She was accustomed to people coming to her with their problems. She had handled all the consumer-watchdog stuff before she got the noon anchor job. The station had a reputation for looking out for the little guy-helping people who had been swindled or had unfortunate run-ins with city hall. Nothing cloak-and-dagger, though. Now, with her promotion, she could concentrate more on hard news, which was more compatible with her immediate goal of becoming an evening anchorperson either here in Dallas or in some other major market, which she hoped would be a stepping-stone to a network position or a cable job that provided nationwide exposure. After all, some of the big-time broadcast divas were getting a little long in the tooth, and Marcia wanted to be experienced enough and have proven herself to be aggressive enough to be next in line. It was only a matter of time, and she wanted sooner instead of later.
But she also wanted a husband and kids. A normal side to her life. And Joe Brammer was the only man with whom she had ever imagined herself growing old.
Don’t go there, she warned herself. Just see what he wants. And hope it leads to a good story.
Still, she found herself wondering if he was with someone now. What if he wasn’t in trouble at all but some woman was? His lover, or his wife?
Whatever the story was, it had better be a good one. She didn’t have time to waste on dead ends or small stuff.
She forced herself to return to the story she had been working on before Joe’s visit.
Somehow, she got through the rest of the afternoon. At a quarter of five, she was heading for the parking lot. She stopped by her apartment to freshen up and change into her best-fitting jeans and race around picking up clothes and shoes and tidying up a bit-just in case. Then she headed down the North Dallas Toll Road. The traffic was heavy. She was going to be late.
When she pulled up in front of the elegant Crescent, Joe was waiting.
As Joe got into the car, he handed her a piece of paper with the word “Denton” written on it. Once again he put his finger to his lips.
Marcia wanted to erupt. Was the man nuts? Did he actually think that someone might have bugged her car? She rolled her eyes at him then pulled away from the curb.
Marcia headed back up the toll road and found a pop-music station on the radio to end the stifling silence that hung over the interior of the car. She took the George Bush to I-35, and twenty minutes later, following Joe’s unspoken directions, she took the second Denton exit. She pulled into the drive-through lane of a Mexican restaurant and ordered two meals and two large iced teas. Then she drove until she saw a school playground and pulled into the parking lot.
She grabbed one of the food sacks and an iced tea and headed for a bench near the swings. “Are you crazy?” she demanded as Joe approached.
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug.
They sat on a bench. “You care if I eat something before we talk?” he asked.
“Suit yourself,” she said.
She watched him practically inhale a burrito and decided that she was hungry herself. They ate in silence. Finally Joe said, “My grandparents lived in Mesquite while I was growing up. I spent a lot of time there…”
Marcia listened while Joe explained the special feelings he’d always had for an orphaned little girl named Jamie who lived with her grandmother in a house just over the back fence from his grandparents’ house. As Jamie got older he could never quite decide how to classify his feelings for her.
At first Marcia listened through veils of anger. If she’d known that she had competition, maybe she wouldn’t have let herself fall in love with the guy. But as his story got ever more intriguing, she felt her reporter’s instincts kick in. It was like listening to the plot line of a far-fetched movie with shadowy government agents tracking down innocent people who knew too much. She came to understand his paranoia and wondered if indeed her phones and office and car might be bugged because she was Joe’s former girlfriend.
But as she listened to Joe relate what he wanted her to do and explain what little hard information he had on Gus Hartmann, she wondered if she really wanted to know more. “I’m sorry that you and your lady are in someone’s crosshairs,” she told Joe, “but I don’t want to join you there.”
“All I want for you to do is cover the event just as you normally would,” Joe said.
“A religious service is not a news event,” she protested. “You need to talk to someone from the Christian channel.”
“It is a political event, Marcia. Amanda Hartmann’s organization raises many millions of dollars to assist candidates who supposedly support their worldview but also just happen to be pro big business, especially the energy business.”
Gus couldn’t sleep. He took a midnight walk then went upstairs to make an unprecedented middle-of-the-night visit to see Buck. Randi’s mother was flustered at first but then realized that he wasn’t checking up on her, he was just looking for solace. She disappeared into the sitting room, leaving him to gaze down at Buck’s innocent sleeping face and gently touch his achingly beautiful and exquisitely soft cheeks.
More and more he wished that he could simply end the quest for Sonny’s baby. He could be satisfied for the rest of his life with little Buck. But things had gone too far. There was no way to back out of the chase. Too many laws had been broken. Jamie Long and her boyfriend had to be silenced. And Amanda would have the baby she wanted.
Not that he expected his sister to be a great mother. She would swoop in and out of the boy’s life as she had with Sonny, as Mary Millicent had with them. Gus closed his eyes, remembering how he had lived for those times with his mother. When they were together, she couldn’t hug and kiss him enough and would question him about every facet of his life and listen attentively to his answers. When Mary Millicent was with her children, especially at the ranch, she belonged just to them, but those times were separated by long, lonely weeks and sometimes by months. She would call on the phone, of course, but she always seemed to be giving instructions to her secretary or some other subordinate while she talked to him.
And that was the way Amanda had been with Sonny, overwhelming him with love when she was with him but leaving him to be raised by his uncle Gus or Ann Montgomery or the staff of some boarding school the rest of the time.
Jamie Long was a wonderful mother who had given up all of her dreams and any semblance of a normal life to be with her baby. Gus admired her for that. Admired her and Joe Brammer for their cleverness and their dedication to each other. They were two worthy young people who might have had a wonderful future together, who would have made sound, normal, loving parents for Sonny’s baby and provided him with sisters and brothers and a good home. But that was not to be.
The die had been cast.
It had been impossible to maintain surveillance of all of Joe Brammer’s former classmates and friends, but they had all been investigated and certain associates of these individuals-such as secretaries, receptionists, doormen, neighbors-had been put on alert. They were led to believe that they would be doing their nation a great service if they reported seeing anyone who remotely resembled Joe Brammer. Such efforts had finally paid off.
At first Gus had been inclined to eliminate Brammer’s former girlfriend from the list until he found out that she was a newscaster with a Dallas television station. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if Marcia Kimball might be the key.
And now his instincts had paid off. The receptionist at the television station had reported that a nice-looking man with a shaved head had shown up at the television station asking to see Marcia Kimball. He would not give his name but mentioned a Harley as a means of identifying himself to Miss Kimball.