Jonathan Maberry - Dead of Night

“I know,” agreed Trout. “I was thinking that while I was saying it.”

“How’s that get us to Gibbon and Aunt Selma?”

“Not sure yet. If the cover story gets us in the door then we work him a bit, try to get him on our side. Maybe even cut him in on it. Feed him the Hollywood angle. The best-seller angle, too. If he can’t see the marketing advantages of that … then, well that leaves bribes and threats.”

“Count me out of that, Billy.”

Trout speeded up to pass a school bus. “I’m not talking about threatening to break his legs. If this is the same Selma Conroy from when I first landed out here, then she’s an old hooker. We could play up some kind of connection between the Doc and the hooker. Doesn’t matter if it isn’t true, because he’d have to prove a negative, and you can never do that on social media. Twitter, as you well know, is mightier than the sword, and in this economy no business owner needs bad press.”

Goat turned in his seat and stared at him. “You’re kind of a dick. You know that, right?”

Trout drove for a few seconds before he responded. “And you’re what? A saint?”

Goat sighed and shook his head. “You really know someone in Hollywood you could pitch this to?”

Trout nodded. “I have an agent, but so far I haven’t had anything this juicy to send her. Nothing remotely this juicy. She’ll know exactly where to go with this.”

“What if Hartnup stonewalls us?”

“We do an end run and go to Aunt Selma. Her past gives us a lever. And if that doesn’t work we write the story anyway and force it to break. Every story breaks, kid. Every one.”

“You should put that on your business card. It’s worlds better than ‘Fishing for News with Billy Trout.’”

“Blow me.”

Goat grinned as he fished out his iPhone and pulled up his Twitter account. “Hey, we’re doing okay. We got three hundred retweets of the coming-soon post. Nice. Give me something else so this doesn’t get cold.”

Trout thought about it. “How about … ‘Homer Gibbon: Does Witness X know where he buried the bodies?’”

“Lurid,” said Goat, and he posted the message. “I like it.”

They turned off of Doll Factory onto Transition Road. Trout immediately stamped on the brakes and the car skidded to a halt, slewing sideways and kicking up gravel.

The road was blocked with police cars and ambulances.

“What the fuck?” yelped Goat. “Oh, man … someone else found out about our story.”

“No,” murmured Trout, shaking his head slowly, “this is something else. But … it looks like we’re the first press on the scene. I think we just got even luckier, kid.”

Trout pulled the car onto the shoulder, turned off the engine and got out. As Goat unfolded himself from the passenger side, they saw two police officers staring at them. One of them, a woman, began walking toward the Explorer with the kind of determination that, in Trout’s experience, never boded well. No surprise, either, because even at that distance he could tell who it was.

Trout gripped the wheel with white-knuckled fists.

Dez. They had avoided each other for months now, but here she was. Any foolish thought he might have entertained about being over her crumbled into dust. His heart hammered suddenly in his chest but he couldn’t tell if it was excitement over seeing Dez or fear that she’d kneecap him the second he stepped out of the car.

“Brace yourself, kid,” said Trout under his breath. “We’re about to experience Hurricane Desdemona.”

“Her? Is that the chick in those pictures in your cubicle? She’s got a serious ass on her. Nice rack, too, and I—”

“Goat,” said Trout quietly, “if you would like to continue having your nuts attached to your body, do not — absolutely DO NOT — let Dez hear you say that. She is not a tolerant woman at the best of times, and when I’m around she’s a lot less tolerant than, say … Hitler at a bar mitzvah.”

“Yeah? You got some real history?”

“Kind of.”

Goat shrugged. “Who’d play her in the movie?”

“The shark from Jaws,” muttered Trout.

Dez Fox stormed up to the Explorer and kicked the door shut. Trout had to do a fast sideways shuffle to keep from getting clipped by it.

“Jesus Christ, Dez,” he barked, “you dented the whole—”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Her tone was loaded with enough frost to start an ice age.

Trout winced but tried to turn it into a smile. “Hey, is that any way to treat me after—”

Dez got up in his face, her voice low and tight. “Bring up the past, Billy, and I’ll tase you and stomp the shit out of you while you lay pissing in your khakis. Don’t think I’m joking.”

“Geez, Dez, let’s have a little perspective here. I wasn’t the one who—”

“You’re a dickbag who should have been thrown out with the afterbirth.”

Trout sighed and placed his hand over his heart. “You wound me, Desdemona.”

“I’m about to.”

“Whoa there, officer,” interjected Goat, waving his hand between them. “Let’s dial this down and—”

“Fuck off,” Dez and Trout said at the same time.

“I…”

JT had been a few steps behind Dez and stepped in now to take Goat by the arm and pull him back. “Come on, son, best to stand at a minimum safe distance when those two are in gear.”

Goat let himself be pulled to the other side of the road, watching as Dez and Trout bent toward each other, almost nose to nose, shouting at the top of their voices.

“What’s with them?” Goat asked. “They have some bad blood between than or something?”

JT wore a tolerant smile. “You figured that out, did you? Good for you.”

Goat turned to him, and he wasn’t smiling. “Don’t patronize me. I’m a freaking news cameraman, so how about a little respect?”

JT spread his hands. “Don’t have a stroke, kid. It was a joke. I got you out of there before you got hurt. Even I don’t try to get between Dez and Billy, and I’m armed.”

Goat was hardly mollified and grunted something in Yiddish. JT chuckled.

Twenty feet away, Dez and Trout were still going at it.

“I didn’t come here to start a fight, Desdemona,” said Trout.

“Call me that again and I’ll put a baton across your kneecaps. It’s Dez or Officer Fox. Actually, for you it’s only Officer Fox. Now tell me what you’re doing here.”

Trout bit back something he was going to say, and instead pointed at the crooked line of parked police units. “Chasing a story, Officer Fox. Why else would I be here?”

“There is no story. Thanks for coming. Have a nice day. Fuck off and die.”

“No story? So why are half the cops in the county here? And … Christ … is that blood all over your shirt?” His guts knotted like a fist. “Damn it, Dez, are you hurt?”

Dez stepped back from him, and Trout could see shutters drop behind her eyes. She cut a look at JT, and when Trout followed the line of her gaze he caught Sergeant Hammond giving a tiny shake of his head.

Dez cleared her throat. “This is an active crime scene,” she said in the uninflected tone cops are taught to use at the academy. “Should the situation require it, a formal statement will be made at the appropriate time.”

She started to turn and Trout touched her arm. “Come on, Dez, don’t run that shuck on me. I own the patent on bullshit in Stebbins County. There’s something serious going down here and I want in.”

Dez, in control now, stopped and looked pointedly at the hand and then at his face. “Please remove your hand, sir.”

“‘Sir’? Oh please … cut the shit, Dez,” said Trout, though he took his hand back. “At least tell me if you’re hurt.”