Robert Bidinotto - Hunter

She hadn’t thought of that. She shook her head.

“If we’re going to nail him, we can’t go through normal channels.”

She nodded. After a moment, she stood. Walked over to face him.

“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t want to alert him. I want to be the one to find him.”

“Oh?” The lights from the parking lot revealed a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

“Look, sir. I did what you said. I slept on it. And I’d like to accept that transfer offer and work for you.” She hesitated, then added: “But only if my job is to hunt that son of a bitch, sir.”

He looked down at her and, incredibly, actually smiled again.

“Grant. Call me Grant.”

Washington, D.C.

Monday, September 1, 1:25 p.m.

“ Hell-o, Mr. Hunter!”

The pretty receptionist sang out the greeting as he entered the suite and approached her desk.

“And to you, Danika.” He had to smile back, in spite of his foul mood.

She pushed her lips into a playful pout. “I was thinking you forgot the address here. What’s it been? Two weeks?”

“I’ve been out of town. On assignment.” A half-truth.

She rubbed her chin, mock-serious, appraising him. “Now, that’s a bold fashion statement. Shades are nice, though.”

Hunter removed his Oakley sunglasses and followed her gaze down to his reversible windbreaker. He now wore it garish-orange-side out, the side with the snarling black panther leaping across his chest. He’d meant it to be a point of focus, a distraction. It seemed to be working.

“Well, Danika, I guess I just don’t have your taste and refinement.”

She tsk-tsked. “What you need is daily guidance from a woman of taste and refinement.” She leaned forward, the top two buttons of her pale-yellow silk blouse strategically unbuttoned. Whatever she wore underneath must have been spun from a single spool of gossamer.

“No woman of taste and refinement would possibly want me,” he said, careful not to let his eyes drift south.

“Don’t you be so sure, now.” She grinned, settling back and rocking her swivel chair so that he could get a good look at the rest of her. “You’d be an interesting project.”

“‘Project.’ How romantic. How’s Tyrone?”

She beamed. “He just had his fourth birthday party on Saturday. Ten neighbor kids showed up. They had a ball, but I spent all afternoon yesterday getting chocolate cake and ice cream out of the carpet.” She laughed. “That boy’s something. You know, before he opened his presents, he insisted on reading all his birthday cards out loud. Didn’t miss a single word.”

“Such a bright little guy. Takes after a lovely lady I know. And how’s Melvin treating that lady?”

She wrinkled her nose. “That man, he’s the most infuriating- Oh, don’t you get me started, now.”

“Any mail?”

“Nothing in two weeks. Just one call, this morning-Mr. Bronowski. That’s your editor, right?”

“So he believes.”

“He asked you to return his call today, if possible. And your one-thirty arrived early. Mr. Diffendorfer.” She tried to keep a straight face. “He’s occupying office number eleven.”

“All of it, I’m sure.”

She laughed, the dimples deepening in her smooth coffee skin. “You bad.”

“Danika, you have no idea.”

*

Hunter left her and headed down the hallway of the suite. It was a perfect set-up: a “virtual office” lease arrangement from a national chain that provided him a downtown address, mail and call-forwarding, and time-shared space whenever he needed it. Anybody who wished to find Dylan Lee Hunter could try to contact him here. But anybody whom he did not wish to find him would reach a charming but unyielding stone wall named Danika Cheyenne Brown.

The conference room was empty, so he ducked in. From the thigh pocket of his cargo pants he pulled a cell phone. It was one of the many cheap, prepaid models that he bought anonymously, with cash, from drugstores throughout Maryland and Virginia, then dumped after brief use. He reinstalled the battery, thumbed the number for the managing editor’s line at the Capitol Inquirer, then sat on the edge of the conference table as the call rang through.

“Bronowski.” The voice was harsh and harried.

“Hunter.”

“Finally! Dammit, Dylan, you’re harder to get ahold of than a virgin on a first date. Don’t you check your messages?”

“Annually.”

“Very funny. Why the hell don’t you give me a direct number where I can reach you?”

“I’ve told you. I don’t share my personal contact information.”

“But this is stupid. I’m your editor.”

“Not stupid. What I write upsets people. Powerful, nasty people. I need to protect my privacy.”

“What, you don’t even trust me with your number?” Silence. “Well. I guess not, then. Dylan, this whole goddamned arrangement is weird. You realize we still haven’t met, even though you’ve been working for me for a year?”

“Not for you, Bill. Not for anybody. I work for myself.”

“Know something? Even for a writer, you’re an uncooperative, egotistical, insufferably arrogant prick.”

“Hey-who are you calling ‘uncooperative’?”

Bronowski laughed in spite of himself. “Well, you’re right about one thing. What you write does upset people. Wanna know who you’ve pissed off now?”

“No.”

“The frickin’ governor of Maryland, that’s who. He was none too happy with your feature about his inmate commutation policy.”

“Tough. I’m none too happy about his policy. Neither are the victims of all the thugs he’s turned loose.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say. You weren’t the one who had to take the phone call last night.”

“Did you give the guv my regards?”

Bronowski snorted. “Call wasn’t from him. It was from Addison. Our dear publisher was not amused. You’ve simultaneously pissed off both a governor and our boss.”

“ Your boss. Remember?”

“Okay, my boss. Regardless. He wasn’t pleased about having his Sunday golf game down in Lauderdale interrupted by a call from Annapolis. He got an earful, and last night he returned me the favor. Now he wants to know what I’m going to do about you.”

He paused. Hunter said nothing.

“Don’t you care what I’m going to do?” Bronowski demanded.

“No.”

The editor dropped a cluster of f-bombs. Then stopped. Hunter heard a sigh.

“Dylan, what the hell am I gonna do with you? You know what kind of position you’ve stuck me in? Look, I’m not gonna lie to you. You’re the best investigative reporter I’ve run into in a long time. I don’t know where you got your training-but that’s the point! I don’t know a goddamned thing about you. Where you come from. Where you went to J school. Who you worked for before, where you live, whether you have a wife or kids or a dog-”

“Cat.”

He snorted again. “How nice. You know, after you started freelancing with us, I Googled your name. I figured, your talent, a thousand links would come up. But nothing. Not one. You’re like the Invisible Man.”

Hunter was studying a wall photo of the Washington Monument. He spoke quietly. “My past doesn’t matter to me. Why should it matter to you?”

Bronowski was silent a moment. “Okay. I won’t pry anymore. Hell, I don’t care if you flunked English or were Saddam Hussein’s press secretary. Only thing that matters is, you keep delivering the goods. Right now your freelancing generates more mail than anything my staff here produces. Which reminds me-the circ audit just came in. I checked back. Since you started pitching me stories last year, we’re up eight percent. That’s while the competition is bleeding readers and advertisers.”