“Sure. I guess so.”
“And taught you how to ride your bike. How to tie your shoes. I bet he even taught you how to wipe your own tushie, Jeff.”
“Uh…”
“Here’s the thing. My baby won’t have that. Poor little Bobby’s gonna grow up fatherless unless I can find Mike and apologize. That’s where you come in.”
“I do?” he squeaked.
“Look, last night Mike calls saying he’s leaving L.A. for good. But the caller ID was blocked. I have no idea where he is. If I could find out where he was calling from, I might be able to stop him before he makes a terrible mistake.”
He paused so long on the other end I thought maybe he’d hung up.
“Jeff? You still there?”
“I feel for your situation, ma’am, but we can’t give out addresses of other clients.”
“I don’t even need his address. Just…can you tell me the name of the person who owns the number?”
“I’m not sure that’s in keeping with our policy…”
“How about just the number? Can you at least give me that? Please, Jeff. Little Bobby deserves a real family.” Even if my story was utter crap, the desperation in my voice was real. This was the best lead-scratch that, only lead-I had on Mystery Caller’s identity.
I think maybe it was the “real family” bit that got him, as his voice dropped to just above a whisper, and he said, “When did the call take place?”
I did a mental “squeee!” and said, “Last night. Eleven thirty p.m. to this number.”
I heard the sound of a keyboard clacking in the background. “I’m really not supposed to be doing this,” Jeff repeated.
“You are doing me such a favor. In fact, I’m thinking Jeffery would make a fine middle name for Bobby, huh?”
“Okay, I’ve got one call logged, coming in at eleven thirty-two.”
“That’s it! And the number?”
Jeff took a deep breath, and I could almost feel him looking over both shoulders for hovering supervisors before he rattled off the digits.
“You are the best, Jeff!” I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote the number down. An L.A. area code, I noticed. When he was finished, I promised him that he’d be mentioned at little Bobby’s bris and hung up the phone.
Immediately, I dialed the number. It rang on the other end. And again. Fifteen rings into it, I gave up.
Instead, I pulled up a reverse lookup directory on my computer and typed the number in.
Bingo.
The number came back as being owned by PW Enterprises.
I pulled up a Google screen and typed in the name. Not surprising, about a million hits came up, ranging from mortgage brokers to used car dealers. I bit my lip, narrowing the search to L.A. County. What do you know, only half a million hits this time. I mentally cracked my knuckles, going in deep for a serious webcrawling session.
Two hours and several dozen webpages later, I was bug-eyed, brain-dead, and no closer to identifying what PW was, let alone who there might not be my number one fan.
“You get the tip on Blain Hall?”
I looked up to find Cam hovering over my desk.
“The drugs in rehab?” I asked, struggling to focus as my eyes adjusted from squinting at the computer monitor.
She nodded. “Felix is sending me over to snap a few pics of Blain through the rehab windows to run next to your story. Got a headline yet?”
“DIRTY DOG TAKES REHAB AS SERIOUSLY AS CRITICS TAKE HIS SAPPY BALLADS.”
Cam laughed, flipping her blonde ponytail over her shoulder and showing off a row of perfectly white teeth. I am about as heterosexual as a gal can get, but even I had to admit, Cam was hot. Volcanic. Rumor was she’d been a model or something in her teens. I had no idea if it was true, but I swear seeing her fresh face and neverseen-a-split-end gorgeous hair on a billboard would sell me on any product.
“Harsh headline, Tina.”
“He deserves it.”
“Aw, have a heart. You know, I kinda like those sappy ballads.”
“Ugh. Seriously? They’re like saccharine. And so trite. ‘I’ll love you ‘til the end of time.’ How many times have we heard that same line before?”
Cam shrugged. “I dunno. It’s still kinda sweet. Besides, his voice…” She sighed. “It gives me shivers.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You’re going soft on me, Cam.”
She just smiled. “What’s PW Enterprises?” she asked, pointing to my screen.
“The home of some jerk with too much time on his hands.”
She raised an eyebrow in my direction.
Quickly I filled her in on my morning and the friendly phone call I’d received last night.
“Wow,” she said when I was done. “I had a drunk reality show contestant throw a punch at my camera once, but never anything like this. You must have really pissed someone off.”
“Or it’s a stupid prank,” I was quick to point out.
“Yeah, well, Felix doesn’t think it’s a prank.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why do you say that?”
“He just told me I’m supposed to take the new girl with me to the evidence hearing in the Pines trial this afternoon.”
I spun around in my chair. “Seriously? But that’s my story!”
Cam shrugged. “Felix said you were off it. I guess now I know why.”
I looked across the newsroom. The new girl was sitting at a vacant desk near the window. Where, coincidentally, her double D’s were directly in our editor’s line of vision. She was staring intently at a computer screen, her little ski jump nose scrunched up.
No doubt trying to figure out how to spell “google.”
“Don’t worry,” Cam said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure he’s just trying to get her feet wet.”
“Yeah, well, I hope she drowns,” I responded, jumping up from my chair and stalking toward Felix’s office.
Our editor in chief was deep in conversation with some other guy, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even stop to knock before pushing my way through the glass doors.
“That was my story!” I yelled.
Felix looked up, his brows forming a concerned V over his eyes. “What story?”
“Don’t ‘what story’ me,” I said, advancing on him. “Pines. Cam said you gave it to the new chick.”
“Allie. Her name is Allie.”
“My. Story.”
Felix sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “You received a death threat this morning, Bender. It would be completely irresponsible of me to send you out in the field.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “It was a prank call! Probably a couple of teenagers.”
“Probably,” he said, jumping on the word.
“This is so unfair. This is so fuc-”
“Bender…” he warned.
“So flipping unfair. That is my godda-goldarned story. I’ve been freaking reporting on that sonofagoat Pines since the beginning, and you give it to a hot pair of cantaloupes because some little snotweasel of a kid pranks me?”
I think I heard the other man chuckle, but I tuned him out, my entire pissed-off being focused on Felix.
“I have a responsibility for your safety, Bender.”
“It’s a courthouse. I’ll be perfectly safe!”
“Yes, you will.”
I opened my mouth to argue, when I realized he’d agreed with me. I shut it with a click.
“Right. Thank you.”
“You’ll be perfectly safe because I’ve hired you a bodyguard.”
I blinked. Feeling my face go hot until I’d swear there was cartoon steam pouring out my ears. “A what?”
“Tina, meet Calvin Dean.” He gestured to the other guy.
I turned, giving the man my full attention now. He was tall, almost a head taller than Felix. Broad in the shoulders, slim in the waist. I could tell by the way his T-shirt fit over his biceps that he spent a fair amount of time at the gym. His hair was dark, just curling over his ears, and he had a neatly trimmed goatee that gave him a slightly devilish look. And I could swear his dark eyes were laughing at me.