Cold Sight (4 page)

The main reason, though, was because punching anything—a monitor, a wall, the mayor—wouldn’t change the fact that she’d gotten herself into this situation all on her own. It wasn’t the PC’s fault. Nor was it the fault of those chirpy, perky little orphans singing their guts out in the local musical. It was all her own doing.

She was the one who’d insisted on writing a story she knew would anger a lot of people. The one who’d convinced her editor to let her. The one who’d researched and worked seven days a week and sacrificed any kind of personal life for months. She’d poured her heart and her soul and every intuition she owned into what she’d been sure would be a shocking, sordid tale that would soon draw the eyes of the entire world to this small Georgia town.

She’d been so utterly positive . . . right up until the moment she’d been proven wrong.

So she was also the one who got to watch as her career blew up in her face. Lexie Nolan, the former big-fish-in-this-little-reporting-pond had been busted down to guppy. She’d been demoted from her position as the hard-news reporter on staff to covering local theater productions and basket bingo fund-raisers.

And it was all on her head.

“Aren’t you finished yet?”

Another punch-worthy target popped into her field of vision. But just as she couldn’t fling her fist at inanimate objects, she couldn’t pummel the smirk off Stan Brightman’s face, either. The fact that the other reporter had enjoyed her downfall, and had been the one to most benefit from it, since he was now covering the crime beat for the paper, was just part of the biz. He hadn’t stolen her job—she’d handed it to him on a platter of unprovable suspicion, unconfirmed rumor, and pure journalistic frenzy.

“I think every little girl in town is in this show. Lots of names to get right or those stage mommies won’t be happy.”

“Oh, yeah, you definitely wouldn’t want to get anything
wrong
in this one.”

She forced a tight smile as the obnoxious man, who smelled of the ham-and-eggs special he’d had for breakfast, entered the cubicle. Stan was one of those middle-aged guys who thought a droopy mustache, sideburns, and a comb-over would prevent anyone from noticing his blossoming bald spot. The buttons of his disco-era polyester dress shirt bulged under utter duress.

He’d played the big-newsman-takes-newbie-under-his-wing game six years ago when she’d landed this job, right out of college. When that hadn’t worked, he’d started hitting on her. Since that had been a no-go, too, he’d resorted to hating her guts and plotting her downfall.

That was when she’d started mentally thinking of him as S(a)tan.

“I’ll be finished with the computer soon,” she said, pretending she didn’t know he’d come in here only to be a dick.

“No worries; take your time.” His voice could serve as the audible definition of smarmy.

Stan clearly delighted in Lexie’s fall from grace and she suspected that only the loss of her job would have made him happier. Stan had probably wallpapered his bedroom with copies of the retraction and public apology Lexie had been forced to write for the paper last month.

That retraction had earned her stares of hatred and resentment nearly everywhere she went. She’d terrified an entire townful of people. She’d not only blown her career; she had made herself a pariah in the process. Probably only one other person in Granville was more regularly vilified from under the blow-dryers at the Blow-N-Go Salon or across the aisles at the local churches. Considering that guy was a disgraced psychic who’d moved here from Savannah after being accused of costing a child his life, that wasn’t much comfort.

She wondered what the locals would think if they knew how she really felt about what had happened, and her role in it. Because she wasn’t the heartless fearmongerer she’d been made out to be. A big part of her had been relieved, hoping deep down that she
had
been wrong, that the missing local teenagers she’d written about were out there somewhere, safe and sound.

Something deep inside her, however, had never fully accepted it. A few questions had been answered, to the satisfaction of most people around here. But Lexie had a lot more. She just wasn’t allowed to ask them.

Oh, how they haunted her, even now. Especially now. Because every single night, Lexie still went to bed thinking about those lost girls.

“Lex? I need you in here!”

Saved by the boss.
“Guess I gotta go. Computer’s all yours.”

Rising, she saw by the quick narrowing of Stan’s eyes that he didn’t like her being called into Walter’s office. Walter Kirby, the editor of the paper, might have bowed under pressure and demoted Lexie, but he hadn’t fired her, and she remained his closest confidante on staff.

