Dead File (13 page)
The next day was Christmas. That meant turkey and trimmings spread out on the long conference-room table for everybody who had to work the holiday. Nice touch, except after the spread was delivered and laid out on Christmas morning, it would be left out there with nobody tending it during all the shifts, and after the first few hours you’d have to be really hungry to partake—the turkey would be cold, the stuffing congealed, the mashed potatoes would be like rocks, the gravy would have a layer of congealed fat on top, the salad would be wilted, and the bread would be hard. A gamey smell would permeate the room, and there’d be a greasy mess of cranberry sauce and gravy spills all over the slick mahogany conference table. Still, it would be festive—as festive as it gets on Christmas Day in the newsroom.
Wendy made an appointment to meet with Sunday on the day after Christmas, right after the early block got off the air, to determine what, if anything, Sunday Trent could do to help with her book project.
There was a whoop in the party crowd as Richard Winning-ham came in the door. Looking thinner and more rugged than when he left, Maxi observed, feeling a little flutter in the pit of her stomach. Interesting, the flutter, she thought, ever the objective analyst of her own libido. Richard walked over to Maxi and whispered in her ear, “I saved your life—that means I’m responsible for it, right?”
“So say the Chinese,” she whispered back. His warm breath stirred up the flutter again, she noted.
He turned from her and circulated, shaking hands with colleagues, telling war stories. Somebody handed him a glass of wine, and Pete Capra emerged from his office and gripped Richard in a bear hug. The party was jumping. They ate, they drank, they schmoozed, they congratulated Wendy, and they welcomed Richard home.
Maxi milled about with her bag of Christmas gifts. A signed copy of Tom Brokaw’s latest book for Pete; a new robin’s-egg-blue Kipling gym bag for Wendy. Small presents for reporters and staffers—soaps, candy, scented candles. Until there was one gift left in the bottom of the bag. For Richard.
After a little more than an hour, Richard cycled back to where she was standing and said, “Let’s go.” She grabbed her purse and followed him toward the door.
C
arter Rose thought it would look unseemly, just eight days after his wife’s death, but Kendyl insisted on going to Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s trendy, celebrity-packed restaurant in the flats of Beverly Hills. “We could never go anywhere because of your wife. Well, now she’s dead, and we can go to Spago. I’ve waited years for this,” she’d told him. Nagged him, really. Carter wasn’t liking this new Kendyl.
They were scheduled to go to Maui on Thursday, the day after Christmas, for the annual four-day industry conference that would mix business with festive fun, but without Gillian, taking Kendyl to Maui was out of the question. Carter had grudgingly agreed to take her to Spago tonight, but he was going to use the opportunity to tell her at dinner that Maui was off.
Kendyl wanted him to pick her up at home, like a real date, she said, but he’d held his ground on that one—they would meet at the restaurant. Heading south on Cañon Drive in his dignified black Mercedes, he made a silent note to himself to trade it in for a sports car in a few months. Something like a red 360 Ferrari Spider. Yes!
The street outside Spago was jammed, as usual, with limo pickups and dropoffs, diners meeting and greeting, and paparazzi in wait to catch celebs whose photos would sell to
People
,
Us Weekly, Self,
the tabloids, or any rag that would cough up a few bucks.
Carter pulled up behind the row of cars waiting for valet parking. As he climbed out of his Mercedes, he was astonished to see the gang of photographers suddenly bearing down on
him
in a blast of popping flashbulbs. To shouts of “Over here, Mr. Rose!”
“Sorry about your wife, Mr. Rose!”
“What do
you
think happened, sir?” he presented just a sad, resolute, tight-lipped half-smile as he moved politely through the crush. These damn pictures would show up
somewhere,
he knew, so he did his best to keep his temper in check until he escaped inside the restaurant. Stupid idea, Spago.
He’d made it a point to get there early. Dropping a twenty on the bar, he ordered a martini, then stood with it, facing the door, waiting for Kendyl to come in; he intended to head her off before she made a big announcement to the chic hostess that she was there to join Mr. Carter Rose.
Sipping his drink, he thought about things. The police hadn’t proved that Gillian was murdered. Nor would they ever find his own would-be attacker, he knew. As for Sandie, that depended on whether she came out of it, and if she did, what kind of mental shape she’d be in.
