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  “I can see that he’s quite fond of you, even if you do disobey orders by breaking unpopular stories.”

  “Hey, like I told him, I don’t make the news—I only report it,” she said. “It wasn’t my idea to kill the shareholder’s wife’s lover and cut him up into little pieces. How was I supposed to go on the air and totally ignore the story while all the other networks he wasn’t on the board of covered it?” With a smug grin, she added, “Blakeley and Jim can’t complain. Our ratings soared when I broke that story. I’m bringing in a lot of advertising revenue and big numbers in viewers and e-mails. Now if any of that stops, Jim will put me on a short leash, and Blakeley won’t remember my name.”

  “Will he remember your name if you end up costing the network millions of dollars due to a huge lawsuit for getting a troll killed?” David asked while watching the numbers above the doors indicate that the elevator was on its way back to their floor.

  The elevator chimed to announce its arrival. Once inside the car, Yvonne wasted no time in revealing her intentions for their lunch date. She threw her arms around him, and she and David fell against the back wall of the elevator, where she pressed her body against his. Locking her mouth over his, she pressed her tongue into his mouth while groping for his belt.

  Turning his head to break the lip-lock, David gasped for breath and fought her hands. “Stop it.”

  “I thought you loved it when I take charge.” She turned his head to search for his lips.

  The elevator stopped and chimed.

  Instantly, Yvonne whirled around and took a step back to stand next to David.

  The doors opened.

  Seeing Yvonne and David on board, Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins and Pam Wiehl paused before stepping on. The detective pressed the button for the ground floor, even though it had already been pressed.

  “I see your friend has made himself right at home, Yvonne,” Pam said.

  David fought the flush he felt rising in his cheeks. Hoping Yvonne had not left lipstick on his face, he wiped his mouth.

  Before the doors could shut, a hand abruptly reached out to block them. When the door reopened, Ali Hudson grinned. “Just in the nick o’ time.” Stepping onboard, she greeted each of them with a nod. When her eyes met David’s, their gaze locked for a moment longer than necessary until Yvonne’s voice broke their electricity.

  “I see you’re feeling better, Ali,” Yvonne said.

  “Much better, ma’am,” she replied from over her shoulder toward where David and Yvonne were standing behind her. “Sorry for gettin’ all choked up a bit ago. Just needed some time to pull myself together. Now I’m fine as frog fur again.”

  “Frogs don’t have fur,” David whispered to Yvonne. “Do they?”

  Turning back to face the front of the elevator, Ali noticed the detective. “That’s a mighty purdy tie you’re wearin’ there, sir. Makes you look as cute as a possum.”

  Unsure of whether the attractive research assistant had paid him a compliment, Wayne Hopkins patted the tie.

  Equally unsure of what she’d meant, David silently asked himself if possums were considered cute. Repeating Ali’s statement in his head and taking note of her low, sensual voice heavily laced with a Southern dialect, he concluded that he’d enjoy anything she told him—even if he didn’t understand half of what she said.

  After hesitating, Lieutenant Hopkins thanked her. “Got it at Macy’s,” he said while stroking the tie as though it were a prized possession. “Cost four hundred dollars.”

  David’s ears perked up. Four hundred dollars for a tie? Most expensive tie I ever bought was forty bucks.

  “It brings out the green in your eyes,” Ali said.

  Watching her, David felt the corners of his lips curl. He sensed what was coming next.

  “Did y’all find an apparent cause of death for the victim?”

  Between her thick Southern accent and the speed in which Ali spoke, David had to repeat what she had said over and over again in his mind in order to decipher her question to the detective.

  “Two bullet wounds to the back of the head,” Hopkins said. “One to the back. Looks like it could be a forty-five caliber.”

  “Did y’all find the slugs with the body?” she asked.

  “I’m taking the lead on this story, Ali,” Pam announced. “So you have no need to research this case.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. You can’t blame a girl for being curious,” Ali said. “After all, she was found only a few feet from my desk.”