Stan had once floated the rumor that it was because something was going on between them. If he’d understood anything about their boss, he’d have long since realized that Walter, the father of four daughters, simply stepped into protector mode around young women he viewed as vulnerable. When he’d realized she was being subtly harassed, he’d put the fear of God into S(a)tan, and had taken Lexie under his wing as if she were his own.

So maybe it was quid pro quo. She’d given him her job, but Stan had contributed to the close relationship Lexie now enjoyed with their editor. She blessed that relationship; Walter was the closest thing to a father she had, since her own dad had passed away when she was twenty.

Stan pivoted, pushing past her. “Yeah, boss, I actually needed to talk to you about—”

“Later.” Walter crooked a finger at Lexie, beckoning her into his office.

She recognized that stiff finger and Walter’s frown. Something was bugging him, but she didn’t worry. She had been playing the part of Good Girl Friday lately and hadn’t done a damn thing to jack up Walter’s blood pressure. Or to rescue her own savaged career.

It had been hard, almost painful, but she’d let it all go. Journalistic fervor was well and good, but in this economy, so was being able to pay her rent.

Besides, you were wrong; they’re all runaways. Just runaways.

That didn’t help. No matter how many times she repeated the mantra in her mind, she never felt better about having given up on the poor kids whose story she’d tried so hard to tell.

“ ’Scuse me, Miz Lexa,” a voice said.

Lexie glanced over and realized her anxious, sneakered feet had almost met the business end of a sopping mop, which was being pushed by Kenny, the maintenance guy.

“Whoops. Sorry,” she said.

He ducked his head, not meeting her eye, as usual, as if he knew how hard it sometimes was for people to look at him and not reveal the dismay the sight of his face usually wrought. “S’okay. Just be careful. Wouldn’t want you to slip and fall. Somebody spilt coffee.”

Kenny seemed to operate in his own world and was left alone, either because everyone sensed he was a bit slow, or because of the scars on his wrecked face and hands that made him an object of pity to those around him. The scars and that pity were probably why Walter had given him a part-time job when he’d shown up several months before looking for work.

“Will do. Have a good day, Kenny.”

Stepping around Kenny’s work area, she entered Walter’s office. “Hey, boss.” She kicked the door shut behind her, though it wouldn’t stop Stan from trying to eavesdrop. The other man was a lurker. She had no doubt he stood right outside the office glaring at the closed door.

“What’s up?”

Walter merely gestured toward one of the two stiff, uncomfortable chairs fronting his overloaded desk. Lexie lowered herself into one, but didn’t prompt him. Walter always needed to bluster a bit before coming to the point.

“Stubborn kids,” he mumbled as he walked around the desk and sat in his well-worn chair. It emitted a long groan as he leaned back, lacing his fingers together on his barrel chest.

“Problems at home?”

“Would it really have been too much to ask for one of my children to have been born without any estrogen?”

She hid a smile. The lament was a frequent one. “Sorry.”

Mournfully shaking his head, he added, “It’s hard now to remember how sweet they looked when they were little, in their Sunday dresses and princess costumes, because now they do nothing but hold out their hands for money.”

“You keep putting it there,” she mumbled.

Walter continued as if she hadn’t said a word. “Or they scream, ‘I hate you,’ because you say they can’t go to a rock concert in the next state with a tattooed, ear-gauge-wearing slimeball who rides a motorcycle.” He paused for breath after the rant, rubbing a weary hand over his eyes. “I shoulda quit after the twins were born. Or halfway through—after Jenny, before Taylor.”

Taylor was younger than her identical twin sister, Jenny, by about fifteen minutes. To hear Walter tell it, over the past several months she had segued from Sweet Valley High senior into Stephen King’s Carrie-the-psycho-prom-queen.

“That child drives me crazy and will end up being the death of me.”

Lexie grunted, seeing through the grousing. Walter was a human-sized marshmallow when it came to his girls. He adored all of them, from the seventeen- year-old twins down to the thirteen-year-old baby. “She’ll snap out of it. Now that Ann- Marie is doing so much better, and she’s not afraid she’s going to lose her mom, Taylor will get over this rebellious kid thing.”

