by Lee Winter
God no.
“You know, everyone’s seen it,” Max continued. “Funniest thing I’ve seen all year. Oh hey, did you push Estella into the punch puddle or did she slip? I couldn’t tell, and I’ve watched it, like, ten times.”
Lauren sighed. “Don’t ask me what happened. I was high on cold meds and $300-a-bottle champagne.” She headed for the tempered glass security barriers behind Max.
The guard’s face turned all business. She put up a meaty hand and frowned. “Hon, your pass?”
Lauren paused, shocked she’d forgotten it, and slapped her jeans pocket to be sure. “Crap—sorry, I think it’s in my car.” She looked at Max hopefully.
The other woman gave her a faintly censorious headshake. “You know I would if I could. Rules are rules.”
“Okay, yeah,” Lauren said. “I’ll run back and grab it.”
“It’s my job, hon. Not even for you,” Max added apologetically.
“Yeah,” Lauren agreed. “Sorry. That’s fine. Seriously. Back in a sec.”
She left the foyer and jogged back to her car. She skidded to a stop when she spotted a familiar rectangular piece of paper and envelope stuck under her wiper. She swore furiously. She’d been gone, what, five minutes tops?
She unlocked her door, grabbed her missing office pass, and snatched the parking ticket from the windshield.
Two minutes later, she flashed her pass and stomped past Max.
“I’m going to kill Ayers,” Lauren muttered and waved the parking ticket in the air like battle orders.
“Fair enough.” Max nodded in solidarity. “But don’t leave a stain. More paperwork for me.”
Lauren shook her head and strode toward the elevator. She thumped the Up button. Just as the polished steel doors opened and Lauren stepped in, Max said, “Oh, hey, hon, before ya go—What’s with the goats?”
Lauren narrowed her eyes. The doors closed.
* * *
Lauren stalked furiously into editorial on the second floor. It felt like a morgue now, but on deadline, it was a sight to behold.
Copy boys—well, teenagers—would run around with printouts or coffees, drop them on desks of department heads, and then scamper off at the next bellow of “Copy” to get new orders.
Lauren had done her time as a copy kid back at the Liberty Gazette in Iowa. It could be backbreaking work hauling stacks of freshly printed papers up from the presses to the editorial floor. Ink would cover her hands and clothes in black smears and the stairs had made her extremely fit.
The Daily Sentinel at least had an elevator.
As she was heading for the videographer’s office, Lauren spied her gossip-writing and car-crowding nemesis sitting regally at her desk as her manicured fingers flew across her keyboard.
The Caustic Queen, Catherine Ayers, was all prickles and smug attitude. Lauren, still fuming, made a sudden detour.
Ayers was in her early forties, a decade older than Lauren. Her cool, gray eyes took in everything, and she famously did not suffer fools. She screamed old money with her cultured tones and compact, immaculately dressed frame—all of which belied a granite-hard, icy disposition.
She’d been known to make seasoned newspapermen crumple with a single cutting, well-aimed insult. And, given that all her insults were well aimed, that was a lot of crumpling newsmen. So no one—from editors down—dared to take her on. Although that probably also had something to do with her immense reputation earned long before she was reduced to being a lowly celebrity gossip writer.
Lauren didn’t give a crap about any of that. Or the fact that the fancy Armani suit flattering her curves probably cost more than Lauren earned in six months. She stomped over to Ayers’s desk and flapped her parking ticket under her nose.
Before she could get a word out, Ayers glanced up and offered a slow, feline smile.
“Well, well—Lauren King, goat botherer and socialite destroyer, darkening my desk on a Saturday. One of the signs of the apocalypse, I’m sure,” she drawled.
Lauren glared at her. “Thanks for this.” She slapped the parking ticket on the desk and shoved her fists in her pockets. “If you could stay between the lines, I wouldn’t have to park on the street and get a ticket. Again! You can pay it! I sure as hell won’t.”
