Triumph

by Janet Dailey

Kelly stood and peered out the door of her office. The assignment desk was part of the newsroom but separated from the cubicles by a low room divider. At a single long slab sat Darla Jackson and Lou Hart, the story assignment editors, tracking breaking news and feeds on several monitors and listening intently to the scanners. Darla used her computer and headset to call reporters and field crew, putting together a team, speaking with quiet urgency.

  Of course, every other local news operation was listening to the same reports and would send out their own people. But some stations and newspapers might sit on it, waiting for official information.

  The police traded exclusives for cooperation if they had to, playing favorites as needed. An ugly, out-of-the-way incident with unknown perps wasn’t that important in the news cycle. A pop star’s tawdry love triangle or a mama duck crossing the highway with her brood and a little help from a trucker got more interest.

  Kelly went back in. Laura took a chair and replayed the digital recording of the scanner. A confused babble of cop talk poured out, peppered with terse codes that signified the worst. Kelly knew some of them by heart.

  Fragments of information crackled and faded.

  Tip called in, what, two hours ago?

  Yeah, from a pay phone.

  At a gas station, she wanted to say. Kelly felt a little guilty about making Gordon call. But there’d been no way around it.

  Caller was male. No name. Gunshots, abandoned building, was all he said. Then he hung up.

  Another tip came in after that. Noise complaint. Car horn wouldn’t stop.

  Someone leaning on it? Yeah. Someone dead.

  The cop chuckled. Gallows humor. It got them through the night.

  Kelly had an idea who might have called in the subsequent tip. Just not a name to go with the man’s rugged profile.

  The codes started up again. Ten-seventy-one. Shooting. Ten-fifty-four. Possible dead body. Ten-fifty-five. Case for the coroner.

  The count rose abruptly in the next bulletin.

  Two bodies, parking lot. As of now, John Does. Entire site perimeter secured. Additional units requested for floor-by-floor search. Seventeen stories. Hold it. Another body found, ground floor.

  The ground floor—where Kelly had walked, oblivious to danger. Where the man had shielded her body with his, held her and let her go. Had he been killed or injured? The thought was appalling.

  The recording played on. The sound began to break up. Kelly could barely hear toward the end, but there was something there worth listening to again.

  “Could you replay—?”

  “You do it.” Laura stopped the tape and got up. “I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

  “Not in here.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you.” The other woman’s face was pale.

  “Okay if I go home?”

  “I think you should. Laura, we know the police are there, and there’s nothing else we can do.”

  “Guess not.”

  “Mind if I keep the mini-recorder overnight?”

  “No.” Laura gathered her things to go. “Be careful, Kelly,” she said, turning around before she walked away down the hall.

  Kelly waited for a few more minutes and replayed the last several seconds on the mini-recorder to make sure she’d heard right. It was a radio transmission, fished out of the air. By the sound of it, two cops at the abandoned building were talking to each other at the secured crime scene.

  Hey. That guy over there—isn’t he—?

  Yeah. Deke Bannon. The one and only.

  This case must be big if he’s on it.

  It’s big. Half the cops in the city are here.

  Plus a swarm of feds. Never seen so many in one place.

  Me neither . . .

  Static interrupted the rest. But the name had clicked instantly. The third Bannon brother, the one Kelly hadn’t met yet, was her man. Still standing.

  Wow.

  She pondered her next move. It should be simple enough to find Deke Bannon if he was in Atlanta.

  CHAPTER 2

  She was still at the station an hour later and getting frustrated. The first and last name together didn’t bring up any local photos. There were some images of Deke Bannon’s two older brothers, RJ and Linc.

  She knew RJ, though she hadn’t talked to him for a couple of years. But she’d helped him out with a prime-time report on the Montgomery kidnapping case—and boosted her show’s ratings, always a nice plus. As for Linc, she’d provided an indirect connection that led him to a multiple murderer. Too bad he’d declined to be interviewed. The headlines were enough to make him disappear.

