Scoop (9 page)

They’d been working the story from every angle since sunrise, including capturing pictures of Petey Green walking out of the front of the jail and cursing at the reporters as he made his way to a taxi.

He never came home, unfortunately. Probably his best move, since a horde of reporters stood waiting outside his front door.

Ray even said
The Late Show
had called.

“I’m glad you turned them down,” Hugo had told him. “This is a serious news story. That’s the spin we’re putting on it.”

The footage from the hospital was priceless. The large bandage on Ray’s forehead was almost the only thing you noticed. They’d put some nice string music in the background and slowed the footage down to capture a touching moment when Ray looked down, remembering the frightful incident. Blinking slowly, you could see the pain flashing through his eyes.

Rumors were flying that the footage might even be aired on the national news, and Chad had been working the phones all morning. It had been a long time since the newsroom buzzed with this much fervor.

Hayden arrived with Hugo’s afternoon coffee. “Have you heard from Ray? Is he okay?”

“He’s doing fine. He might even come in later.” Hugo shut the door
behind her and actually did a little jig as he made his way around his desk. “I’m just about to explode! This is amazing. And right before sweeps week. I can hardly believe our luck.”

“I know,” she breathed. “Ray could’ve been seriously hurt or even killed.”

Hugo cleared his throat. “Exactly. So glad it wasn’t worse.” He stopped jigging and said, “Gilda’s usually in by now. Have you heard from her?”

“No. She hasn’t called, and I haven’t seen her.”

“Okay. Well, alert me as soon as she’s here. She didn’t seem herself yesterday, and I want to make sure she’s okay.”

“I think she’s struggling with the issue of outward beauty.”

Hugo tried to smile. “Aren’t we all.”

“I tried to tell her it’s all about who she is on the inside. I’m not sure she listened.”

One could only hope.
Chad walked into Hugo’s office and said, “We couldn’t have staged this any better!”

Hugo cut his eyes to Hayden. “Thanks for the coffee.”

She took her cue and left. Chad fell into a chair. “This is beautiful.”

“The police department is going to give a statement this afternoon. We’ll cut into programming to air it.”

“Perfect.”

“We ran a preview of Ray’s interview on the noon newscast, and a small part of it at five, six, and six-thirty, and we’ll run the entire package at ten. By then we’ll have all the other interviews gathered and edited. It should be quite a punch.”

Chad stood. “All right. Let’s make sure we’re all at the top of our game.”

“We’ll be ready.”

Chad left and Hugo quietly closed his door. Checking his watch, he
went to his desk and took out his pill bottle. One Blue Pill left. Why hadn’t he gone by the pharmacy? He was pouring the last pill into his hand when his door flew open. Pulling out his drawer, he dropped the pill into the drawer and shoved it closed. He looked up with a nonchalant expression. Hayden stood there.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Fine. What’s the matter?”

“Gilda called. She said she’s running late, but she’ll be here.”

“Thank you.”

“Need more coffee?”

“No. Thanks.”

“Okay.” She shut the door and Hugo yanked open the drawer, but as he peered into the pill bottle, the single pill was not there. Carefully, he took out his stapler, scissors, tape, sticky notes, letter opener, and all the other items in the drawer, until nothing was left but a lonely paperclip. Scooting his chair back, he reached his hand all the way back into its dark corners, but his fingers just came out dusty. He looked on the ground, underneath his desk, on top of his desk, and in his chair, but the pill was not to be found. He went to his door, turned so his back was against it, and quickly unbuttoned his shirt to see if it had fallen in, but there was no Blue Pill.

Hugo felt the need to guzzle something, but all he had was hot coffee, so he drank it in short sips, fanning his lips with one hand. What was he going to do? His mother had always warned him about procrastination. And now, here he was, down to one misplaced pill. Where could it have gone?

After one more visual sweep of his desk, he put all the contents back in the drawer and slowly closed it. Something very interesting was happening. He couldn’t explain it, or immediately identify it, but it was a strange feeling of empowerment.

“I don’t need it,” he whispered to himself as he held the empty bottle
in his hand. He already knew this was going to be a good day, an exciting day. Did he really want to be calm and collected? That’s what everyone expected of him, but truthfully, he was an excitable guy when the circumstances were right. And how could the circumstances get any better? This was going to be a groundbreaking day for the news department. Did he really want to miss it because his emotions were perfectly aligned with the planets?

Hugo screwed the top on the medicine bottle and, with a flick of his wrist, threw it into the trash. A strange sense of liberation came over him. This would be his best day.

Ray decided to go with Roarke to the station. If he stayed at home to “recuperate,” he would probably drive himself mad. At least at work he would have some control over what was going on.

Plus—he couldn’t kid himself—he wanted to see Hayden. It shocked him when Roarke had called him out about it, because he wasn’t sure if he even knew it himself. But here he was at work, hoping to run into her in the break room.

Yet nobody was hanging out in the break room because everyone was preparing for tonight’s newscast, so Ray decided to go to his desk and work. Work on what, he wasn’t sure. He’d watched the newscast from the police department, which was an utter joke. The police captain, an opportunist who could suck fifteen minutes of fame out of a running vacuum, exploited the incident to make the police look good, using phrases like “apprehended this violent man before he could continue his rampage.” The captain failed to mention Petey Green’s only weapons were a disproportionate temper and well-placed left hook.

Not that Petey Green was a saint. But had it not happened on camera, to a reporter, this wouldn’t have made the news.

Ray looked up just in time to see Hayden walking directly toward him, studying a piece of paper in her hand. She had the most beautiful hair he’d ever seen—white-blonde and silky, cut just below the shoulders. And her eyes were bright blue, like the sky in the peak of the afternoon. Her skin had a slight olive tone to it, making her look tan without the help of a booth or a lotion. A sweet innocence showed itself every time she smiled.