  “If you want to know what’s going on with the case, you can watch my interview with Lieutenant Hopkins on Crime Watch tonight,” Pam said.

  “Are y’all invitin’ Sergeant Roberts to be interviewed too?” Ali asked.

  “Sergeant Roberts?” Lieutenant Hopkins asked.

  “He was the lead investigator in Audra Walker’s disappearance, sir,” Ali said. “I’d expect ’im to be contacted about her body being found. Y’all call ’im yet?” She turned to Pam. “You gonna interview ’im too, ma’am?”

  Much to David’s disappointment, the elevator doors opened. He found Ali Hudson’s spunky pursuit of the case intriguing.

  “We don’t even know if the body is Audra Walker’s,” Lieutenant Hopkins said while following Pam Wiehl off the elevator.

  Refusing to give up, Ali Hudson pursued them across the lobby toward the street. “The news is already reportin’ the discovery of a body. They’re figurin’ it’s Audra Walker. Have y’all contacted her family yet?”

  “We will when we get a positive ID,” Lieutenant Hopkins said as he buttoned up his coat.

  “Yvonne Harding!” came a voice from the street in front of the News Corp Building.

  Before Yvonne could react, an older man dressed in a worn coat and shabby clothes hurried toward them. A pack of news camera operators and journalists followed to surround him and Yvonne Harding.

  “You killed my wife,” the man announced into the microphones thrust in front of him.

  Having never been the target of the news journalists before, Yvonne stared into the cameras like a deer caught in headlights in the middle of the night. Immediately, David reached out, grabbed her by the arm, and stepped in between her and the mob.

  “Ruth Rubenstein!” the man announced her name. “You have no idea who she was, do you? You never even met her. Talked to her. Tried to understand what type of lovely person she was.”

  Yvonne found her voice. “She ripped away a young woman’s dream! A young woman who put everything she had—her heart and soul—into pursing her dream. And then, just when she was on the brink of making it a reality, your wife attacked her in a very public manner, ripping at her in the most vulgar and public way until she killed herself.”

  “Ruth was a person, too!” the man said. “Yes, she might have been cruel, but did you even try to understand why she was the way she was?”

  “Oh, you mean she was a victim?” Yvonne laughed.

  “Is that to say that you don’t feel responsible for Ruth Rubenstein’s murder?” one of the journalists asked.

  “I am not responsible for the actions anyone took against Ruth Rubenstein for her own behavior,” Yvonne said over the voice of Ali Hudson, who was trying to shush her while David attempted to block the cameras’ view of the news journalist.

  “Someone murdered my sweet wife—”

  “Sweet?” Yvonne laughed.

  “Because you told the world who she was and blamed her for Melissa O’Meara’s suicide.” Turning his beard-covered face to the camera, he pointed at the famed journalist. “Well, Yvonne Harding, it is your fault that someone took my wife from me, and for that, you’re going to pay. I’ll see to that!”

  Grabbing Yvonne by the arm, David dragged her through the mob and down the street, leaving Ali Hudson, the distraught husband, and a horde of news journalists behind.
<
br />   Chapter Six

  “I’ve had finer moments—much finer.” Cringing, Mac squeezed the plastic baggie filled with Gnarly’s still-warm poop, searching for the wedding bands. Even with his hands encased in evidence gloves and the barrier of the plastic bag, he was disgusted. “Picking through garbage for evidence back when I was a newbie in homicide was better than this.”

  With a curious expression on his face, Gnarly cocked his head at him.

  Finding nothing, Mac tossed the bag into the trash bin. He then slipped off the evidence gloves and threw them in as well before washing his hands with a sterilizing disinfectant he carried in his pocket. Grateful that there was no one in the alley to see him searching through the canine’s discharge, Mac picked up the dog leash and led Gnarly back out to the street.

  Rounding the corner of the News Corp Building, he bumped into Ali Hudson, who was rushing down the front steps. After apologizing, Mac asked her, “Are you okay?”

