Expose

by Saranne Dawson

  “Most of them would prefer to keep it that way, too,” Sam observed dryly.

  “That’s true, but I can’t see any of them threatening me over it. Actually, most of them I’ve talked to have been cooperative.”

  “Have you got a good, sexy issue to follow?” Sam asked. “That’ll make or break the series.”

  “I think I have—the legalization of drugs. There are hearings already scheduled.”

  He raised a dark brow in surprise. “You just might have a winner there, but I doubt it’ll ever reach the floor for a vote.”

  “It might. The thing is that there are people of all political persuasions coming out in favor of it. The usual liberal-conservative coalitions are going to break down over this one, which is why it could be particularly interesting.”

  They talked about it for a while, in that special shorthand they’d always used. She was pleased that he liked the idea. But then, Sam had always encouraged her.

  They were sitting in the pool of light from a single lamp, much as they’d often sat late into the night, both of them exhausted but still with too much to say. It felt too good, too right—and that made it wrong.

  She stood quickly. “I’m too exhausted to stay up any longer. I’ll find someone tomorrow to come in and clean the apartment for you. It’s still furnished with the things from my old place.”

  Much of the furniture in the house had belonged to Sam, including some family heirlooms he’d left with her when he’d gone overseas. She sighed inwardly, thinking that he would want them back now and she’d be forced to replace things she’d grown to love.

  He got up, too. “I’m kind of beat myself. I just got in from London. The Concorde was full, so I had to take the slow way back.”

  “My heart bleeds for you,” she replied acidly.

  “So you still resent that,” he said, following her up the stairs.

  “Resent what?” She was so tired that she couldn’t even remember what she’d just said.

  “My money.”

  “Hmmpphh!” She supposed there must be even more of it for her to resent now—and of course, still more to come someday, since his parents had plenty. He’d grown up in the wealthy Washington suburb of Chevy Chase and had gone to all the best schools. She, on the other hand, had grown up in a small, working-class town in Pennsylvania and had made it through far less prestigious schools on scholarships, loans she was still repaying and various unpleasant jobs. And yes, she did resent it, even though she knew she shouldn’t.

  She reached her bedroom—their former bedroom. The guest room was farther down the hall, but he stopped and she immediately tensed, caught in a seductive web of memories.

  “You’re still as prickly as ever,” he remarked with a smile in his voice.

  She returned his genuine smile with a decidedly saccharine one. “Thanks. You haven’t changed, either.”

  “Tomorrow, we need to talk about that letter.”

  “No, we don’t. It’s my business—not yours.”

  She stepped into the bedroom and slammed the door quickly. If there was one good thing she could say about his sudden reentry into her life, it was that she’d lost any fear over that letter. But she might have taken on a whole new set of fears.

  “DONTTRYTO PLAY Woodward and Bernstein.”

  Kate’s mouth set in a grim line as she stared at the words on the screen—the last of several messages on her E-mail. It had come in this morning, just before she’d reached the Post newsroom.

  She deleted it and sat there thinking, ignoring the computer’s nagging to give it some instructions. Intimidation, pure and simple. Whoever he was, he was trying to prove to her that he could reach her easily. On the way in this morning, she’d been thinking about the letter and how it had been sent to her home. She had an unlisted phone, so her address wasn’t in the directory, and she knew that the Post would never have given it out.

  And now this. Yes, someone was definitely trying to convince her that she was vulnerable—and he was doing a damned good job of it, too.

  But he seemed to have made one error, and that was to assume that she would know what he was talking about. It suggested that he was unfamiliar with newspaper work. No reporter she knew was ever working on only one story—not in today’s cost-cutting environment. That happened only in movies and in books.

  She propped her feet up on her desk and ran through everything she was working on at the moment. Not one story sounded as though it could threaten anyone, which actually rather irritated her, since every journalist worthy of the name wanted to “get the goods” on someone.

  She had just turned her thoughts back to the series she’d discussed with Sam last night when she became aware of the rising level of noise in the newsroom. As a morning paper, the Post went to press at night and therefore mornings tended to be quiet times. Many of the reporters didn’t even show up until early afternoon, and the few who were in were huddled in their cubicles communing with their word processors or working the phones. But now she could hear excited voices drifting over the Plexiglas walls.

  She started to get up to see what was going on, then sank back down again as she heard someone calling Sam’s name. Of course. ‘The return of the prodigal son. He’d still been asleep when she left this morning, but she should have guessed that this would be his first stop.

  Sam Winters had become a legend in his own time even before she’d joined the Post. He’d won back-to-back Pulitzers and was, by general acclamation, the best “nose” in the business. There were powerful people on the Hill and in the White House who were either struck dumb with fear or became overly talkative when their secretaries announced that Sam Winters was on the line. She’d heard that champagne had flowed freely in more than one office when Sam left to take the job with CNN.

  Doing her best to ignore the enthusiastic greetings beyond the walls, Kate called up her notes on the legislative story. As she’d told Sam, she hadn’t actually done much work on it yet. But what she hadn’t told him was that an image had popped into her mind the moment she’d made the connection between the threatening letter and this story. She couldn’t begin to imagine the why, but she could imagine the who.

