“I’m sorry, Frank.”
“You should be.”
He wasn’t going to show her any mercy, Caroline realized, but she was ready to prostrate herself at his feet, and she meant every word. “I’ve learned a valuable lesson and I hope we can repair this, because I realized today how much I need you. I’m not ready to run this paper on my own.”
His attention perked and he set his pen down, looking up at her, listening now.
“I realize how my mother was able to be the face and voice of the
Tribune
. . . it’s because she had you, Frank.”
“She didn’t exactly twiddle her thumbs on the sidelines,” he protested, clearly uncomfortable with the compliment. “Your mother was involved with every aspect,” he told her. “She just didn’t micromanage her people—especially not me—and she didn’t try to do everything on her own. You can’t be the publisher, writer, salesperson, media contact and community servant, Caroline. You hire good people and trust them to do their jobs so you can focus on yours.”
As lectures went, it was pretty basic, but Caroline took heart that he was talking to her at all—and clearly she did need the reminders. All these things she knew, but somehow when it came down to doing them, she had promptly forgotten every one. Encouraged, she ventured into his office and sat down in the seat facing his desk. “I want you to teach me to be as good a newspaperwoman as my mother was.”
“Your mother wasn’t good, she was great!” He picked up his pen and tapped it lightly on his desk, seeming to consider her appeal. “Do you know that even when we were fighting our worst circulation battle, and it was suggested that we should go after the
Post,
your mother refused to engage in yellow journalism? She took her lessons from the mistakes of men like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Your mother knew this business inside out and upside down. If you want to be anything like her, it’s gonna take serious dedication,” he said, “without any ego. Can you manage that?”
Caroline blinked. If anything, she thought she was much too unsure of herself, but she would say anything to make him stay at this point.
“I need you to trust in what you know,” he continued, “and trust me to know when to step in and help.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
He lifted a white shaggy brow as though he didn’t quite believe her. “And I need you to trust that I’m in this for the good of the paper, and if I speak up, you’ll listen—not necessarily do as I say,” he clarified, “just listen. That’s all your mother ever promised.”
“If I agree . . . will you stay?”
He grunted. “I should ask for a raise.”
“Frank, I didn’t know how to come in here and fill Mom’s shoes,” Caroline confessed. “I thought I needed to command respect, but I understand now you were ready to give it—that I made this about us, when it should have been about the paper. I’m sorry for that. Please stay?”
He cracked a crooked smile. “I expect you to
never
write another story during my tenure at this paper. I don’t care how talented a journalist you are. You can’t look at the big picture if you’re knee-deep in the trenches!”
“Okay, so tell me . . . what’s the first thing you think I need to change in my role as publisher?”
He waved the pen at her. “Simple. I understand you want to take this paper in a whole new direction, but before you go barreling out that gate at full speed, learn how to do it all the old-fashioned way.” He studied her a moment. “Do you understand what makes most current news nothing more than stenographic journalism?”
Caroline wanted to roll her eyes, but dealing with a little bluster and the occasional lecture about basic journalism was a small price to pay in order to keep him happy, she decided. “Reporters are just taking notes?”
“Damn straight!” he boomed. “That’s the problem with citizen journalism.”
Some little part of her actually felt relieved she’d gotten the answer right. As basic as any of Frank’s lessons seemed, it couldn’t hurt her to drill them into her skull. As Jack had already pointed out, this wasn’t a trial run. There were no rehearsals.
“It’s all a bunch of ‘he said, she said’ namby-pamby bullshit!” he railed. “One idiot writes a thing on Twitter and another idiot repeats it on
HuffPo
. When your mother and I came up in this business, you had to roll up your sleeves and go after your story. That’s why they called it investigative journalism.”
Caroline tried to suppress the tiny smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “So you’ll stay?”
He eyed her speculatively. “You’ll let me worry about filling my own news hole?”
Caroline didn’t want to lose complete control. “Do I have any say at all?”
“Do you trust me?”
Caroline blinked.
