Authors: Nina Mason
She couldn’t remember all of it, but she remembered enough, especially the part where he limped off like a wounded animal.
She just sat there, watching him go, burning with shame, lost as to what to say or do to bring him back. She couldn’t understand what had gotten into her. She liked him, really liked him, and yet she had driven him away. It was only eight o’clock. They hadn’t even had dinner.
In hindsight, she considered herself lucky that he
hadn’t come right out and told her to go fuck herself. She certainly would have if their situations were reversed. The next day, she’d phoned to apologize, but he never returned the call. And now, maybe she’d finally be able to tell him how sorry she was. Not that it would probably make any difference, but she liked and respected him—a whole lot, actually—and at least wanted a chance to clear the air. And her conscience.
Returning to the moment, she realized with a start that she was already to Washington Square. Shit, she had missed her stop. By the time she hopped off and doubled back, cursing
herself the whole way for wasting valuable time, it was after one o’clock. Now she had under an hour to scope out the crime scene, talk to the cops, find Buchanan, say her piece, and get the story filed.
Rounding
the corner onto Bleeker Street, she saw a throng gathered on the sidewalk about halfway down the block. Parked in the street were a couple of ambulances, a paramedics truck, half a dozen police cruisers, and the medical examiner’s wagon—all with their lights flashing like a July 4
th
fireworks display—but still no news vans, thankfully. Once the hordes descended, she’ never be able to talk to him alone.
Nudging her way
through the throng, she caught glimpses of yellow crime-scene tape and a uniformed officer posted outside the entrance. Mid-fifties, double chin, potbelly, bulging buttons.
“
The News,” she called out as she approached, holding up her press badge. “Who’s in charge?”
“Homicide.
Detective Bradshaw. He’s upstairs.”
“Any chance I can talk to him?”
“You’d have to ask him,” the officer replied with a tight smile.
“What about
Alex Buchanan?”
A
gray eyebrow disappeared under the visor of his cap.
“The guy who found the bodies
.” She wasn’t surprised he was out of the loop. “Is he still here?”
He shrugged.
“I haven’t seen him leave.”
“Thanks
.”
Thea
ducked under the tape and pushed through the door into the lobby, which was crawling with uniformed cops and other personnel investigating the homicides. As she glanced around for the paper’s photographer, an enticing bouquet teased her nose. Pumpkin Spice Latte. Yummy. She glanced longingly toward the Starbucks, eyes sweeping over the small cafe seating area. Her blood pressure spiked when her gaze fell on Alex Buchanan sitting alone, his focus consumed by whatever he was doing on the laptop in front of him. His hair was grayer and he’d lost a little weight, but otherwise looked the same as the last time she’d seen him, which was what?—eight long years ago? Regret gnawed on her heart as she stood there, paralyzed, trying to remember why she was there.
The minute the
cops told Buchanan he was free to go, the journalist stowed the Glock in the waistband of his trousers and got to his feet. The detective in charge had asked if he wanted protection. He did, but pride made him say otherwise. For some reason, being babysat by the cops felt as unmanly as cracking under torture.
Or
the unpredictable bouts of E.D.
He shrugged on his
sports coat, packed up his briefcase, and headed for the door. He didn’t know where he was going or what he planned to do, only that he’d been stuck here too long—a fact that became painfully obvious the minute they started wheeling out the body bags.
He limped toward the lobby, pulling up when he found a woman blocking his way.
He gave her only a cursory glance—just enough to tell him she was a willowy brunette in dark slacks and a light-colored top.
“Excuse me,” he semi-grunted, but, to his vexation, she did not step aside. He shifted back and forth for an awkward moment, trying to get around her, downcast gaze fixed on her blouse. Still, she didn’t budge. The blouse was silk and semi-sheer and her nipples were hard.
“Take a picture,” she
said with an edge. “It’ll last longer.”
His
heart jolted when he saw it was Dorothea Hamilton, a.k.a. “the ball buster.”
“Got a minute?”
“I was, erm, just leaving, actually,” he stammered, face tingling. She looked the same. A little older, sure, but otherwise the same.
“Mind if I walk with you for a ways? I’m on
a tight deadline.”
S
he was here to cover the shootings? How odd. Last he’d heard, she’d been moved to the investigative desk. Not that he kept up with what she was doing. He honestly didn’t give a rat’s arse about Dorothea Hamilton. But journalists were a gossipy lot, so word got around.
“Are you covering crime again?”
he asked.
“N
o,” she said, shrugging, “the media murders.”
Buchanan
stiffened. He hadn’t until that moment considered there might be a connection between this and Malcolm Connolly’s murder.
“I’m sorry
about your—well, what happened.”
“Right
.” He swallowed hard. “Me, too.”
“
Are you up to answering a few questions?”
“
Honestly, Thea”—he stepped past her into the lobby—“there’s not much to tell.”
“
Still.” She stayed hard on his heels, pen and notepad at the ready. “I need a couple of quotes.”
He shrugged.
“Like I told the police, I popped out for a few to get a coffee. When I returned, I found them all dead.”
“Were they marked? Like the others?”
They hadn’t been, but it was possible the gunman didn’t have time. “Not that I noticed.”
“My editor says you had a run-in with the gunman
. What happened? Can you describe him?”
“M
edium height, medium build, black clothes, black shoes, black ski mask.” He forced a grin. “No need to call in a sketch artist, eh?”
As s
he was writing all this down, he pushed through the exterior door, hoping she wouldn’t follow. But she did, damn her. When she was halfway through, he rounded on her. He didn’t need her following him like a stray dog. He wanted to be alone, to have a few drinks and lick his wounds.
She held out her card.
“If you think of anything, will you call me?”