Ayers picked it up lazily between an elegant forefinger and thumb and looked at it with sharp, amused eyes. Her lips twitched. Then she carefully put it down again.
“I see your paranoia is back, King. You should consult a psychiatrist about these fantasies involving my supposed vendetta against you.”
“It’s hardly delusional that you keep crowding my parking space!”
Ayers quirked an eyebrow. “Delusional? That’s a big word. Are you getting tutoring, dear?”
“Were you like this as a kid with a coloring book?” Lauren snapped, ignoring the jibe. “The lines you’re supposed to stay between were merely fun suggestions?”
“I wasn’t aware you would be in today,” Ayers stated oh so reasonably. “So how was I to know to leave space for that ridiculous urban tank you drive?”
She leaned back and gazed at Lauren, taking in her rumpled outfit for the first time.
“My my, King, it’s like old times,” she said, her eyes glittering. “Or end times. Remember that first ball you ever attended? When I was training you? And you turned up dressed as, what would we call that outfit? On-trend pallbearer?”
“Let’s…not,” Lauren ground out. “Shit, between your overlord mentoring approach and territorial expansion in the parking lot, you missed your calling. I’m sure there’s a small third-world country somewhere that needs a new despot. Hell, I’ll even write you a reference.”
“They certainly breed them soft in the Midwest if you couldn’t handle my gentle instructions for a single week.”
Lauren snorted. “Gentle? Riiiight. And Stalin was just misunderstood. The point is you should park within the lines every day whether I’m scheduled or not. It’s about being a decent human being, which I realize isn’t exactly playing to your strengths, but I live in hope. Now stop stalling and take care of my ticket.”
She pushed it across the desk toward Ayers. They both stared at it for a beat.
“Well, I’ll file it with the rest,” Ayers said serenely and positioned it over a thin metal spike which held half a dozen identical pieces of white paper. She slammed the ticket on it. Ayers gave a shit-eating smirk as Lauren’s mouth fell open.
“Now, will that be all, King? Or do you have an audio commentary to add to our paper’s most popular clip of the day?”
Lauren narrowed her eyes.
Ayers leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered her voice. “I have to say, wasn’t it lucky that Jason Wolf was there when it happened? Because my understanding is he actually had one foot out the door to go to the next event. He almost didn’t capture that priceless footage at all. Fortunately, an informed bystander happened to notice Estella winding up for her trademark fireworks and tipped him off.”
Lauren sucked in a breath. “Informed byst… Are you saying you actually fetched him to make sure he filmed it?” She glared. “That was an absolute asshole move.”
Ayers offered a maddeningly indifferent expression.
“For god’s sake—we work for the same paper!” Lauren continued. “It’s disloyal!”
“A good journalist has an eye out for a story wherever it may be,” Ayers said with a purr and laced her fingers together on the desk. “And I cannot self-censor just because you and I, regrettably, work for the same organization. You surely aren’t advocating censorship, are you, King?”
“Everyone knows Estella is crazy!” Lauren threw her hands up. “So why be cruel? Why mock her by putting that out there?”
“I wasn’t aware Estella was the one being mocked. You and your curious goat fetish on the other hand…”
“I have a head cold! For god’s sake, is everyone mental? I said, ‘I’ll show you my notes!’ Notes! Why would I show her my goats?”
“Mine is not to wonder why. If you want to show her your goats, that’s between you and Estella. Oh and…” She paused and hit a button on her computer, then gleamed. “2,026 Sentinel online viewers—and counting.”
“You’re un-fucking-believable.”
“Thank you,” Ayers said, unruffled, with a faint smile. She gestured at her computer. “Now if you don’t mind, some of us have work to finish.”
Lauren ground her teeth together, but before she could turn to leave, Ayers’s gaze flitted to the top of her head for the first time. Her eyes widened as she read what was on the tattered cap.
“Just pay the damn ticket. I have to go,” Lauren said hastily, realizing she had just supplied the other woman enough ammunition to be mocked for another year.
“Of course you do. I’m sure Cletus wants his hat back.” Ayers’s lips curled.
