Maximum Exposure (11 page)

Someone had to stand for Scott.

Maybe because Max was hot under the collar, or maybe because she was preoccupied, trying to come up with a perfect headline for her article, she didn’t notice that the car behind her was gaining until it was right on her tail. She glanced in her rearview mirror in time to see the large truck a second before it rammed her. She couldn’t see the driver, it happened so quickly.

Her head hit the steering wheel even though her seat belt locked. She couldn’t maintain control of her car around the bend.

Thoughts flitted in and out of her mind so fast, she barely acknowledged them. First, that she was in trouble. Then, that when she died she might finally find out exactly what had happened to Karen. Then her survival instinct kicked into high gear as she fought the urge to brake and instead sharply turned the wheel to avoid hitting a thick tree head-on.

The SUV spun twice, and didn’t flip over. The air bags didn’t deploy, maybe because there was no front-end collision. She rolled to a stop.

Her heart raced as she sat in the car, in the middle of the road, her hands gripped tight around the steering wheel.

She couldn’t move. She wanted to. She wanted to get out of the damn car and walk—no, run—after the truck that hit her. She looked around, but didn’t see it. Hit and run. Dammit, someone had rear-ended her and left. She was shaking, and she didn’t want to be scared. She refused to be scared. Her breathing was shaky. She focused on slowing her heart rate, taking long, deep breaths.

She hadn’t noticed another car pull over until the driver tapped on her window. “Ma’am? Are you okay, ma’am?”

She tried to nod. Her neck was stiff. But nothing felt broken. She took a deep breath. Her chest hurt where the seat belt dug into her skin.

But she was alive. She was alive and scared, and that made her angry.

“Ma’am?”

She slowly put the SUV in park. The engine wasn’t on, probably stalled out or broken. With shaking hands, she fumbled with the door latch and finally opened it.

“Ma’am, my wife called 911. Help is on the way.”

“Thank … you.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t try to get up. I got the other driver’s license plate. The police will find him.”

“Good Samaritan,” she mumbled. Her head hurt.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

She touched her forehead and came back with a little blood. “I’m okay,” she said. But she didn’t try to stand. Her knees still felt weak, and her head was fuzzy.

And then she thought: Had someone hit her on purpose?

Chapter Ten

Max took advantage of all the resort amenities that weekend, relaxing for the first time since before she took the elder abuse case in Florida. Had she really started that over a year ago? She might even stay here until her cousin’s wedding next weekend, when she had to face her family back in California. If she did, she could attend Scott’s memorial service on Wednesday evening.

She didn’t relax easily, but swimming in the heated pool, soaking in the spa, and being pampered with massages—she finally felt the tension and stress from the tragedies and the car accident disappear.

The truck that hit her was registered to Carlos Ibarra. He had an alibi for the time of the collision—he was in class. Police questioned Arthur Cowan and Tom Keller, but both denied driving the truck. Police found it abandoned several miles from the accident. There were no prints at all in the cab, suggesting it had been wiped clean.

There was no doubt in Max’s mind that Arthur Cowan had rammed her, but there was no proof, either.

She had to let it go.

She didn’t want to.

When Chuck Pence called Monday afternoon, she invited him for a celebratory drink. “Bring your wife, and Trixie.” Max would enjoy the company, both human and canine.

“I’ll see,” he’d said, and agreed to meet her at four.

She was sipping her wine on the outside terrace when she saw Chuck step out with Trixie. The woman on his arm was not his wife, however; it was Detective Amelia Horn. Immediately Max knew something was wrong.

She watched them approach her table. The cop wasn’t looking at her, but Chuck was. His long face hung even longer.

Max leaned back and scratched Trixie while motioning for Chuck and Horn to sit down. The attentive waitress approached. Horn asked for water only. Chuck, a beer.

Max sipped her wine and waited for one of them to tell her what in their case was messed up.

It was Chuck who spoke. “Amelia asked me to come with her to explain the situation.”

Max waited. Inside she was heating up; she knew what was coming before either of them said anything. But still, she waited, a vision of the calm she didn’t feel.

