“Excuse?” Cassie laughed. “Why should I need one? I was just curious about the whole thing, especially when I noticed the other day—when we were shooting at Haas’s place in Brooklyn—that he’d taken the picture down—the one of you, Haas, and Jason together at the hotel.”
“I’d asked him to.”
“But why? What’s the big deal?”
“Why all this damned interest in a subject I’ve made clear to you is painful for me?”
“I’m sorry, Vance,” Cassie said gently. “I guess that’s why I can’t help but be curious. You’re so much in control all the time. So seemingly impervious to sudden emotions. I—”
“Please, enough.” It was a command. The orchestra segued from “Something Foolish” to “Moon River.”
They did not speak for several minutes.
“It was probably the one thing in my adult life,” Magnus began suddenly, “that I failed at. I thought it would be so easy. It seemed to make so much sense. At that time, in the early seventies, the city was in such a shambles economically, and I was, after all, a businessman. I thought I’d just step in—a white knight—and save the masses from self-destruction. It’s difficult to admit that I just didn’t seem to have the necessary common touch. I was—I remember distinctly what the P.R. firm I hired finally told me—’too patrician.’”
“But from what I understand, you threw in the towel before the primary really started.”
“From whom do you understand these things?”
“Just background we’ve been doing on Haas.” The orchestra broke for fifteen minutes, and Magnus introduced Cassie to the Mayor and his wife, a State Supreme Court judge, the Manhattan Borough President, as well as numerous business leaders and their wives, all of whom appeared to be close friends of Magnus.
“Vance, darling, you’re looking wonderful.”
“Tennis Thursday, Magnus?”
“Are you going to the Metropolitan gala next week, Vance? We’re having a little dinner after. Bring your lovely new friend.”
“Do you know every important person in this city?” Cassie teased him when the music began again.
“No,” he said, pulling her lightly into his arms. “They know me.”
Somewhere in the back of Cassie’s mind, she knew the question would arise eventually, but she was still not quite prepared for Magnus’s invitation when he said as the party was breaking up, “It’s early. Let’s go back to my place for a nightcap, shall we?”
He took her silence for assent, and they rode back through the leafy darkness of Central Park hardly speaking. His hand brushed hers once—a seeming accident—but he could detect no clear physical response from her. Had he ever? he wondered as he unlocked the door to his apartment. His housekeeper had left a few lights on in the foyer. Beyond, the reflected lights of the city cast the huge living room in a slightly eerie dark red glow.
Odd, he thought, that he should at that moment find himself missing Miranda. He hadn’t thought of her much recently; in truth, he imagined that he’d almost gotten over her. Cassie and she were so similar in many ways that it had been fairly easy to replace one obsession—one sister—with another. But then in other respects it was becoming clear to Magnus that Cassie was different. She was more subtle, more elusive, her sensual nature far more refined. Miranda had grabbed for what she wanted, whether it was success or sex. Cassie seemed content to let it come to her. He’d practically had to thrust the idea of hosting Breaking News upon her. And she didn’t seem at all aware that she owed him for it. Of course, he had said they would take their time, let it ride, but no experienced woman could possibly expect to be given so much—without giving back.
Miranda would have known that.
“Drink?” She was standing at the window looking out over the dark rectangle of Central Park. He put his arms around her waist.
“No,” she said, attempting to move away, but he didn’t loosen his grip this time. He was suddenly irritated by her evasions, her delicately phrased refusals.
“I’m tired, Vance,” she said softly when he didn’t release her. “I think I should go.”
“I’m tired, too,” he said, “of you keeping me at arm’s length. Give me a chance.” He pulled her to him and pressed his lips against her temple. “Please, Cassie.”
“I’m not ready. I really don’t—”
His lips closed over hers, cutting off her words, her breath. His arms locked around her waist, rocking her against him. He could feel his erection swelling, his need growing with it. He had been dreaming about this moment for weeks now, running the scene over and over again in his imagination. Then tonight, when he picked her up and saw how beautiful she looked in the silver sheath he’d bought for Miranda—he knew that it was ridiculous for him to wait any longer. It was his right.
“Don’t.” She was trying to pull herself free, turning her head away. A spoiled child. An ungrateful woman. He pushed her up against the wall of glass, trying to hold her steady, his desire mounting. Miranda had sometimes liked to struggle like this, pretending to be his victim. It was all a game, of course, but it had helped arouse his sometimes flagging energies, as Cassie’s clenched teeth and tensed body were doing now. He would pry her mouth open, if necessary. Pull her arms away from her chest. Force his knee in between her tightened legs.
“No!” She was thrashing around now, panicked. A manicured hand flailed out, found his cheek, ripped into flesh.
“Christ.” He let her go, stepping back. There was blood on his fingers after he touched the ugly scratch on the side of his face. It would show in the morning. Anger flushed his skin. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“I think it was. I’m going now.” She was turning as she spoke, stumbling in her high heels and skintight dress as she attempted to run across the living room. Stupid woman, Magnus told himself as the front door slammed, not to realize that she wasn’t really going anywhere without him.