She was only twenty feet away now, and Ray felt his heart pound a little. He stood up, wanting to catch her attention but unsure of what he could say that wouldn’t sound like a ridiculous excuse to catch her eye. Maybe the bandage would do the talking.

He opened his mouth, but another voice replaced his.

The weatherman (or meteorologist, as Sam Leege liked to be called) had stepped into Hayden’s path.

“Hey, Hayden.”

“Hi, Sam,” she said.

“How are you doing?”

“Pretty good. Just running around like crazy, trying to get ready for our big night.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I thought I’d play a little trick on Hugo and tell him severe weather’s moving in. Possible tornadoes.”

“I don’t think he could handle a joke today. He’s pretty focused.”

“My weather segment’s been cut by three minutes, and it was only four to begin with.” He shrugged. “But we’re looking at temps in the fifties all week, no chance of rain, so I guess I don’t have much to say. At least about the weather.”

He’d gotten that right. Sam had an uncanny knack for making the weather dramatic. He hooked viewers regularly with lines like, “Stay tuned. Big weather changes ahead.” If you did stay tuned, you would find out the big weather changes were for Canada. When severe weather struck, move over, because the rest of the news immediately became
inconsequential. Ray longed for the day when weathermen just reported the weather and tried to make you smile with a few off-the-cuff jokes. But these days, weathermen—meteorologists—were like local heroes.

With Doppler radar, satellite tracking, and a gaggle of computers, they could nearly predict a tornado outbreak five days ahead of time. Yet there was no predicting how obnoxious Sam could be on any given day. To his credit, he could make even the dullest things—like the allergy index—seem interesting.

Ray knew he held a little grudge. More than once, one of Ray’s reports had been scratched because Sam insisted he needed to break into the newscast, commercials, and anything else that got in his way to keep viewers abreast of potentially life-threatening weather situations. And Ray suspected that the computer modules Sam was always quoting were programmed toward doomsday scenarios on purpose. More than once, Sam had stood in front of the camera and said, “Our computers are indicating softball-sized hail is now moving into the metro area.”

Ray had actually stepped outside once to see if he could find anything that resembled a softball. Nothing more than marbles fell from the sky.

Ray complained about it to Hugo once, telling him he thought the weather reports were a little overblown. Hugo had agreed but said that weather watching in this part of the country was practically a pastime.

“I wanted to compliment you on your shoes,” Sam said to Hayden. They both looked down.

“My shoes?” Hayden looked baffled.

Ray couldn’t see her shoes from where he was standing. Only Sam would notice a woman’s shoes. Realizing he was standing there, gawking at the two of them, Ray slowly sat down, but it was impossible not to eavesdrop. He could hear every word they were saying.

“Well, Sam, I better get back to work.”

“Um, wait. Hayden, there’s something I need—I want—to ask you.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“I wondered if you might want to accompany me this weekend to view a sunset that I guarantee will be the most spectacular thing you’ve ever seen.”

Ray made a gagging noise that he couldn’t begin to control, but he managed to keep from looking suspicious. That was so Sam. He couldn’t just ask the lady out. It had to be the equivalent of a Category-5 pickup line.

Glancing up, Ray hoped to catch Hayden’s expression, but she was now fully blocked by Sam.

“I love sunsets,” she said.

Ray shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. Unbelievable. He was too late. The story of his life.

“You are so kind to think of me,” she continued.

“Well,” Sam replied, “the truth of the matter is that I think of you a lot.”

Surely Hayden was blushing, because Ray sure was. This was painful on so many levels.

He looked up again. Hayden had shifted her weight, and now he could see half of her face. She looked a little shocked. Ray prayed she would see Sam for the Don Juan impressionist that he was.

“I think we could have fun together. I don’t date much, though.”

“Why?” Sam asked, true shock in his voice. Ray had to admit, he was curious too.

“Well, we both have to ask ourselves, could we be equally yoked?”

Ray was in a full-blown stare now, but neither Sam nor Hayden noticed. He wished he could see Sam’s expression.

“I love yolks. I eat eggs every morning.”

“No,” Hayden laughed gently. “By equally yoked, I mean spiritual equals.”

Ray wanted to jump up and announce that he understood Hayden, but Sam was doing a fine job of digging his own hole.

“What does being spiritual have to do with a date?”

“It’s important because then both people know that their guide to the marriage comes from biblical principles.”

“Whoa now,” Sam said, holding up his hands. “Who said anything about marriage? I just wanted to ask you out.”

Ray could see Hayden smile, that confident, self-assured smile that made her seem so oblivious to her social shortcomings. “Well, if you’re the kind of man I want to date, then you would only ask a woman on a date if you felt she might have the potential to be your wife and you wanted to get to know her better.”

Ooh. Zinger.
Ray smiled and waited for Sam’s reply.

Sam held up his hands and said, “You’ve already lost me. I’m not big into the Bible.”

“Then even if we did go out, we might not have a lot to talk about. But thanks for asking, Sam. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.” Hayden turned and walked off. Ray could hardly contain himself as he watched her go.

But the next thing he knew, Sam was staring at him. The smile fell off Ray’s face like an after-lunch crumb.

Sam slowly walked toward Ray, a strange sneer on his face. “You’re hot for her, aren’t you?”

Ray looked down at his keyboard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hot for whom?”
Great.
He’d used proper grammar. A sure guilt indicator.

Sam laughed. “Give me a break. I saw you watching her.
Us.”

Ray looked up. “Doesn’t look like there’s going to be an
us.”