There was that word again. Trust. It wasn’t something she had in great abundance. She was accustomed to looking after herself, and she’d never allowed even the tiniest fragment of her life out of her control. “Yes,” she said, and meant it. But it was going to take a serious daily talk in the mirror.
“All right,” he conceded, “but no more anonymous sources unless it’s the only way they can contribute—and only if we’re both agreed. All we have left is respect and we have to preserve it at all costs.”
“It’s a deal. Teach me how to go after a story the old-fashioned way—and Pam. She wants to learn.”
“She’s not half bad,” he admitted. “I read her clips.” He cocked his head a little as he considered the request. “Not bad at all—just had a shitty teacher.” He grinned suddenly, his face splitting from ear to ear.
He was teasing her, she realized. She smiled back.
“All right, so let me tell you how we start.” He got up suddenly, and walked out of the office. A few minutes later, he walked back in with Pam and Brad on his heels.
Caroline stood, offering the chair to Pam, letting Frank take center stage.
Frank stood behind his desk. “The first thing we do,” he said to everyone present, “is find out a little more about this Patterson guy. He’s an ex-priest,” he said, pointing at Brad. “Find out where, and why he’s an ex. I want to know whether he’s local—if not, I want to know where he’s from. I want to know what he does for a living now and I want to know what color his shit was the last time he took one.”
Pam giggled and his gaze snapped to her. “You think I’m being funny?”
Startled, Pam shook her head.
“Good,” he continued, pointing to Pam. “You’ve got a source at CPD, so you go that route, find out why they released Patterson. Also talk to the roommate again—find out every last detail she knows—see if there’s anything the
Post
might have missed!”
Caroline had to admit, there was an air of excitement just listening to the urgency in his voice. “Then what?”
He tapped his desk with his index finger. “Then we all meet right here and we discuss the angle we are going to take.
Together
.”
“All right,” Caroline said.
He slapped his hands together. “Let’s go!”
Both Brad and Pam scurried out of his office at once—like roaches scattering at the stomp of a foot—but Caroline hung back.
“You too!” he said with false reproach.
“Thank you,” she said, and turned to go, but not before spotting the telltale gleam of moisture in his eyes. She didn’t dare turn back, somehow knowing he wouldn’t want her to.
Chapter Sixteen
“
H
ow about a truce?”
After a week of not hearing from Jack—even after she’d filed her report about Patterson—Caroline had to admit it was a relief to hear his smart-assed tone of voice on the other end of the line. But she had too much pride to just lay down her arms. “You don’t see me wavin’ any white flag!”
“No,” Jack countered, “I am.”
Caroline sat quietly on her end of the phone. She’d been looking over the financial reports Daniel had brought her to review, but her eyes were glazing over and now that Jack had called, her brain officially threw in the towel and quit for the day.
“But I’m all out of Get Out of Jail Free cards after this.”
She knew her tone sounded incensed, but she couldn’t help it. “
You’re
all out?”
“Didn’t we just agree to a cease-fire?”
Caroline rolled her eyes. “I don’t think we got that far.”
“Of course we did,” he assured her. “I smell the conciliatory feast and you’ve got to be hungry—it’s six-thirty.”
Were they really going to do this after nearly ten years?
There was quite a lot Caroline wanted—needed—to talk to him about, but she wasn’t about to sit here and try to convince herself that her interest in seeing him was purely professional. It wasn’t. She wanted to see him. This past week had been horrible, thinking he would never forgive her. “A little,” Caroline admitted, setting her reports down and shoving them aside.
“Good,” he said, “because you really are much too thin.”
“What is it with my weight? I’m starting to think you, Sadie and Rose Simmons all got together to conspire about how to fatten me up so no one will ever look at me again. Is that your idea of revenge?”
“Trust me,” Jack said. “People are looking.”
A tired smile curved Caroline’s lips. “People?”
“Well, I only know about one people.”
He was flirting with her . . . and it felt good.
“Person,” she corrected, falling for the bait, even though she knew he was goading the writer within. “People is plural.”
