Charade

by Sandra Brown

  “These issues are complicated, Cat. On the surface they may seem easy, but I assure you they’re very complex.”

  His condescension infuriated her. “You’re not going to say it’s nothing for me to worry my pretty little head about, are you?”

  He frowned. “I wasn’t talking down to you.”

  “Like hell you weren’t. And cut the b.s., okay? Give me the facts. Complex as they might be, I think I can muddle through them. Why did you countermand Melia’s dismissal?”

  “Two reasons. One, she’s Hispanic. We have to handle minority hirings and firings very delicately. You’ve worked in the industry long enough to know that if you violate in any way, shape, or form the Equal Employment Opportunity Act—even if someone just perceives that you’ve violated it—the FCC places you under a microscope and dissects your entire operation. For the price of a postage stamp, someone can file a complaint that will shut down a TV station.”

  “My firing her had nothing to do with ethnic origins and you damn well know that.”

  “I know it, but if we came under investigation, it wouldn’t be my opinion that counted. Look, Cat, I know you had difficulties with this employee, but you didn’t document specific incidents.”

  “Because I didn’t want to come across as a complainer.”

  “I appreciate that,” he said. “Unfortunately, your finesse didn’t serve you well this time. Had there been written reports on Ms. King’s negligence or incompetence, you could have made a sound case for her dismissal. Without these documents, it appears that you fired her out of pique, that it was a personality conflict and nothing more. The FCC could take us to task.

  “Ms. King was aware of this and brought it to the attention of the personnel director, who referred it to me. It was all done very professionally, but Ms. King’s subtle message was clear.”

  “She bluffed and you crumpled.”

  “My decision to rehire her was made in the best interest of WWSA,” he replied stiffly.

  Melia’s reinstatement was a fait accompli. Webster’s position was unshakable. Cat knew that nothing would be gained now by telling him about the incident with her medication and Melia’s eventual confession.

  “Not that it matters, but what was the other reason for her reinstatement? You said there were two.”

  “She has a handicap.”

  “A handicap?” Cat repeated with a dry laugh. “If any employee is a flawless physical specimen it’s Melia King.”

  “She’s dyslexic.”

  “Oh God.” Cat sighed, remembering all the times she had castigated Melia for getting telephone numbers incorrect. “I had no idea.”

  “No one did. It wasn’t on her employee record. She’s learned to work around the impairment, but isn’t always successful. Perhaps that’s why she made so many mistakes.”

  “Perhaps.” Dyslexia still didn’t excuse Melia for throwing the medication in a Dumpster. Cat sympathized with her condition and would be willing to forgive past errors and overlook them in the future if Melia had a more cooperative attitude. “Should she be working in a clerical capacity, where she’s constantly challenged to write down names and numbers correctly?”

  “She insists that she can handle it. Besides, it was the only position we could offer her. Even at that, we had to juggle some schedules.”

  “My, my, you’ve been accommodating.”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t flatter you, Cat.”

  Still angry, she stood and prepared to leave. “I understand the awkward position you were in, Bill. I’ll even concede that, for the good of the station, you had little choice in the way you handled it. What really riles me is that I wasn’t consulted. You made me look like a fool and robbed me of any authority.”

  “That’s not true, Cat.”

  “I’m afraid it is. If I, or anyone who’s supposedly in an executive position, can have our decisions reversed, what’s the point of empowering us? Disregarding her dyslexia, Melia deserved to be fired.”

  “That may very well be, but such is the nature of our industry.”

  “Well, that part of the industry’s nature sucks!”

  He stood and came around his desk. “You’re blowing this out of proportion, Cat. Has something else upset you?”

  Yes, she thought. That disturbing piece of mail.

  The article and the envelope it had arrived in were still in her nightstand drawer. She’d tried to dismiss it as crank mail and throw both pieces away, but something had compelled her to keep them. More disturbing than the article itself was that it had been sent to her anonymously. That didn’t necessarily suggest malevolence; perhaps it indicated only that the sender was insensitive and had a warped sense of humor.

