Flash and Fire (31 page)

Voices converged, swarming around her like bees attacking an intruder at the hive.

“What kind of luck, Amanda?”

“Was it a man?”

“Did you sleep with Grimsley?”

“Any truth to the fact that you had a lovers’ quarrel and that’s what this is all about?”

“I saw the sparks that went flying after the Granger announcement.”

“C’mon, Foster, give.”

She wanted to scream at them, to tell them to leave her alone. With a stab of guilt, Amanda suddenly realized what it was like on the other side of the microphone. She thought of Whitney, and her heart ached.

Did she come across like this in the field? Oh God, she hoped not.

No, no she wasn’t like this, she thought fiercely, remembering Mr. Anselmo. She had let him have his grief in private.

With determination, Amanda reverted to the one statement everyone used when hounded by the media. And she was being hounded, she thought, annoyed at them for doing this to her. After all, she was one of them. She deserved some sort of consideration, some sort of professional courtesy.

“No comment. Look.” She raised the box. “I just came to clear out my desk.”

Someone reached for the box and Amanda pulled it aside. “Does that mean you’re giving up?”

“Was Grimsley right?” A voice behind her asked. “Are you bringing the ratings down?”

She stopped and swung around, her eyes blazing. She didn’t know who asked the question and she didn’t care. She was disgusted with the lot of them. They weren’t her coworkers any more. This was a mob.

“Don’t you people have anything better to do than to turn me into some kind of a freak sideshow for your own amusement? I could have been any one of you.”

“But you’re not,” someone pointed out. “And you’re news.”

“Maybe, but she’s damn well tired of being picked apart.”

Amanda turned toward the voice she’d recognize anywhere. Pierce strode into the crowd, effectively parting it. He took her arm protectively.

“Let’s go, Mandy.”

“Hey, Pierce, is it true?” Ryan Richards asked, amused. And relieved that it was Amanda who had gotten the ax and not him. They all knew the business was cutthroat. There was no time to mourn a fallen comrade; they were too busy looking out for their own backs. “Are you taking over for Amanda? How does it feel to step into her spot?”

Pierce wasn’t about to let himself get sucked into any of this. They’d all know soon enough. He had to go on tonight. “Ask me when this is all ironed out.” The smile remained on his face, but there were sharp edges to it. “Now let the lady through.”

More questions buzzed around them as they made their way to the exit, but neither Amanda nor Pierce answered. As he opened the exit door, Pierce shot a look over his shoulder that warned the others to back off.

“Hey, Pierce—“

“Later,” he ordered. Everyone knew that there was no arguing with him.

They stepped outside, and Pierce took the box from her hands. They said nothing as he walked her to her car.

Amanda turned and looked at him. Emotions churning, she had to say something to Pierce. “I guess I should say thank you.”

He placed the box on her hood. He didn’t want her just going through the motions. There was no need for that. “Only if you want to.”

She knew he meant that. About everything. Amanda unlocked her trunk. “Why’d you ride to my rescue?”

Pierce picked the box up and placed it inside for her. “I always wanted to play a hero.”

She closed the trunk and then got in on the driver’s side. She put her key into the ignition, but let it stay there. Her door was still open. “That’s twice you’ve played hero in one month. Except no one would have shot me.”

He arched a brow. “They might have if I’d let you go into that liquor store.”

Let her? Amanda’s eyes widened in surprise. “You did it for me?”

The grin was slightly cocky. “Hell, no, I did it for me, remember? I like glory and attention.”

Like hell he did. Had he really risked his life to keep her from going in? She hadn’t thought of it in those terms. “Alexander, I just can’t figure you out.”

Slowly, he smiled at her. “The feeling’s mutual. Maybe we should both stop trying so hard.” Pierce touched her cheek. “See you around, Mandy. And watch your back. Our fellow reporters love a good story.” He shut her door for her and stood back.

Amanda started up the car and drove away. Her emotions were in an even larger jumble now than they had been before. One moment, she felt he was using her; the next, he was coming to her rescue and refusing to take credit.

The man was making her crazy, she thought. Ultimately, that was probably his plan.