His tone took on a sober timbre, like a lawyer on the courtroom floor. “I wholeheartedly disagree, Ms. Aldridge. People can be singular as well. What about when they say, ‘Hey, she’s good people.’ ”
Caroline lifted a brow. “Who is they?”
“Did I say they? I meant me.”
Caroline laughed. God, she missed his easy banter. She missed him—even more than she dared to admit. “I never heard you say that before!”
“Of course I do—I say it all the time,” he assured. “Come to dinner with me tonight, and I’ll prove it. We’ll discuss the new publisher of the
Tribune
and I’ll be sure to tell you how she’s good people.”
No matter how confused Caroline might be over ninety percent of her life, there was nothing uncertain about this connection she and Jack shared. Despite the tension between them, it was as strong now as it had ever been—minus the trust issue. Could they survive without trust? “You still think so?”
“I know so.”
“What about Kelly?”
“What about her?”
“Well . . . I’ve been meaning to tell you, she stopped by the house.”
He answered her with silence. When he spoke again, she could tell by his tone that she had thrown him for a loop.
“Really.”
It wasn’t a question. Clearly, he hadn’t known, but either he wasn’t entirely surprised, or he was trying to keep his annoyance from ruining the uncharacteristically light banter between them—or both. “Your treat tonight?”
“I don’t know . . . depends on whether you’re going to consider this business or pleasure?”
Caroline smiled. “Jack, you can’t ask a girl out on a date and then ask her to expense it.”
“Oh,” he said, “then I guess I’m paying.”
“Then yes to dinner, and I’ll tell you all about Kelly’s visit,” she promised. “I was actually going to file a report, but wanted to talk to you before I did that, and it seems you’ve been avoiding me.”
“Not avoiding exactly.”
Caroline shuffled the papers in front of her, pushing them to another spot on her desk. “What else would you call it when I’ve been calling you for days and talking to your voice mail with no response.”
“That depends on whether you actually expected a response from a machine.”
“You know what I mean, Jack.”
“I had a little development on the case . . . I’ll tell you about that at dinner too . . . after you tell me about Kelly’s psycho visit.”
“Deal,” Caroline said. “How fast can you be there?”
“Five seconds. I’m parked outside.”
Caroline snorted. “Someone was very sure of himself!”
“No,” he countered. “I just don’t know a single Aldridge who can resist a newsworthy carrot. If I couldn’t appeal to your stomach or your heart, I knew I had an ace in my pocket.”
Caroline ignored the little jolt of joy she felt over his interest in her heart—and the thrill of excitement over his dangled carrot. “You’re incorrigible!”
“Come on down,” he directed, ignoring the accusation. “I’ll drive.”
There were cicadas and there were cicadas.
The average green-bodied variety, which emerged in the dog days of summer, generally went unnoticed. But there was another genus—the Magicicada. Emerging from the ground in biblical numbers every thirteen years, they formed a black, roaring cloud that devoured all green in its path, leaving the landscape ravaged and the frailest of striplings lifeless in its wake.
They climbed and attached themselves to nearby branches, shimmying out of their exoskeletons with fresh new skins and bulging red eyes, before launching into the air to sing for their mates.
The drone was maddening.
Once fertilized, the female returned to the trees to lay her eggs, and the newest generation of cicadas burrowed deep into the ground where they remained another thirteen years, feeding off a network of tangled roots . . . while they waited for the cycle to repeat.
In their wake, you found fragile carcasses attached to trees, inexplicably clinging to life in death, their gossamer wings looking like stained-glass windows, but with the glass shattered and plucked out—the temple of their bodies abandoned.
This was the same.
His body was an abandoned temple; all feelings of humanity had escaped through a crack in his physical form. Only the bloodlust remained in the deepest confines of his soul, like a thousand dark whispers smothered by layers of derma. And sometimes, like a plague of locusts, the endless buzz resurfaced, undeniable and psychotic in its influence.
Those were the times he feared the hunger most, when the voices rose to such a deafening roar that all reason was confounded by the sound.
It was rising now.
He had to unzip his skull and let out a little crazy—enough to function without suspicion. He didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t.
He had never let it go that far.