Extreme Exposure (14 page)

Joaquin grinned, his white teeth a sharp contrast to his coffee-brown skin. “Are you asking me to intimidate them with my camera?”

Kara nodded. “And, Joaquin, it could get ugly. If they call the cops or threaten to arrest us, do what you feel you need to do.”

“Hey, they bust you, they bust me.”

“Let’s go.” Too angry to feel nervous, Kara led Joaquin to the locked security doors at the rear of the building, waited until someone exited, and grabbed the doors before they could click shut again.

They walked through a labyrinth of hallways toward the air- and water-quality division.

“This place is
loco
. It’s a maze,” he muttered.

“Are you dropping breadcrumbs in case we need to make a hasty exit?”

They came to the right set of double glass doors, and she took a few moments to look the room over. A sea of beige cubicles stretched from one side of the room to the other, one decorated garishly for the approach of Valentine’s Day
—
clearly the desk of the older middle-aged woman who played the role of Office Mommy. Every office had one. They were the ones who brought candy, remembered everyone’s birthdays, and were always happy to hear news about other people’s kids and grandkids.

A copy machine stood idle in the far right corner, while the left wall was lined with glass-walled offices. In the corner office
—
Director Owens’s office
—
she saw what she was looking for: a collection of suits.

“Just act like you own the place,” she told Joaquin. Then she turned on her digital recorder, dropped it in her pocket, and opened the door.

She carved a direct path for the director’s office, Joaquin
behind her. The men in suits noticed her a second before she opened the glass door and entered.

“Who—?”

“Mr. Owens, you’ve given Northrup officials access to documents requested by the
Denver Independent
under state open-records laws. I want an explanation. And this is on the record.”

For a moment no one said anything but stared at her in silent astonishment, the only sound the persistent click of Joaquin’s camera.

Then Owens stepped forward, a bland smile on his face, and motioned her toward the door. “You can’t just barge in here, Miss McMillan. You have to sign in with the security desk. I’ll escort you both up front, and perhaps I can answer some of your questions.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I have the documents I requested
—
and a list of every single document you’ve redacted at Northrup’s request.”

Owens laughed and put an arm around her shoulder as if to turn her toward the door. “I’m afraid that’s just not possible, Miss McMillan. First you have to sign in
—
standard operating procedure, you understand
—
and then we’ll sit down and discuss this.”

Kara shrugged off his touch. “I’m not leaving without those documents and the list.”

The men looked at one another, clearly not used to having anyone defy them. Then a tall balding man in an exquisitely tailored suit stepped forward.

Galen
.

She felt the blood drain from her face and fought to keep her expression neutral.

“Allowing my client access to these documents before making them public is completely within the bounds of the law, Ms. McMillan. According to Colorado Revised Statutes—”

Ms. McMillan
.
You had his baby, and he calls you Ms. McMillan
.

Cold rage flared in her belly, and she exploded. “Listen,
lawyer boy, don’t quote statute at me. I know open-records law inside and out, and there is no provision that entitles a corporation to pick and choose which public documents the public gets to see. Public records are public. Period.”

Galen looked stunned and sputtered.

I’m not the naive college grad you screwed and dumped, am I?

“I’m calling security.” A man dressed in a brown suit moved toward the phone.

“Go right ahead. And while you’re at it, call the cops.” Kara laughed. “It will make a great front-page story: ‘Reporter arrested while trying to pick up Northrup documents at State Health Department. Northrup officials involved.’ That kind of controversy is solid gold for us. I suspect it’s not so good for you, though. Then there’s the fact that the paper will sue your ass.”

The man in the brown suit put down the receiver.

Galen looked over his shoulder to a silver-haired man dressed impeccably in a sleek gray suit. The two seemed to communicate something with a glance. Then the older man turned his head and met Kara’s gaze. He had the coldest eyes she’d ever seen
—
ice-blue eyes. Arctic.

A short man with greasy brown hair and wearing a brown turtleneck sweater took a few tentative steps in her direction. A pair of thick glasses weighed down his pale face. He reminded Kara of a turtle.

