by Kara Lennox
BY THE TIME she arrived at the weekly staff meeting the next morning, Raleigh felt she had put things into perspective. She had lapsed, true; she’d acted impulsively and unwisely. But no one was perfect. People had told her many times that she put too much pressure on herself. She expected the best of everyone around her, but she applied the very highest of standards to herself.
Jason had told her often enough that no human being could measure up to the bar she’d set for herself. Failing every once in a while was inevitable.
The important thing was what she did now, and she’d already plotted a course of action. She’d finally talked to Daniel late last night and told him about her mysterious enemy. He had reassured her that he would handle the situation—and it wouldn’t involve contacting the police. His personal bodyguard, Randall, now shadowed her everywhere she went, and Daniel had assigned Ford Hyatt, the best investigator on staff in her opinion, to make Raleigh’s stalker his priority. He would start with everyone connected to Anthony Simonetti and work outward; she had a strong feeling her enemy was somehow connected to that case.
She didn’t like spending the foundation’s valuable resources on a personal problem, but Daniel had insisted.
At least she didn’t have to worry about Griffin anymore. She would probably never see him again. No more cozy chats. No more shared glasses of wine. And certainly no more kisses. She couldn’t stop him from writing about the plot to ruin her, but she’d known going in that he might choose to write a story that didn’t flatter her or Project Justice. Daniel had said not to worry about things beyond her control.
“Raleigh,” Daniel said, snapping her back to the present. The entire Project Justice senior staff was assembled in the conference room; Daniel appeared on a TV screen via video conferencing. She had met the man only a few times in person, as he rarely left his estate. But somehow he managed to stay closely involved in every case the foundation handled.
“Yes, Daniel?”
“You’ve been awfully quiet today. What’s the status of the Simonetti case?”
“I’m waiting on lab results for the gun. Once we prove it’s the murder weapon, I’m hoping we can trace it to the real murderer. I should hear something any day.”
“Excellent.”
Raleigh quickly went over two other cases she was working on, neither as high profile or complex as the Simonetti case. She thought the meeting was about to adjourn, but Daniel summoned the group’s attention once again.
“I want everyone to be on their guard. Someone is out to undermine our efforts. They started by attempting to engineer some slander against Raleigh, then escalated to personal threats.”
All eyes turned to Raleigh. Among her coworkers she saw shock and concern.
“I know all of you are committed to urgent cases,” Daniel continued, “but Raleigh is one of our own. I’ve assigned Ford to spearhead an investigation into these threats. If he calls on any of you for assistance, I want you to make his request a priority.”
“Whatever you need,” said Joe Kinkaid, who had recently been promoted to senior investigator.
“Anything, anytime,” Beth said.
The others around the table echoed Joe’s and Beth’s sentiments, which brought tightness to Raleigh’s throat. They were treating her like family, even though she kept most of them at arm’s length.
Trusting Daniel had been the right decision. He’d taken the bull by the horns.
“I’m sorry to have brought this trouble into our bosom, so to speak,” she said. “I know we all have more important things to deal with—”
“Nothing is more important than the safety of my people,” Daniel said fiercely. “Nothing. And you’re not responsible in any way, so let’s stop the ‘I’m sorry’ business right now.”
Raleigh nodded, looking down at her lap so no one would see her eyes shining with tears. She loved working for an organization that valued its employees so much.
“Now, one more item of business. There’s a reporter for the Telegram, Griffin Benedict. He seems determined to write a story about Raleigh and these actions taken against her. Our perpetrator deliberately involved Benedict, so he already knows just about everything we know.”
“Can you stop him from writing the story?” asked Beth.
“No. Although I have friends in high places, even I can’t censor a major newspaper. But I’m not sure I want to.”
His statement was met with surprised silence. Daniel had made it clear he mistrusted the media almost as much as he did law enforcement.
“Project Justice gets its share of publicity, mostly the sensational kind. Our work gets written up in bits and pieces. I’d like to see a more comprehensive article, or a series of articles, written about the foundation. And I couldn’t handpick a better reporter for the job than Griffin Benedict. He’s smart, and thorough, and balanced. I like his work.”
Raleigh stiffened, and the warmth around her heart dissipated. Griffin had been talking to Daniel? How had the reporter gotten access? Daniel never, but never, talked to the media.
“Griffin wants to write about Project Justice from the standpoint of the danger involved in our work, building the piece around Raleigh’s situation as well as other recent incidents.”
“You mean Robyn,” Ford said. Robyn was his fiancée, but she’d first been his client, and she’d been kidnapped when Ford’s investigation had backed a criminal into a corner.
“Yes, and a few other incidents. I think it’s a good angle. I’m inclined to believe the story would be generally positive. Good press is vital to our work. The more people understand what we do, the more cooperation we get.”
“And the more donations we get.” This came from Rachel Nieves, who headed up the foundation’s fund-raising efforts.
“So that Griffin can do the best job possible,” Daniel continued, “I’m going to allow this man access to our offices—and to all of you. I expect you to give him your full cooperation. There will be privacy issues, of course, and we’ll deal with those as they come up.”
