Flash and Fire (28 page)

“You are taking it.” Amanda backed away from him as
if he had a highly contagious disease. “I didn’t want to believe it. When Grimsley crowed at me, I thought it was just his way of trying to get at me. Of trying to hurt me.” The pain she felt gave way to outrage and hatred. “But you spared him the trouble, didn’t you?”

Pierce tried to place his hands on her shoulders, but Amanda knocked them aside with such force, he was stunned. The look on her face told him that if she could have, she would have hit him right here in the hall.

They were beginning to draw a crowd. He took her roughly by the arm and pushed her through the open door. “Let’s go into your office.”

Amanda tried to resist, but she had little choice. He was twice as strong as she was. But not twice as angry. Her chin jutted out defiantly.

“Why? So you can seduce me again? So I won’t realize what you’re up to?”

Now she’d made him angry. He closed the door firmly, blocking out the onlookers. “It wasn’t like that and you know it.”

No I don’t. I don’t know anything.

“I just know what they tell me. That I’m out of a job and you have it.” Her eyes narrowed. “Less than four weeks after you started stalking me, you have the six o’clock anchor position and I’m out in the cold.”

She made him sound like an unctuous, unscrupulous animal. Did she really believe what she was saying, or was that just her anger talking?

“I didn’t stalk you.”

Did he think she was a naive idiot as well?

“No? What would you call it, then? A dozen coincidences?”

To think she’d actually believed that she was falling in love with him.

“You manipulated me, and I can’t forgive that.” She was working up a full head of steam, and now one accusation after another fell from her tongue. “You’re even more despicable than Jeff was. You’re like my father.” Of all the trespasses, she hated manipulation the most. “He tried all his life to make me do what he wanted. He’s a lot better at it than you are, and he failed.”

Bitterness entered her eyes as she remembered. “He settled for running and ruining my mother’s life instead.” How could she have let him blind her so easily? “I should have seen right through you in the first place.”

Pierce shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from physically stopping her verbal attack. “God damn it, if you’d just settle down for a second—“

She had no intention of letting him confuse her or fill her head with doubts. The fact remained that he had taken the position, and there was nothing in the world he could say to change that.

“Sorry. Go practice your charm on someone else.” She yanked open the door, placing herself in the doorway so that he couldn’t close it again. “I don’t have anything else that you’d find worthwhile to seduce out of me. You’ve got my job. But don’t get too comfortable about having it,” she warned. “I intend to get it back!”

With that she stormed away, pushing through the thin group of people who had gathered at her door, drawn by the sound of raised voices.

Pierce was too angry to go after her. He didn’t trust himself as to what he might do or say. They both needed to cool down before they could talk rationally, he thought. If that was possible with Amanda.

As she had hoped, Amanda found Paul in the editing room, working with the tapes.

He grinned when he saw her. “Hey, what’s up, Amanda? Here to give me the once-over because I’m seeing Carla?” His grin faded when he saw the look in her eyes. Paul slid off the stool, temporarily abandoning the tape he was viewing. He placed a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. “Hey, you look all shook up.”

Damn, why couldn’t she mask her feelings just a little? When it was airtime she could keep the horror of what she viewed out of her eyes, but once the camera was turned away her tricks failed her. Her feelings were all there in her eyes, for anyone to see.

“I’ve been fired, Paul.”

He could only stare at her as the words shimmered beyond his comprehension. “What?”

“Fired,” she almost shouted. She saw that Kowalski had stopped working and was looking at her, mute sympathy in his eyes. “Axed.”

Restlessly, she began to prowl the small, window-less room. The artificial lighting overhead added to the surreal atmosphere. Maybe it was just a bad dream. All of it.

“Grimsley had a special Q status report done. He just informed me that I tested low and that I’m being ‘released’ from my contract because the viewers don’t like me.” She turned, a renewed fire in her eyes as she repeated the words. He had to be lying. “I need to see a copy of that report. Can you get it for me? I hate to do this to you, but you’re the only one I can ask.”