  Unfortunately for her, the Bannon brothers tended to shun attention and had an uncanny way of keeping out of the public eye. There wasn’t even a phone snap from either’s wedding on social media or anywhere else online, though she did pull up a couple of press mentions.

  Nothing for Deke.

  Before her move to Atlanta, Kelly had been planning a no-holds-barred series about real undercover agents and special-forces types. Men and women who risked all. She’d had to shelve it. His brothers hadn’t wanted to be involved, and they’d been leery about giving her Deke’s number.

  Which wouldn’t have stopped her. A quick search through her laptop files yielded a contact list from the proposal. There was a phone number for Deke. Probably out of date.

  The area code was unfamiliar—it wasn’t Atlanta and not a cell prefix she knew. She dialed it anyway, prepared to pour on the sex appeal and not mention her real name.

  The guy she reached wasn’t Deke, not a friend of Deke’s, had never heard of Deke. But he liked her purring voice and offered to take her out for a steak dinner next time she was in Kansas City. Kelly hung up on him.

  Stumped, she phoned an acquaintance, a detective in the police department, and asked a favor. Only it wasn’t really a favor. The new crime-stoppers hotline hadn’t been ringing off the hook, according to him. If Kelly could help . . . She’d talked the evening news producer into featuring the hotline for a week.

  All part of the game. The detective didn’t even bother to ask why she needed information, going deep into a law enforcement database and unearthing several new numbers that might be Deke’s.

  “Thanks, Marvin.”

  “You’re welcome. Thank you.”

  Back to business. She made a few notes. Deke had to be a special agent, if those talkative cops had their facts right. That would have been her guess even if she hadn’t heard that stray conversation. RJ was a detective, Linc was a military op, and Deke, most likely federal.

  Kelly took a moment to pull her hair back into a no-nonsense ponytail and kick off her shoes, taking a pair of flats from the closet where she kept some of her own clothes. The station provided her on-air wardrobe, but the stylist was in charge of that.

  The maroon suit was in there, hung up carelessly. It would be taken away for dry cleaning. She suddenly thought of the press pass she’d put into her pocket, and looked for it. Not in either. Shoot. She must have dropped it at the scene. No way was she going back to look for it.

  Kelly slung the jacket back onto the hanger. She opened the can of coke that Gordon had brought for her. The first fizzy sip made her cough. The coke was warm and sour. But she needed the caffeine.

  Kelly finished most of the can, then started in on the short list of numbers.

  The first had been disconnected. The second belonged to someone who didn’t speak English. Evidently Deke believed in changing his contact information frequently. But the third was the charm. There was a hint of a growl in the deep voice on the digital recording. Kelly smiled.

  She was one step closer to Deke Bannon. She hesitated only a second before leaving a message.

  “Hello, Deke. This is Kelly Johns from WBRX. We—ah—just met. I’d like to thank you personally.” She gave her cell number and not the station’s, and saved his contact information to her phone.

  Done.

  But would he call back? No way o
f knowing that. He had no reason to want a news crew following him around if he’d been working undercover.

  Gordon had kept a tight focus on her during the filming of the intro. Deke might have seized that opportunity to get a bit closer, listen in.

  He had to have spotted her from somewhere above and then inside the building as she walked through the ground floor. If he hadn’t recognized her face, he would’ve heard her say her name.

  Whatever. The encounter at the abandoned building could be their little secret for, oh, another twenty-four hours, max.

  Monroe Capp didn’t have to be filled in immediately. The police—that was different. Kelly figured the three of them had time to do the right thing. But until she got a chance to pump Deke Bannon for information and find out more, she wasn’t going to let the news director assign what could be a killer feature to a low-level reporter.

  In her experience, the response to the shootings said it all. Cops and feds didn’t work a case together unless it was major, as in crimes that crossed state or international borders. Big, fat, juicy crimes.

