Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (4 page)

“You asked for it. Okay, get me a Diet Coke.” “Will do.” Melanie glanced ruefully at Sam’s leg. “Does it itch?”

“Like crazy.”

“I’ll be right back.” She left as quickly as she appeared. Sam did a cursory look over her e-mail, her pulse elevating a bit, her palm sweaty on the mouse, but no one had sent any notes that could be construed as threatening. A few notes from fans asking about her return, two dozen jokes she deleted immediately, interoffice memos that were outdated, an offer to speak at a local charity event, another reminder from the Boucher Center about her next appointment and several quickly dashed thoughts from friends. One from Leanne Jaquillard, a seventeen-year-old girl she worked with at the Boucher Center where she volunteered.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in her letters from cyberspace. Nothing sinister. She began to relax. By the time Melanie returned sans cape, with a little bit of powdered sugar still clinging to her lips, a can of Diet Coke in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, Sam had answered those she could, saved the ones she wanted and deleted the rest.

Thanks,” she said, as Melanie handed her the drink. “I owe you one.”

“More than one—maybe a dozen or so for taking care of that persnickety cat, but who’s counting?” Melanie took a sip of her coffee and the remaining bits of sugar vanished from her lips.

Sam pulled the tab on her Coke just as Gator poked his head into the room. “You’ve got about fifteen minutes,” he said. “I’ve got two pieces taped, then the weather and ads will follow. After that, you’re on.” He started to leave, then thought better of it. “Hey, it’s good to have you back.” There wasn’t much sincerity in his words. “Thanks.”

“So what happened?” He jabbed a finger at her cast. “It’s a long story. Basically, the captain of our fishing boat was an idiot and I’m a klutz.”

Gator’s grin was tight. Forced. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said, then added, “Gotta run, somewhere in this city there
has
to be a woman dying to meet me.” “I wouldn’t count on it,” Melanie whispered as he left. “Remind me again why I wanted to get back here so badly,” Sam said.

“He’s just pissed because they’re talking about cutting his show to expand yours. It’s jealousy.”

Sam wasn’t sure she blamed Gator. He used to be the morning DJ, was pushed to the afternoon “Drive At Five,” then eased back to the early evening. It didn’t take a crystal ball to see that he was slowly, but surely, being phased out. Right now, with the popularity of her
Midnight Confessions,
she took the brunt of his misaligned anger.

“I guess I’d better get back in the saddle.” Sam struggled to her feet, felt a painful twinge in her ankle and ignored it. Melanie stepped out of the doorway to let her pass. “Thanks for pinch-hitting for me while I was gone,” Sam said.

“No problem.”
Melanie’s gold eyes darkened a bit. “I liked it.”

“You’re a natural.”

The girl sighed as they started down the corridor. “I just wish the powers that be recognized my talents.”

“They will. Give it time. And finish getting your doctorate. A bachelor’s degree in psychology isn’t enough.”

“I know, I know. Thanks for the advice,
Mom,”
she said with just a trace of envy. Melanie was great behind the microphone, she just needed seasoning, more life experience as well as the educational credentials before she could regularly hand out advice to the thirty-and fortysomethings who called in. Pinch-hitting was one thing; her own show was another.

“Any big news happen while I was gone?” Sam asked, changing the touchy subjection.

“Nothing. It’s been soooo boring around here.” Melanie shrugged and took another sip of coffee.

“New Orleans is never boring.”

“But the station is. It’s the same old, same old. There’s gossip about the possibility of WSLJ being sold to a big conglomerate or merging with a competitor.”

“There always is.”

“Then there would be major reformatting. All the DJs are freaked because they’d be replaced by computers, or syndicated programs from Timbuktu, or God knows where.” “That never stops,” Sam said.

“Right, but this time there’s more to it. George is talking about spending big bucks on more computer equipment, cutting staff, doing more of the taped stuff. Melba’s thrilled—practically orgasmic—at the thought of voice mail, and Tiny, he loves the idea. The more high-tech stuff, the better.”

“It’s the wave of the future,” Sam said cynically. Computers were rapidly replacing disk jockeys just as CDs had replaced tapes and vinyl. The library of LPs and 45s in the station was collecting dust in a locked glass case that only Ramblin’ Rob, the crusty oldest DJ in the building, played upon occasion. “I catch hell for it,” he always said, laughing, his voice raspy from years of cigarettes, “but they don’t dare fire me. AARP, the governor and even God Himself would shut this place down if they did.”

