Triumph (6 page)

Hungry, hungry hoodlums. They’d eaten everything.

Empty suitcases lay open on the carpet, the linings slashed. Deke snapped on a rubber glove he took from an inside pocket and ran a hand inside the nearest suitcase. Vinyl and cardboard. Cheap construction. No contraband. No nothing.

Still, the crime lab two states away might find microscopic evidence. He’d put in a request for techs to clear the room and retrieve the bugs in the lamps and walls. The audio would be analyzed and voiceprints made, fingerprints run through the national database.

They might get a hit or two. But the brains behind this operation preferred mules with no police records who often didn’t know what they were transporting.

The bunch in this room seemed to have figured it out and helped themselves to the goods. The body count would go up when the operation’s enforcers caught up with them.

What a bust.

Deke had followed his orders to the letter, getting into the abandoned building by afternoon, doing surveillance on the parking lot pinpointed by the informant, watching for a major drop. Then everything went haywire—why, he still didn’t know. Not because of the news crew.

The thugs in fancy cars started shooting at each other, not at Kelly or the two people with her. With the news crew out of the way, the real excitement began. Three dead. He didn’t have what it took to feel sorry for criminals with homicidal inclinations, but like Kelly, he wondered about the unknown woman in the car, now missing. Still, it was all over but the paperwork, which Deke hated filling it out.

A knock on the door made him straighten again. “Housekeeping,” called a voice.

He took off the glove and snapped it into a wastebasket. There was another knock, louder this time. He went to the door and flipped back the inside bolt, then opened it.

“Good morning,” Deke said pleasantly, flattening himself against the wall.

“If you say so.”

Leaving the cart at the door, the housekeeper entered, brushing past Deke. She was a lot bigger when she was that close, about the size of a linebacker. A thick hand yanked at the hairnet, dragging a wig off with it and revealing a crew cut. Both got tossed on the floor.

An armchair groaned as Huxton Smith settled his bulk into it, unbuttoning the striped uniform to reveal a bulletproof vest. He scratched his sandy, gray-speckled hair.

“Whew. Glad this stakeout’s over. I hate wearing a disguise. Especially that wig.”

Deke laughed. “But you look great with a center part.”

“Shut up. I never knew making beds was such hard work.”

“How were the tips?”

“This suite, not great. Your criminal element tends to be cheap.”

“They know they’re not coming back, Hux.”

His partner looked at the slashed suitcases. “Guess they got what they came for.”

“You didn’t hear them leave?”

“No. My supervisor had me cleaning room 17-B right around then. A bunch of frat boys hired strippers and sneaked in a keg.”

“Whoopee.”

“You got it. Quite a party. They served beer plus vodka plus a mixed assortment of uppers in a candy bowl.”

Deke grinned. “You took inventory.”

“While I mopped up the vomit, yeah.” Hux scratched his head with both hands. “What a bunch of gorillas. According to hotel security, they trashed the furniture and started a slugfest, during which the strippers helped themselves to the loose wallets and vamoosed. Cops got called, hauled everyone in the room out and down in the service elevator.”

“Where are they now?”

“The fratties are probably sleeping it off in the drunk tank downtown. The strippers went back to the Bump ‘N’ Grind, I guess. And here I am.”

“You have it easy,” Deke said dismissively, “handing out pillow mints while I dodge bullets.”

Huxton looked him over. “Heard you almost took one. I can see the mark from here.”

Deke glanced down at a streak in the shoulder of his leather jacket and shrugged. “A graze. Good as a miss.”

“Tough talk. Move faster next time, Bannon.”

“I had to get some people out of the way. A TV news reporter and a crew of two.”

“What the hell were they doing there?”

Deke sighed and leaned against the wall across from Hux. “Using the building for a backdrop. Unannounced and unexpected.”

“What? I didn’t get briefed on that.”

“I got them out before the law arrived.”

Huxton’s face creased into a frown. “How come I didn’t see anything on the news?”

“I talked to one of them afterward, asked her to keep it to herself and her crew. She didn’t seem eager to let her boss know that they’d been there.”

“And why was that?”

Deke shrugged. “She knew she’d stumbled onto a hot story and she doesn’t want it taken away from her. That was my understanding, anyway. First time I ever actually talked to a reporter.”

