by Lauren Carr
“The records library is down in the basement, one floor down from the studio where Wyatt worked. It’d make sense for him to check them back in.” Nikki tapped the picture of the scissors. “The murder weapon was from Dad’s desk.”
“Weapon of opportunity.”
“One stab wound.”
“No defense wounds,” Ryan said. “He didn’t see it coming.”
“He didn’t expect it.” Nikki sat back in her seat. “I know the answer is here, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
He gathered up the pictures when he saw Millie breeze out of the kitchen with a tray of food. He slipped them back into the case file to spare her from seeing the grisly scene. Nikki stared at the closed folder while Millie set out the plates of cheeseburgers, fries, and chocolate malt milkshakes.
When she had finished, there was one children’s cheeseburger left on the tray. With Nikki’s permission, she presented it to Elmo. “We’ve got fifty likes and a dozen followers on our social media page in the few minutes since you liked us, Elmo. For that, you get a juicy Benny Jr. Burger.” With a broad smile, she went back behind the counter to continue monitoring the social media activity.
Nikki took a big sip of her milkshake and grinned with pleasure. She peered across the table at Ryan. “This certainly brings back memories.”
“Good or bad?” Ryan tossed a fry into his mouth.
“Us sitting here in this booth with papers spread across the table,” she said. “Remember all those science fair projects that we did together in middle school.”
Ryan chuckled. “Three years in a row—until I discovered girls and Ashleigh convinced me to ditch you and partner up with her.”
Nikki gazed at him as he bit into his cheeseburger and chewed. As he became aware of her stare, he looked up from his plate. After swallowing, he asked, “What?”
“Is that why we stopped being science partners?”
Ryan nodded his head while taking a sip of his milkshake. “I blew it. Ashleigh pretended that she was interested in me. She told me that I reminded her of Ricky Martin. Dummy that I was, I thought she’d meant it. Next thing I knew, I dumped you and she was my science partner. I ended up doing all the work by myself for second place. Only year I got second place in the science fair.”
“When I was your partner, we always came in first.”
“And you did your share of the work.” He grinned at her.
“We always did make a good team.”
“Must be something in the DNA.” He focused on the fries on his plate. “Dad and Kathleen make a very good team. Dad’s construction business soared after he married her. Yeah, he did good work, but she knew how to market the business.”
“All of the business savvy in the world couldn’t have taken the Bryant Bed and Breakfast to a top, if it hadn’t been for your dad’s talent for restorations.”
“That and Trudy’s breakfasts,” he said.
“Mom is very happy with Harrison. And you can see in his face how much he adores her.”
“She’s a very special lady.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Like her daughter.”
Nikki’s face felt warm. “I forgot all about you dumping me for Ashleigh. She was one sneaky woman.” Recalling her breakup with Ryan in high school, she said, “She and Conner played games their entire lives. For some dumb reason, they liked using us as their pawns. They broke us up in high school because Conner used me to make Ashleigh jealous.”
“It’s okay, Nikki. I’m over that.” He took another bite of his cheeseburger.
“Did you know that Conner has his own place in Latrobe? Why would a husband have his own house just a little over an hour away from his wife?”
“So that he can cheat on her,” Ryan said in a matter of fact tone.
“He’d have more freedom to cheat if his wife was dead.”
“If Conner killed Ashleigh, why did he take her laptop?” Ryan asked.
“He’s a professional football player. Maybe she had something on him that would have ruined his career. Like pictures of him with his cheerleading mistress, which would prove he had a motive for murder.”
“Ruining his career wouldn’t have done her any good,” Ryan said. “Conner has been making a lot of money and she enjoyed that.”
“Maybe he wanted to divorce her. She used what she had on him to trap him into staying in a loveless marriage. Think about it, Ryan. We jumped into this cold case theory because Conner told us that Ashleigh had a lead in my dad’s cold case. Conner told us, not Ashleigh. So then, when she ends up dead, it’s assumed that her murder was connected to Dad’s. That sounds just like Conner.”
Ryan shook his head.
“Tanya didn’t like that hypothesis either. What’s wrong with it?”
“It was Ashleigh, not Conner, who said she had a breaking news story that she was going to reveal on Monday. Why would she have said that if she didn’t have something?”
Nikki’s mind swirled. She stammered. “She could have been lying. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Ashleigh was conniving, but not stupid,” he said. “She’d know that come Monday, everyone who’d heard her announcement at the party would be expecting some sort of big reveal. If she didn’t have anything, then she’d look like a fool.” He shook his head. “Ashleigh would not have claimed to have the goods for a big news story if she didn’t have something.”
Chapter Seven
You’re the boss. You’re the boss. Nikki repeated to herself while pouring the creamer into her travel mug. Her focus wandered from the Irish Cream-flavored creamer to her unpolished fingernails. Mentally, she compared them to the white-tipped nails of Christine, the first boss she had years before in Washington, DC. A seasoned journalist, Christine exuded an air of flawless confidence.
Nikki glanced down at her turquoise sleeveless sheath dress and matching shoes. She had vacillated between the sleeveless dress and a similar one with short sleeves.