He flashed her a reassuring grin. Paul didn’t have the slightest idea where the reports were kept or even where to begin to look. But he would try.

“Sure. For you, Amanda, anything.” She needed someone to talk to, he thought. Without resentment, he knew he qualified as a second-stringer. She needed someone more in her league. “Have you told Alexander yet?”

Paul couldn’t understand why her expression changed to one of cynical bitterness.

“Who do you think is replacing me?”

He didn’t have a clue, but her phrasing had him going for the obvious, even though he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

“Not—.”

Her mouth hardened, crushing her smile. “None other. The smooth-talking weasel knew about it all the time.” And she could kill him for it. Not for taking her position; she could understand ambition like that, even if she couldn’t condone it. No, she could have killed him for using her the way he had. For using her heart and playing up to her son.

For making her care, when all he had cared about was climbing up the ladder.

Paul shook his head in utter disbelief. He’d worked with
the man. Pierce made his own rules, but they were rules.

“I can’t believe that.”

“I can.” She didn’t want to, but she could. All too easily, now that she looked back. She let out a sigh. “Since I have no news to anchor, I’m going home.” She tried to smile her gratitude, but it was only halfhearted. “See what you can do.”

Paul laid a hand on her back reassuringly. “Hey, don’t
worry, Amanda. You’re as good as back already. And this
thing with Pierce is just one big mix-up.”

“No, it was one big mix-up. But it’s over.” She brushed a kiss on the cameraman’s cheek. “Thanks, Paul. It’s been great working with you.”

He pointed a finger at her. “Not been, is,” he corrected.

“Right.” Amanda nodded, feeling suddenly numb and tired as she walked out.

She stopped by her office only long enough to get her purse. In her present frame of mind, she might not have remembered to do that, except that she needed her car keys.

As she left the office, Pierce was nowhere around. She’d half expected him to be jumping out of the shadows at her.

Just as well. The way she felt right now, she would have given in to the temptation of kicking him where it would have done the most good, at least as far as her sense of satisfaction went.

On the way home, Amanda was scarcely aware of the radio being on. Music and the occasional commercial and DJ patter buzzed in the background as she tried to create some sort of order in her mind.

It wasn’t until the news segment was almost over that she realized it was about Whitney. Startled, she almost swerved into the car on her right as she turned up the volume.

Whitney had been indicted that morning by the grand jury. The matter was now going to trial.

Life, it seemed, could always get worse.

Tears burned in Amanda’s eyes, stinging before they spilled out. What a difference an hour made. An hour ago, she’d felt as if she was on top of the world, however temporarily.

Temporary was hardly the word for it. Her happiness had lived and died within a forty-eight-hour period. Now she was out of a job, with the threat of being blacklisted if she protested. She’d been used by the man she’d just
realized she was in love with, and now someone who was
closer to her than her own father was facing prison.

It couldn’t get much worse.

Amanda felt as if everything that had any meaning in her life had shattered into a thousand pieces before her eyes. Her tears blinding her, Amanda stopped the car by the side of the road. She needed to get herself together before she had an accident.

She cried for more than five minutes. And then, annoyed at her own weakness, she forced herself to stop. Crying was no remedy.

She had to think, to plan.

Her words to Grimsley came back to her. She was going to fight this if she had to. In court, if necessary. She wasn’t about to give Grimsley, or Pierce for that matter, the satisfaction of seeing her cave in. Her career, her integrity meant too much.

“As God is my witness, they won’t—“

Amanda broke off the thought and realized that she was paraphrasing a line out of Gone With the Wind. She smiled to herself. That’s what she got for reading the book twelve times as a child.

It had been her favorite novel. Whitney had given her a hardback copy for her fifteenth birthday. The edges of the pages were gold. He had inscribed it: Amanda J. Foster, A Budding Scarlett O’Hara. Always remember that Tomorrow Is Another Day.

She closed her eyes and saw the inscription in her mind.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Tomorrow is another day. And I’ll be ready for it.”

Amanda turned her ignition on again and headed for home.