“Then watch your back,” Huxton said emphatically. “Total pain in the butt, those news people. Bigger snoops than we are, and sometimes they’re better at it.”

Deke nodded.

“But they don’t have skin in the game. Once they ramp up their ratings or print a screaming headline that sells papers, they’re done. We’re still fighting it out with the bad guys.” Huxton paused, narrowing his eyes at Deke. “So did you two actually make some kind of a deal?”

“I’m not sure.”

Hux sighed. “Here’s how it works, babycakes. You pretend to be her source in return for her silence.”

Deke shook his head. “I’ll try. I need to talk to her again.”

“Lead her on. Stall. Distract her with a nice safe story about blueberry smugglers or something. Whatever it takes.”

“Okay. Thanks for the advice.”

“And keep her close,” his partner continued. “I mean, by phone. Whatever you do, don’t sleep with her. Is she pretty? I forgot to ask.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Then you’re in trouble. Don’t get stupid.”

A muffled ringtone sounded from deep inside the armchair.

“Incoming. ’Scuse me.” Huxton shifted heavily on the cushion, trying to get a smartphone out of his back pocket without success. He stood up and shucked the striped uniform, retrieving the phone just as the ringtone stopped.

Huxton studied the screen. “Hell’s bells. Headquarters and the Atlanta PD agree for once. The chief is going to ask the media to play down the shooting. No more than a mention on the evening news or bury it on a back page. Over and out.”

He put the phone back in his pocket without replying to the text.

“Guess I don’t have to play mind games with Kelly, then,” Deke said.

Huxton shot him a sharp look. “Kelly Johns was at the building? The blonde from WBRX?”

Deke stood up. “That’s the one.”

Huxton whistled.

K
elly had overslept. The hands of the huge clock visible from every point in the newsroom were at 10:15 by the time she sneaked in.

“Kelly!” Fred Chiswick, the senior newswriter, intercepted her mad dash to her office. “Here’s your copy if you want to take a look.”

“Fred, please. I have to have some coffee before I face Monroe.”

“Oh, right. He escorted you to that club opening last night. I saw the photos on the WBRX Facebook page.”

Fred was following her down the hall. She wasn’t about to give him the full report. By the first light of day, padding around her condo after a long, hot shower, she hadn’t been so sure she was right about having been followed. But when rain clouds darkened the sky as she drove in, the strange feeling came back.

“Did you have fun?” he asked.

“Not really. I left before he did. He’s going to want an explanation.”

“Which is?”

They were out of earshot of the newsroom. “I was tired and bored and he was driving me crazy.”

“Lie to him,” Fred said cheerfully. The brash advice was at odds with his appearance. He looked like a tweedy little professor, his brown eyes hidden by round-rimmed spectacles.

Kelly waved him into her office and shut the door quietly, not sitting down when Fred handed her the pages.

“I could have e-mailed them, but I know you like to mark your material,” he said.

She read it in silence, almost relieved to see no mention of yesterday’s shootout. It was bound to come up at the morning meeting. One of the assignment editors usually summarized the scanner feeds out loud.

“Looks great,” she told Fred, handing the pages back.

“No changes?”

“Not a one.” She opened a desk drawer and looked for a comb, jerking it through her hair. There was no time to make coffee. No loss. The five flavors really were awful.

Fred was looking at the pages, not at her. She wanted to roll her eyes. She liked him, but sometimes he was a nuisance.

“You like it, huh? The opening line’s decent—I slaved over it. Sometimes the first sentence is the hardest to write,” he mused.

“All I have to do is read it.” Kelly found a tube of lip gloss and a small mirror. “If that’s the problem, what’s the solution?”

“Write the second sentence first.”

Fred seemed awfully pleased with that bit of wisdom. Kelly Johns smiled as she slicked her lips, looking at him over the mirror in her hand.

“I’m not joking, Kelly. Take it from the oldest living news writer still working.”

“You’re not that old.”

“I’m nearly extinct,” Fred intoned in a gloomy voice. “Me and the dinosaurs.”

“Newspapers are dying. TV news is next. You keep telling me the same things.” She checked her teeth.

He ignored her comment. “I’m headed straight for an exhibit at the natural history museum. My bow tie will be displayed in a little glass case. It’s not a clip-on, you know. I tie it myself.”