  She reviewed her notes on the meeting with Rick Armistead, which had taken place four days ago. Armistead was chief of staff to Rep. Jack Newbury, the chair of the subcommittee that would be holding the first hearings on drug legalization. Newbury was a powerful congressman who could be a poster boy for those who supported term limits. He was in his umpteenth term and was just about everyone’s candidate for Number One Sleazeball—except, apparently, for his constituents. The man had survived God knew how many investigations of wrongdoing.

  Armistead, his chief of staff, was a virtual clone of his boss. They even looked somewhat alike, in the way that dogs and their masters are said to come to resemble each other.

  Kate had no trouble believing either Newbury or Armistead to be capable of issuing underhanded threats, but why would they do it? Armistead had actually been quite pleasant to her in his unctuous way. He’d given her the information about the upcoming hearing, including the list of those testifying pro and con, and he’d offered to help her in any way he could.

  The only hint of unpleasantness, she now recalled, had come when she’d asked about the congressman’s own position on the issue. He’d always been adamantly opposed to legalization, but she’d heard that he might change his mind. Armistead had admitted that possibility, saying that for now, Newbury was “keeping an open mind.”

  When Kate had prodded at that a bit, Armistead had nearly bared his fangs, but she couldn’t see how her question could have brought on a threat—or two threats now. So what if he changed his mind? Many others were apparently doing so, too.

  She could hear Sam’s voice now, as he and his entourage moved in her direction. After wiping her notes from the screen, Kate peered cautiously around the edge of her cubicle, then scooted out and headed to the ladies’ room. She couldn’t hope to avoid Sa
m forever, but it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

  With the sounds of Sam’s adoring crowd ringing in her ears, Kate stared at herself in the rest room mirror. It was definitely not a self-esteem-building exercise.

  She was attractive, but beautiful she was not. There wasn’t any one feature she could single out as being the culprit. In fact, she had classic features—that good old wholesome all-American look. Her hair—dark blond and not yet sun-streaked—was okay, too. She wore it shoulder length and slightly curled as she had for years. Her hairdresser, whom she saw as infrequently as possible, was constantly trying to get her to go for a new look. But the most Kate ever did to change her appearance was to put it into a French braid from time to time—generally when the summer heat and humidity made her think about getting a buzz cut.

  Her eyes were a warm brown flecked with green and heavily lashed. They were probably her best feature but she covered them with glasses most of the time because contacts were too much of a bother.

  Her figure wasn’t bad, either—but not because she did much to keep it that way. She played tennis occasionally, rode her mountain bike regularly and sometimes went rock climbing out in western Maryland with friends.

  The only thing she really hated about her looks was the tiny cleft in her chin. Cleft chins were great on men, but she could only see it as being a flaw. Sam had liked it, though. She touched it lightly as she remembered him kissing it after they’d…

  No! That story was definitely finished and should never have begun in the first place.

  When she left the rest room, she saw that Sam and the others had moved into her editor’s office. She detoured around that area and went back to her workstation, where she called up the file again and scanned her “To Do” list. The first item read, “Call Geri.” She picked up the phone.

  Geri Winters was her former sister-in-law. She’d been on the staff of Newbury’s subcommittee for a time about five years ago and Kate thought she might be able to provide some background on how they operated. Geri was married to Sam’s younger brother and their friendship had continued even after the divorce.

  Kate winced when Geri answered to the accompaniment of two squalling infants in the background. How could Geri stand it? She had a very good brain that surely must be turning to mush now.

  Geri’s part-time nanny was due to arrive any minute and the two women agreed to meet for lunch out at Tyson’s Corner, where Geri had some shopping to do. Kate thought that she’d like to do some shopping herself, but she was pretty sure that her Nordstrom’s card was maxed at the moment.

  “By the way,” she said to Geri, “Sam’s in town. If he calls you, please don’t tell him we’re meeting.”

  “He is? Did he really quit CNN? He called a couple of weeks ago from Nairobi and said he was thinking about it.”

  “Yes. He’s going to be staying in the basement apartment until he gets settled.”

  “Oh. How do you feel about that?”

  “Not too great, but I guess I owe him that much, since he was so generous about the house.”

  “And I have no doubt that he knew you’d feel that way,” Geri said. “That you owed him, I mean. Beware ulterior motives, Kate. I’ve told you before that he’s still in love with you. Every time he calls, he manages to ask—very casually—how you are and what you’re doing.”

  “Right. That’s why he’s been running all over the world with his private harem of models and actresses. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you at one.”

  Kate put down the phone with a sound of disgust. Sam wasn’t in love with her. If anything, he was probably as screwed up in his feelings toward her as she was toward him.

  She made some calls and then turned her attention to another story she was working on. She was determined to ignore those threats, especially now that she’d had some more time to think about it. Just about every reporter on the staff had received hate mail at one time or another. Sam had actually collected his into a scrapbook that was always good for laughs at parties. And if he could ignore it, so could she.