Lauren tried not to flush as she remembered the name on her cap—Clet Koshatka Farm Equipment. It had been a gift from a farm supplier friend of her dad’s. It was also covered in about fifty different types of paint splotches.
“It is my morning off,” Lauren defended weakly.
“All evidence to the contrary,” Ayers retorted and drummed her long fingers on her desk. “Now, if that’s all? Could you go waste someone else’s time?”
“Yeah, sure. I wouldn’t want to keep you from all your hard-hitting news stories.”
As she strode away, she could feel Ayers’s molten glare scorching the back of her head. She tried to tell herself she didn’t feel remotely bad even if it was a low blow to hit Ayers’s notorious, never-discussed weak spot.
Well, okay, so maybe she did feel a tiny bit bad.
Lauren was halfway to the videographer’s desk, still figuring out her tactics for convincing Jason “Wolfman” Wolf to remove the video, when she saw a familiar figure watching her impassively from the far side of the newsroom, arms folded.
She faltered mid step. What on earth was Frank doing in today?
“My office,” he gruffly called across to her.
Lauren followed her boss into the glass-walled room. His suit, navy, a bit too tight, was not worn often. He settled into his old black leather chair and frowned at her when she made to sit opposite.
“Door,” he corrected.
Well that was strange. The editorial floor was still so empty there could have been tumbleweeds bouncing across the desks. She turned to close the door and then perched on the visitor’s chair nervously as she glanced around the room.
She was only rarely in here—for her day-to-day work, she reported to the Entertainment Managing Editor. But every now and then, Frank would call her in to tell her about some last-minute big VIP event that had a news angle, such as a disgraced politician attending, and she was usually out of his office again within twenty seconds.
Framed, yellowing newspaper front pages from over the years greeted her; a couple of them bore Frank’s byline from his reporting days. A few awards-cum-paperweights gathered dust atop his overstuffed filing cabinet. The room smelled of Frank—which was to say masculine, sweaty, and faintly alcohol soaked. For a man in his early fifties, he could easily pass for a sixty-year-old.
The indentation on his left ring finger, where a wedding band had sat for years until about a month ago, was still there. Not that he ever mentioned his private life. Lauren lifted her gaze back to his face.
“Damned publisher has called the management team in for a meeting today,” he began with a scowl and shifted in his seat. His cheap polyester suit emitted a squeak.
“Apparently print and online need to ‘integrate better and establish more effective shared models.’” His fingers swam up to form derisive air quotes.
“Well that sounds, um…”
He stopped and stared at Lauren, his face saying he couldn’t care less what she thought. She clanged her mouth shut and wondered whether her firing would be imminent. After all, a viral video involving a crazy socialite haranguing a reporter for supposed “lies, lies, lies” was hardly a good look.
“Since you’re here, we should talk about that story of yours,” Frank began. He cleared his throat and seemed uncomfortable.
Oh hell, she was getting fired.
“Look I can explain,” Lauren began in a rush. “Estella didn’t like that I reported she stores her best heels in her bedroom fridge to keep the dust out. Even though she showed me the fridge—and it was, like, full to the brim with heels.
“I saw it with my own eyes, Frank. I took notes. I have my notes. But she went nuts and said I was making up stuff to make her look stupid, and that she might be new to America, but she knows what a fridge is for, and I was a ‘cow’ for suggesting she didn’t. I think she half believed her own crap by the end of her rant.”
Frank’s what-the-hell look made her stutter to an awkward stop.
“You think I give a flying fuck about Estella and her shoes?” Frank peered at her. “That crazy bitch could stick them up her ass and parade about and call it performance art for all I care. I meant the story you pitched me two weeks ago. The parking enforcement officer corruption at the end of your street. I’ve been thinking about it. There might be something strong in that. Something we can use.”
Lauren felt her face split into a wide smile.
“You liked my story?” she asked. She rearranged her features into all business. “I can get to work on it right away. And, don’t worry; I can do it between VIP events, so it won’t affect anything. I’ve been ready to jump with this for months. I have extensive notes, too.”