“Ms. McMillan, I’m Ernie Harris, the state’s attorney. If you can give us some time, we’ll get your documents ready.” He looked sheepishly at the taller men around him. “I don’t think we have a choice here.”

The man in the brown suit threw up his arms.

Owens looked nervous and spoke to the silver-haired man. “If that’s what the state’s attorney says, I’ve got to go along with him.”

The man with the perfectly styled silver hair gave Kara a chilling look and then turned toward the door, several manila folders in his hand.

She blocked his path. “If those are public documents you’ve got, you’re not leaving until they’ve been catalogued and photocopied.”

The man’s nostrils flared. His face turned red. He turned, hurled the folders onto Owens’s desk, and then stormed out the door, Galen behind him.

The man in the brown suit swore under his breath. “Would someone please get rid of that goddamned camera!”

Two hours later, Joaquin loaded the last box of documents into the trunk of Kara’s car. “That’s it.”

“Thanks, Joaquin. You were great.”

“My pleasure. But do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Remind me never to piss you off.”

Despite the tension headache that was making her skull feel like a bombing range, Kara laughed. “You got it.”

As Joaquin climbed into his truck, Kara glanced at her watch. She had fifteen minutes to reach Quebec and Smith, where she’d be giving Mr. Marsh some very bad news.

H
E TOOK
it pretty well. “I guess that’s my fault. I should have told you I’d talked to Scott Hammond before I called you. He’s a good guy. I know he didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Kara drove through Denver’s streets, making random turns, Mr. Marsh’s six-foot-plus frame folded into the passenger seat. “He’s afraid something could happen to you or your family.”

He gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah. Me, too.”

“I think you should leave town for a while.”

“I’ve been thinking of sending my wife and daughter to her mom’s house in Tennessee.”

“Good idea. Any chance you can join her?”

For a moment he said nothing. “I’d lose my job.”

She knew that meant more than losing a paycheck. It meant losing health insurance. It meant losing their home. It
meant leaving friends behind with no explanation, no forwarding address. “I feel sick about this, Mr. Marsh. This isn’t how things are supposed to turn out.”

“It ain’t your fault. You done all you could.” He paused for a moment, clenching and unclenching his big, calloused hands in his lap. “Well, I guess I hated working for those bastards anyway.”

“Does that mean you’ll leave town?”

“I’ve never walked off the job before in my life. I don’t feel good about it. But I guess it beats ending up dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“It sure does.” Kara made a right turn, started heading back toward Quebec and Smith. “So tell me about these videotapes. How in the hell did you sneak a camera into the plant?”

B
Y THE
time she pulled into the newspaper’s parking lot, her headache was on the brink of becoming a migraine. She enlisted the help of the security guard in loading the boxes on a dolly and hauling them up to the newsroom. She stepped out of the elevator and saw her coworkers’ faces turn her way.

“Heard you kicked butt today, McMillan.”

“You’re a bad-ass, McMillan. Yesterday Tom, today the state health department.”

“McMillan’s kicking ass and taking names.”

“Thanks, but Joaquin was there, too, you know.” Kara directed the security guard to her desk, thanked him, and then unloaded the boxes off the dolly. There were four of them
—
an estimated 7,500 pages of documents, Northrup’s inspection and complaint records dating back thirty years.

“A little light reading, McMillan?” Tom’s voice startled her from behind.

She turned to face him, saw he was smiling. “I thought I might get bored over the weekend.”

Then Tom raised his voice and spoke to the entire newsroom. “I believe Ramirez has a slide show of sorts for us all in the conference room.”

“Oh, no!” Kara rolled her eyes, but allowed herself to be herded down the hallway.

She shared the task of narration with Joaquin as he ran through the photos he’d taken that morning, recalling what Owens and the others had said. Her coworkers howled with laughter at the shocked expressions on the men’s faces.

