Deadly Blessings (6 page)

I smiled as I pulled into traffic, my cell
tucked safely back in my purse. Not enough time to make it home and
revamp my hair, I stole another glance, this time in the
foreshortened rear-view mirror. It wasn’t so bad, after all. And
what the heck, I was on a story. Just one of the hazards of the
job.

* * * * *

Maybe I underestimated my new look, I
thought later, as I walked into the office. I’d given Sophie the
go-ahead on highlights and a free hand in styling, hoping to get
her to talk more about Milla. I’d been half successful. I had new
hair.

Expressions on the assistants’ faces as I
passed ranged from stunned to confused. That’s how I read them, at
least. I couldn’t find Jordan at the moment which annoyed me to
hell. She would have told me how it really looked.

Comments varied from benign, “Wow, Alex, new
‘do?” to “What in the world happened?”

Feeling as though I was running a gauntlet
in order to get to my office, I felt my mood growing ever more
dark. I wished I’d taken the time, now, to pull it down. But the
meeting awaited and I figured I’d just take my lumps. Jordan had
said heads were going to roll. I hoped mine wasn’t going to be one
of them, but if it was, at least it would be stylin’.

Standing in the doorway to my office was a
young man I’d never seen before. I took a chance. “Fenton?”

Okay, I’ll admit, with a name like Fenton, I
expected someone older, and this guy didn’t even look legal
drinking age. I wondered if he had to shave yet. He turned toward
me with a head-to-toe raking glance. Too slowly, he forced his hand
out toward me. “You must be Alexandra. Not too hard to figure out
…” his eyes focused on my chest, then moved to my face with a
self-satisfied smile. “My aunt told me there was a babe on
board.”

His aunt? Who could that be, I wondered, as
I shook his hand and pasted a smile on my face. “Nice to meet you.
But call me Alex.” He wasn’t much taller than I was, maybe five
foot seven, and his face was slim, with pinched-in cheeks, like a
guitarist in an acid rock band. He had brown hair, lots of it, and
it fell long and straight past his forehead to hang into his eyes.
If he hadn’t been wearing Dockers and a button-down collared shirt,
I would have taken him for a time-warped hippie.

He lifted half his mouth in a smirk. “I
don’t do nicknames, Alexandra. So, if you don’t mind …”

I wanted to slap his silly little face. “As
a matter of fact, Fenton, I do mind.”

“
Well,” he said, affecting
a huff. “If you like being called by a man’s name …” His eyes raked
over me again and I could only imagine what was going on in his
tiny brain.

We were off to a bad start here. I took a
deep breath and decided to try again. But I could feel the bright
lights of anger flash inside my head and my words came out
sharp.

“
First of
all, Fenton, my given name is not Alexandra. And I
do
like nicknames. Mine
especially. And unless you’d like me to come up with one for you …”
With effort, I tempered my words, smiling, as though we were old
buddies and I was making a joke, “I suggest you call me Alex. Just
… Alex. Got it?”

I walked away before he answered and worried
for a half-second about the repercussions about that little
interchange. Sometimes I had such a hard time holding my
tongue.

Dropping my stuff on my desk, I picked up a
notebook and a couple of folders for the meeting and headed out the
door, nearly colliding with Bass I did so.

“
Geez!” he said, in a
perturbed voice, “where are you heading?” His mouth dropped open
and his eyes widened. “And what the hell happened to your
hair?”

I gritted my teeth. “We’ve got a meeting
scheduled, don’t we?”

“
Yeah, but it’s not in my
office, it’s in the conference room. And you won’t need that
stuff.” He waited while I put the folders back, then started down
the corridor. I fell into step with him. Ahead of us, Fenton
sauntered into the conference room and I slowed Bass down with a
hand on his arm.

“
What’s up, Bass? And
what’s with the conference room?” I was wary. We never used that.
Not unless it was a big deal.

The look on his face before he spoke was
unreadable. “We need the space. We’ve got two new men we’re
introducing to the staff. I figured it’s best to gather everyone at
once rather than walk desk-to-desk with them.” He gave an
embarrassed shrug, “And the producer popped for some … appetizers
and things. It’s all set up in there.”