“It was supposed to be a joke, like Tom Keller told you last week,” Chuck said. “They didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”

“Drunk drivers don’t mean to kill anyone, but they still get prosecuted when they hit someone while driving drunk.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Horn said.

“They left him on the mountain in below-freezing temperatures with a small tent and sleeping bag that was insufficient for the weather.”

“Had Scott stayed at the campground, he would have survived,” Horn said.

“So it’s Scott’s fault that he’s dead? You’ll tell that to his mother?”

“I already spoke to Mrs. Sheldon. She understands. I explained that while the D.A. wasn’t filing criminal charges, she was welcome to file a wrongful death case in a civil court. But she doesn’t want to press charges.”

Max felt sucker-punched. “You sugar-coated it. Arthur Cowan is a bully who’s an expert skier and would have known that conditions could turn at any time.”

“They all admitted to what they did, that they went back up Saturday morning, looked for him, couldn’t find him, panicked when the storm got worse.”

“And waiting until Sunday to tell campus police? And campus police waiting until Monday to tell the rangers’ office so a search party could be sent out?”

“It’s a tragedy for everyone. The D.A. has already cut a deal. They pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment and one year probation.”

“That’s unacceptable,” Max said.

“I don’t believe you’re a lawyer, or a cop, or have any say in what the D.A. does or does not do.”

“This is bullshit,” Max said. “Scott Sheldon is dead because of those three, who were sleeping in a warm hotel room while Scott died alone in the woods. Where’s the justice?”

“If this went to trial, their lives would be ruined, and the D.A. wasn’t confident he’d get a conviction. Their story was emotionally compelling, and Cowan already has a lawyer.”

“Of course he does.” Max had seen all this coming, but she thought
something
good would have come from the truth.

Adele Sheldon has a body to bury. She knows what happened to her son. That’s why you did this, Maxine. You came here for the truth, and that’s what you found.

But right now, it wasn’t enough.

“I didn’t have to come here and tell you any of this,” Horn said, and stood. “Our hands are tied.”

“They lied to you. They lied to everyone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And Carlos’s truck being used to run me off the road?”

“Look, I understand why you’re upset, and I would be, too. I pushed. But there’s no proof that Arthur Cowan was driving. None. No security camera, no witnesses. You didn’t see the driver. The witness who helped you didn’t see the driver. It could have been Tom Keller, or anyone else. We pushed both of them; neither budged.”

The waitress came with the water and the beer. Max stared at Trixie, who lay both alert and peaceful next to Chuck.

“Then there’s nothing more to say,” Max said. Not now, at any rate. But she’d been working on the article all weekend. She would expose to the public everything that had happened to Scott Sheldon, and who was responsible.

“I’m sorry,” Horn repeated, then left.

“I tried,” Chuck said quietly. “But without physical evidence, and all three sticking to the same story, it wasn’t possible to get the D.A. to change his mind. He didn’t even want to put up a plea deal, but Amelia convinced him that a misdemeanor and probation were better than nothing.”

“It’s not fair.”

God, she hated the feeling and couldn’t believe she’d said it out loud. She damn well knew life wasn’t fair. Her life had been a roller coaster for twenty-nine years. Was it fair that her mother had walked out on her, dumping her with her older grandparents? Was it fair that her college roommate was murdered and no one could prove who’d killed her? Was it fair that Scott Sheldon died the subject of a cruel joke?

Fairness had nothing to do with living. Max believed in the truth, believed that all truth was knowledge, and with that knowledge, justice would prevail.

Nowhere in that was there
fairness.

She and Chuck sat drinking in silence.

Truth. The truth could be told. Because truth was a different brand of justice.

*   *   *

Max called Ben first thing Tuesday morning.

“I’ll be back in New York next week. I sent you changes to your proposal.”

“You’ll do the show?”

“If you agree to my changes.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t know what they are.”

“I don’t care.”

She smiled, genuinely smiled, for the first time in days. “Yes, you will.”

“Okay, give me the basics.”

