by Sandra Brown
She blinked. “Why what?”
“Why do you want the city hall beat?”
“I had it before I married Thomas. You know why I gave it up then, and you also know it’s always been my first love.”
“Uh-huh,” Pinkie didn’t sound convinced. He lit another cigarette and watched her through the rising smoke. “You’ve made a niche for yourself on that entertainment beat.”
“But I’m bored with it, Pinkie. I miss the city hall. I still have well-placed sources over there.”
“That’s a helluva sales pitch, Kari, but this ain’t no dumbo you’re talking to.” He propped his stocky arms on the edge of the desk and leaned forward. “You want that beat so you can cook Hunter McKee’s goose.”
Guiltily she looked down at her hands. “I’m a good reporter, Pinkie. I wouldn’t let my personal feelings color my journalistic judgment.” He glared at her suspiciously and she cried, “I wouldn’t!”
He sat back in his chair and hitched one foot over the corner of the desk. “What’s going to happen to your spot on the news? Hypothetically. I’m not saying you’ve got the other job yet.”
“Give the entertainment segment to Sally Jenkins. She did an okay job while I was away.”
“You know the business, Kari. It’s cutthroat. Sometimes you come back from vacation to learn you have no job. If you give up that peachy spot to Miss T. and A. and screw up over there,” he hitched his head in the direction of downtown, “there’ll be no coming back. Are you prepared to take that chance?”
“I won’t screw up. Don’t you believe in my ability anymore?”
“Yes. But I also believe that you’re a woman who thinks and feels things passionately. You’re also stubborn. You’ve got this grudge against the D.A. and—”
“It’s not a grudge.”
“The hell it’s not!” Pinkie snapped. “Don’t play word games with me. Grudge is probably too mild a word for what you feel toward him.” He aimed his index finger at the tip of her nose. “I don’t want this newsroom to get in a battle with McKee.”
“I would never let that happen.”
“You’d better make damn sure you don’t,” he said, as his feet hit the floor.
Her eyes lit up. “Then I have it?”
“You have it.”
“Thanks, Pinkie,” she said, surging to her feet. “When?”
“Dick’s leaving at the end of the week. Monday?”
“Monday.” She spun on her heels to leave, then paused. “Can I reserve Mike Gonzales as my cameraman?”
“Are you going to ask for more money?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Then, you can have Mike.” He smiled at her and she laughed, fairly dancing with excitement. Pinkie came to his feet and took a drag of his cigarette. He didn’t look happy. “I love you like a daughter, Kari, so I’m going to warn you about something. Revenge is a two-sided blade. It usually comes right back and smacks you in the ass.”
She winced. “I’ll remember.”
Pinkie doubted seriously that she would.
“Kari, I don’t like this.”
“Come on, you big coward. Where’s your sense of adventure? Besides, what can they do to us if they catch us?”
Mike Gonzales moaned as he hauled the heavy camera and recorder up the stairs. A video camera on a hospital elevator attracted too much attention. That was what they were trying to avoid. “It’s not the hospital staff I’m worried about, it’s Pinkie.”
She laughed softly. “If we deliver him a tear-jerking story for the six o’clock news, he won’t care what we did to get it.”
“But the D.A. is going to raise hell. He didn’t keep this man’s whereabouts a secret for nothing, you know.”
“That’s what bothers me. Why the big secret? Why haven’t any of us seen this man since he was arrested for murdering his wife? What’s McKee up to?”
“How did you know this guy had a heart attack in his jail cell?”
“I overheard it at one of the coffee machines in the courthouse.” Mike chuckled. “My unwitting informers said he’d been taken to the hospital.”
“Who did you weasel the room number out of?” he asked.
She smiled at him with mischief. “That’s my secret.”
They finally reached the floor they were looking for. Kari pulled the stairwell door open to peer into the hall. “I hope the illustrious Mr. McKee hasn’t posted a guard.”
There was none. Silent and unseen, they slipped down the hall and into the patient’s room. The middle-aged man lay in his bed awake, twisting the sheet between his hands.
“Who are you?” He looked like a frightened rabbit as Kari and Mike moved into the room.
“I’m Kari Stewart, Mr. Hopkins. How are you feeling?” she asked kindly.
His fearful eyes darted from Kari to Mike and the camera, then back to Kari. Recognition dawned. “Are you the girl on TV?” he asked, no longer showing apprehension but interest.
Kari had learned a long time ago that when people see someone in their living rooms every night, they feel that they know him personally. In situations like this, that feeling of familiarity came in handy.
“Yes.” She sat in the chair next to the bed and unobtrusively switched on the small tape recorder she carried. She nodded to Mike and instantly heard the soft hum of the video recorder as the camera clicked on. “You’ve watched me on television?”
“Sure Emma and me—” He broke off as his lip began to tremble and his eyes filled with tears. “She’s gone now.”
“I read that in the newspapers. Would you like to talk about it?”
“I didn’t mean to kill her. I don’t even remember doing it.” He began to cry in earnest and the focus on Mike’s camera rolled in for a close-up.
“You’ve got to admit, it’s powerful stuff.”