And Kendyl. Kendyl had to go. Their affair worked well for him for nearly a decade while he was married to Gillian, but she’d been getting increasingly clingy over the years. Complaining that he was cheating on his wife with her, and cheating on her with other women. He’d always managed to deflect her accusations handily, but with Gillian dead she’d been acting as if she owned him now. Conversely, his wife’s death seemed to signal a sea change for him, a hundred and eighty degrees. Though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, he was looking forward to embarking on totally new experiences, and that included the area of his sex life.
Kendyl came in the door, tall, golden, sleek, and stunning, in a black silk pantsuit with silver pinstripes and five-inch strappy silver heels. She looked around, caught Carter’s eye, and broke into a dazzling smile that lit up even the glittering Spago bar. Kendyl Scott turned heads, no question, but Carter mentally recited to himself the ages-old locker-room cliché: For every beautiful woman, there’s a guy who’s tired of fucking her. Smiling to himself, he walked over, took her elbow, and guided her to the reception desk, where he didn’t introduce her.
“Your table is ready, Mr. Rose.” The attractive, leggy, brunette hostess beamed.
Carter smiled back at her.
So many women…
“Really, Richard, Spago!” Maxi said. The two were seated in a far corner booth that looked out on the wide expanse of the holiday-bedecked main dining room.
“Tonight is special, Max—who knows when I’m going to get another one like this?”
Their waiter came over and poured more champagne. The two tipped their glasses to each other. Again. Maxi felt thoroughly warm and fuzzy.
“I’ve missed you, woman,” Richard said.
“How have you had time to miss anybody?”
“Trust me, between filing stories and ducking trench mortar, there’s time. Not a whole lot of good theater in Kabul or Karachi.”
“Do you hate it?”
“Actually, no. It’s the most interesting assignment I’ve ever had. The most humbling, too. We’re so lucky here.”
“I know. I’ve hung the bourkha you sent in my office. To remind me that the newsroom isn’t the real battlefield, even though a lot of times it seems like one.” She didn’t mention that she’d also hung it there to remind her of Richard.
She hadn’t had time to really get to know him before he was assigned to the Middle East. Assigned there because albeit he was the newest reporter at Channel Six, he was arguably the best. So when the United States went to war, Richard went to Afghanistan then Pakistan.
He’d moved to Southern California after ten years as a crime reporter at the ABC station in New York, and he’d been on staff at Channel Six for just a few weeks before she’d gotten herself into that terrifying situation with a deranged drug addict who most certainly would have killed her if Richard and Pete Capra hadn’t shown up when they did. Then, before Maxi had had time to recuperate fully, Richard had left the country.
Maxi reached into her purse and brought out a small package wrapped in bright red paper and tied with black satin ribbon. “Your Christmas present,” she said, and she handed it to Richard. His face lit up in a wide, boyish grin.
Like a kid at Christmas,
was the phrase that came to Maxi’s mind. She loved that he didn’t ward her off with the usual “Oh, no, you shouldn’t have!” business. “For me?” he exclaimed with obvious delight.
“For you,” she said, “because I’m sure you haven’t had time to pick one up yet, and the new year starts next week.”
He untied the ribbon and removed the wrapping paper. It was a small, black leather agenda book for the new year.
“Oh, I
need
this!” Richard said, caressing the rich leather and the gilded pages. “You’re right, you can’t get one of these where I’ve been. Not a priority item at the bazaar in Mazar-i-Sharif.”
“Small enough to take with you on shoots, and there’s room each day to keep a limited journal,” she pointed out.
Richard opened the book to a place marked by a woven gold ribbon. There was handwriting on the page, Maxi’s writing. He checked the date: October 30.
My everlasting thanks,
the message read. And it was signed,
Maxi
.
“Our anniversary,” Richard said, and smiled. October 30, almost two months ago, was the day Richard Winningham had saved her life.
“I’ll be thinking of you on that day,” Maxi said, expecting him to say something like “We’ll spend it together.” What he said was, “Wow, beautiful leather.” Men.
“I have a gift for you, too,” Richard said then, reaching into his pocket and taking out a small cardboard box tied with string.
“You do? When did you … How … ?”
“Oh, we have ways,” Richard said. “And coincidentally, my gift is a continuation of the theme.”