Bass hadn’t walked
me
desk-to-desk for
introductions when
I
started. And they’d certainly not put out hors d’oeuvres
either. When I arrived my first day, Bass had looked up, handed off
some files and pointed to my office. It’d been up to me to get to
know who was who and what was what on my own.

Even though he’d hired me, it had been under
duress. The station wanted to be seen as “with it” and
forward-thinking. Sure. I was, in fact, the only female on the
investigative team. Their token. I knew it, but I was good at my
job and tried not to let the old-boy network get to me.

I wondered again what was causing Bass to
behave in a manner completely foreign to him. When he’d said
turning the priest story over to Fenton came from on high, he must
have meant it. “Two?” I knew about this Fenton fellow, but hadn’t
heard about anyone else.

“
Yeah, Fenton Foss and
another guy, William Armstrong.”

“
They’re
both
new investigators?” If they were getting a
reception like this, I could see my control of the good stories
going down the tubes. Fast.

“
No. Just Fenton.
Armstrong’s our new scriptwriter. I’m assigning him to
you.”

I stopped in my tracks. “What?”

Bass faced me. “They’re waiting for us in
there. Let’s go.”

“
No, no, no. Wait a minute.
What happened to Tony?”

His hands came up. “It will all be
explained. There was a management shakeup over the weekend. The
powers that be …” he stopped himself and I didn’t know why, but
when he continued, his entire tone had changed, as though to
convince me while he convinced himself. “We are really fortunate to
get William Armstrong. He’s young. He’s energetic. And he comes to
us with an impressive resume. I have no doubt he’ll infuse new life
into your stories, Alex.”

Young? Like Fenton? Just what I needed.

My head gave one of those nasty wiggle-tilts
that means I’m really mad. “I wasn’t aware that my stories needed
new life infused into them, Philip.” I rarely used Bass’s first
name. He had to know I was angry. “Tony Wender may be an older guy,
but he knows what he’s doing.”

In fact Tony was my buddy. He’d taken me
under his wing when all the other good old boys had shut their
doors. He had some stodgy ways about him, and should probably have
retired a decade ago, but I liked him. And I was worried for him.
He hadn’t struck me as the type who’d go down without a fight.

“
Just wait. You’ll like
this Armstrong guy. I think you and him will make an excellent
team.”

“
Oh you do, do you? Well,
if he’s anything like this Fenton character, you can keep him. I’ll
write my own flipping scripts and you can tell golden boy number
two to keep his greasy little paws off of my stories.”

Bass shot me such a look of panic as I
finished my spiel that there could be only one possibility. I
clenched shut my eyes for a half-second. Then turned around.

“
Hello,” the man
said.

I think I made a noise that came out
something like “hurmulp.”

He offered his hand. “Ms. St. James?” he
said. “I’m William Armstrong. Pleased to meet you.”

I managed to put my hand in his, as warmth
from my chest raced up my neck to my face. Sweat beads popped out
at my hairline—and I remembered with a suddenness that made me
sweat all the more, the ridiculous hairstyle I sported from today’s
adventures.

William Armstrong was a doll. Of course he
was. Just over six feet tall, with a crop of slightly wavy, light
brown hair, he was solid and sturdy, looking at me through eyes
that sparkled bright blue. His face impassive, I couldn’t tell if
he was amused or angry, or if he’d even heard my crazed diatribe.
Fenton might have been a child, but this William was a man. With
the kind of looks I’d cross the street to say hello to.

His hand was warm, and it gripped mine with
friendly pressure, as I finally found my voice. “Nice to meet you.”
A bubble of embarrassment shot through me. In sticky situations I
find myself prone to giggling; I was having a hell of a time
keeping my composure.

“
Yes, I gathered that,” he
said, utterly deadpan.

So he
had
heard.

I went into damage control, “What I meant
was …”

He let go of my hand. “Don’t worry about
it.”

As we were walking in, he turned to me,
holding his palm out as though to let me examine it. “It wasn’t too
greasy, was it?”