“Yep. So is something else when it hits the fan. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen if we air this piece.”
Exasperated, Kari let loose a deep sigh and turned her back. She paced the small confines of the editing room as Pinkie watched her interview with the alleged murderer Hopkins one more time. “It’s good, Pinkie.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t good.” He stood up. “I just don’t know if it’s journalistically good.”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t presented both sides.”
“The other side has already been presented. You read McKee’s statement in the paper. He wants a conviction and a death sentence.”
“He wants a conviction. He wasn’t quoted as saying he wanted a death sentence.”
“He’ll get around to it.” She placed her interlaced fingers beneath her chin as though she were pleading with him. “Think of all the times bad press has convicted someone before he ever came to trial.”
“So, you’re going to set that right by making it your business that Hopkins gets off?”
“No. I’m just giving him a forum.”
“He has one. In court.”
She forced down her rising temper. “Pinkie, I’ve had this beat for almost two months. Have I slandered Mr. McKee?”
“You’ve come as close to the wire as you can without actually doing it,” he reminded her.
“And people are paying attention. Our ratings are up.”
He had to admit that and, after all, that was where the bottom line was drawn. Whether he approved her methods or not, Kari had made her reports on city hall, and particularly those regarding Hunter McKee, as colorful and stimulating as her entertainment critiques had been.
“All right,” he conceded. “Against my better judgment, it airs on tonight’s news.”
“Thanks, Pinkie.” She kissed his cheek.
Querulously he rubbed it off. “I just wouldn’t want to be around to see McKee’s reaction.”
As it turned out, no one was around except Kari when he came storming into the newsroom. She had arrived early, excited over the impact her interview with Hopkin
s had had and wondering what she would do today as a follow-up.
At this time of morning, a few reporters and photographers were straggling in, but they were congregated around the coffee machines. She was alone in her cubicle when she looked up and saw McKee looming over her angrily.
“Well, good morning, Mr. McKee. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
“Don’t be cute with me, Kari. I saw your story on last night’s news.”
“Oh?”
“And I’m mad as hell about it.”
“Isn’t that bad for your public image?”
His lips compressed into a hard, thin line. “How did you get into Hopkins’s hospital room?”
“I walked.”
He took a threatening step toward her. His large frame seemed to fill the small space. To keep herself from feeling at a disadvantage, she rose to her feet. But when she raised her eyes to meet his, she realized just how minuscule the office was. He was standing far too close.
“I’ve let you get by with the sly innuendos you sneak into your reports. Oh, yes, I’ve heard them, but I let them pass without comment.”
“How commendable.”
“Because I thought a true professional would soon tire of the little game you’re playing and would start reporting honestly and without bias, as other reporters do.”
That stung. Her eyes flashed furiously. “I am a true professional. I report what I see.”
“After you strain it through that spiteful brain of yours,” he said with rising volume. “What did you hope to accomplish by airing that tearful interview with Hopkins?”
“Nothing. It was a good interview. I thought the public should see the broken, guilt-ridden man you’re going to ask the state to kill for you.”
He looked like he might very well take the state’s business in his own hands and wring her neck on the spot. “You wanted to win public sympathy for him and make me look like Adolf Hitler’s second cousin just for taking him to trial.”
“He had a heart attack!”
“You should have been more thorough in checking out the medical reports, Ms. Stewart. He has angina. Has had for years. He suffered some chest pains in jail, and as a safeguard, I had him hospitalized. Can we speak off the record?” She set her jaw stubbornly, giving him the impression she wouldn’t agree to it. “You’re not trustworthy enough for me to speak off the record?”
“I certainly am.”
“All right, then.” He stuck out his hand. “Off the record.”
She looked down at his extended hand and warned herself against touching it. A premonition so deep she couldn’t find its source warned that if she touched him, it would lead to consequences. Nonetheless she took his hand and shook it twice before quickly releasing it. “Off the record,” she said brusquely.
“Hopkins, no matter how pitiable he looks and acts, murdered his wife. It was two weeks before he disposed of the body—You do know how he disposed of the body, don’t you?”
She swallowed the nausea that filled the back of her throat and nodded. “If the newspaper accounts are true.”
“They are. I was there while they dug up the twenty-six holes in the backyard.” She squirmed uncomfortably.
He took off his glasses and folded them into the breast pocket of his coat. He had remarkably unusual eyes, she noticed. And for an infinitesimal second, he seemed just as captivated by hers. Her heart flipped over in her chest, just as it had that day in his office when he had told her she always looked beautiful on television.
“Where was I?” he asked distractedly.
“It was two weeks …”
“Oh, yes. It was two weeks before anyone noticed that she hadn’t been seen around their house. Now if he was so shook up over it, why didn’t he come crying to us with a confession right after he axed her?”
Kari made a squeamish face. “I don’t know, Mr. McKee. He was probably overwhelmed by what he’d done. Terrified. He was under tremendous pressure. He said that for thirty years she had nagged him.”
Hunter laughed. “So, you think we should look the other way every time a man kills his wife because she nags him?”
“Don’t laugh at me.”
