Jonathan Maberry - Dead of Night

Billy Trout was totally jazzed about the story. Or stories, as it would probably turn out. There was the short-term exclusive — Homer Gibbon, the killer comes home. That was gold, particularly since the only previous hometown for the serial killer had been a series of foster homes in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Nobody — no-fucking-body — knew about his connection to Stebbins. Nobody knew he had an Aunt Selma.

And, Trout thought as he gathered up his field gear into his laptop case, how cool was the name “Selma”? Selma Elsbeth Conroy. Aunt Selma. It was tailor-made for a news story, and perfect for Hollywood. Which was the second story. Trout had promised himself that if there was even a scrap of meat on this bone he’d turn it into a box office feast. Fuck Lifetime … He was going to pitch this to someone huge. Scorsese. De Palma. Maybe Sam Raimi. Get Helen Mirren to play Aunt Selma. Maybe work in a hint of incest and get Kate Winslett to play Selma as a younger woman.

The thing was writing itself.

For the first time in weeks he felt like getting up and coming to work had some purpose. He was so excited that he wished he could call Dez Fox and share the news with her, but … that would be a bad move. The last time they broke up, Dez had made it abundantly clear that she would rather be eaten by rats than hear from Trout again. It didn’t matter that the breakup was her fault.

Trout understood it because he understood Dez. He understood it every time they broke up, and every time they got back together. Dez was damaged goods and probably always would be. She had a heart of gold — Trout knew that for certain — but it was surrounded by barbed wire and land mines.

He glanced at the pictures of her that were pinned to the inside walls of his cubicle. Dez in tight jeans and a halter, wildflowers in her hair, laughing at something Trout had said while he took her picture. Dez graduating from the police academy. Dez sitting along on the dock behind Trout’s house, her arms wrapped around her knees, her whole body silhouetted by the setting sun. Dez in a heart-stopping string bikini that was little more than tiny triangles of brightly colored cloth. Dez as a teenager with braces when he picked her up for the junior prom.

Dez, Dez, Dez …

The memory that burned the hottest in his mind was not their breakup, which was both a legendary clusterfuck and a seven-day wonder for the local gossip mill. Nor was it the argument that had lit a fuse to their explosive deconstruction as a couple. No, the one unshakable and unpolluted memory that Trout lived with day and night — especially nights — was their last evening together before it all went wrong. It had been perfect. They’d spent the day riding horses through the state forest, Dez on a spirited gelding and Trout lumbering beside her on a Clydesdale who was a retired Amish lumber horse. The forest had been filled with flowers and birdsong, and it seemed that all they did was laugh. Dez had a great laugh. She laughed with her whole body, her eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Then they’d gone back to his place. On any other night Dez might have chided him for the corniness of the set-up he’d prepared. Chilled wine, candles faintly scented with lavender and lilac, pink and red roses, and new sheets on the bed. They danced in the middle of the floor to Sade and then stood there and kissed until they were both lightheaded. Then Dez and Trout slowly peeled off the layers of clothes that kept their fingers and mouths from each other’s skin.

When they were naked, there was a strange and lovely moment when they simply stood there and looked at each other. Trout touched her as gently as if she were a phantom of mist, his fingertips ghosting across her lips and throat, trailing lines of heat down her chest to each full breast and each pink nipple. She took him by the hand and led him to his bed. Sex for them was always good but often quick, with Dez wanting to brush past foreplay and get “right to it.” That night was different. They spent a long time with each other, playing games that coaxed each other to the edge and then backed off, only to start again in another way. Then he lay back and gently pulled her on top of him. They made love slowly, as if they had all the time in the world. And then they lay together afterward, their bodies pulsing with animal heat, sweat running down to soak the sheets, hearts pounding rhythms that each could feel beneath the other’s skin.

It was the last time they made love. Maybe the last time they ever would. Within a day they were at war and both knew how to fire the rockets that shattered hearts and hopes.

Trout almost dug out his cell phone to call her. Maybe she wasn’t angry anymore. Maybe she’d calmed down enough to regret what she’d done. Maybe she missed him.

He left the phone in his pocket and, through force of will, shifted his mind back to the moment. To something real and present and tangible. Something over which he had actual control.

Trout let the excitement of this new story pump through him like adrenaline. He got up and headed down the hall to the video room. A young man was slouched in a chair, tapping a message into Twitter. He looked up as Trout slid into the chair next to him.

“Goat!” said Trout brightly. “Just the man I was looking for. Grab your camera.”

Gregory “Goat” Weinman was a tall, gangly collection of loose-jointed limbs, tangled black curls, and never-seen-the-sun white skin wrapped in nouveau Bohemian mismatched clothes. “Oooo, are we having a ‘stop the presses’ moment?” he said without inflection.

“As a matter of fact,” said Trout. “Get your stuff.”

Goat finished composing his tweet and hit “Enter.” Trout read the comment, which was an scathing observation about the latest Woody Allen film. Goat was the cameraman, film editor, general engineer for the Regional Satellite News, and, Trout knew, a prima donna of legendary dimensions. Goat was a failed indie filmmaker with an MFA from Carnegie Mellon and a far too refined sense of artistic snobbery to give him a snowball’s chance in Hollywood. He might as well have “auteur” tattooed on his forehead. Trout also knew that Goat hated every second of it here in the land of regional cable news, but in this economy and with that temperament, it was the only steady work he could get. On the other hand, Goat could take footage of Little League games, Tea Party rallies, Nascar races, or gun shows and turn it into compelling viewing. It would win awards if anyone ever watched their shitty news feed, which no one did.

“C’mon,” urged Trout. “Chop-chop.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Why? Did you finally watch all of the porn on the Net?”

“Don’t I wish, but no. I was editing film all night. The frigging mayor’s speech and the soccer game. If it wasn’t for soccer moms I’d kill myself. Anyway, I’m beat, I’m out of here, man.”

“This is important—”

“What? The storm? If you think I’m going to stand out in a frigging hurricane while Gino reads the weather, then you need better drugs.”

“Screw the storm. I have a lead on something that might actually be something.”

“Something by whose scale? Town or county?”

Trout grinned. “Figure somewhere between Pulitzer and Oscar.”

Goat blinked. “You shitting me?”

“I shit thee not.” Trout dropped the story on Goat.

“Oh hell yes,” said Goat. “That’s huge .”

“I know, right?”

“This is going to give the whole Gibbon story some new legs. Let me tweet something.”

Trout nodded. Like anyone who still planned to have a future as a paid reporter, he understood the value of social networking. Twitter and Facebook moved mountains in terms of PR and buzz. Goat managed the online accounts for their division of Regional Satellite News, and he’d goosed the buzz to the point where RSN had over eighty thousand followers. Ten times the number of people who lived in the county.