Melanie followed Samantha along the hallway. “Doing the show was the only thing that was interesting around here.”

“Liar, liar,” Melba said as she cruised past and grabbed her jacket from the rack in an alcove near the offices. “Don’t let her give you any of that bull.” Her elegant eyebrows lifted a notch. “There’s a new man in our girl’s life.”

Melanie blushed and rolled her expressive eyes. “

True?” Sam asked as she turned a corner and slipped through the door to the studio. The information about her assistant wasn’t exactly a news flash. Melanie had a new boyfriend every other week, or so it seemed.

“This one’s serious.” Melba tucked her umbrella under her arm. “Believe me, the girl’s in loooove.”

“It’s only been a couple of dates. That’s all.” Melanie fiddled with the chain around her neck. “No big deal.”

“But you like him?”

“So far.”

“Do I know him?”

“Nah.” Melanie shook her head, then slipped into the adjoining booth. “I’ll start screening the calls,” she said, as Sam settled into her chair and adjusted the mike. She checked the computer screen. With a touch of her finger on the appropriate button on the monitor, she could play a pretaped advertisement, the opening music, or the weather. She placed headphones over her ears as Melanie nodded, indicating that the phone lines were working and connected to the computer.

Sam waited until the thirty-second advertising spot for a local car dealer had finished, then pressed a button and the first few notes of “Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles soared, then faded. Sam leaned into the mike. “Good evening, New Orleans, this is Dr. Sam. I’m back. And this is
Midnight Confessions,
here at WSLJ. As you probably know, I was out of town for a little R&R in Mexico. Mazatlán, to be precise.” She leaned her elbows on her desk and kept one eye on the computer screen. “It was a beautiful place, very romantic, if you were in the right frame of mind, but rather than give you a blow-by-blow travelogue, I thought I’d settle in with kind of a light topic, just to get back in the swing of things.

“As this is my first night back, I thought we’d open the discussion tonight by talking about vacations, how stressful they are, how relaxing they’re supposed to be, what’s considered romantic. Call in and tell me where you’ve been and how it turned out. In Mazatlán, the weather was hot, hot, hot, the sunsets to die for. Plenty of hot sun and sand, lots of couples strolling along the beach. Palm trees, white sand, piña coladas, the whole nine yards…”

She talked about romantic vacations for a few minutes and gave out the phone number, again asking for callers, waiting for a response. Glancing through the plate-glass window she saw Melanie, headphones in place, nodding as the phone lines began to light. Here we go.

The first caller’s name, Ned, appeared on the screen beside line one, while someone named Luanda was on two. Sam pushed the first button and said, “Hi. This is Dr. Sam. Who’s this?”

“Yeah, this is Ned.” The guy sounded nervous. “I, um, I’m glad you’re back. I listen to your program all the time, and…and I gotta say I missed ya.”

“Thanks.” Samantha smiled slightly and tried to put the guy at ease. “Well, Ned, what’s on your mind? Have you been on a vacation lately?”

“Yeah, uh, I, uh, took the missus on a trip down to Puerto Rico, it was about two months ago, and…well, it was kinda to make up…y’know.”

“Make up for what?” she asked.

“Well, I’d been seein’ someone else and me and the wife, we split for a while, so I decided to surprise her with a trip to the Caribbean, you know, to try and get things back together.”

“And what happened, Ned?” Sam asked, as the guy haltingly poured out his heart. Another midlife fling. His second, he admitted, but he loved his wife, oh, she was the best, a good-hearted woman he’d been married to for twelve years. However, his wife got even with him in Puerto Rico. Found herself a Latin lover and rubbed Ned’s nose in it. Ned was offended. What had she been thinking? The romantic vacation had turned into a catastrophe.

At least at that level, Sam could relate.

“So how do you feel about it?” she asked, and noticed that Luanda’s name disappeared from the screen. She’d gotten tired of waiting and had hung up. But someone named Bart was on line three.

“I’m hurt and mad, I guess,” Ned was saying. “Mad as hell. I spent two thousand bucks on that trip!”