  She hadn’t reached any conclusions. It was certainly premature to bring up the matter with Bill, who would no doubt think she was being paranoid. And he would be right.

  “Everything’s terrific,” she said, pasting on a phony smile and switching subjects. “Have I told you about our latest success? Chantal—remember her?”

  “The little girl who needed a kidney transplant?”

  “Right. Her adoptive parents accepted full responsibility for her medical care. Yesterday they found a donor. They operated last night. So far, so good.”

  “That’s wonderful news, Cat. I think we can milk some good PR out of this.”

  “I think so too. I’ve already asked Jeff to compose and distribute a press release. I told him to send it first to Ron Truitt. If he doesn’t do a story on this, we can rightfully accuse him of biased reporting.”

  He placed his hands on her shoulders and gave them a slight squeeze. “Don’t dwell on that other business. It’s small potatoes compared to the excellent work you’re doing. Keep it up and leave the daily operation of WWSA to me.”

  “I’ll do my best to remember that. However, when my temper blows, it obscures my memory.”

  He laughed and walked her to the door. “You had a right to be angry. Let me make it up to you. Nancy’s planning a dinner party. She wants to introduce you to some people who can be instrumental in putting together a celebrity fund-raising event like the one we talked about. How’s next Saturday?”

  “Wonderful. May I bring my own celebrity?”

  “Of course. Who?”

  “Alex Pierce.”

  “The writer?”

  “You’ve heard of him?”

  “How could I not? He’s being touted as the next Joseph Wambaugh. I didn’t know he lived in San Antonio.”

  “I get the impression he calls no place home, but he’s here now working on his next book.”

  “By all means bring him. Nancy will be thrilled.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “So, do you want to go?”

  “What do I have to wear?”

  “For a start, shoes and socks.”

  The telephone amplified Alex’s deep chuckle. It tickled Cat’s ear and caused goosebumps to break out along her arms. This was getting ridiculous, she thought. She was acting like a schoolgirl in the throes of her first crush.

  He was never far from her mind. Thoughts of him distracted her at work, and she became giddy at the sound of his voice. Ridiculous!

  “I’ll see if I can rake up a matching pair of socks,” he said.

  “It’s not a black tie affair, but I don’t want to be embarrassed by my date. Some veddy important people will be theah,” she told him, mocking a British accent. “Nancy Webster’s organizing a fund-raiser for the kids, so I’ll never speak to you again if you commit a faux pas that costs the kids some funds.”

  “I promise not to scratch or pick or blow anything that shouldn’t be scratched or picked or blown in public.”

  “Oh, thanks for the assurance.” She moaned. “You’ll probably humiliate me. Or forget to show up.”

  “I’ll mark it on my calendar.”

  “You’ll forget to check the calendar. Remember, that’s how we met.”

  “Best mistake I ever made.”

  S
he blushed with pleasure and was glad he couldn’t see her silly grin. “To be on the safe side, I’ll call you a couple of hours ahead of time and pick you up in my car.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Are you working tonight?”

  “Yeah, but lately I’ve been finding it hard to concentrate. Wonder what could be distracting me?”

  Again, a tide of pleasure coursed through her. It was flattering to be a distraction. They’d had two dates since their first one. Once they’d met at a restaurant for supper and had gone their separate ways afterward. The next time he’d picked her up—in a car.

  They had gone to The Riverwalk, where they ate bad Mexican food at an outdoor cafe, then went for a stroll along the famed walk that channeled the San Antonio River through downtown. After a while they surrendered the shops and galleries to the tourists and moved up to the street level, where it was cooler, quieter, and less crowded.

  They crossed the street, bought pina colada–flavored snow cones from a sleepy vendor, and sat down on a secluded, shadowed bench in Alamo Plaza. The sun had gone down and the buses of tourists had departed, leaving the lighted fortress looking stately and serene, a fitting monument to what had transpired there 150 years earlier.

