Nora Roberts - Private scandals

"You weren't even going to tell me. You were just going to make some lame excuse about why the trip was canceled. You'd have lied to me."

He'd have killed for her, he thought, and shrugged. "Now that's not necessary." He leaned back in the chair, steepled his fingers. Though he was wearing a sweater and jeans, he looked every inch the star. "How did the show go this morning?"

"Stop it. Just stop it." She whirled, jabbing a finger at Barlow. "You can order him to go, can't you?"

"I thought I could." He lifted his hands, let them fall. "I came from New York hoping to make him see reason. I should have known better." With a sigh, he rose. "I'll be in the newsroom for the next hour or so. If you fare any better than I did, let me know."

Finn waited until the door clicked shut. The sound was as definitive as that of the bell in a boxing ring. "You won't, Deanna, so you might as well accept it."

"I want you to go," she said, spacing each word carefully. "I don't want our lives to be interfered with. It's important to me."

"You're important to me."

"Then do this for me."

He picked up a pencil, ran it through his fingers once, twice, then snapped it neatly in two. "No."

"Your career could be on the line." He tilted his head as if considering it. And damn him, his dimples winked at her. "I don't think so."

He was, she thought, as sturdy, as unshakable and as unmovable as granite. "They could cancel your show."

"Throw out the baby with the bathwater?" Though he wasn't feeling particularly calm, he levered back, propped his feet on the desk. "I've known network execs to do dumber things, so let's say they decide to cancel a highly rated, profitable and award-winning show because I'm not going on the road for a while." He stared up at her, his eyes darkly amused. "I guess you'd have to support me while I'm unemployed. I might get to like it and retire completely. Take up gardening or golf. No, I know. I'll be your business manager. You'd be the star — you know, like a country-

western singer."

"This isn't a joke, Finn."

"It isn't a tragedy, either." His phone rang. Finn picked up the receiver, said, "Later," and hung up again. "I'm sticking, Deanna. I can't keep up with the investigation if I'm off in Europe."

"Why do you need to keep up with it?" Her eyes narrowed. "Is that what you've been doing? Why there was a rerun last Tuesday night? All those calls from Jenner. You're not working on In Depth, you're working with him."

"He doesn't have a problem with it. Why should you?"

She spun away. "I hate this. I hate that our private and professional lives are becoming mixed and unbalanced. I hate being scared this way. Jumping every time there's a noise in the hall, or bracing whenever the elevator door opens."

"That's my point. That's exactly how I feel. Come here." He held out a hand, gripping hers when she walked around the desk. With his eyes on hers, he drew her into his lap. "I'm scared, Deanna, right down to the bone."

Her lips parted in surprise. "You never said so."

"Maybe I should have. Male pride's a twitchy business. The fact is, I need to be here, I need to be involved, to know what's happening. It's the only way I've got to fight back the fear."

"Just promise me you won't take any chances, any risks."

"He's not going after me, Deanna."

"I want to be sure of that." She closed her eyes. But she wasn't sure.

After Deanna left, Finn went down to the video vault. An idea had been niggling at him since Marshall's murder, the notion that he'd forgotten something. Or overlooked it.

All Barlow's talk about responsibili- ties, loyalties, had triggered a memory. Finn skimmed through the black forest of video cases until he found February 1992.

He slipped the cassette into the machine, fast-forwarding through news reports, local, world, weather, sports. He wasn't sure of the precise date, or how much coverage there had been. But he was certain Lew Mcationeil's previous Chicago connection would have warranted at least one full report on his murder.

He got more than he'd hoped for.

Finn slowed the tape to normal, eyes narrowing as he focused in on the CBC reporter standing on the snowy sidewalk.

"Violence struck in the early morning hours in this affluent New York neighborhood. Lewis Mcationeil, senior producer of the popular talk show Angela's, was gunned down outside his home in Brooklyn Heights this morning. According to a police source, Mcationeil, a Chicago native, was apparently leaving for work when he was shot at close range. Mcationeil's wife was in the house…" The camera did its slow pan. "She was awakened shortly after seven A.m. by the sound of a gunshot."

Finn listened to the rest of the report, eyes fixed. Grimly, he zipped through another week of news, gathering snippets on the Mcationeil murder investigation.

He tucked his notes away and headed into the newsroom. He found Joe as the cameraman was heading out on assignment.

"Question."

"Make it a quick one. I'm on the clock." "February ninety-two. Lew Mcationeil's murder. That was your camerawork on the New York stand-up, wasn't it?"

"What can I say?" Joe polished his nails on his sweatshirt. "My art is distinctive."

"Right. Where was he shot?"

"As I recall, right outside his house." As he thought back, Joe reached into his hip pocket for a Baby Ruth. "Yeah, they said it looked like he was cleaning off his car."

"No, I mean anatomically. Chest, gut, head? None of the reports I reviewed said."

"Oh." Joe frowned, shutting his eyes as if to bring the scene back to mind. "They'd cleaned up pretty good by the time we got there. Never saw the stiff." He opened his eyes. "Did you know Lew?"

"Some."

"Yeah, me too. Tough." He bit off a hefty section of chocolate. "Why the interest?"

"Something I'm working on. Didn't your reporter ask the cops for details?"

"Who was that — Clemente, right? Didn't last around here very long. Sloppy, you know? I can't say if he did or not. Look, I've got to split." He headed for the stairs, then rapped his knuckles on the side of his head. "Yeah, yeah." He headed up the steps backward, watching Finn. "Seems to me I heard one of the other reporters talking. He said Lew caught the bullet in the face. Nasty, huh?"

"Yeah." A grim satisfaction swam through Finn's blood. "Very nasty."

Jenner munched a midmorning danish, washing down the cherry filling with sweetened coffee. As he ate and sipped, he studied the grisly photos tacked to the corkboard. The conference room was quiet now, but he'd left the blinds open on the glass door that separated it from the bull pen of the precinct.

Angela Perkins. Marshall Pike. He stared at what had been done to them. If he stared long enough, he knew he could go into a kind of trance — a state of mind that left the brain clear for ideas, for possibilities.

He was just annoyed enough at Finn for emotion to interfere with intellect. The man should have told him the details of his conversation with Pike. However slight it had been, it had been police business. The idea of Finn interviewing Pike alone burned Jenner more bitterly than the station house coffee.

He remembered their last meeting, in the early hours of the morning that Pike had been murdered.

"We're clear that the shooter knows Miss Reynolds." Jenner ticked the fact off on a finger. "Was aware of her relationship, or at least her argument, with Pike." He held up a second finger. "He or she knows Deanna's address, knew Pike's and had enough knowledge of the studio to set up the camera after killing Angela Perkins."

"Agreed."

"The notes have shown up under Deanna's door, on her desk, in her car, in the apartment she still keeps in Old Town." Jenner had lifted a brow, hoping that Finn would offer some explanation for that interesting fact. But he hadn't. Finn knew how to keep information to himself. It was one of the things Jenner admired about him. "It has to be someone who works at CBC," Jenner concluded.