Tenley leaned out, just a fraction so she could see around Brileen.
“Hey!” Brileen whispered. “They’ve got someone in handcuffs? See him?”
“Whoa.” Tenley edged away from the shelter of the building, wanting to get a better look. In about two minutes she was going to be late for work, which would be difficult to explain. If Dahlstrom even gave her a chance to explain.
But this was kind of like a movie. How could she leave now?
Jane was shooting the hell out of this, whatever this turned out to be. Jane’s job now was to get everything on video. Shoot first, one journalism school professor had instructed, ask questions later. The whole class had lost it, laughing.
But that’s exactly what she was doing.
Melissa had hung up on her-or maybe their cell phone connection had gotten dropped, Jane wasn’t sure. But when Jane had heard voices, then seen shadows, then heard feet crunching across the grit of the alley cobblestones, she’d tucked herself behind the air conditioner again-seemed like she’d spent a lot of time there-knowing the next face she saw might be Jake’s, and wondering how, exactly, she’d deal with that.
Jake would not be happy. And she did not have a good explanation for why she’d ignored his orders to leave. Not that she was obligated to do what he told her.
But it was a stranger’s face she saw first, a blustering, muttering, muscle-bound guy in a sweat-soaked oxford shirt and ripped khakis, his hands cuffed behind him, being marched out of the alley by a scowling Paul DeLuca. Was this the killer?
Jane instantly pointed her Quik-Shot, checking that the camera was recording, making sure the sound was up, feeling the heart-swelling rise of news instinct, the hope that maybe, because she’d held her ground, she was now documenting the arrest of the guy she’d mentally headlined the Curley Park Killer. It was breaking news, it was exclusive, and it was a potentially career-clinching moment.
“Get her outta here,” the man yelled. “I told you no photographs! I’m going to sue the hell out of…”
Jane let out a steadying spiral of breath. Stay calm. Do this. If the man didn’t want his photo taken, Channel 2’s legal people would decide whether to put it on the air. But in her book, a handcuffed man in police custody was a suspect and fair broadcast game.
She felt the warm flush of adrenaline as she panned the camera to follow DeLuca and the man out of the alley, the suspect’s voice diminishing as DeLuca led him away.
Behind DeLuca was the kid, Bobby Land. His hands, not cuffed, were jammed into his pockets, his shoulders sagged, and a smear of dirt swiped across his face. The hipster-wannabe camo hat he’d worn so jauntily was jammed into the waistband of his jeans. He’d approached Jane all confident and conspiratorial. Now he was just an angry-looking kid, stomping down the alley in grimy scuffed sneakers, the untied laces dragging on the pavement.
And behind him was Jake. Jake had one hand on Bobby’s shoulder, but didn’t look as if he had the boy in custody. In his other hand, Jake carried what looked like a clear plastic bag of… Jane couldn’t tell.
Just keep shooting, her reporter brain instructed. Then follow them out.
Through the viewfinder, Jane watched that plan go down the tubes. Jake stopped and turned back to look at her. She saw his face in the camera first, then looked past the viewfinder to see him in reality as well. She’d seen Jake laughing and crying, she’d seen him perplexed, amused, and concerned, and, a couple of times, irate. She wasn’t quite sure how to label his current expression.
“Jane?” As if he didn’t know who she was. Or couldn’t believe it. “Why the hell are you-”
“Hey, Detective.” She tried a conciliatory smile, all innocence and obedience. Two professional acquaintances meeting by chance. In an alley. After a murder. “Yeah, I was about to leave, just as you suggested, but then-”
“My camera is wrecked, Jane!” Bobby wrenched himself away from Jake, glowering, and took a step toward her. “Where’d you go? I had everything, like I told you, all the photographs of the stabbing, but then this moron-I can’t even believe it. Broke it. All that’s left is in that stupid plastic bag. Look!”
He pointed to the bag in Jake’s hand with one accusatory finger. Jane backed up-partly to get a better shot of the bag, partly because she wasn’t quite sure about the look on the kid’s face. He was about nineteen or twenty, hadn’t he told her he was in college? And though he obviously cultivated a kind of urban-hip streetwise vibe, he had a jittery quality, edgy as an abused pup trying to decide whether a newcomer was ally or enemy. A pup who had chosen incorrectly before.
“Wait, who broke it?” Jane asked. Had Jake smashed the kid’s camera? Why? The other perplexing thing was that Bobby had never told her he had photos of the murder. He’d only said he might. She pointed her Quik-Shot at Jake. “Ja-Detective Brogan?”
“Enough. From both of you.” Jake clamped his free hand on the kid’s right arm and yanked Bobby away from her. “Anything else you need, you get from headquarters, Ms. Ryland.”
He pivoted, leading a still-complaining Bobby toward the sunlit street.
Two hours since she’d gotten this assignment, and now Jane had about three seconds before the only thing in her viewfinder would be an empty alley. DeLuca and whoever that was in handcuffs were already at the sidewalk. She had a camera full of something, but no idea what the video meant. She had to find out. And quickly.
“Detective Brogan? Can you at least identify the man in handcuffs?” she called after them. “Is he a person of interest in the Curley Park stabbing?”
Jake had turned his back on her and was leading Bobby out of the alley. He took another step, then stopped, and Jane saw the back of his leather jacket rise, then fall. Still holding Bobby’s arm, Jake turned toward her, slowly. She saw his eyes narrow, his mouth in a taut line. She adored that mouth, knew every centimeter of it. She adored those dark eyes, and the laugh lines around them, had seen them as closely as anyone could see another human being.
“‘Person of interest’?” Jake drew out the words as he looked her up and down, making her feel as if he’d never seen her before. Sometimes he acted like a stranger. Did he think about her that way, too? “Where did you hear that phrase, Ms. Ryland? On the cops and robbers channel?”
And then her phone buzzed again.
15
Jane sat on Marsh Tyson’s black leather couch, waiting for the news director to return. Thinking about her long journey to get here. A few years ago, a college journalism student had interviewed Jane for a school project. You’re my role model, the girl had told her. Jane, still such a shining newbie that she’d believed that was reasonable, had answered the student thoughtfully, trying for passion and principle and optimism.
What would be the title of your autobiography? The girl promised Jane it would be the last question. And that was a toughie. At age-what was Jane then, thirty?-the story of her life as a journalist was still unfolding. How could she label it? How could she know?
The Best Is Yet to Come. She’d contemplated that title, but it seemed ungrateful. She’d been happy, and why dismiss what she’d already accomplished? Just Do It seemed derivative. Never Give Up? Just as clichéd. She’d felt compelled to give a good answer, an honest one. One that would give some insight into her soul. Even to herself.
Back then she’d just been assigned to the stress-inducing ratings-driven agenda of the investigative unit. She was negotiating the mortgage on her Corey Road condo. Her sister triumphantly finished law school. Mom got her terrible diagnosis. Her father was still chief of surgery at Oak Park Hospital. Jane still had her tortoiseshell cat Murrow, and she’d been almost engaged to a cerulean-eyed doctor, whose hours at Mass General had been equally unpredictable as her reporter hours but whose profession was the one thing in Jane’s life her father couldn’t criticize.