  “No matter, sir,” she replied. “My fault. I saw that police lieutenant leavin’ and wanted to talk to him, so I went runnin’ out like the dogs were chasin’ me.” She knelt next to Gnarly to stroke him on the top of his head. “I was in such a dag-nab hurry that I forgot my bag and my money for lunch.” She showed Mac the oversized bag she’d hung from her shoulder and tucked under her arm.

  “Did Hopkins give you any information about Audra Walker’s murder?” Mac asked.

  After tossing her head to brush away the long, dark tendrils that had fallen into her face, she looked up at him from where she was kneeling next to Gnarly. She held up a slender hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “She was shot twice in the back of the head and once in the back.”

  “How ironic that you were investigating Audra Walker’s disappearance, and there she was, only a few feet from you.”

  “How—”

  “I heard you on the phone setting up a meeting with Sergeant Roberts—the lead investigator in the Audra Walker case. Remember? I was waiting with David to see Yvonne, and Pam Wiehl came in. She seemed to think Audra Walker’s disappearance was voluntary.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I should’ve expected y’all to remember that. You’ve got plenty of notches in your gun when it comes to solvin’ murders.”

  “Audra Walker said the exact same thing to me when we first met.”

  Ali swallowed before saying, “I saw your brother leavin’ with Yvonne. Why didn’t you go with ’em?”

  “They’re—” Stopping, Mac chuckled. “How did you know?”

  “Y’all have the same eyes and jawline,” she replied. “Different last names. So my guess is you’re half brothers.”

  “Same father, different mothers.”

  “But you’re friends. That’s the important thing.” Hesitantly, she asked, “Is he …”

  “Getting married this weekend.”

  “Figures.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m probably not his type anyway.”

  “Why do you say that?” Mac asked.

  “He seems pretty tight with Yvonne,” she said. “Granted, she doesn’t know a bit from a butt—”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A bit,” she said. “As in a bit on a bridle … for horses? I figure you know what a butt is. She’s completely citified.”

  “Gotha.”

  “But I’ll give her this—she’s so good-lookin’ that she’d make a man plow through a stump.” She frowned. “I’m just not in the same league as her.”

  “Just because you’re not in the same league doesn’t mean you’re not in the game,” Mac said.

  “Your brother’s getting married,” she said. “That means the game’s over.”

  Not knowing what else to say, Mac asked, “What progress did you make in your investigation into Audra Walker’s disappearance-turned-murder?”

  “Why do y’all care ’bout our investigation?”

  “Audra Walker was my friend,” Mac said. “That’s my interest. What’s yours?”

  “It’s my job,” she explained. “Yvonne told me to research the case. I’m her assistant—”

  “Yvonne couldn’t care less about the Walker case,” Mac said. “After Audra’s body was found and Pam Wiehl called dibs on the case, Yvonne went to lunch. So”—he moved in closer to her—“I think your interest in Audra Walker is personal.”

  “Okay, I’ll fess up,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders “Yvonne is interested in the case, but she cares more ’bout bein’ a celebrity journalist, with the emphasis on ‘celebrity.’ That’s why she hired me to be her research assistant.” She glanced around to ensure no one was in hearing distance. “I investigate the cases and write up the copy, and she gets in front of the camera to report the case while lookin’ pretty.”

  “But you’re the one with the fire in your belly to find Audra Walker’s killer,” Mac said. “Not Yvonne.”

  “I’m an investigative journalist,” Ali said.

  “So is Yvonne.”

  With a chuckle, she replied, “Used to be … till she made People’s list of the hundred-most-beautiful people in the world.”

  “Funny how that happens,” Mac noted.

  “Sad, really.” She had her arm wrapped around Gnarly, and she was lovingly scratching him on his chest. With a dewy expression in his eyes, the dog tilted his head back and pressed it against her cheek. She seemed to have hypnotized him.

  “Gnarly likes you,” Mac noted.

  “I like Gnarly.” She hugged the dog while he kissed her on the cheek. “I really miss my dog, Storm. She’s stayin’ with my brother. He calls her ‘Princess Storm’ because she’s so spoiled.”

  “What kind of dog is she?”