Chapter Thirty Three

In appearance, at fifty-seven, Jefferson Stone had no stage presence whatsoever. He was a tall, almost emaciated-looking man with a body that approximated a curved wire coat hanger. His yellow-white hair was neatly combed and looked tacked onto his pear-shaped head. It wasn’t until Stone opened his mouth to speak that Amanda’s confidence began to rise.

When she was first ushered into the senior lawyer’s office by a chirpy young secretary and had gotten her first look at the man, Amanda was certain that her father was attempting to play a bizarre trick on her. Wearing a hound’s-tooth jacket and a drooping bow tie, the man sitting behind the neatly organized mahogany desk struck her as a caricature drawing of a befuddled old history professor.

But when Stone spoke, the voice that swelled and filled the office was deep and pleasingly resonant, exuding both confidence and assertiveness. Just by speaking, he created a feeling that made his clients believe they were in the absolute right. Stone conveyed the impression that agreeing with him was not only the wise thing to do, it was the only thing to do.

It was an excellent gift for a lawyer.

Stone’s green eyes, small and deep-set behind wire-rimmed bifocals, were intelligent and alert. He seemed to be dissecting everything and reducing it into terms he could work with. Her father had the same look, except that his was cold. Stone’s eyes had a warmth to them, a humanity that put Amanda instantly at ease.

The lawyer listened quietly as Amanda told her story, stopping her occasionally to ask a question and taking notes on his legal-sized yellow pad. When she was finished, he studied both sets of the Q status reports she had brought in.

Setting them aside on his desk, he rocked slowly in his chair, his blue-veined hands folded before him. He worked his lower lip thoughtfully. He didn’t like taking money for no reason.

“This could be easily resolved without my help.”

“This particular incident,” she agreed. “But perhaps not the next. And the one after that. I want to be assured that Grimsley will stop trying to find ways of having me fired. Permanently.”

He studied her face as he worked over the facts she had told him. “I think you have a case, Miss Foster.”

“A good one?” She began to slip the reports back into her manila envelope, but he placed a hand on the top sheet.

“I’d like to keep those, if you don’t mind.” Amanda nodded and withdrew her hand. “I wouldn’t be thinking in terms of taking your case if it wasn’t a good one. At
my age, I am no longer given to tilting against windmills.
That’s for younger men with something to prove and reputations to forge.”

He leaned and pulled over a large crystal jar filled with jelly beans of a dozen or so colors and flavors. He helped himself to a few, then pushed the jar in Amanda’s direction.

“No thank you.”

He smiled. “My secretary helps me indulge my one and only weakness.”

He neatly replaced the lid on the jar and moved it to its original spot. Everything within the office, Amanda noticed, looked meticulous and precise. There was no clutter.

Stone glanced down at the notes he’d made. “Discrimination and harassment have been popular causes for years now.”

Amanda could just see the headlines, both in newspapers and in grocery store tabloids. Though citing harassment had been her initial inclination, she didn’t want to be thought of as someone jumping on a bandwagon just to get a place in the spotlight.

“Mr. Stone, I’m not looking to capitalize on a ‘popular cause.’”

An enigmatic smile barely dusted his lips. “Too bad, because you have one.” He flipped to the next page and nodded to himself as he read. “And it’ll work in our favor. We might not even have to go to trial.”

Amanda leaned back in her chair for the first time and breathed a sigh of relief. It had been what she was hoping for.

“I’d like that.”

The accuser in a sexual harassment trial was severely grilled by the defense attorney. It wasn’t something Stone enjoyed seeing his clients subjected to. That was his reason for wanting to avoid going to trial. Her reasons against it piqued his curiosity. He knew whose daughter she was, but little else about her.

“Would you?”

She saw the hint of doubt in his gaunt face. Time to set the record straight now. “Mr. Stone, I’m not grandstanding and I’m not looking to cash in on any publicity that’s out there.”

“Why not?” He flipped the pages back and leaned on the pad, his hands folded again. “It’s there. You might make it work for you.”

She needed to make him understand. If Stone was going to be her lawyer, he was going to be an extension of her. That meant he had to understand the woman he was representing.

“All I want to work for me is me. I’m a news reporter, and a good one. I want to do the news and build my career on credibility and good journalism. I don’t want to do it by default, because I got in due to a quota system or because it’s politically correct to espouse something.”