  She had nothing to lose by going after this story.

  Her contract was coming up for review. WBRX Atlanta ranked near the top in the metropolitan market, but they weren’t first. Last time she’d been casually summoned to Monroe’s office, he’d been halfway through a stack of DVD auditions sent in by her potential competition. He’d had the nerve to ask for her opinion of the latest faces right out of journalism school and their résumés.

  They both knew that a degree in communications didn’t mean much compared to on-air personality. You had it or you didn’t.

  Kelly knew damn well that she needed to watch her back. New hires were always cheaper and new talent was always hungriest. Whatever had happened at the building could become a career-making feature, one that grabbed millions of viewers. High ratings and awards—she could use both.

  If only she had a handle on this. Kelly bit her lip, telling herself not to get carried away. First things first. What did Deke Bannon know that she didn’t, and why had he been prowling around that building?

  Rattled as they had been, it was possible that she, Gordon, and Laura had missed something during the first several viewings. She enlarged the video file she’d transferred to her laptop but didn’t start it, looking in her desk for her glasses.

  The no-nonsense black plastic frames stood out against the white drawer. She slipped them on and looked down at the vibrating smartphone she’d set aside. The screen glowed with a name. Deke Bannon.

  Already? Had he been waiting for her call?

  Don’t flatter yourself, she warned silently. He didn’t have to help her more than he had.

  She picked up the phone and tapped the screen to answer. “Kelly Johns.”

  “This is Deke Bannon. I just got your call.”

  The deep voice and its hint of roughness made her draw in her breath, unsure of what to say first. It had been a while since a masculine voice made her feel so unsettled. She kept it simple. “Hello. Thanks for getting back to me. I owe you a big favor.”

  “No. You don’t.”

  The brusque response didn’t leave her much of an opening. Kelly realized that she might be at less of a disadvantage if this conversation wasn’t taking place over the phone. “I was wondering,” she ventured, “if you—well, I’d like to meet with you in person.”

  There was a second’s pause.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “At the station.”

  “You didn’t call from a WBRX line.”

  He’d checked. Kelly smiled faintly.

  “That’s correct. For a good reason. Deke, before we get started, I have to ask if we could keep what happened at that building just between us.” There was a pause. “For now.”

  She could almost see him shrug.

  “Let’s talk,” he said at last.

  That wasn’t a yes and that wasn’t a no. “Do you know where WBRX is?” she asked him.

  “I can find out.”

  “Okay. Call me when you’re on the street alongside the building’s parking lot. I’ll go out the side entrance and find you. You won’t have to sign in at the reception desk.”

  “Good. Don’t introduce me. To anyone.”

  “I won’t. Promise.”

  A half hour later her smartphone rang again. Kelly grabbed it.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  Kelly tensed. She couldn’t help it. Deke’s low voice just got to her. “Where?”

  “In the parking lot. Row C. I’m looking at the station entrance.”

  “I’ll be right out.” She wondered how he’d managed that. Security was tight these days what with all the wackos out there.

  Kelly minimized the video file so it couldn’t be seen and put the laptop on standby. She set it on her desk in front of her WBRX monitor, placing Gordon’s laptop and camera into a deep drawer that locked. She put her shoes back on and went quickly down the corridor that led to the side exit, noting with relief that the evening receptionist had stepped away from the desk and phone console.

  She paused on the other side of the heavy glass doors, catching a glimpse of Deke when he got out of a sleek black car. Her hero. But he looked a little beat up, wearing the same leather jacket and jeans. He spotted her and walked her way.

  Kelly glanced backward to make sure the receptionist was still gone and pressed the electronic release to open the outer doors for him. Deke Bannon seemed even taller in the confined space of the side entryway, his shoulders broader under the jacket. Close up, she noted traces of cement dust in the leather’s heavy folds. She half wanted to slip her hand inside and see if the gun was still in the holster. “Well, hello. I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon.”