  “Belgian shepherd,” she replied. “She’s ’bout as big as Gnarly and has tall ears like him. I guess that’s why he’s makin’ me miss ’er.”

  “I imagine a big dog like that would be kind of hard to keep in a Manhattan apartment,” Mac said.

  “Which is why she’s back in Texas,” she explained. “But one day, I’ll go back and …” Her voice trailed off.

  “I thought every investigative journalist strove to live in New York or LA,” Mac said.

  “That’s if you wanna be a star,” Ali said. “There’s a difference. There are those in the business who wanna chase the story. They go where the story takes them. Yvonne Harding used to be that way. But somewhere along the line, the thirst for justice fell to the wayside … which opened the door for her ambitious research assistant to make a name for herself by chasin’ down the killers of a legendary investigative journalist.”

  Mac was having a hard time buying Ali’s claim that pure ambition was driving her pursuit of the Audra Walker case. “Have you had lunch yet?”

  “I’m so hungry I could eat the sign off a hamburger stand.”

  With a laugh, Mac said, “I take it that means you want lunch. Where’s a good place that will allow dogs?”

  “The park.” As if to enter his plea to join them, Gnarly turned his head to plant a kiss in her ear, which prompted her to giggle. “I guess we have a date.”

  With Gnarly between the two of them, Ali and Mac strolled down the sidewalk in the direction of a small park that included a playground and a diner truck.

  “What’ve you uncovered so far?” Mac repeated his question.

  “Audra Walker did three interviews in the News Corp building on the day she disappeared,” Ali said. “Her second interview ended up bein’ with a journalist who was close friends with Senator Brennan and his family. He accused her of everythin’ from character assassination to bein’ a domestic terrorist.”

  “Slight exaggeration, but I get your point.”

  “Patrick Brennan, the heir to the Brennan dynasty, does have an alibi for her disappearance,” Ali said. “But I don’t put much stock in that. He’s so crooked he has to unscr
ew his britches at night.”

  The visual she had created brought a smile to Mac’s face. “Brennan would have hired someone to do it.”

  “Just like his pa did to get rid of Jolene Fitzgerald,” Ali said.

  “However,” Mac said, “considering all the attention Audra and the book got after her disappearance, I don’t see what he would’ve gained from it.”

  “Maybe he’s not as bright as his father,” Ali said. “Anyways, Audra’s interview with Yvonne Harding was the last one that day.”

  “Being a journalist, she had to have had friends and acquaintances in New York,” Mac said. “Have you interviewed any who talked to her during her trip?”

  “Sure ’nuff,” Ali said. “They say all basically the same thing. She was fat and sassy.”

  “Audra Walker wasn’t fat …”

  “No, she wasn’t by any means.” Ali sighed. “It’s a sayin’. You folks who are raised on concrete—by all accounts, Audra Walker was happy.”

  “Gotcha,” Mac said. “But her husband had recently died.”

  “Bull!” Pausing, Ali shook her head at him. “Of course, she felt lower than a gopher hole ’bout that. She loved her husband and missed him a ton, but folks keep forgettin’ that Audra Walker was an independent woman. He’d been dead two months, and she was gettin’ on with her life.”

  Struck by her passion, Mac asked, “Did you ever meet Audra Walker?”

  Seeming to consider the reason behind his question, she gazed at him. After a long pause, she said, “Not personally. I saw her speak where I went to school. She inspired me.” Hurrying toward a street vendor, she asked, “Do you like hot dogs?”

  After they had purchased their lunches, which included a plain hot dog on a bun for Gnarly, they sat on a bench. While Mac settled for simple mustard and catsup on his, Ali’s hot dog was slathered in extra chili, cheese, and onions. She ordered an energy drink with which to wash it down.

  “What do you know about the Texan Romeo and Juliet?” Mac asked.

  “Do y’all mean the book that Audra Walker was a-fixin’ to work on next?” Ali asked. “I saw in that last interview that she told Yvonne that that was her next project. She’d been workin’ on it for years but wasn’t makin’ a lot of progress.”