Frank looked down at his desk and shifted uneasily. His suit squeaked again. “Look, ah, King, it’s like this—I’m giving it to Doug. Doug Daley. It’ll be his story now. He has the experience. He’s seasoned. Safe hands. Won’t screw it up.”
A silence fell between them before Frank’s blue-eyed gaze slowly lifted and intersected Lauren’s. She saw the stubbornness, the jaw clenching. Her heart dropped.
“You’re giving my story away? To Doug Daley!”
“It is his beat—local politics. You know that, King.”
“Then Doug should have found it! I worked my ass off tracking this down! I watched the kickbacks being paid for weeks on my days off. I saw them collecting the bribes from those store managers to not ticket their customers’ cars. This isn’t fair!”
“Fair?” Frank repeated. “You expected journalism to be fair? I know it ain’t fair, King. I know. This sucks more than a West Hollywood rent boy. But I have to think about the good of the paper, and that comes before the hurt feelings of my wet-behind-the-ears kid reporter who hasn’t written a hard-news story on a metro daily in her life.”
“But Frank…”
“Decision’s final, King. I’m sorry. If it helps, it’s not a bad yarn—it’s got legs. Don’t think I don’t know that. But I have the new publisher breathing down my neck with all these meetings about our profitability and our ‘message placement in the market’ and all that bull, and I can’t risk anything going ass up right now. Especially when I’m under the glass as it is, and here I have a solid yarn sitting in my lap like this one, one that could blow up into something big.”
“It’s only sitting in your lap because I gave it to you,” Lauren said indignantly. “And giving it to Doug…he’ll be…” She was going to say “a smug asshole” but stopped. Frank quite liked his occasional drinking buddy. “Impossible,” she finished.
“Yeah, well, that’s the way it is,” Frank agreed with a listless shrug and at least had the decency not to look happy about it. “Welcome to real-world journalism. Life ain’t all pink frilly cocktails and gala parties. But, if you like, I’ll make Doug include a tagline for you at the end.”
Lauren stared at him. He did not just insult her intelligence by educating her that her beat was actually lightweight crap? Like she didn’t live and breathe several layers of offensively shallow craptitude every night? For god’s sake.
And a tagline? In tiny seven-point? Sa
ying Additional reporting by Lauren King like some insulting pat on the head? Not even a joint byline?
She gaped at him. “You’ve gotta be kidding!”
“No? Okay, well then, your choice. Now, I ’spose that’s everything. We’re done.” He gave her a dismissive wave and, without looking up, added, “One more thing. Get that crap video off our website. I won’t have one of my reporters looking like a clown even for the hits. And get it down before Harrington Jr. spots it and wants it on every news outlet in the state.” Frank glanced at his wall clock. “You’ve got ten minutes before he turns up for the meeting. If that ass Wolf puts up a fight because it’s trending or whatever crap he goes on about, tell him to take it up with me.”
He began to flick through his papers, effectively dismissing her. Lauren climbed to her feet, her cheeks flushed with anger. She took two steps toward the door, indignation now in full burn.
“Oh—and King…” Frank said and then paused as if confused.
Lauren barely turned, not trusting herself, and waited, hand on the door handle, clenching it tightly.
“What in the hell are you wearing?”
CHAPTER 2
That Way There Be Dragons
Saturday morning
Lauren was tired of staring at her bedroom ceiling. She’d been brooding for hours now. Well, two weeks if you wanted to get technical. Now it was D-day, and time to face whatever had been done to the story. Her story.
She’d started thinking of the grandstanding, credit-swallowing hack as Smug Daley. It seemed everywhere she’d turned in the office in the past two weeks, he could be found regaling someone with the genius of his corrupt parking officer story.
Just yesterday she’d seen him spouting his magnificence to a purse-lipped Ayers as she silently stirred her coffee in the office kitchen. She looked as if she’d rather be anywhere else.