“Sure thing
.”
Forcing another smile, he plucked the card
from her fingers before lifting his gaze to her face. Their eyes met, quickening his pulse. Damn, but she was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that took a man’s breath away. Too bad she was such a ball buster. Looking away, he stuffed the card in his pocket without the slightest intention of using it.
“Listen,
Buchanan,” she started, “about that night—I might have come on a little strong.”
“
Aye, well.” He shifted uneasily. “It’s all water under the bridge now, eh?”
“Sure,” she said, still holding the door. “And again, I just want to say
—”
“Look,
Thea,” he said, cutting her off. “Do you mind? I’m still a bit shaken up by all of this—on top of which, I’m dying for a smoke.” He coughed a bitter laugh. “And I’m well aware of your views on that subject.”
She
flinched. Good. She deserved to have her self-righteousness thrown back in her face.
“I’m
really sorry,” she said. “About the way I acted. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Apology accepted
,” he grumbled. “Now can I go?”
A
n awkward few moments of silence followed before she withdrew her arm and stepped back. The door closed between them. He spun around, set his free hand on the grip of his Glock, and hobbled off in the direction of his regular watering hole.
* * * *
Three miles away, two armed men in a black Lincoln Town Car were cruising a subterranean parking garage, arguing over what kind of vehicle to commandeer next. Ibrahim Sahid, the driver, wanted a generic sedan that would not attract notice, while Khalid Al-Jaafari favored something with serious horsepower under the hood, having long been a fan of American muscle cars.
“Remember that Pontiac Firebird I drove when we were at Princeton?”
Al-Jaafari winced in pain. Thanks to a run-in with a coat rack, it hurt him to speak. And to breathe. He was certain at least one of his ribs was cracked.
“Of course I remember,”
Sahid replied, shooting a glance his way. “Whatever became of it?”
Feeling the bite of an old resentment, Al-
Jaafari bit out through clenched teeth, “Do you not recall? My parsimonious father forced me to sell it when he refused to pay to ship it back to Riyadh.”
* * * *
Milo Osbourne leaned back in his leather captain’s chair just far enough to block from view the message he was texting on his silenced cell phone. As the Global Media CEO hit the send key, he looked left at Ben Dogan, his chief legal counsel, then right toward Carl Jackson, his second in command. Both were looking down the long mahogany conference table at Duncan Gibson, who was giving a PowerPoint presentation outlining the strategies for resisting a hostile takeover.
Though Gibson was a masterful jouster, he was, as a presenter, about as scintillating as soggy toast. Anxiously awaiting a reply to his text,
Osbourne glowered down the table at the attorney. “What do we know about this punk, anyway?”
“Quite a bit, actually.”
Gibson switched to the next slide.
The projection screen displayed a head shot of a fortyish man with movie-star good looks. Dark hair, chiseled face, cleft chin, penetrating blue eyes. Oddly, something about the man’s appearance struck
Osbourne as familiar. Had they met somewhere before? Despite the niggling feeling of recognition, he didn’t think so. Even at his advanced age, he was adept at remembering faces. He looked into the eyes, which appeared cold and hard. Reptilian, one might say. There was a cruel edge to the thin mouth as well.
Something about the takeover artist’s expression reminded
Osbourne of himself at that age, which scared him some. If this man was half as unscrupulous as he’d been, Golden Age Media was in serious trouble.
“He’s a handsome bugger,”
Dogan inserted. “I’ll give him that.”
“But also a real
S.O.B., I’d be willing to wager,” Osbourne added.
“A ruthless predator, by all accounts,” Gibson confirmed with a nod.
“And his dossier?” Jackson asked.
Gibson, clearing his throat, set his hands on the table and leaned closer, looking from face to face. “He attended the London School of Economics, then did a couple of years of med school, oddly enough, before taking a job as a stockbroker. Paternoster Square, you know. The London Stock Exchange, not Wall Street. He specialized in options and did well enough to buy
himself a seat on the exchange. Olympus Enterprises is the name of his firm. Last year, he acquired a seat on the New York exchange as well.”
“And
his
name?” Osbourne wanted to know.
“Robert Sterling
,” Gibson replied.
Osbourne
shifted in his chair, still studying the face of his black knight. That nagging feeling of familiarity refused to let go. “Where did he grow up? Who were his parents?”
Standing taller, Gibson crossed his arms over his gray double-breasted suit coat. “He was raised by a single mother
—a schoolteacher—in a rural village up near Yorkshire. She was a real religious fanatic, apparently. She died in a house fire, just about the time the lad came of age. Burned to death while in bed with a lover, according to the news archives.”
“And the father?”
“Nobody knows.” The barrister shrugged. “And we haven’t yet been able to track down a birth certificate.”
No record of his birth? That probably meant the punk was illegitimate. Born at home to protect the father’s identity, he
’d wager, which probably meant the surname was a cover as well.
“And what prompted the little bastard to become a corporate raider?”
Osbourne inquired.
Gibson cleared his throat again. “It seems he acquired a taste for it after doubling his money on some undervalued stock he acquired quite by happenstance. After that, he bought into a handful of Sleeping Beauties, then negotiated himself extremely lucrative offers to walk away. A couple of years back, though, to everybody’s surprise, he actually took control of an engineering firm with some reconstruction contracts in Iraq. The stock had plummeted during that scandal
—you remember the one—that KLM business over bogus contracts and shoddy work. Anyway, the kid went over there, took charge, and, by all accounts, turned things around rather miraculously.” The attorney licked his lips, still holding Osbourne’s gaze. “Last year, he sold the firm to United Power for what can only be described as a staggering sum. And now, it seems, he’s in the U.S.—and coming after you.”