  “Hell of a choice they made, huh?” Alex said, crunching the chipped ice between his teeth. “Would you have stayed, fought to the death?”

  “Tough question. I guess I would have if I didn’t feel that I had anything to lose except my life.” She scooped out a clump of ice with the tip of her tongue. “I can relate, in a way.”

  He looked at her inquisitively.

  “Right before my transplant, I suddenly realized that they were about to cut out my heart. Don’t misunderstand,” she said hastily. “I desperately wanted a new one. But just for a heartbeat—pun intended—I experienced a pang of uncertainty. I would have to die in order to live. It was a sobering moment.” She looked at him and smiled. “But it passed, and I got a new heart, a second life.”

  They munched their snow cones in silence. A horse-drawn carriage plodded by. There were no passengers, only a driver who sat with his shoulders slumped forward, his bearded chin resting on his chest, looking as weary as the horse.

  “Cat?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you know who your donor was?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anything about—?”

  “No, and I don’t want to.”

  He nodded, but it was obvious that he was dissatisfied with her terse responses. “How come? I mean, is that common among heart transplantees?”

  “No. Some want to meet the donor’s family and thank them personally. They want them to know they’re aware of the sacrifice they made. Some want to learn everything they can about their donor.” She shook her head adamantly. “Not me. I couldn’t deal with that.”

  “In what way?”

  “What if I were a disappointment to them?”

  “I doubt that would happen.”

  “There are too many gray areas involved. Instead of dwelling on who made it possible, I’d rather make my life count for something. Then their sacrifice wasn’t made in vain.”

  The conversation had ended there. He hadn’t pursued the topic, and she was glad. It was a sensitive subject. She had talked about it more freely with him than with anyone besides Dean.

  Now, she glanced at her nightstand drawer and considered bringing up another unsettling subject—the mail she’d recently received. Would he think the article with the Memphis dateline held any significance for her? If not, why had it been sent to her? She wanted to know Alex’s opinion on the matter, but decided against bringing it up now. She’d kept him from his work long enough.

  “I’ll let you go now. Sorry if I disturbed you.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been at it for hours and needed to take a break anyway. Thanks for asking me to the Websters’ dinner party.”

  “Thanks for accepting.”

  “I’ll try and behave.”

  “I was teasing you.”

  “I know.”

  She heard the smile in his voice. It corresponded with hers. “Good night, Alex. See you Saturday evening.”

  She wore a sappy grin long after hanging up. No doubt about it, this was getting out of hand. It wasn’t like her to be so reckless with her emotions. Because of her childhood, she was gun-shy about developing relationships. She’d had to leave several foster brothers and sisters after forming deep attachments. Relationships had inevitably led to break-ups, which had inevitably brought on heartache.

  Nevertheless, she was falling hard and fast for Alex Pierce.

  How did he feel about her?

  He’d like to sleep with her. That much she knew. He had a healthy libido. One had only to read the sexual passages of his books to know that. And Cat had read them. Several times.

  Of course she didn’t approve of or care for his male characters’ attitudes toward women. To call them sexists would be doing sexists a disservice. With few exceptions, they treated women with less regard than they would a used Kleenex.

  But Alex seemed not to share his characters’ chauvinism. It appeared he thought highly of her and the work she did. He complimented her often.

  He was capable of laughter and joking, but by nature he was serious, sometimes even grave. He had little patience for trivialities. He also had little to say about his former police work, and on those rare occasions when he did mention it, his voice was tinged with bitterness. There’d been some unpleasantness attached to his retirement, which she suspected had not been voluntary.

  She had fantasized him as a lover, but she would also welcome him as a friend. Dean was still her friend, but he was far away. She needed someone to confide in, and not by long distance.

  Her eyes were drawn again to the nightstand where lay the mysterious, original clipping—along with the one that had been in today’s mail.