  “Hello.” His voice, rawer than she remembered, echoed in the corridor.

  He stared down at her as if he were memorizing her face, and she got her first good look at his eyes. They were a deep brown with flecks of dark gold, alive and questioning. The steadiness of his gaze held her where she was for a moment, a sensation that was almost physical.

  She walked back with him to her office until the chatter coming from the scanners rose in volume and he stopped under an overhead light to listen. There were no more reports from the scene of the killings at the building. Moving forward, he frowned slightly, and she noticed the dark bruise shadowing his strong jaw.

  The resemblance to his two older brothers was unmistakable. They were all tall with a powerful build. Deke, the youngest of the three Bannons, was every inch as masterful as his older brothers.

  “Thanks for coming over.” Kelly waved him into her office, shutting the door. She gestured to a chair by her desk. “It didn’t take you very long to get here.”

  “I wasn’t far away.”

  He didn’t elaborate and Kelly changed the subject as she sat, turning gracefully to him and leaning forward slightly from the waist, clasping her hands over one knee as she demurely crossed her legs. “Mind if I ask how you got into the parking lot?”

  Deke shrugged. “I flashed a badge at the guard. He raised the barrier just like that.”

  “I see.” Kelly made a mental note to find out, one way or another, what kind of badge, state or federal. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t have any problems.” Deke was still standing. “Please sit down. May I take your jacket?”

  There was a flash of a smile. “No. But thanks.”

  Deke settled himself into the chair, moving gingerly as he stretched out long, muscular legs in front of him. His grimy jeans had had most of the cement dust slapped off. He crossed one leg over the other at the ankle with a barely perceptible flinch. Kelly remembered with chagrin how hard she’d kicked him.

  “First of all, I just have to say thanks,” she began. “For everything. That doesn’t seem like enough considering you probably saved my life, but—”

  “More than probably. And you’re welcome.”

  So much for that. He really didn’t seem inter
ested in her gratitude. And he didn’t react when she leaned toward him ever so slightly, keeping her gaze open and warm. The I-am-fascinated-by-you position worked like magic for news interviews. Deke Bannon seemed indifferent to it.

  She sat up straight. “So—how did you get to be a guardian angel?” Kelly asked lightly. “Isn’t that what you called yourself?”

  He smiled. “Figure of speech.”

  Deke seemed disinclined to answer the question. She didn’t push it. Professionally, her method had always been to take her time, let the other person relax. Except he didn’t seem to, ever. His gaze moved around the office, aware and alert as a wolf.

  Dark eyes dashed with gold met hers. Kelly didn’t look away. His slight smile cut a lean line into his cheek as he surveyed her desk. “A flatscreen and a laptop and a Twitter feed and—did I miss anything?”

  She touched the keyboard to her office computer and the flatscreen lit up. “My official blog on the station website. The publicist writes it for me. I don’t have time.”

  “You’re connected.” There was a wary edge to the comment.

  “I have to be.”

  Even sitting down he radiated a controlled strength that was making her a little edgy. Down, girl, she told herself. It had been too long since a man had intrigued her the way this one did, Kelly realized. Deke Bannon was a force of nature in dirty jeans.

  There was an awkward moment of silence. “I guess RJ told you where to find me,” he said at last. “Didn’t you two know each other back in the day?”

  “Casually, yes.” Kelly saw no need to get into that. “But I didn’t ask RJ or Linc for your number.” She didn’t see a need to explain about the helpful detective. “After what happened, I really wanted to talk to you privately first. The station management doesn’t know that I was even at the scene. We just heard about the fatalities.”

  “Over the scanner?”

  “Yes.” She leaned in just a little more and lowered her voice fractionally. “Can you tell me more?”

  “Before this conversation goes any farther, are we off the record?” He looked down at the mini-gizmo.

  “Absolutely,” she said quickly. “This wasn’t on.” Kelly picked it up and slid out the NiCad battery, setting the gutted recorder in front of him.