Glass clinks on metal as the ice cubes settle in the silver champagne bucket on the nightstand. I settle in myself, burrowing into my pillow and curving into Josh’s shoulder, remembering. Savoring. Wanting.
“Would you like a little more?” Josh asks. I can feel him adjust his body, turning ever so slightly, his skin sliding against mine.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly…” I begin. And then I hear the slosh as Josh pulls the dark green bottle of Moët White Label from its icy cooler. Ah. He meant more champagne. “Well, if you insist.”
Josh turns toward me, legs outstretched, propping himself on one elbow. He holds his glass for a toast. “To you, my sweetheart. And to your big story. And to the perhaps the wildest evening of your life.”
I’m blushing.
“Charlie McNally. I meant at the airport,” Josh says, clinking my glass. “But I still can’t get my brain around this. You’re telling me Lattimer was behind it? And Katie Harkins doesn’t exist?”
“Yup. Nope,” I say, closing my eyes to savor the crisp chill of the champagne. But Josh is right. Wild. I turn to face him, mirroring his propped-on-elbow position. “Keresey was suspicious, she said, since usually CIs whose tips don’t pan out are dumped. And apparently the State Police counterfeit squad was also getting bogus info from ‘Katie.’ That’s how Keresey met Yens. And remind me to tell you the scoop about that.”
I take another bubbly sip. “Anyway, when Keresey asked Yens about her, turns out, he’d been suspicious, too. He’d never seen her. Neither had she. So they wanted to know if Franko and I had, and, of course, we hadn’t. When Ker pushed Lattimer for more info, that’s when he gave her those photos. Supposed to be proof she existed. Ker gave copies to Yens. They each checked with me and Franko. The ‘missing persons’ thing was just their cover story. To pump us for what we knew.
“But here’s what clinched it-Keresey’s agent pal found the photos on the Web. The woman was some photographer’s model. Public domain. ‘Katie Harkins’ is the handiwork of Lattimer’s imagination. A fake.”
Josh drains his glass, then sits up, cross-legged, and pours us each some more. His hair is a salt-and-pepper haystack. His chest is still tanned from his Cape Cod summer. I curl one hand around his ankle. I can’t resist touching him.
“So if Harkins was…” he pauses, tilting his glass, thinking. “And the information was phony…that means…Lattimer had his own agent killed? Hurt?”
“Yes, or had his confederates do the job,” I say. “It was all a…a diversion. He did everything by e-mail and voice mail. He just made up all the information. Then he’d redirect all the bureau’s attention into the phony raids. And meanwhile, the real counterfeiters would be shipping and distributing. And out of the line of fire. I just hope they can prove it.”
“Twisted,” Josh says. He puts his glass back on the nightstand.
“Lucrative,” I answer. “Very, very lucrative. We’re talking multi, multi, millions.”
Josh leans toward me, one lock of hair falling across his forehead. He takes my glass, deliberately, and puts it aside. There’s a look in his eyes, strong. Soft. Only he smells like this. Only he tastes like this.
And the phone rings. “Let the voice mail get it,” he says, leaning closer. I can feel his warmth. Or maybe it’s my own.
The phone rings again. “Forget it,” Josh whispers. “I’m making other plans.”
Then Penny’s little voice warbles from the answering machine. “Daddy-o?” she says. “I woke up because I had a bad dream, and Mom said I could-”
With an apologetic sag of his shoulders, Josh picks up the phone. I tuck myself beside him. I can wait. I listen to Josh’s comforting words, something about Dickens her stuffed dog, and Harriet the Spy, and Halloween candy. I’m floating, almost sleeping, when I hear him hang up.
And then he starts dialing.
“What, honey?” I say. I don’t even open my eyes. “Who are you calling?”
“I’m just erasing that whole conversation,” he says. “You know. I picked up while she was leaving a message, so the whole thing is there. Saved. All recorded.”
Something shifts in the back of my mind. Now my eyes are open. Wide-open. I sit up, staring at the wall, my hands laced across the top of my head.
“Charlie?”
I turn to Josh. “Hand me the phone, okay?”
Josh looks baffled.
But I know I’ve just clinched the case against Lattimer. And I have to call Keresey. “That anonymous phone call? The one I’m convinced was from Lattimer? It’s still on my phone. It happened just like you and Penny. I answered during the message. But I never erased it. And that means it was saved. And that means it’s all still there. And that means Lattimer’s going down.”
Josh reaches toward the phone. And then hits the light switch, dissolving the room into darkness.
“Tomorrow,” he says.
And lusciously, gradually, in the soft expanse of Josh’s bed I realize he’s right. Tomorrow will be fine. Because right now I’m not Elsa. I’m not Keresey. Luckily, happily, deliriously I’m Charlie McNally. And I think I’m beginning to recognize the real thing.
“Hurry!”
“I’m hurrying,” I yell back at Franklin. “You don’t have to tell me to hurry.”
We’re clattering down the two flights of stairs from our office into the newsroom.
“The video’s supposed to feed by microwave from FBI headquarters,” Franklin says. “The receive techs are ready to roll on it. It should be coming in any second now.”
“Should be?” I can hear my voice, taut and nervous.
I’m sleep-deprived, wearing jeans and a backup black wool jacket I grabbed from my news-emergency stash. My hair is a Glamour “don’t.” But we’ve got breaking news and it can’t wait. It’s 10:54 a.m. There’s a local news break scheduled for 10:58 a.m. Plenty of time to get it on the air. If we hurry.
I grab the banister, swinging myself down to the next flight. Franklin’s right behind me.
“Producer’s Jessica!” I point to the punked-out blonde at the on-call producer’s desk. “Franko, tell her the scoop. I don’t need prompter. I’ll wing it. I need a minute-thirty. Two minutes, tops. I’m heading for the anchor desk. And make sure that video is rolling.”
“We have bars and tone from the fibbies HQ,” a voice calls from the glass-walled video-receive room. “Exterior FBI. No heads.”
I careen into the anchor desk chair, click on my microphone and plug in my earpiece. If we only have video of the FBI headquarters and no people, that’ll still work. The clock says 10:57 a.m.
“One minute to air, Charlie.” I hear Jessica, now in the control room, through my earpiece. “Franklin’s in here with me. We’ll roll the video live. Just narrate what you see. Great job, kiddo.”
The in-house monitor flashes from black into the familiar gray stone edifice of the FBI headquarters. The massive metal front doors, embossed with menacingly clawed bald eagles, remain closed. I organize my thoughts, knowing I have only two minutes to tell this whole story.
“Fifteen seconds,” Jessica says.
My fifteen-seconds-to-air routine never changes. I slide my tongue across my front teeth, removing any stray red smudges. I give my hair one last-and today, futile-fluff into place. I pat my lapel to reassure myself the tiny microphone is where it should be. “I’m a pro,” I chant silently. My pre-air mantra. “Bring it on.”
In my ear, I hear the brass and synthesizer anthem that means breaking news. In my on-air monitor, blue and silver graphics tilt and whirl, commanding viewers’ attention. Jessica’s voice buzzes her final instructions.
“Two. One. And go.”
“This is Charlie McNally in the Channel 3 newsroom with breaking news. On your screen now, live pictures of the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Only on Channel 3, this exclusive story. We have learned federal officials say they have solved the murder of Sarah Garcinkevich, age 44, of Great Barrington, whose body was found in the Housatonic River last week.