In late September, summer showed no sign of giving way to autumn. She had noticed that some of the leaves on the maple trees were taking on a gold tint. Even so, the temperature held firm at the mid- to upper-seventies.
I should put on a suit. Bosses wear suits. She cringed at the thought of spending the day in a jacket.
The cream-filled coffee spilled over the edge of the mug. With a scream, she dove for the paper towels.
It was enough to make Lucy and Ethel scurry out of the kitchen. Their sudden departure prompted Elmo to give chase.
Her phone in the pocket of her briefcase beeped as she tossed the paper towels into the trash.
How are things going with your first love? Was the message from NerdyGuy.
Even as a small grin crossed her lips, she felt a twinge of guilt. She had neglected to message him since the night she had arrived. She tapped out her response. Slow.
He replied, Taking it slow is good.
Not really, was her response.
Why is it not good?
Because … he’s the one.
There was a long silence. When he hadn’t responded by the time she had secured the lid on her mug, Nikki wondered if NerdyGuy had gotten distracted by his real life or something else—like jealousy.
Could his story about a first love who he’s been carrying a torch for be fiction? A sob story to get close to me?
Chewing on her bottom lip, she stared at the phone. Maybe I should ask him if he’s all right?
She felt herself jump so hard that her bottom left the chair when she heard the back door open behind her. With a bark of delight, Elmo charged to greet Ryan, who was dressed in his sweats.
“Did I scare you?” He greeted her with a toothy grin that put both of his dimples on full display.
“I guess I’m not fully awake yet.” She shoved the phone into her bag. “Not that I got much sleep last nigh
t. I mean, how could I sleep? Tanya is dying to throw me into jail.”
“No, she’s not.”
“Yes, she is. She still hasn’t forgiven me for the itching powder I’d put in her sleeping bag at Brownie camp.”
“How old were you then?”
“Seven.”
“And she still hasn’t forgiven you?”
“Well, it wasn’t the itching powder as much as it was the dead fish.
“What dead fish?”
“The one she found in her backpack. Actually, I didn’t put the fish in her backpack. It was only my idea. Rosie was the one who did it and she did it on her own. I only suggested that she do it. I didn’t tell her to do it. I only thought it would be a great idea. But that wasn’t the unforgiveable sin that Tanya can’t let go of.”
“What unforgiveable crime did you commit against our sheriff back when you were a juvenile delinquent?”
“Did Helga find anything at Ashleigh’s crime scene?”
A slim grin crossed his lips. “You’re changing the subject, Nikki.”
“How very perceptive of you, Ryan. What did the medical examiner find?”
“I’ll give you a call as soon as I hear anything.”
She grabbed the coffee carafe and held it out to him. “Did you come to fill up before you go?”
He held up the travel mug in his hand. “Filled to the brim and ready to go.”
“Then what did you come over here for?”
“To give you a kiss for luck.” He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. “You’re going to be great. I know it,” he whispered in her ear before turning around and going out the door.
She waited for him to turn the corner of the house before clasping her hand to her rapidly beating heart. Yeah, he’s the one all right.
She heard her phone beep when she picked up her bag to leave. Hoping it would be NerdyGuy with a perky message, she dug into the pocket and extracted it. She grinned when she saw his message.
Don’t blow it this time.
From the outset, Nikki knew that her first day at the station would not be an average day. That assumption was compounded when she arrived to find a fleet of county law enforcement vehicles filling the parking lot. She suspected that it was no mistake that Sheriff Tanya Williams had chosen to park her cruiser in the space reserved for the station owner.
At the main entrance, Wyatt held open the door for her and Elmo, who she had on a leash. “They came with warrants to search Ashleigh’s office and devices,” he said while escorting her up the stairs to the second floor where the station’s on-air personalities had their offices. “They’re looking for Ashleigh’s laptop. Do you know what that’s about?”
“I assume Ashleigh worked on her laptop.”
“It was red,” Wyatt said with a nod of his head. “She carried it in her bag with her all the time. She’d use it at the anchor desk. I assumed she took it home. Is it missing?”
“It wasn’t in her house,” Nikki said. “I found a cord next to the chair in the living room. Ryan said she could have had two cords. One here at the station and one at home.”
“That way she doesn’t have to carry the cord around in her bag,” Wyatt said in agreement.
“I’m not worried about the cord,” Nikki said. “I want to know where the laptop is. I think someone took it to make sure her breaking news story didn’t go live.”
“Becca mentioned something about that this morning,” Wyatt said. “I had no idea Ashleigh was working on any story. She would have cleared any story she had through the executive producer. He knows nothing about it either.”
Nikki shot him a crooked grin. “What if she had gone to him for the go ahead on a story without any proof that there was a story there?”
A frown filled his face when Wyatt stopped in front of an open doorway to a corner office. A sheriff’s deputy and Tanya searched inside. Nikki leaned across the threshold to take in the neat, decidedly feminine office.
“I always started digging for my story first. It was only after I found something that I’d go to the producers for the go ahead. That’s how real investigative journalists work.”