Joaquin flashed to the next image, a shot of Galen looking stunned. “So this guy steps forward in his Armani suit and starts trying to tell her that what they’re doing is legal, and she shouts at him, ‘Listen, lawyer boy, don’t quote statute at me.’ ”

The room erupted with hoots and cackles, but Kara barely heard them, her gaze fixed on Galen’s face. He’d lost a lot of hair and looked much older than she’d imagined he would. His clothes were still slick. Well, he’d always been a shopper, always made the mistake of thinking that the clothes made the man. No one but Holly knew he was Connor’s father, and Kara had no intention of telling anyone. Staring at the photograph of him, red-face and speechless, she couldn’t fathom why she’d ever been attracted to him. How could she have had sex with him? How could anything of him exist inside the little boy she loved so much?

She hadn’t seen him for almost five years, not since the week she’d found out she was pregnant. She’d hoped never to see him again.

Something bit into her palms. Her own fingernails.

She forced herself to relax, to breathe. Seeing Galen again had shaken her up more than she’d realized. She was grateful when Joaquin switched to the next shot.

When the lights came up, her coworkers clapped, even Tom.

She shook her head and waved off the compliments, feeling embarrassed. So many things had gone wrong today. She missed Connor’s field trip, living up to his teacher’s worst expectations. The whistleblower’s identity was out, his life in a shambles. Northrup knew she was on to them. Yet her coworkers were cheering for her.

Determined to find some aspirin and caffeine, she thanked
Joaquin for his help, and then started down the hallway toward the break room. She wanted to leave to pick up Connor early, but she needed to get the documents safely stowed, put a call into OSHA on Mr. Marsh’s behalf, and talk to the guys in IT to find out what kind of database they would be able to set up for her. She couldn’t be expected to manage 7,500 pages of documents with sticky notes. She would take the videos home and watch them this weekend during one of Connor’s naps, and if she—

“McMillan!”

It was Tom again.

She stopped and turned back to face him, head throbbing.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you missed your son’s trip. But you did the right thing.”

“Did I?” She turned away, the image of Connor looking forlorn and abandoned in her mind. How was she going to make this up to him? How could she make him understand? All he knew was that she had promised him, and she had broken her promise.

She would cook him a batch of spaghetti, give him a nice bubble bath, and then curl up with him to read stories and listen to his adventures. She would even let him stay up late, and maybe they’d watch
Star Wars
. Then tomorrow she would take him back to the museum so they could enjoy together what they hadn’t been able to share today.

And then she remembered.

She was supposed to have dinner with Reece tonight at his place.

There was no way. She was too damned tired. She was too grouchy. She wasn’t remotely in the mood for romance or sex. Today had proved she couldn’t balance her life as it was. She had no time or room for a man. She hated to cancel on him at the last minute, but she needed to focus on her priorities.

She’d just swallowed two Excedrin when Tessa and Sophie came up behind her.

“I just heard Tom apologize to you, bless his heart.” Tessa slipped an arm around Kara’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I guess so. Sort of.”

Sophie dropped four quarters in the soda machine. “That must be because Human Resources got wind of your little exchange with him yesterday and came down on him with both feet. You missed a good show.”

“Really?” That was the best news she’d heard all day.

R
EECE LEFT
session early and headed home through rush-hour traffic, stopping to buy fresh flowers along the way. The day had crept by more slowly than any he could remember. In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that time was moving backward. But now it was over, and the stage was set for seduction.

Not that he actually planned to seduce Kara. There was always the chance she would refuse him
—
she had gone out of her way to avoid getting too close to him Wednesday night. Still, he knew from the one and only true kiss they’d shared that there was fire beneath her aloof exterior. She was a passionate woman, and he intended to give her every chance to let that passion loose on him.

He’d kept the menu light
—
tomatoes with mozzarella, fresh basil, and olive oil as an appetizer; a salad of mixed greens; fresh steamed asparagus; and chicken marsala for the entrée with crème brûlée for dessert. Dessert was already made, and the rest would be easy. Extraordinary food didn’t necessarily require extraordinary effort—something he’d learned from his father.