Getting up steam, Amanda sat on the edge of her chair and looked at Stone. “Here’s the case in a nutshell. For his own reasons, Grimsley doesn’t like me, and because he doesn’t like me, he’s taking away my job. And I don’t want him to. Ever. It’s as simple as that.”

Stone was silent for a moment, and Amanda began to
think that she’d lost him. “Always get on your soapbox so
quickly?”

She had lost him. Amanda began to rise. “Maybe I should rethink this.”

She meant rethink hiring him. Stone allowed himself a smile. A real one this time. He waved a wide, bony hand at her.

“Sit, sit, I was just testing you.”

She didn’t know if she liked his way of operating. “I’m afraid I didn’t come prepared for an exam.”

He knew better. Amanda Foster was a woman used to being tested, to being challenged.

“Yes you did. And you passed. I don’t need to take cases, Miss Foster. My needs are simple and I couldn’t outlive my money if God decided to turn me into another Methuselah, which I sincerely hope He doesn’t. Although He has been known to have a quirky sense of humor.” Stone took her completely by surprise when he winked. “Just look at some of our presidents and you’ll understand my meaning.”

Stone sighed. “But I digress.” A satisfied look creased
his face. “At my age, and with my reputation, it’s allowed.”

Steepling his fingers together, he leaned back and rocked again. “I don’t like people who wield power badly. It makes no difference to me whether it’s a manager in a small fast-food chain or the head of a huge conglomerate. Power, all power, is fleeting, and should be used to benefit people, not make them cringe. I’ll take your case, Amanda Foster, and we will win it. You have my promise.”

To seal his vow, he leaned over his desk and shook her hand. Amanda noted that his hand felt cold, as if his circulatory system was having trouble reaching it.

That taken care of, Stone leaned back and glanced at the notes he’d made while she’d told her story. “Now then, about this Pierce Alexander—“

Amanda immediately felt on edge. “I’d really rather not have him brought into the case if possible.”

Stone looked up at her sharply, alerted by her tone of voice. “Why?”

To keep from fidgeting, Amanda rested her hands on the arms of the chair. “He didn’t have anything to do with my losing my job.”

She believed that part of it. It was the rest she was trying to work out for herself. Did Pierce, once he learned about the possibility of getting her job, try to seduce her so that she wouldn’t be inclined to oppose Grimsley’s decision? And did he lobby the man for her job once he thought it was in jeopardy?

Amanda had no answers for that. She only knew what she wanted to believe.

“Yes, but the point is he has it now.” Stone cocked his head, reminding her of a bent Q-Tip. “Are you seeing the man?” When she hesitated with her answer, he pressed on. “I see. Then are you romantically involved with Alexander?”

She was. Whether romance had anything to do with the way Pierce viewed what they’d had, she didn’t know. But she doubted it.

Amanda shrugged evasively. “I’ve gone out with him once or twice.”

Her response brought forth a patient sigh. “I’m your lawyer, Miss Foster. I don’t think I have to explain to you that what’s said here is confidential. At the moment, I am half parent, half father-confessor. I don’t believe that the truth shall always set you free, but I do know that I need the truth in order to effectively do my job.”

“Yes.” She paused before continuing. It was hard to say the words out loud. “I am romantically involved with Pierce Alexander.”

It was just as he had surmised. “Well then, stop.”

Amanda narrowed her brows. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t bother repeating himself. He knew that she had heard him. After making a few more notes to himself, Stone raised his eyes to hers and continued.

“I can’t, of course, live your life for you; nor can I dic
tate its terms. I can only advise you. My advice is that until the case is resolved to your satisfaction, you have nothing to do with Mr. Alexander.”

However mildly, Stone was attacking Pierce’s integrity. Amanda found herself in the odd position of feeling defensive on his behalf.

“Mr. Stone, I don’t think that Alexander—“

Stone was already one jump ahead of her. “I’m not insinuating that Mr. Alexander is Mr. Grimsley’s spy, although stranger things have happened.” He let the idea sink in before continuing. “What I am saying, however, is that you might inadvertently say something in the man’s presence that could be detrimental to your case.” He spread his hands in an innocent gesture. “A slip of the tongue that Mr. Alexander then passes on without realizing it.”