Kelly put away the lip gloss and held up the mirror so he could see himself. “It’s crooked.”

“Can’t have that.” He tugged at the thick silk folds of the tie. “There. Sartorial perfection. Monroe won’t pick on me.”

“Stop it. You’re in a class by yourself. They need someone around this station who can put together a coherent sentence.”

“I still can,” Fred said, looking a little smug. “But if Monroe Capp could get an intern to do my job, he would. You, however, are irreplaceable.”

“Not.”

Fred raised his eyebrows. “I heard you got a major bonus for that scandalous exclusive with the governor of the great state next door. I love politicians,” he said gleefully. “They can’t keep their pants zipped or their mouths shut.”

“Former governor,” Kelly corrected him absently. She wasn’t going to satisfy his curiosity about the bonus. Let someone else mislead him. Newsroom gossip moved faster than the speed of light.

“I stand corrected. You did the reporting for that, right?”

“Most of it. It was a lot of legwork.” She took a moment to clear off her desk, checking to see that Gordon’s laptop and camera were still locked away. “Not something I want to do full-time. But sometimes I miss it.”

“Why?”

“You ask too many questions,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe I enjoy aggravation. Come on. I don’t want to be late for the meeting.”

She walked quickly down the hall, Fred only just keeping up with her long strides.

Monroe swiveled in his chair as they entered, his gaze moving away from the window. Evidently he’d just made a joke—polite chuckles were dying away. Kelly glanced at the driving rain outside, pelting the Atlanta suburb where WBRX was headquartered. The news station complex was low and unassuming, but it was a constant hive of activity, filled with employees day and night.

Mornings were busiest. Kelly wasn’t expected to attend this meeting as a rule, but sometimes she did. She enjoyed the verbal progress reports on stories in the works and liked to get a general idea of which were moving to the top of the roster.

Monroe had final say. The managing editor handed out assignments, taking questions from reporters before they went back to their cubicles or back out on their beats. The big conference table faced a large screen that hung from the ceiling for everyone’s reference.

“Hello,” Kelly said. “I was just going over copy for the evening broadcast with Fred.”

“Glad you two could join us,” Monroe said. “Find a seat.”

Fred tried to act invisible, scuttling to a folding chair at the other end of the table. Kelly didn’t bother. The reporters had returned their attention to the electronic devices in front of them, looking busy or trying to. She caught a glimpse of a solitaire setup on the screen next to her when she slid her laptop on the table and sat down.

Monroe leaned his arms on the table and looked around. “Okay, people. Set aside the gizmos. This is an actual meeting. Eye contact is mandatory.”

The reporters complied. Most were a few years younger than Kelly, not anyone she’d worked with at other stations. She didn’t remember all their names, but she smiled at the ones she did know. The newest hires were mostly from Internet sites, where they’d done byline articles or blogged. Their biggest advantage in Monroe Capp’s opinion was that they were used to working super fast for nothing.

Of course, the station paid its employees fairly well—outside of Tina, the dewy-eyed intern sitting next to Monroe. But all of them had to hustle. Reporters were only as good as their last story, and there was no such thing as job security.

The news director turned to Tina. “I’m not sure if you’ve been formally introduced to Kelly Johns.”

“No, not yet. You’re so awesome,” the young woman said with admiration and—if Kelly heard right—a touch of envy. “You’re the reason I wanted to intern at WBRX.”

The reporters exchanged looks. Even Monroe looked a little nonplussed.

“Is that right,” Kelly said courteously. “Well, thanks.” Maybe the intern meant well. But Kelly couldn’t help thinking otherwise when she looked at Tina. She smiled anyway.

“Kelly is definitely a star.” Monroe’s attempt to smooth things over fell flat. “But she doesn’t usually join us for morning meetings. To what do we owe the honor, Kelly?”

“Just thought I’d drop in, that’s all. No hidden agenda.” Besides finding out if yesterday’s shootout was going to be assigned as a story and who would get it. Maybe more information had come over the scanners after she’d left. Being followed last night still had her on edge.

“A pleasure to have you with us,” he said jokingly. “Any ideas on how we can get Dave Maples to attend?”

Her co-anchor never showed. “Serve breakfast,” Kelly suggested. She was regretting the lack of coffee.