“I want creative control. I want to decide what cases I investigate and air. I liked your Web site idea, the short articles, the snippets around the country—we need to expand that.”

“Did something happen in Colorado?”

For someone so self-absorbed, Ben had a knack for getting to the truth. She had to admire the trait.

“This case—a group of college kids left another student in the middle of nowhere as a prank. He died, they got off with probation. As if Scott Sheldon’s life isn’t worth the cost for a minimal sentence.”

“What do you hope to accomplish, Max?”

“Shine a light on the cruelty of human nature, how the selfish choices of a group of kids resulted in the accidental death of another, how their lies and misdirection resulted in a mother not knowing what happened to her son for six months. Six months of the unknown. Of fear and worry. The emotional turmoil the callous actions of youth created in a family.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” She expected him to argue with her, that the story wouldn’t be “sexy” enough or big enough for a cable news show.

“I trust you, Max. I know you’ll put the right angle, the right spin on it. But it won’t fill up the forty-four minutes we need for the show.”

“I can—”

“Hold it. This is my job, making this work. A theme—those left behind. Friends and families of missing persons. I’ll find three other cases you can interview, and we’ll use your Colorado case as the positive, of persistence in finding the truth.” He paused. “You’ll have to talk about Karen.”

“No.”

“You wrote a book about it, it’s a perfect lead-in for the show. You’re the best person to understand how these families feel. Max, trust me on this—I’m not going to sensationalize Karen’s disappearance. It’s a hook. You know it. And I’ve read your book a half dozen times. You had a call to action—if anyone knows anything, they need to come forward. We can do the same call to action on this show. We’ll find cases like Scott Sheldon, and call people to come forward.”

She liked the idea. She really liked it. If she worked on cold cases, the chances were that most of these people were dead. But closure—that would help the survivors.

“Find a runaway,” she said. “Someone who might come home if they knew their family ached for them.”

“I knew you had a knack for this.”

“I’m not doing a weekly show. I wouldn’t be able to do these cases justice.”

“Semimonthly.”

“Monthly.”

“Max—”

“But I liked your proposal about integrating with a Web page and current cases. We can do more of that if I’m not investigating a cold case every week, which takes time.”

“You’ll have a staff.”

“Monthly.”

“Fine.”

“You gave in too easily.”

“I actually pitched the show as a monthly program. I tweaked the proposal to give you something to negotiate away.”

She laughed. Maybe Ben did know her better than she thought.

“Send me the contract when you have it drafted.”

“It’s already drafted. I’m sure you’ll have changes.”

“I’m sure you’re right. I’ll read it on the plane. I’m going to a wedding this weekend.”

“You’re not going to regret this, Max. This show is going to be huge. I promise.”

But Max wasn’t sure. If it wasn’t successful, all that would be hurt was her own ego. But what would happen to her life if she and Ben made
Maximum Exposure
a success? Would she ever have time to work the cold cases she wanted? Would she regret giving up some of the control over her stories? Would people recognize her? One of the benefits of being an investigative journalist was that she was, basically, anonymous. People might look at her because she was tall or attractive or well dressed, but she wasn’t famous.

This was cable, she reminded herself. Small beans. Maybe no one would watch it.

She said to Ben, “I’ll see you in New York.”

*   *   *

Six Weeks Later

Max stood in the doorway of her new corner office on the eighteenth floor of a state-of-the-art building on the Avenue of the Americas.

“It’s small,” Ben said, “but the view is great.”

It was, and Max certainly couldn’t complain. She would have preferred an older building with character, but the television studio needed technology and amenities that the larger buildings provided—including dishes on the roof to send and receive satellite transmissions.

She’d met the Crossmans and liked them a lot—more than she thought she would. Particularly Catherine, who had a sense of humor to go along with her sense of style.

“I’m going to work from home sometimes.” Often.

“That’s not a problem, but you need your own space here. I have a list of assistants for you to interview. I selected the top three from a large pool of applicants. I know you like to support the university, so I made sure they were all Columbia graduates. We also have an internship program with the college.”