “I’m sorry,” the doctor says in a steady but grave voice. “I wish there was more I could do.” Despair swamps me, followed by a wave of anger, then despair again. Tears spill down my cheeks, hands gripping the arms of the chair. And somewhere in my gut, a gnawing, nauseating ache. The gray-haired doctor says, “We’ll do everything we can to make you comfortable in your final days.”
And then she was back in the newsroom, on her knees next to Lew, her palm still resting on his bare arm. He was staring at her with a perplexed expression. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded.
She pulled her hand back, her heart racing now. “Nothing. I’m sorry. I . . . uh, I’ll get back to work.”
She quickly returned to her desk.
The despair she’d felt lingered. The old curmudgeon wasn’t retiring. He was dying.
Emotion burned behind her eyes. That poor man.
And she had somehow tapped into his memory of getting the bad news, had experienced it as if it were her own. She remembered that moment when she’d knelt on the pavement beside the dead woman, how she’d seen the car barreling at her, felt the lightning flash of impact, the dizzying sensation of flying through the air. Right after that, she’d experienced firsthand Mac’s blinding fear when he’d thought she’d been the one hit.
That made three . . . she didn’t know what to call them. Visions? No, they were more than that, like an out-of-body experience.
She’d always been sensitive to the feelings of the people around her, often absorbing their doom and gloom as if they were her own. Her grandmother had called it “empathy.” But she’d never experienced anything as visceral and real as Lew’s despair and Mac’s fear or anything as physically jarring as the hit-and-run.
Somehow, her empathy had become supercharged.
CHAPTER FOUR
He clicked off the TV news and tapped the remote against his temple.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The phone rang. Great, here it comes. The story of my life.
Bracing, he picked it up.
“You screwed up. Again.”
No “Hello, how’ve you been?” Succinct. Cold. He should be used to it by now, but it still chafed. After everything he’d done. “Yeah, I know.”
“What’re you going to do about it?”
“I’ll fix it.”
“If you hadn’t screwed up in the first place, it wouldn’t need fixing.”
“I know.” That was his standard response these days. I know. I’m a class-A fuckup. I know, I know. I know. Jesus.
“Take care of it. Soon.”
“I will.”
The phone clicked in his ear, and his hand tightened on the phone. So how was your day? Stressful? Yeah, mine, too. I became a killer today. Again. And I’m still not done.
He fired the phone at the wall.
CHAPTER FIVE
Charlie drove home automatically after a long day at work, her mind flitting between her odd visions and the woman she’d watched die. That woman had a name now, according to the police: Laurette Atkins. She’d probably gotten up this morning, just like any other morning. Showered. Dressed. Drunk her orange juice. Eaten a muffin. And left the Royal Palm Inn, which she’d checked in to just the night before, fully expecting to return later in the day to a maid-straightened room and cl
ean towels.
And now she was dead. Unable to do whatever it was that she’d intended to do with her life. Such as be the journalist who could actually make a difference, if not in the world, then at least in this small town.
For the first time, Charlie realized—or, rather, for the first time she acknowledged—that no matter how hard she fought, she couldn’t be the journalist she wanted to be in Lake Avalon, not when important news stories went unreported for fear of angering advertisers, or the powerful movers and shakers who also happened to be good friends with her father. The Dick’s story wasn’t the first one suppressed, and it wouldn’t be the last.
All Charlie had ever wanted was a job fighting the good fight, pursuing justice, helping those who had no voice. Investigative journalists seemed to be a dying breed these days. In Lake Avalon, the breed had been dead and buried a long time ago.
Maybe her older sister had known exactly what she was doing when she’d fled Florida right after high school. Maybe Sam had somehow known that the secret to happiness was looking for it somewhere else.
Charlie fished her cell phone out of her bag and called the newspaper. Tonight was David Adams’s last night on the copy desk at the LAG. He’d passed the bar exam a month ago and planned to start his own law practice.
“David, hi, it’s Charlie.”
“Well, hey. Didn’t you just give me a big good-bye hug half an hour ago?”
“I was missing you already.”
His laugh was heartier and easier than she’d ever heard it. All because he was facing a fresh start. “Yeah, right,” he said. “So what’s up?”
“I have a proposition for you.”
CHAPTER SIX
Chicago police detective Noah Lassiter parked in front of Charlie Trudeau’s small, peach stucco house on Avalon Street and killed the rental car’s engine. The driveway was empty, so he settled back in the driver’s seat to wait for her to come home.
Laurette’s sister Jewel had called him this morning to tell him about the accident that had claimed his friend’s life, had begged him to go to Lake Avalon to look into it. He didn’t tell her Florida was way outside of his jurisdiction. He’d listened to her broken voice and hadn’t been able to say no. So now here he was, camped out in front of Charlie Trudeau’s home, waiting. He’d heard on the radio that she was the only witness to the hit-and-run. A huge break, considering she was also the woman Laurette had come to Lake Avalon to see. He hoped like hell she’d have something to offer that hadn’t been reported. Otherwise, he’d be forced to approach local law enforcement.
He put the Mustang’s top down, despite the temperature hovering in the midsixties, and leaned his head back to gaze up at the sky. Stars were so bright and dense that they formed a pattern blown like dust over a midnight blue backdrop.
Awe swept through him. He’d never seen such brilliant stars in Chicago, probably because of the city lights. Not that he would have noticed, since staring up at the nighttime sky wasn’t his thing. Laurette had chided him about that not too long ago after he’d called on her to help him pry a confession out of a killer. She’d listened to the slimeball’s spiel, nodding and looking sympathetic, even after shooting Noah her “yep, he did it” look.
He readily admitted that her gift, her ability to know, had scared the shit out of him. Not because he feared the unknown or supernatural, but because he feared what she might see in him. His soul was black, sullied by years of neglect.