Monroe turned the meeting over to the managing editor, making occasional comments to Tina in a low voice. Dutifully, the intern took notes. Reporters updated the group on their stories and floated ideas for new ones.

The assignment editors took it from there. They gave a concise account of last night’s scanner bulletins and readouts, generating an undercurrent of excitement.

Monroe nipped that in the bud. “Don’t get your hopes up, people. We’re not investigating that shooting or featuring it. Fred can write a short line for the crawl. We might or might not run it.”

“What’s the crawl again?” Tina asked. The intern kept her pencil poised above her notebook.

“The banner at the bottom of the screen with breaking news and upcoming stories,” Monroe explained.

He seemed to be about to pat Tina on the head. Kelly smiled inwardly.

“Too bad. Three bodies,” murmured a crime reporter, regret in his voice. “That’s a good hook. Could be a three-part special.”

“It’s not going to happen,” Monroe replied, running a hand over his balding head as if there were hair on it that needed smoothing. “Yes, I always say if it bleeds, it leads, but not this time.”

“Can you tell us why?” Fred inquired.

“I received a personal call from the chief of police this morning, and another one from a government agency I was asked to not identify. Both want us to hold off.”

“Someone online is going to scoop us,” a reporter pointed out.

“Which reminds me.” Monroe changed the subject. “We’re losing viewers to the net. Atlanta is one of the largest markets in the whole US, but market share fragmentation gets worse every month. Too many Atlantans don’t think WBRX when they think news. Which means . . . all of you need to work harder on getting exclusives.”

He had everyone’s attention by the last line.

“I’ll spell it out for those of you who are new. Nothing to it. Develop contacts in government, take police brass to lunch, dig up great stories no one else knows about.”

As if it were or had ever been that easy. Monroe had never been a reporter, if Kelly remembered right. But he was an expert at telling the WBRX team how to do it.

“Don’t just rewrite a story the competition is doing,” he added. “Unless they stole it from us in the first place.”

That got a real laugh.

“Why can’t we cover the shooting?” someone persisted. “If the powers that be don’t want it out there, that means it could be a big story.”

“Not necessarily.” Monroe tapped his fingers on the table. “And we didn’t get singled out. From what I understand, the information lockdown is across the board.”

Kelly backtracked mentally to his previous remark. Government agency. Not identified. That didn’t add much to what she knew about Deke.

“Besides, viewers don’t care about another gang shooting. Not without blood and gore. There are no visuals,” Monroe added.

Little did he know Kelly could provide them, along with an eyewitness report. Keeping her mouth shut wasn’t easy.

“I bet the mayor’s office put in their two cents,” another reporter said. “They always complain about bad publicity.”

“Atlanta’s like any other big city,” the news director replied. “Things like that happen here and everywhere else. Apparently there’s nothing special about this incident.”

Kelly knew in her bones that wasn’t true. She’d known it from the moment the second car had pulled in and the men got out. What Monroe was telling everyone didn’t make sense. A cover-up was being put into place.

After last night, she had to face the fact that someone who didn’t wish her well must have seen her at the site—or escaping. The mutilation of her press pass hadn’t been random malice. The two men that had followed her last night were a follow-up attempt to intimidate her.

“That about wraps it up. You all have your marching orders. Get going.” Monroe’s gaze swept over everyone in turn and stopped on her. “Kelly, I almost forgot. That corruption feature you’ve been developing—I think we should kill it for now.”

The room fell silent. She pressed her lips together. He didn’t have to tell her that in public. The reporters at the conference table looked awkwardly away.

“It’s a worthwhile subject, but too serious. Bottom line, we need to goose the ratings.”

“Okay,” she said tightly. “I can set it aside.”

“Please do. Stick with anchoring. That’s why we pay you.”

“Right.” She didn’t look at him.

“Any questions, people? Ask Vince,” he concluded.

The managing editor took over again. “Okay, everyone clear on their assignments? Don’t forget—the whiteboard is out there for a reason. Make sure we know where you are and what you’re doing if you leave the station. Call in changes right away.”

Was that a veiled reference to the way she’d played hooky with Gordon and Laura? No way of knowing. The meeting came to a close with a hubbub of scraped chairs and chitchat.

Kelly gathered up her laptop and other things, grateful that Fred was discussing something with the managing editor. She needed to be alone. She wanted to talk to Deke.