Maxi opened the box. Inside, wrapped in coarse, yellowed Arabic newsprint, was a tiny, sterling silver whistle on a chain. “In case you ever get dragooned again,” Richard said with a smile. “Try it. It’s small, but it really shrieks.”
She felt her eyes burning. For all they had been through, and for this lovely night. Handing the amulet to Richard, she turned away from him on the leather banquette so he could fasten the clasp. And so he wouldn’t see her misty eyes.
They toasted again. “To a terrific year,” Richard said. “For us, and for the state of the world.”
“Good thing I don’t have a story for the Eleven tonight,” Maxi said with a grin, and they drank.
Maxi turned to look at an attractive couple who were being led to a table in the middle of the floor. When the woman looked their way, she recognized Kendyl Scott from Rose International. And the woman’s escort was her boss, Carter Rose.
The mogul and his assistant, unremarkable enough, certainly. So why did it strike Maxi as wrong in some way? Maybe because the restaurant seemed too fancy, and the time too short since Rose had lost his wife. This Christmas Eve date just didn’t look like business to her. She filled Richard in on who the two were, and the ongoing story involving the man, his wife’s recent death, and her assistant’s subsequent attack.
Carter Rose shifted in his chair. “Wine?” he asked Kendyl.
“Wonderful,” she answered, with a loving smile that reached her eyes.
“White or red?”
“You know I like white, darling.”
“How about a nice champagne tonight?”
With a puzzled look, she said, “You also know that I’m not fond of champagne, Carter.”
“Sorry.”
Carter felt enormously uncomfortable in this high-profile restaurant with Kendyl. As he’d known he would, especially after the unexpected media assault at the entrance. “Listen,” he said to her, “I can’t take you to Maui.” Might as well get that out of the way, he reasoned.
“Wha—why not?” she asked, her exotic, blue-black eyes darkening even more.
“Because it isn’t right.”
“I don’t understand. It was right to travel with you when Gillian was alive, but it isn’t right now that she’s dead?”
Their waiter came to the table. Relieved at the interruption, Carter made a ritual of ordering a bottle of 1982 Chateau St. Jean Chardonnay. When the waiter left, he took a deep breath and tried again.
“Look, Kendyl, be reasonable. We have to stay away from each other for a while. Let some time go by.”
“I let eight years go by, Carter. I want a life. I want children. I want to marry you. I’ve always wanted to marry you. And you’ve always known that.”
Carter was not happy with the way this conversation was going. Clearly, he and Kendyl wanted very different things. “The timing is wrong,” he said.
“When will it be right?” She leveled her gaze at him. “When can we be a real couple?”
Never,
he said to himself. This was over. What he said aloud was, “I don’t know. I can’t handle any more pressure right now. All I know is I need time to adjust to everything that’s happened. That’s still happening. This ugly mess is far from over.” And again he said, “I need time.”
Kendyl looked incredulous. “But I don’t have any more time to waste, Carter. I’ve given you nearly a decade of my life. And I can’t wait another decade. Or a half a decade. Now I want what you promised me over the years. Legitimacy. A baby, maybe two. It’s what we’ve always dreamed of, darling.”
“Things have changed—”
“What do you mean, changed? Gillian’s gone, yes, but nothing’s changed between us.”
“It looks bad.”
“Listen, people don’t really care what other people do. They forget. It doesn’t matter what they think, anyway. I’m listening to my biological clock, Carter, and I want to start a family. You always told me that you’d leave Gillian. Now you don’t have to. Now we can be together,
really
together. I’m not saying tomorrow, but we can make plans. We can get married quietly, maybe in June—”
Carter put a hand on her arm to stop her. “Kendyl,” he said, “I can’t think about this now.”
She softened. “We’ll think about it in Maui,” she said. “We’ll get away, walk on the beach, clear our heads of all this, figure out our future—”
“I’m not taking you to Maui,” he interrupted, his eyes determined. “I told you that. I can’t take you to Maui.”
In that instant, Kendyl grasped his subtext. He wasn’t taking her to Maui. He wasn’t going to marry her. She was becoming less important in his life, not more important. She’d wasted half her twenties and thirties, her best years, waiting for a man who had no intention of giving her what he’d always promised, what she’d hung in for.