Chapter Thirty

Carla looked up from the floor, surprised to see Amanda walk into the living room. Carla was busy playing with Christopher. A network of trains and tracks was spread out all over the floor. There was a soap opera on the television in the background, but Carla had only been paying cursory attention to it. Her own life was becoming far more satisfying and fulfilling than anything she saw on the screen.

She sat back on her heels, trying to fathom the expression on Amanda’s face. “Aren’t you supposed to go on in a few hours?” Amanda always prepared for three hours prior to a broadcast.

Amanda started to drop her purse on the sofa and immediately realized her mistake. Christopher was already up off the floor, reaching for it. She slipped the strap back onto her shoulder.

She faced Carla. “I’ve been fired.”

“Fired?” Carla scrambled up to her feet. Her expression registered both fear and concern. All the possible ramifications began to take shape in her mind. She thought of Paul. “Oh no, does this mean we have to go back to New Mexico?”

Amanda shook her head. “No, it means we’re digging in and fighting. I just need some ammunition.” Stepping over a line of miniature railroad cars, Amanda glanced toward the den. “And a lawyer.”

Carla interpreted the words the only way she could. “You’re going to shoot someone and go to trial?” Her eyes were huge.

In Amanda’s present state of mind, it was a tempting thought.

“I’d like to, but no, it isn’t that simple.” Amanda crossed to the den. “Please keep Christopher occupied for the next few minutes. I need quiet.” She set her mouth grimly. “I have to make a phone call. To my father.”

Carla remained where she was. Now the seriousness of the situation really became evident; she knew how difficult that would be for Amanda. “You’re going to ask your father for help?”

Amanda didn’t want to discuss it. She knew she needed to make the call. Yet if she gave it too much thought, she would change her mind about it. “In a way.” She eased the door closed behind her.

Amanda stared at the telephone on her desk for several minutes, trying to work up the courage to face her father, even by phone. She needed the name of a lawyer. A very good lawyer.

She would rather have asked Lenny Baker at the station’s legal department. But now Lenny was on the other side of the table, with Grimsley beside him if it came down to that.

And she was standing alone.

She needed top-class help. No one knew the best names like her father.

Steeling herself, Amanda slowly tapped out the numbers to her father’s San Francisco office.

A crisp voice on the other end of the line answered almost immediately. “Law offices.”

Amanda was holding the receiver so tightly that the muscles in her hand were beginning to ache. She consciously loosened her grip. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Foster, please.”

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Foster is unavailable.” It was the standard answer that was given to everyone who called.
Amanda was more than familiar with it. “May I ask what
this is in reference to?”

Amanda thought she recognized the voice on the other end of the line.

“Rita?” Rita Kingston had been her father’s executive secretary for the last twenty years. How the woman could stand it, Amanda had no idea.

“Yes? Who’s this?”

Amanda breathed a sigh of relief. She could talk to Rita. “It’s Amanda, Rita. Amanda Foster.”

“Amanda?” The crisp voice dissolved in a flurry of warmth. “How have you been?”

There was so much to say. How could she pack four years into a single sentence? Amanda chose something deliberately vague. “Working. I’m at K-DAL in Dallas now.” Or I was. “Is my father really busy, or—?”

“He’s just going over a brief, but I’m sure he can spare a few minutes for you.”

Well, that makes one of us, Amanda thought.

Amanda knew how much her father hated to be disturbed. To be disturbed because his prodigal daughter was on the line would only compound his ire. She wouldn’t have wanted to be Rita when the woman walked into her father’s office.

But Rita, Amanda recalled, had always managed to ride out her father’s bad moods, far better than Amanda’s mother had. There had been a time when Amanda had been convinced that Henry Foster was sleeping with his secretary, but if that were true, she only felt pity for Rita. It must have been infinitely difficult and unsatisfying to make love with a man who had no love to give.

“Let me put you on hold,” Rita was saying. “I’ll go tell
him you’re calling.”

Soft theme music from classic old movies filled the air. Rita’s choice, no doubt. Her father would have opted for numbing silence.