Idiot, she told herself, once out on the street. She’d left her evening bag in Magnus’s apartment. She’d have to walk the nearly thirty blocks home. The September evening that had begun almost balmy had grown damp and chill. A wind worked the first leaves loose from the trees lining Central Park South. She hugged her bare arms and walked faster. Almost halfway there, one of her heels broke and she had to take off both shoes and continue without them, the damp cobblestone sidewalk along the park soaking her feet and shredding her panty hose.
A light was still on in the library, the television on low, its images flickering down the corridor. She started to climb the stairs quietly. Suddenly the television clicked off. “Cassie. Is that you?”
She waited on the stairs, keeping within the wall’s shadow. “Yes. I just got in. I’m going up.”
“Do you have a minute? There’s something I wanted to say.”
“Okay.” She turned to face him, hiding the broken heels behind her back.
“Won’t you come down?” She was worried he would ask questions, demand an explanation for her ruined shoes and stockings—but he seemed preoccupied with his own concerns. She followed him into the room. He leaned over and picked up a slim, handsomely wrapped package from one of the coffee tables.
“I didn’t realize you’d be back so late,” he said, holding the package out toward her. “Heather waited up as long as she could, but I finally had to send her to bed.”
Then she remembered. Today had been her birthday. “Thank you,” she said, reaching for the gift.
“Go ahead. Open it up. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time now.”
It was Cassie’s graduation picture mounted in a beautiful antique silver frame.
“It’s lovely,” she said, looking down at the familiar faces encased behind the glass. Miranda, looking slightly bored, stared back up at her. She thought of her sister taping the disk to the back of this photograph—and of all the lies and fears that had resulted in Cassie finding it. The incident with Magnus
had disturbed her more than she realized. She was tired. She wanted the ordeal to end. And then, meeting Jason’s look, she knew what she really wanted: she wanted him to hold her again.
“What is it?” he asked. “What happened to you?” He’d noticed her torn stockings. He moved toward her.
“Stupid me,” she replied hurriedly, stepping back. “I broke a heel on my way home.” She held the shoe up in front of her. He took it from her, grasping her free hand in his.
“Look at your feet. They’re bleeding.” He led her to the couch and forced her to sit beside him. “Why the hell didn’t you phone?”
“I left my bag—” She stopped, uncertain just how much she should reveal about the evening. That she’d gone back to Magnus’s apartment with him alone? That he’d forced himself on her? She realized suddenly how naive she’d been not to realize Magnus’s intentions in the first place. She’d been blind to the danger because she was so little drawn to the man physically. In the past when Magnus had kissed her, she felt only mild distaste. Tonight she had felt revulsion.
“You were with Vance?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“It’s not—”
“I know it’s not my business,” he interrupted her before she could finish, taking both her hands in his. He looked down at their entwined fingers as he said, “I don’t expect you to accept the fact that I’m telling you this for your own good. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you listen to me and believe me when I tell you to be careful with Vance Magnus. When it comes to women—”
“I know,” Cassie said, her eyes on Jason’s bowed head. She longed to touch the dark hair, run her fingers down the taut, strong neck, lift his chin toward hers. As if sensing her thoughts, he looked up. He must have seen something of her feelings in her eyes; she heard his quick intake of breath. She felt her gaze on his lips, her whole body tensed with desire.
“Cassie?” It was a question that she knew she wasn’t ready to answer, though the need to give herself over to this man raged within her, warring against her doubts.
“I’m sorry, Jason,” she said at last, pulling her hands free and standing up. She felt dizzy with regret. But for his sake as well as hers, she knew she could never again give him her heart until she could give him her absolute trust as well.
Thirty
“I thought we could do a voice-over here,” Sheila said as the image of Haas smiling and shaking hands at the Democratic Women’s Caucus luncheon filled the VCR screen.
“Will it pass as a rough cut, do you think?” Cassie asked, sitting back.
“It has to. Magnus told Mac he wanted to see something tomorrow morning, latest.”
“Why the sudden rush?”
“It is almost October, Cassie. The election is hardly more than a month away. If this thing is going to have any positive impact, it’s got to air pretty damn soon.”
“I know that. I just wondered if somehow Haas found out that you—”
“Have the papers? If he did, wouldn’t he—or one of his little henchmen—attempt to contact me? I think he’d try some more radical methods than asking for a green light on our segment.”
“You’re right.” Cassie stood up, straightened, and started to move around the small editing room. “I’m just feeling … watched somehow. Under suspicion. Haas, Jason, Magnus—I’ve been asking too many uncomfortable questions.”
“I know what you mean. And we still only have part of the answer.”
“We need more. Damn, I wish I’d had the presence of mind the other night to poke around Magnus’s apartment.”
“Actually, I’ve still got my keys. And I know where to look for his files. In his bedroom, of course, where only us harmless bimbos are allowed.”
“What are you talking about? Breaking in? What if he finds you?”
“I declare my undying love. Prostrate myself on his leopard-print bedspread. Don’t worry, I have my ways. The doorman still knows me. It’ll look like Magnus is just fooling around with me again. Piece of cake.”
“You still care about him.”