A brief smile softened his features. Ann-Marie, Walter’s wife, had recently been pronounced in remission after a long battle with lymphoma. Things were finally looking up for the man—at least at home. At work was another story. After the scandal, he’d had to do some fast-talking to keep his own job as well as Lexie’s, of that she had no doubt. Even though he was part owner of the paper, he was the minority shareholder.

“I got a call this morning from Chief Dunston.”

“Wow, what a nice way to start the day.”

Despite the flippant words, every cell in her body reacted to the name. Her ears still stung from the insults she’d endured the last time she’d come face-to-face with the jerk who swaggered around wearing a police chief’s uniform.

“I’ve had better.”

She didn’t doubt it. Dunston hated to be questioned, and Lexie was all about asking questions. Considering her questions had led to a lot of speculation about whether he was actually doing his job, she had no doubt she held the number-one position on his shit list.

“So what’d Chief Dunce want? I haven’t done anything,” she insisted.

He waved an unconcerned hand. “I know.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“He wanted to remind me how much better it would be if you no longer worked here.”

“What’d you say?”

“I reminded him how much better it would be if he had a set of balls.”

She snickered. “Zing.”

“It’s only the truth. Jack’s not a bad man, just a weak one.”

Not knowing the man, she’d have to reserve judgment on that. “So what’s got him on the warpath again? You haven’t printed a single story accusing him of having no balls or speculating on whether a serial killer is operating right under his nose in, oh, a month, at least.”

His eyes gleamed. Walter was a newsman through and through, even if he did live in a town of twelve thousand, where the biggest crime news usually involved sleazy jerks dealing drugs or addicts stealing money to buy them. For a little while, he’d relived his city desk days, joining Lexie in the thrill of chasing down what might have been the biggest story of their careers. Their failure had been as huge as their effort, but damn, what a ride.

“Apparently Chief Dunston got a call yesterday from a woman who lives down in the Boro. This ‘drunk ho’—to use his description—was all riled up. Seems she read the articles last month and was calling about her teenage daughter, who disappeared earlier this week.”

A jolt of almost electric fear shot through her. How could it not? Every journalistic bone in Lexie’s body had been sure, utterly certain, she’d been onto something. It was hard to let go of that certainty, even under indisputable proof and extreme duress.

If this girl’s disappearance was anything like the others, her mother might as well give up hope right now of ever seeing her again. The Boro had become the Bermuda Triangle for poor young women who seemed to round the wrong corner and disappear forever. She didn’t care what kind of “drunk ho” the woman might be. Losing a child was, in her opinion, the very worst thing that could happen to any parent.

“Apparently she insists her daughter didn’t run away but was a victim of the Ghoul.”

Lexie rolled her eyes. “The Ghoul. That’s so stupid. I didn’t come up with that,
he
did!”

“I know.”

During a press conference in which he’d vivisected Lexie, the chief of police had accused her of searching for spooks, inventing a serial killer, whom he dubbed the Granville Ghoul. Ridiculing her speculations had helped discredit her. A little spiteful humor and two or three pieces of evidence and he’d succeeded in shutting her down completely.

Oh. The fact that he regularly golfed with both the mayor, and with Walter’s partner, majority owner of the paper—and therefore Walter’s boss—didn’t hurt, either.

A thought suddenly made her frown in confusion. “Wait, why would the chief tip you off? Another missing girl sounds like the last thing he’d want us to know about!”

“Actually, he didn’t tell me. I heard last night. Word is spreading throughout the schools and the girls were upset.” He shook his head, not liking anything to upset his daughters, despite how he griped about them. “As for Dunston, I think he was going for a preemptive strike. He suspects the mother is going to call you and wanted to make sure I had you under control.”

Lexie lifted one brow at that word.

Laughing, Walter held his hands up, palms out. “Hey, I would never dream of claiming such a thing. With four daughters, I know better than to think I control anything in my life except the amount of time I get to spend in the bathroom.”

Lexie snorted. “With four daughters, I’m surprised you actually have your own bathroom.” Her laughter faded as did his. Then, as much as it pained her, Lexie gave him the reassurance she assumed he’d called her in here for. “It’s okay. If she calls, I’ll . . .”