  It had arrived in an envelope identical to the first. Also identical to the first, it contained nothing except a newspaper clipping, this one bearing a dateline from Boca Raton, Florida.

  A sixty-two-year-old woman had been found dead from an accidental fall. While at home by herself, she’d attempted to water a plant hanging from a hook in her ceiling. Her stepladder had slipped from beneath her, and she’d fallen through the patio door. Broken glass had pierced her lung.

  Like the boy in Memphis, she’d had a heart transplant.

  Cat didn’t know what to make of these cryptic messages. As a former cop, what would Alex’s assessment be? Would he think they were cause for alarm, or would he pass them off as the handiwork of a kook?

  She had almost decided that that’s exactly what the first one was, but then she’d received the second. It was an odd coincidence that two heart transplantees had died in such bizarre accidents. Even more odd was that someone was making it his business to alert her to these deaths.

  “Nuts,” she said, impatiently stuffing the clippings back into their envelopes and slamming the nightstand drawer closed. They’d probably been sent just to annoy and perplex her.

  She wouldn’t let them. If she wasted a moment’s concern over them, she was letting a nutcase control her mind. Mail sent by wackos was a hazard of her profession. One took it in stride. Unless the messages became outright threatening, they were nothing to fret over.

  Besides, she had more pressing matters to think about—like what to wear to the Websters’ dinner party.

  “Wow.”

  Cat arrived at Alex’s apartment five minutes ahead of schedule. He was dressed in dark slacks and a dove-gray shirt, which he hadn’t yet tucked in. The unfastened cuffs were flapping around his wrists and only two buttons were buttoned. He was barefoot.

  His compliment hadn’t been so much a word as a soft expulsion of breath. Her knees turned to jelly. “Thank you.”

  “You look great.”

  “Thanks again. I’m sorry I’m early. Traffic wasn’t as heavy as I expected. Rather than
wait outside in the car, I thought I’d see if you were ready yet. But it’s fine that you’re not. There’s no rush. We’ve got plenty of—”

  “What are you so nervous about? I promised to wear shoes and socks, didn’t I?”

  He was very intuitive. She’d been babbling to cover an outbreak of tummy butterflies. It made her even more nervous to know that he could read her so well. But he had a writer’s insight. If he were writing this scene, he would have had the nervous character chattering like a moron.

  His insight into human behavior and motivation put her at a disadvantage. She’d have to watch herself in the future, play with a poker face, not give so much away.

  He moved aside. “Come in.”

  “Said the spider to the fly.”

  “I don’t bite.” He closed the door and locked it. “Not hard anyway.”

  Laughing, more at ease now, Cat glanced around the living area of his two-story apartment. It smelled of fresh paint. The vaulted ceiling and tall windows reminded her of her house in Malibu. Above, the second-story gallery encompassed two walls.

  “Bedroom’s up there,” he said. “Kitchen back through there. Those double doors open onto a deck.”

  “I like it.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “As you know, I’m not much of a housekeeper.”

  Actually she was impressed by the neatness of the apartment, until she noticed the hem of a shirt peeking beneath the sofa cushions. The magazines on the end table appeared to have been stacked hastily, and a Butterfinger wrapper was stuck to the cover of one. On the coffee table were moisture rings linked together like the Olympics logo.

  “No shit, Delaney. You look fantastic tonight.”

  His compliment brought her around quickly. His gaze was hot and intense. It scorched her like a marshmallow in a bonfire. “Thanks.”

  “I thought redheads weren’t supposed to wear orange.”

  “It’s not orange, it’s copper.”

  “It’s orange.”

  The short, straight slip dress was held up by narrow shoulder straps and was covered with thin metal disks that glittered like new pennies. She hadn’t worn anything with a scooped neckline since her transplant. She wouldn’t have as recently as a few weeks ago. But Alex had rid her of her self-consciousness over her scar.