Raleigh couldn’t believe this. “You’re giving him full access?”
“He’s not a security risk, in my opinion,” piped in Mitch Delacroix. “I’ve done a thorough background check on him.” For her benefit. She wondered if he’d mentioned that to Daniel. “Aside from a lot of speeding tickets, and a questionable stint writing for Soldier of Fortune magazine, he’s clean as a whistle.”
“He’s determined to write a story about this matter, one way or another,” Daniel said. “He’s highly motivated to get at the truth. I would rather be on the same team with this guy—help him find the truth—than his adversary.”
Ford tapped his fingers on the shiny tabletop. “You trust him?”
“As much as I trust any reporter.”
Daniel trusted Griffin? “How do you even know him?” Raleigh asked.
“We spent two hours on the phone this morning. It was enough.” He looked straight at Raleigh. With the life-size monitor, it was like he was in the room with them. “Raleigh, you’ve met him. Is there any reason we shouldn’t trust him?”
Raleigh considered telling Daniel—and everyone—that Griffin had put the moves on her. Daniel would immediately call the whole thing off.
But she couldn’t bring herself to raise such an embarrassing issue in front of all her coworkers. “I don’t think he would publish a bunch of lies about us,” she said carefully. “I mean, he could have run with the bogus information he was given about me, but he hasn’t. At least, not yet. He seems interested in verifying facts.”
“Good. Because you’re the one he wants to shadow first. He’s waiting in the lobby.”
Raleigh took a deep breath. She could have gotten rid of Griffin, and she hadn’t. What did that say about her and her commitment to avoid letting him into her life?
“OH, GO ON, you did not get shot in the ass.” Celeste, the receptionist, actually giggled, a strange sound coming from a woman well into her seventies.
Griffin reached for his belt. “Wanna see?”
Celeste shrieked with laughter again, but she sobered quickly, and Griffin saw why. Raleigh was headed for them, looking like she wanted to spit at him.
“Oh. Ms. Shinn,” Celeste said, perfectly deadpan. “Your guest here was just entertaining me with tales of his mercenary days. Do you know, I used to read his stories in Soldier of Fortune.”
“Did you like them?” Raleigh asked, sounding surprised.
“Of course! He’s going to put me in his story. Right, Griffin?”
“Absolutely. You’ll be my star.”
“Griffin,” Raleigh said, refusing to take part in the light banter. “Daniel tells me I’m to show you around and extend every courtesy.” Her tone of voice indicated she’d rather string him up and use him as a target for a spirited game of darts.
“I’m looking forward to it. But Daniel also said I shouldn’t keep you from your work. I can just hang out, see what you do on a normal workday. I’ll be like a fly in the wall.”
“Or a cockroach,” she mumbled just loud enough for him to hear. Then she continued in a normal voice. “Our staff meeting ended early. I have a few minutes. Come this way.”
Raleigh led Griffin through the door in the frosted glass partition that separated the lobby from the rest of the first floor. As soon as they were out of earshot of Celeste, however, she stopped and turned on her heel to face him, breathing fire.
“I can’t believe you went over my head. I told you I didn’t want this story written.”
“I’m not going to slam you,” he said. “But I didn’t get where I am by giving up on a story the first time someone says no.”
“Does Daniel know you were a mercenary?” she asked suspiciously.
He grinned. “I wasn’t a mercenary. That was Celeste’s embellishment. I wrote stories about soldiers and wars.”
“So you didn’t really take a bullet in the, ah…”
“That part was real. Made for great copy.”
Raleigh rolled her eyes. She shook her head and led Griffin past a bank of elevators to a large open area with a few cubicles here and there, desks at odd angles, lots of computers. Several people were either on computers, on the phone, or gathered in small groups.
“This is the nerve center of Project Justice. We have four senior investigators—I’m one of them—who coordinate anywhere from four to six cases at a time. But we have a pool of experienced people—former cops and lawyers, analysts, computer experts—we can draw from to help with legwork. Everyone who works here is handpicked by Daniel himself.”
She gave him about ten seconds to observe before whirling around and heading down a different hallway, to the break room. Seemed she wanted to get the tour over with as quickly as possible.
Griffin’s eyes bugged out when he saw the array of deli trays, salads, bowls of fresh fruit and chocolate available to Project Justice employees. “This certainly puts the break room at the Telegram to shame,” he said. “I’m lucky if I can turn up scorched coffee and a stale doughnut.”
Next she showed him their small laboratory. “We mostly do preliminary testing here. Anything we do has to be duplicated by a certified lab. But the results we get here often point us in the right direction.”
Next stop was the boiler room, where interns and volunteers manned phones, stuffed envelopes and performed other, less glamorous, work.
“The second floor is executive offices,” Raleigh explained. “The third floor is a health club and an executive lounge.”
“Do you ever go there?”
“No, but I’ll take you up there if you really want to see it.”
“Another time. I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me.”
She pointedly looked at her watch. “What?”
“Your receptionist, Celeste. Did Daniel handpick her as well?”
“Yes, he did. She’s more than a receptionist. She knows everything that’s going on around here, and she’s quite well qualified. Forty years as a police officer.”