Humor glinted in his eyes, but I would have
felt better if he’d smiled or something. I processed that even as
other thoughts ran through my mind. I wished my hair didn’t look so
stupid, I wished I’d kept my mouth shut a moment ago with Bass, and
I wondered how I’d ever make up for looking like such an idiot.

Bass stood next to me and actually tugged at
my sleeve, like a little kid. “C’mon, we’ve got the meeting.
They’re waiting.”

When I walked into the conference room, an
enormous high-ceilinged corner space, I was taken aback. Not by the
view; I’d been in here plenty of times before. Windows overlooked
both the sparkling yet dirty Chicago river to the north and busy,
dark Wabash Avenue to the east. What surprised me was the
group.

Not only was the support staff present—I’d
expected that as we’d made our way through the uninhabited hub—but
everyone, from Gabriela, and our hotshot producer Hank, who almost
never showed up here, to Dennis, the mailroom guy. There must have
been thirty people milling about, all going through the polite
nibble, sip, chat motions so common to business get-togethers.

The two men had allowed me first passage
into the conference room. Since it was already crowded, I took the
opportunity to escape from William—maybe he’d forget he met me and
tomorrow we could try again—and moved toward Tony Wender, who I
spotted, standing in the far corner, holding a clear plastic cup of
white wine. Wine? In the middle of the day? Something was up. And
it appeared that I’d be finding out soon what it was.

I made my way around the huge oak table. A
perfect circle, it must have been at least eight feet in diameter
and took up a good percentage of the room. I sidled up next to Tony
and he grinned at me through glassy eyes. Must have been at the
wine for a little while. One bony hand held the cup and the other
reached up to run through his hair. Tony tended to hunch over.
Although he wasn’t too tall, he was very skinny, and he had a full
crop of salt and pepper hair that he was extremely proud not to
have lost yet.

“
Didja hear?” he asked me,
in an almost-shout.

I shook my head and moved closer, hoping
he’d take the hint and lower his voice. Even though the room was
doing a murmur-level hum, his pronouncement boomed loud enough to
make the gaggle of secretaries hovering around one of the many
cheese trays look up.

He boomed again. “They’re putting me out to
pasture.” He gave me one of those drunken nods that people do when
they’ve just imparted some pearl of information and want you to
grasp the significance.

This was surreal. As though my life as I
knew it had suddenly been repositioned, like one of those flat
puzzle games where you have to get the numbers in sequential order
between one and fifteen, by sliding them around. My fifteen
constants, which had been nicely aligned, were now all jumbled up,
and part of me wondered if through some great cosmic equalizing
algorithm, my foray into the adoption question had started the
game. Payback for digging where I should have left well-enough
alone.

At least everyone else was as confused as I
was. Or, at least, they looked it.

“
What happened?” I asked
Tony.

Instead of answering, he tipped his plastic
tumbler toward the far end of the table, where Hank stood. Hank,
his white hair gleaming in the brightness of the overhead lights,
his tall, portly body the picture of a well-to-do successful
businessman, focused his gaze on person after person, to quiet the
chatter.

For all I knew, he was about to put me out
to pasture, too.

Jordan made her way toward me. She
maneuvered her way in so that she could stand next to me and still
keep an eye on the proceedings. We both faced Hank, leaning back as
we rested our butts on the low red-oak cabinets behind us. She
raised her glass up to about mouth height, folding her other arm
underneath as though to cover up the fact that she was talking.
Like anyone who looked our way wouldn’t know.

“
What’s with the hair?” she
asked, not looking at me.

Hank was waiting. The room would be quiet in
moments.

“
Long story. I didn’t have
a chance to take it down.” I glanced over to her, “How appalling is
it?”

Her brown eyes moved my way for a moment and
I watched her take a long appraising look. “Actually, it’s not bad.
You don’t like it?”

I shook my head.

“
You’re just not used to
it. And it’s a little fancy for the office, maybe.” She waggled her
head a bit. “But if you were going to a wedding or something, I
think it’s a good look. Frames your face better than your
usual.”