But Laurette didn’t seem to notice. The night they’d nailed their last killer, she’d suggested they clear their heads, and warm up, by checking out the view from the ninety-fourth-floor observatory of the John Hancock Building, but Noah hadn’t been in the mood to mingle with tourists.
“You need to stop and look around yourself once in a while,” Laurette had said. “To the left, the right, up at the sky.”
He feigned a scowl at her. “You want me to stop and smell the goddamned roses, too?”
Her laugh was light as she linked her arm through his. “Noah, Noah, Noah. Why do you act like such a hard-ass when you’re not?”
He chuckled at that. She didn’t know him at all. “Yeah, I’m just a marshmallow on the inside.”
“Crusty on the outside, soft and sweet on the inside. I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
A warm feeling had flowed through him on that chilly night. Well-being. Acceptance. Camaraderie. He’d felt some hope that maybe he could change. Maybe he could make up for what he’d done.
The memory broke off when a small SUV turned into Charlie Trudeau’s driveway. Not wanting to spook her by approaching her outside after dark, he stayed put while a slim woman in khaki slacks and a light green polo shirt got out. He couldn’t make out her features as she opened the back door and retrieved a laptop case, but her skin was pale in the moonlight, her long dark hair captured in a ponytail that had all but come loose. He’d give her ten minutes to get inside and get settled before knocking on her door and introducing himself.
In the meantime, he took in the nighttime sky some more, wishing he’d made the effort to get closer to Laurette. He’d suspected she was interested in more than just friendship, but he’d resisted the idea, certain a man like him wasn’t worthy of a woman like her.
Too bad life didn’t offer do-overs.
Charlie slipped her key into the lock and pushed open the door into the house that had belonged to her father’s mother. The house still smelled like Nana, like lemons and soap, and she paused on the threshold to remember what it had been like to walk in when her grandmother had been alive. Nana would be standing at the sink, washing a potato to peel for dinner and smiling at her as if the sun had just come out on a dark day.
Closing the door behind her, Charlie dropped her laptop bag on a kitchen chair just as a large black and white cat ambled in from the living room with the gait of Eeyore. Oh, bother.
“Well, hello, Atticus.”
The cat rubbed against her pant leg, softly purring.
“How was your day?” she asked, bending to give his head a quick scratch. “Did you get a lot done?”
After checking his bowls to make sure he had adequate food and water, she stopped in her office to e-mail the auto dealer story to David at the paper. Her hand shook a little as she used the mouse to click the “send” button. It was done.
Resigned to being unemployed in the morning and having a very pissed-off father, she headed for her bedroom and the shower. As she walked, she shed her T-shirt and unbuttoned her pants. In the bedroom, she toed out of her shoes, kicking them toward the closet, and turned to toss her polo at the hamper. She’d stepped out of her khakis when a rustling sound near the closet startled her. Then she relaxed.
“Atticus, you silly cat—”
She broke off when a presence bigger than the cat came at her from behind. She’d barely managed to take half a step toward the door when a cord looped around her neck and cinched, jerking her back. Shocked, choking, she stumbled, ramming into the body of her attacker, who bumped against the closet door with a grunt. She tried to dig her fingers under the cord biting into her throat, but all she did was gouge her fingernails into her own flesh.
Bright lights began to explode in her head, and she twisted desperately, trying to loosen the noose. The attacker held tight to the ends of the cord, silent and still behind her, seeming to know that all he had to do was wait for the air in her lungs to run its course. As the strength drained out of her legs, she dropped to her knees with a lurch, a sickening black wave building inside her head. Oh, God, oh, God, she was going to die.
The sudden move must have unbalanced the attacker, because the cord slackened, and Charlie heaved in a jagged, burning breath, at the same time grabbing at the cord to yank it away from her throat. She expelled her second gulp of air with an eardrum-shattering scream as she wrenched around and crabbed backward, out of the bedroom and into the hall toward the living room and the way out.
The intruder, in one of those black ninja mas
ks with only a slit for the eyes, came at her in a blur. Latex-gloved hands lunged for her throat, but Charlie frantically scooted back until her shoulder blades hit the side of the sofa and she struggled to her feet. The ninja, in loose black pants and a black long-sleeved T-shirt, kept coming, and Charlie lashed out wildly with one fist, making bone-jarring contact with the cloth-covered skull. The ninja jerked back with a pained gasp, but before Charlie could do anything more than scream again, he drove forward, smacking her in the forehead with a blinding head-butt. Her head reeled, and she slumped sideways to the carpet, fighting the black hole that spun up at her. No, don’t let go, hang on, come on.
The ninja grabbed her shoulder, wrestled her easily onto her back and fell on her. A forearm braced across her throat, and Charlie grabbed at it, clawing, her head spinning, her strength fading. She thought she heard a loud, repeated banging noise and muffled shouting, before darkness began to spread from the edges of her vision and her oxygen-starved lungs convulsed.
And then she could breathe. She sensed rather than saw the ninja leap up and tear toward the kitchen. The back door slammed open and shut, and Charlie felt a warm night breeze wash over her nearly naked skin. She was alive. Somehow.
Rolling onto her side, she curled into a tight, protective ball and began to cough uncontrollably. When a big, warm hand lightly squeezed her upper arm, she unfolded onto her back, ready to fight even as images of furiously kicking in a closed door filled her head.
The hand pressed her shoulder to the floor, easily but gently pinning her in place. “It’s okay. I’m a police officer.” The voice above her was deep and soothing. “I’ve called for help, but I need to check the house for other intruders.”
She blinked up at the man who belonged to the voice, saw a lined, rugged face, messy blond hair and striking green eyes. She had no idea who he was, but she felt immediately safe.
“You can breathe okay?” he asked.