“That sounds like an accusation somehow. One I could make about you as well. You’re still stuck on Jason. A part of you wants anyone but him to be guilty, even though he holds all the bad cards: motive, access, zip for an alibi.”
“He was home asleep.”
“All night? Unless someone was standing over him watching him snore, I say he could be anywhere. At least Magnus and Haas were both busy early in the evening. Magnus at the theater, Haas drinking with some friends.”
“Either one could have made it out to East Hampton in two hours if he had to. Or had someone tinker with Miranda’s car. Arranged the accident.”
“More likely the latter. Which makes me think it’s time we picked up those papers Miranda mentioned at her summer place.”
“It’s long past time I went out there,” Cassie admitted. “It’s the one place I’ve been avoiding. But you’re right. Without the hard evidence, we only have Miranda’s allegations on the disk.”
The next morning the executive screening room was standing room only. Senator Haas and Vance Magnus sat in the front row, flanked by their senior staffers. The Breaking News team and lesser members from the Senator’s office filled the remaining rows of the small, plushly decorated semicircular auditorium. It was the first time Cassie had seen Magnus since she’d fled his apartment the previous Saturday night, and though he nodded to her as he walked past, there was no warmth in his smile. After everyone was seated, Mac rose and stood uncomfortably on the stage.
“What you’re going to see is what we call a rough cut. All the basic pieces are here, but we’ve still a lot of editing ahead of us. That’s not to apologize for what Cassie and Sheila and their people have done. I’m very pleased, everything considered, with how ‘Haas on the Run’ has come out. So, thanks for coming. Relax. Here we go. Lights…”
It wasn’t half bad, Magnus told himself, as he sat in the dark, fingering the faint scratch marks on his cheeks. Though the skin had nearly healed, the anger he felt was still red and raw. But as he watched Cassie at work on the screen—candidly questioning Haas in his office, interviewing friends and enemies alike—he grudgingly had to admit that she’d done a good job. Exactly what he had and Haas had wanted. Though Cassie’s questions sounded tough—”We’ve all read these allegations about illegal campaign contributions, Senator” or “There are rumors, sir, that you have a problem with alcohol”—Haas had been brilliantly prepped on how to handle his responses.
“It’s true, Cassie. And I’m going to admit it here on Breaking News for the first time. I’ve come to realize that over the years my enjoyment of drinking has become, well, something of a bad habit. Unfortunately it’s an easy trap for those of us in public life to fall into. You’ve been traveling with me these last few weeks, and I hope you now realize how much of what I do involves banquets, dinners, formal luncheons…”
Adeptly, the interview allowed Haas to turn the taint of scandal into heartfelt confession.
“I’m not embarrassed to say that I’m seeking help. I hope that my example can inspire the hundreds of thousands of people like myself—who wake up one morning and realize that something that once was a pleasure has become a dependency—to find the courage they need to reclaim their lives.”
By the end of the segment, when Cassie turned from the gallery of photographs in Haas’s study to face the camera, Magnus felt his last reserve of bitterness give way. As all-American as Jane Pauley, as sophisticated and articulate as Diane Sawyer, and yet thoroughly her own person, Cassie’s closing remarks were delivered with the finesse of a consummate pro.
“No, Anthony Haas is not a young man. He’s not a perfect man. He’s been in the front ranks of our political battlegrounds longer than I—and most of you—have been alive. Many say that he’s fighting now for his political survival. That’s nothing new. Anthony Haas has
always been a fighter, whether it be for civil rights or his own sobriety. A seasoned politician. An experienced legislator. And one of our last truly committed political warriors. Anthony Haas. Thank you … and good night from Breaking News.”
“Great, just great.” Haas pumped Cassie’s hand after the lights came up and the group began to disperse. His flushed face glowed with relief.
“Excellent work,” Geoffrey Mellon said next. “I want to thank you … and apologize.”
“For what?” Cassie asked, looking over his shoulder for Magnus and spotting him at last near the door, deep in conversation with Mac.
“My doubts about you. Your perspective. I had this bizarre idea that you were really in the muckraking business. Using the piece as an excuse to dig up dirt on Haas.”
“That wasn’t my assignment, Geoffrey. But just out of curiosity—if it was, would I have found anything?”
“Political ground rule number one: know which questions to answer,” he replied, squeezing her elbow as he turned away, “and which to pretend you just didn’t hear. Senator, sir, we’ll have to hurry to make that meeting at Business Week.”
“Cassie.” Magnus held out both hands as she approached. Mac, standing to his left, beamed at her like a proud father. “It was better than I ever hoped. Congratulations.” His smile was so affectionate and his expression—an eyebrow cocked at a questioning slant—so apologetic that Cassie couldn’t help but wonder if she’d overreacted to his advances after the Mayor’s party. As if reading her thoughts, he touched his cheek which still carried faint traces of her fingernail tracks; his smile deepened.
“Thanks,” she said, blushing. “But again, I hardly did this single-handedly. Sheila, Harvey, Cal—they were all terrific.”
“And they’ll all be properly thanked,” Mac assured her, “by being named a permanent part of the new team.”
“New team?” Cassie asked, looking from Mac to Magnus.
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