“She’s scary.”
“Really? Seemed you were having a good time with her.”
“I figured if I kept her laughing, she wouldn’t pull any moves on me. Does she really have a black belt in karate?”
“Third degree. She claims she studied with Bruce Lee.”
“I could do a whole story on her alone.”
“What a great idea! Why don’t you?”
“You know the story I want.”
“It might turn out to be nothing. We might never hear from this guy again. Then you would have wasted all your time.”
“It’ll be a good story,” he insisted. “I’ve developed a pretty good instinct for knowing when something is going to pop. Anyway, you forget—your enemy is my enemy, too. He involved me, personally. It’s not something I’m just going to walk away from.”
“What about your job? Don’t you have other stories to write?”
He shrugged, but Raleigh’s observation was on the money. He was working every free hour on the Raleigh Shinn/Project Justice story, but he’d promised the story to Currents. He had to produce something for his present employer.
His editor at the Telegram allowed him a lot of freedom and didn’t make him account for his time; he could come and go as he pleased. But he was expected to file a story at least once a week, or explain why he couldn’t. Right now, he couldn’t do either, which wasn’t making his editor very happy. Claims of “protecting his source” only took him so far.
In truth, he didn’t feel good now about offering the Project Justice story to CNI and he wished to hell he hadn’t done it. He wouldn’t hesitate to lie to a source if it helped him get information he needed, but he’d never fudged the facts with his own editor before, and it didn’t sit right with him.
If he truly believed he could land the TV job, he would resign from the Telegram. But he wasn’t that confident.
To assuage his guilt, he had offered to represent the Telegram at a press conference this morning. The governor was announcing his decision regarding running for reelection. Ho-hum—as if there were any doubt. But Griffin could eke a story out of it.
“What are your plans this afternoon?” he asked Raleigh.
“A little light reading. Still working on the Simonetti trial transcript.”
He wanted to keep an eye on Raleigh, but he honestly didn’t want to sit and watch her read. Without something to occupy his own mind, he would quickly turn to fantasies about her.
She must have read the disappointment in his eyes. “This work is not glamorous,” she said. “It’s mostly researching, reading, talking on the phone—and thinking. Sometimes I just sit and stare at the wall, trying to figure out one anomaly. Won’t make for ‘good copy.’”
“You’re trying to get rid of me.”
“How astute of you.” But after a moment, she dropped the challenging thrust of her chin and spoke to him frankly. “Look, Griffin, nothing has happened since the phone call. I’m beginning to think it was just a…a bad joke.”
Not Griffin. “We’ll see. Right now, though, I have to go to a press conference. I’ll be gone about three hours.” That would be plenty of time to attend the event, corner the governor for some one-on-one time, and file his story.
“Take your time.”
“I’ll be back later. Maybe you can tell me more about the Simonetti case.”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“You aren’t going to leave the building, are you?”
“I might. My days can be unpredictable. But don’t worry—Daniel’s own personal bodyguard is watching over me.”
“If you do leave, be careful, all right? Do not let down your guard. That’s when the worst can happen. That’s not the story I want to write.”
CHAPTER SIX
AN HOUR LATER, Griffin found himself at a Sheraton Hotel, counting the minutes until he could escape. He’d worked his way up to the front of the crowd of reporters and political g
roupies, and he had a few questions prepared.
He’d tried to get some one-on-one time with Governor James Redmond. But Griffin hadn’t been able to get past the PR woman, who’d turned him down flat.
“So, you got stuck on the boring beat, too.”
Griffin whirled around and found himself face-to-face with Paul Stratton. He and Paul weren’t exactly friends, but the reporting world was pretty small, and they ran into each other from time to time, even competed on some of the same stories.
He had a healthy respect for the older man, who could have settled into his cushy anchor job but instead continued to investigate his own stories, some of them pretty heavy hitting. But personally Griffin didn’t like Paul much. Or maybe that was just jealousy talking. Stratton’s salary was probably three times what Griffin’s was.
“Sometimes you lose the coin toss,” Griffin agreed amicably.
Paul ostentatiously adjusted his tie, showing off a blindingly shiny gold ring in the shape of the Pulitzer coin. Rumor was he’d had the ring designed and cast himself, so he could carry his journalistic achievement with him always.
“This story seems a bit tame for you,” Griffin observed.
“Our political guy is out with the flu. Anyway, I got an exclusive with the governor a few minutes ago,” Paul said smugly. “The video is already back at the station. Should be airing right about—” he glanced at his watch “—now.”
Griffin struggled to control his reaction. Why had Paul gotten an exclusive, and Griffin hadn’t gotten the time of day? He had assumed no one would get a one-on-one today, but apparently he’d been wrong.
Was he slipping?
No, he probably should have put in his request sooner. Guys in public office sometimes didn’t like spreading themselves too thin with the media interviews.
“So why are you still hanging around?” Griffin asked, feeling uncharitable. “Sounds like you got your story.”
“They always have good food at these gigs. Only way they can ensure a lot of people show up.” To emphasize his point, Paul stuffed a caviar-laden cracker into his mouth. “Mmm, beluga. Higher class than normal.”