He sobered instantly. “I’m not laughing at you. I didn’t see anything funny about what you did yesterday. And the issue here isn’t whether Hopkins murdered his wife or not, whether he’s crazy as a bedbug, or saner than us all. The issue is your yellow journalism. What’s your motive, Kari? To swing public opinion against me?”
“Maybe it should be swung against you.”
“Why? I’m doing my job. It’s my job to prosecute criminals and help maintain law and order. Why do you persist in taking potshots at me for doing what the taxpayers expect me to do?”
“I don’t like your methods.” She turned away from him but was brought back immediately. His hand had firmly gripped her upper arm and spun her around.
“And I don’t like yours. I don’t like my orders being disobeyed, and my orders were that no one was to get to Hopkins. Who let you in that room?”
“No one! And let go of me. You’re hurting my arm.”
That wasn’t quite the truth. He wasn’t hurting any part of her. But they were standing chest to chest and she found that proximity to his body disquieting, not to mention the strange vulnerability she felt each time his warm scented breath struck her mouth and throat.
He glanced down at his fingers, which were curled around her arm. Slowly they were released. He seemed embarrassed by his show of temper. To cover her own discomfiture, she rubbed her arm where his fingers had been to let him think he’d bruised her.
She took up the conversation in a lofty voice, as though she were speaking to a brute who had been brought to heel. “There wasn’t a policeman at the door. I merely walked in.”
He’d hardly been brought to heel. “Someone gave you the room number. Who was it?”
“Is this off the record?”
“It sure as hell is not! I intend to go straight from here to the hospital and read the staff the riot act.”
“Then, I’m sorry, Mr. McKee. I never, never, reveal my sources. You should know that that’s the unwritten creed of any reporter who values his credibility.”
He was quaking with rage, and Kari knew the exhilaration of triumph. She had him right where she wanted him. He was tasting humiliation and frustration and was powerless to defend himself against them. Wasn’t that how she had suffered when he accused Thomas of wrongdoing?
But she was soon to learn that Hunter McKee wasn’t a defeated foe. Not yet. He took a step toward her, until their clothes were brushing together. He was as close as he could come without actually touching her. Those intriguing eyes homed in on her mouth and stayed … and stayed. At last he said softly, “You’re asking for trouble, Kari.”
His eyes remained on her mouth. She refused to move away and give him the satisfaction of knowing that this intent inspection disturbed her greatly. Unable to bear it any longer, she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said huskily.
The corner of his mouth twitched with the need to grin. Then his eyes lazily strayed up to hers. When they collided, her stomach dropped.
“I think you are.”
Without another word, he left.
“You’ve got a real tiger by the tail this time.”
Hunter, sitting at his desk, his feet propped up on the corner of it, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, don’t I know it. Jury selection was bad enough.”
He and Guy Brady had been poring over briefs and legal tomes for hours. It was late and he was tired. He swung his feet down and stood. He stretched, arching his back as his fists dug into the small of it.
“Of course the judge’s ruling is a break for us. We can try that kid as an adult,” he said.
It had been a month since the Hopkins incident. Hopkins never came to trial. After extensive psychiatric tests, he was judged by several doctors as being mentally unfi
t to stand trial. He was committed to a state hospital on the condition that if he was ever released, he could be tried for the murder of his wife.
This case was just as touchy. Hunter had no choice, other than releasing a killer back into society, than to go all the way with it.
Guy frowned down at his scribbled notes. “Some social-conscience groups are gonna raise hell. Why does he have to be just sixteen?”
“In years he’s sixteen,” Hunter said, playing devil’s advocate. “He’s far older than that in experience. Have you read his arrest record? It’s as long as my arm. Petty theft, burglary, robbery, assault, vandalism, possession of controlled substances, possession of a lethal weapon. This is not your ordinary sixteen-year-old high-school kid. Since he was nine, this kid’s been in trouble. He’s been a violent crime waiting to happen. It finally did.”
“He’s pleaded self-defense. That’s a helluva hard thing to prove.”
“And that’s the defense’s job. I think the coroner’s report is a definite plus for our side. Is it conceivable that he stabbed his father forty-three times if he didn’t intend to kill him?” From an assortment of vending machine junk food lying on the table, Hunter picked up a Twinkie, studied it dubiously as he unwrapped it, then bit into it. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s open and shut. I’ve questioned the boy, studied the reports. He’s amoral.”
“But defense will come back with the low socioeconomic level of the family, the crowded home, the irresponsible mother, the abuse the boy suffered from his alcoholic father, the—”
“You ought to join the Kari Stewart camp,” Hunter commented dryly. “I can just hear her now.”
Guy chuckled. “She’s really got it in for you.”
“Yeah, and this trial is going to be right up her alley. It will give her all the ammunition she needs to make me come out the villain. I hope to God no one else thinks I will enjoy getting a conviction on that kid. It’s necessary. That’s what I’m paid to do.”
Hands shoved into his pockets, he went to the window. A late evening rain had washed the downtown streets. They reflected traffic lights in blurred ribbons of red and white. It was still coming down, rain mixed with sleet now. Hunter’s gaze crawled over the skyline to the WBTV broadcast tower.