  The other story, which really didn’t deserve to be called a story yet, was a follow-up on an article she’d done several months ago about boot camps for juvenile offenders. They’d become quite popular in the past few years. The costs of incarceration were substantially lower and many people seemed to believe that what young criminals really needed was some discipline in their lives. Despite the fact that the latest studies indicated a recidivism rate equal to that of regular incarceration programs, money-starved states continued to push them.

  Kate had been planning to write a follow-up detailing those studies, but in the course of researching it, she’d come across something that had piqued her interest. There was a privately run camp in the Catoctin Mountains of western Maryland that was said to be having phenomenal success. Most of the kids were referred there by the courts, but some had actually been sent by their parents.

  She’d already visited the camp and had talked to several “graduates” and their parents, and while she received glowing reports, she hadn’t been able to pinpoint any difference between the program at New Leaf and the others she knew about.

  She read her notes and wondered what to do. Unless she could single out whatever made New Leaf so successful, she really couldn’t use it in her story. Maybe she should go back out there one more time.

  After calling the camp and setting up an appointment, she peeked around the edge of her cubicle to see if Sam was still in her editor’s office. He was, along with several other people, so she gathered up her oversize bag and hurried out to make a few stops on the Hill before driving out to meet Geri.

  She felt kind of foolish for sneaking around to avoid Sam, since she’d certainly see him anyway, but somehow, she just didn’t want it to be here. It brought back too many unpleasant memories of what life in the shadow of Sam Winters had been like.

  “YOU’RE REALLY SERIOUS, aren’t you?” Geri asked, peering closely at her. “Somehow, I thought that—”

  “That chapter in my life is closed, Geri. I told you that before. I don’t even want to talk about Sam.”

  But Geri couldn’t seem to resist a parting shot. “Rob agrees with me, you know—and he knows Sam better than anyone. He says Sam’s never gotten over you.”

  “What Sam has never gotten over is having a woman dump him,” Kate stated in an end-of-discussion tone. “I need your take on something, Geri—a story I’m working on.” She then proceeded to outline her proposed series. “It’s really about how Congress does its work. I chose drug legalization because it’s going to be a hot topic. And that’s why I thought of you for some background. You worked for that subcommittee, and it’s pretty much the same membership.”

  “Right. I think there’s only one new member, and of course, good old Newbury’s still running it.” Geri grimaced, as most people did when Newbury’s name came up.

  “Tell me about him. How he works in the committee and anything else you can think of. He’s always been opposed to legalization in the past, but rumor has it that he might be changing his mind.”

  “If he’s changing his mind, then there must be something in it for him,” Geri said sourly, then went on to paint a picture of the congressman that fitted with what Kate had already heard from others.

  “What about Armistead? What do you know about him?”

  “Enough to know that I wouldn’t want to cross him. I had pretty regular dealings with him, even though he’s on Newbury’s staff, not the committee’s. He tended to forget that at times.” She paused for a moment, frowning. “Someone once described Armistead as a sociopath—no feelings for anyone and no moral compass. I don’t remember who it was, but I agree.”

  “How do people like that end up in such positions?” Kate asked disgustedly.

  “Because they thrive on manipulating people and because they’re often very good at what they do. When you haven’t got a conscience, you can be pretty darned effective in that kind of job—especially wor
king for someone like Newbury.”

  “Do you think he’s capable of violence?” Kate asked.

  Geri frowned at her. “I heard something once…Why are you asking?”

  After swearing her to secrecy, Kate told her about the threats, then added that she didn’t really have any reason to suspect Newbury or Armistead.

  Geri pushed her shrimp salad around on her plate. “I hate passing on unsubstantiated rumors—even about someone like those two. It was just one of those elliptical conversations you get into late at night in a dark bar when everyone’s had a few.”

  “Whatever it is, I’ll keep you out of it. And I can’t write about it anyway, if there’s no proof.”

  “Okay. The story was about one of the college interns in Newbury’s office last summer. What I heard was that he got really upset about something he’d learned and he went to the House Ethics Committee to talk to someone about it. A couple of days later, he was dead—stabbed to death in what was supposed to have been a robbery.”

  “Are you saying that someone thought he was deliberately murdered?” Kate asked in astonishment, nearly choking on her spinach salad.

  Geri shrugged. “I understand that the police are treating it as a murder committed in the course of a robbery. But it happened in a pretty safe neighborhood in Falls Church. And what had some people suspicious was that the Ethics Committee’s chief of staff just happens to be a good drinking buddy of Armistead’s. They both came to the Hill at the same time and have been friends ever since.”

  “Who gave you this information?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Kate. Confidentiality was implied, if not exactly stated. And the person couldn’t afford to talk to you about it.”

  “But it was a good source?”

  “I think so, but I can’t be sure.”

  “You don’t happen to remember the intern’s name, do you?”

  Geri shook her head. “I don’t think I even heard it. But I know it happened at the beginning of the summer and I think he lived in Falls Church. He was killed in his own neighborhood.”