For vacationers it offered hiking, skiing, boating, fishing, and charming inns, good restaurants. The flavor of country, all within an easy commute from the bustle of the city.
It was a good place to live, and a good place to do business.
Brad intended to do both.
Maybe he hadn't intended to be quite so pressed, but he hadn't expected to come back and find himself spun into a search for mystical keys. And he hadn't expected to fall for a cautious single mother and her irresistible son.
Still, it was simply a matter of setting goals, establishing priorities, and taking care of the details.
He parked his car and walked into the Valley Dispatch to handle a few of those details.
He got a kick out of thinking of his friend running the local paper. Flynn might not project the image of a man who could, or would, ride herd on a staff, whip a daily through deadlines, and concern himself with advertising, content, and the price of paper. And that, Brad mused as he headed up to editorial and Flynn's office, was why his old buddy was so good at his job.
He had a way of pushing people to do things, and to do them his way, without letting them feel the nudge.
Brad wound his way around desks and reporters, through the cacophony of phones, keyboards, and voices. He smelled coffee, baked goods, and somebody's pine-scented aftershave.
And there was Flynn, within the glass walls of the editor in chief's office, sitting on the corner of his desk in a striped shirt, jeans, and banged-up Nikes.
Invoking the privilege of a thirty-year friendship, Brad strolled straight in through the open door.
"I'll cover that meeting personally, Mr. Mayor." Flynn jerked his head toward the phone on his desk, and the speaker light.
Grinning now, Brad slid his hands in his pockets and waited while Flynn finished the call.
"Sony. Didn't realize you were on the phone."
"So what's a mature executive such as yourself doing in my humble office this morning?" Flynn asked.
"Dropping off the layout for next week's insert."
"Those are some fancy threads for a messenger boy." Flynn fingered the sleeve of Brad's suit.
"I have to head into Pittsburgh later, for business." He dropped the file, on Flynn's desk. "And I wanted to talk to you about doing a ten-page, full-color pullout for the week before Thanksgiving. I want to hit Black Friday hard."
"I'm your man. You want my people to talk to your people. I like saying that," Flynn added. "It sounds so Hollywood."
"That's the idea. I'm generating this locally rather than out of corporate. It's specific to the Valley store, and I want it classy and convenient. Something the consumer can slide out and into a purse or pocket to bring along while shopping. And I want it exclusive. I want it in the Dispatch on a day without any other inserts, flyers, tip-ins."
"There's a flood of inserts the week before Black Friday," Flynn pointed out.
"Exactly. I don't want this one lost in the shuffle. It runs alone."
Flynn rubbed his palms together. "That's gonna cost you, bunky." "How much?"
"I'll talk to advertising, we'll work up a price. Ten-page, full-color?" Flynn confirmed as he made a note. "I'll get back to you on it tomorrow."
"Good."
"Wow, look at us, doing business. Want coffee to go with that?"
Brad looked at his watch, gauged the time. "Yeah. There's something else I want to talk to you about. Can I close this?"
Flynn jerked a shoulder as Brad gestured to the door. "Sure." He poured coffee, sat back on the desk. "Is this about the key?"
"I haven't heard anything for a couple of days. The last time I saw Zoe I got the impression she didn't want to talk about it. At least not to me."
"So, you're wondering if she talks to me, or more likely to Mal and then Mal talks to me. Not so much right now," Flynn told him. "Malory's take is that Zoe's waiting for the other shoe to drop, and she's on edge wondering when Kane might make a move."
"I've been working with the clue. The way I read it, it's Zoe who has to make a move. I'm going to see her Friday night, but we might want to brainstorm beforehand."
"Friday night?" Flynn sipped his coffee. "Is that a social event?"
"Simon's coming over to fool around." Restlessly, Brad wandered the office as he spoke. "He's bringing his mother."
"Sneaky."
"You do what you can. That's one great kid, and he's not as complicated as his mother is."
"My impression is she had a rough road, and blazed the trail out of it on her own. Which eases right into the theme of her clue."
"She's an amazing woman."
"How stuck on her are you?"
"All the way." Trying to settle, Brad leaned against the windowsill. "Problem is, she doesn't trust me. I'm making progress, though. At least she doesn't freeze up or go on the defensive every time I look at her these days. But sometimes she looks at me like I've just dropped in from another planet and I have not come in peace."
"She's a package deal. Women who are part of a package have to be more careful. If they're smart. Zoe's smart."
"I'm nuts about that kid. The more I'm around him, the more I want to be. I'd like to know the story on his father."
Flynn shook his head at Brad's questioning look. "Sorry, my sources are very closemouthed on that subject. You could try the direct approach and ask her yourself."
Brad nodded. "One more thing, then I've got to take off. Are you going to write the story?"
"The Daughters of Glass," Flynn said aloud, looking off into middle distance as if reading a headline written on air. "Dateline Pleasant Valley, Pennsylvania. Two Celtic gods visited the scenic Laurel Highlands to challenge three local women to locate the keys to the legendary Box of Souls."
He laughed a little, lifted his coffee again. "It'd be a hell of a story. Adventure, intrigue, romance, money, personal risk, personal triumph, and the power of the gods, all right here in our quiet hometown. Yeah. I thought about it—to write it, and do it right. When I first got into this, I thought, Jesus, Jesus , this could be the story of the century. Of course, I could just as easily be hauled off and put in a padded room, but that wouldn't have stopped me."
"What did?"
"It would put them on the spot, wouldn't it? Again. Some people would believe it, many wouldn't, but everybody would ask them questions, hammer at them for answers and statements. They—well, none of us—would ever be able to live a normal life after that."
He looked down into his coffee, gave another little shrug. "And that's what this is about, at the base. All of us being able to live the way we want to, the way we're entitled to. It's different if Jordan writes it, turns it into a book. Then it's fiction. But I won't be writing it up for the paper."
"You were always the best of us."
Flynn paused with his coffee mug halfway to his lips. "Huh?"
"The most clear-sighted, the most clear-hearted. That's why you stayed in the Valley, at the paper, when you wanted to go. Maybe that's why Jordan and I could leave. Because we knew you'd be here when we got back."
It was a rare thing for Flynn's tongue to tie itself in knots, but it did so now. "Well" was all he could manage.
"I've got to get to Pittsburgh." Brad set his coffee aside and rose. "Call me on the cell if anything comes up while I'm gone."
Still speechless, Flynn only nodded.
* * *
Zoe measured and mixed Mrs. Hanson's color. Her neighbor liked strong red highlights in the brown. Zoe had come up with a combination of toners that suited them both, and had been doing Mrs. Hanson's cut and color once a month for three years.
She was the only client Zoe serviced at home. Memories of growing up with hair on the floor and chemicals in the air had caused her to vow never to turn her home into a business.