“So you lost your money and your wife. Why do you think you got involved with the other women in the first place?” Sam asked.

The phone lines began to light up like a Christmas tree. People couldn’t wait to comment on Ned’s story or offer their own, asking Sam’s opinion. Kay was on two, Bart on three and, oh, there was Luanda, again, on four.

Sam talked to Ned a while, explaining about the age-old double standard, then switched to Kay, a vicious woman who was ready to rake Ned and any other cheating man through the coals several times over. Sam imagined her foaming at the mouth in her rage. From there, she listened to Bart, whose girlfriend had gone with him to Tahiti and refused to come home.

The stories, anger, laughter and despair sizzled over the airwaves. Sam interrupted the calls by playing advertising bits and updating the weather with promises of news as soon as it broke, but the time sped by and she felt more at home by the minute. Fleeting thoughts of the letter and mutilated picture she’d received faded as she talked with her listeners.

She’d been at it for nearly three hours, had finished her soft drink, was on her second cup of coffee and was close to signing off when she answered a call from someone, who the computer screen displayed as John.

“This is Dr. Sam. How’re you this evening?”

“Good. I’m good,” a smooth male voice intoned.

“What’s your name?” she asked for the viewers. “John.”

“Hi, John, what would you like to talk about?” She reached for her coffee cup.

“Confession.”

“All right.”

“That is what you call your show.” It wasn’t really a question.

“Yes, now, John, what’s on your mind?”

“You know me.”

“I know you? How?”

“I’m John from your past.”

She played along. “I’ve known lots of Johns.”

“I’ll bet you have.” Was there a hint of disapproval, or superiority in his voice? Who was this guy? Time to get on with the show.

“Do you have something you want to talk about tonight, John?”

“Sins.”

She nearly dropped her cup. Her blood ran cold. The voice—the same voice on her recorder. The blanket of security she’d felt all night unraveled. “What kind of sins?” she forced out.

“Yours.”

“Mine?” Who was this guy? She needed to get off the line and fast.

“People are punished for their sins.”

“How?” she asked, her pulse pounding hard as she glanced at Melanie, who was shaking her head. Obviously John had asked her a different question when she’d screened the call.

“You’ll see,” he said. Sam signaled Melanie, hoping the girl understood that she needed to get off the line. Fast. She was certain this was the same creep who’d left the message on her personal recorder.

“Maybe I’ll have to repent,” she said, her nerves strung tight as she stalled for time.

“Of course you will. Confession, Samantha. Midnight confession.”

Oh, God, this
was
the guy. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

“That would be wise, Sam. Because God knows what you did, and so do I.”

“What I did?”

“That’s right, you hot-blooded slut. We both know—”

Sam cut him off. From the corner of her eye, she saw Melanie on the other side of the glass, frantically motioning toward the clock. Only twenty seconds until her program was over. The phone lines were blinking like flash lightning. “That’s all we have time for tonight,” Sam said, trying to compose herself, somehow recalling her signature sign off. Her heart was pounding like a drum as she pressed a button to start the music that ended her show, the Grass Roots singing, “Midnight Confession.” As the first few lines of the song faded, she said, “This is Dr. Sam, with a final word…Take care of yourself, New Orleans. Good night to you all and God bless. No matter what your troubles are today, there is always tomorrow…. Sweet dreams…”

She pushed the play button for a series of commercials, shoved her microphone out of the way and rolled back her chair. Stripping off her headset, she found her crutch, climbed to her feet and, nearly hyperventilating, hitched her way out of the booth.

“How’d that guy get past you?” Sam demanded, as she and Melanie entered the hallway from their separate booths.

“He lied, that’s how!” Melanie’s face was flushed, her jaw tight, defensive. “Now, where the hell is Tiny?” She stormed up and down the hallway. “He’s got less than five minutes to set up the
Lights Out
show!” She searched the hallway with her eyes.

“Forget Tiny. What was the deal with that last caller?” Sam was shaking inside. Furious. Scared.

“I don’t know.” Melanie threw up her hands in exasperation. “He—he tripped me up. Said he had a comment about…paradise and paradise lost…I screwed up, okay? So crucify me!”

Sam cringed at Melanie’s choice of words. “Let’s keep all biblical references out of this!”