“Ashleigh was never a real investigative journalist,” Wyatt muttered in a low voice.
“Are you sure she wasn’t working on any potentially explosive stories?” Nikki asked.
Tanya stopped her search to hear his answer.
Wyatt shook his head with a chuckle. “She read the stories as we gave them to her, and she did personal appearances. That’s what she loved to do, and she was good at it.”
Tanya stepped across the office to join them in the doorway. When Elmo tried to greet her, she backed up a step. “Yet, Saturday night, Ms. Addison announced in front of several witnesses that she was going to break a major story that was going to—” She paused to refer to her notes.
“Turn our community on its ear,” Nikki said. “How could Ashleigh break news that explosive if she wasn’t working on something?”
Wyatt shrugged his shoulders. “You’ve got me.”
“Ms. Bryant?” A six-foot tall woman with every strand of her dark locks in place interrupted them. Wyatt introduced her as Gale, the station’s public relations officer. “The phone has been ringing off the hook and the inbox is overflowing with requests for statements about Ashleigh. What do you want me to tell them? Are we going to do a memorial broadcast?”
Gale was very impressed when Nikki emailed a press statement from her phone that she had written while finishing her breakfast that morning. The statement overflowed with mushy platitudes about how caring and generous Ashleigh had been to everyone at the station and throughout the community. Her death would be a loss to everyone who had known her. Nikki had stolen much of the wording from an obituary she had found online for an elderly journalist who had died several years previously.
“Nicely worded,” Gale said while scanning the document. “Obviously, you’ve never worked with Ashleigh. But then, we can’t exactly release a statement with the truth.” She bolted to the stairwell to take her up to her office on the third floor.
“Hmmm. I wonder if we should add Gale’s name to our suspect list,” Tanya said while watching her trot away.
“Any sign of Ashliegh’s laptop?” Nikki asked the sheriff.
“None, but we did find a laptop cord,” she said. “It matches the one we found in Ashleigh’s home. That leaves this question. Was the laptop stolen from her office or the crime scene?”
“And was the laptop stolen because she had uncovered a lead to Dad’s killer or was it another story?” Nikki asked.
“Who would Ashleigh Addison speak to if she had uncovered a hot story?” Tanya asked Wyatt.
“Her executive producer,” Wyatt said. “If the story was as hot as everyone is saying, he’d then come to me. I’d have the final say as to whether the story would go live or not.”
“What about Nikki?” Tanya asked with a flick of her eyes in her direction. “Could she kill a story?”
“She is the station owner,” Wyatt said with a nod of his head.
“If Ashleigh had said nothing to you or the executive producer about a story she was working on, then wouldn’t you have been quite curious about what she was talking about when she announced that she was going to break a major story on the evening news?”
“If I had been there to hear it, I would have been tremendously curious,” Wyatt said. “But I wasn’t there—”
“You were at the party,” Nikki announced.
“We had to leave early,” Wyatt said. “Suzanne wasn’t feeling well. Migraine.” He turned his attention back to Tanya. “I didn’t hear about Ashleigh’s announcement until this morning when one of our journalists came in. I’d heard about Ashleigh’s murder when Becca broke it yesterday afternoon.”
Tanya resumed her search. Her frosty silence conve
yed that she had no intention of giving them any insight into her findings.
“What was that about me killing Ashleigh’s story?” Nikki asked her.
Tanya paused only a second in her search of the news anchor’s video collection. “Witnesses tell me that you were not happy about your mother renewing Ashleigh’s contract. That meant you were stuck with her for the next five years.”
Nikki folded her arms across her chest. “Your witnesses are correct. I was not happy.”
“A little bird told me that you intended to get out of that contract.”
“There are ways to get out of a contract.”
“One being death.” Tanya turned around to smirk at her. “Now that Ashleigh’s dead, you don’t have to explore those other ways, do you?”
Nikki recalled her conversation with Julie at the party about there being many ways to get out of her contract with Ashleigh—one being death. It was a joke over which they had both laughed. Julie would never have repeated that conversation to Tanya. She knew Nikki wasn’t serious. But there was someone else nearby who could have overheard.
With a turn of her head, Nikki spotted the witness.
Suzanne stared at them from her office across from Ashleigh’s. When Nikki’s gaze met her bloodshot eyes, she slammed her door shut.
“I need to go make a phone call,” Nikki said in a low voice. Gathering Elmo’s leash, she spun on her heels and marched toward the elevator.
“To call your lawyer?” Tanya called after them.
“Something like that. Legal about not renewing a contract that’s about to expire.”
Wyatt hurried to fall in step with her. “I’m sure Suzanne didn’t intend to implicate you, Nikki. Tanya probably tricked—”
“It’s past time for Suzanne to retire, Wyatt.”
The elevator door opened. Wyatt held out his hand to hold it open for her to step into the car. He pressed the button for the third floor.
The station had been through many renovations and upgrades since Nikki had left over two decades earlier. The third floor had been redecorated to add a homey, woodsy appeal. Nikki didn’t doubt that Harrison had played a chief role in that. The corridor ended with a sharp turn into a roomy outer office for the station owner.
