The sound of a car pulling up the driveway made her jump. A loud diesel engine. Her father’s Mercedes. He was back already.
Shit! I thought he was going to be out all day!
Cassandra put the two letters back into the folder, put the folder back into the bottom drawer, and closed the drawer. In the background she heard the purr of the electric garage door opener.
What did I do with that damn key?
Her eyes scanned the desktop for the key. Nothing. She looked on the floor. Still nothing. The Mercedes was pulling into the six-car garage now. She had to get out of the office before he saw her. Damn it, where was that key? When she saw it a second later in the desk’s keyhole, she wanted to slap herself for not looking there earlier. She wrenched it out as she heard her father turn off the engine and slam the car door shut.
She ripped a piece of Scotch tape out of the dispenser on the desk and taped the key back under the middle drawer. She moved quickly now, getting up from behind the desk, slipping quickly to the door, opening it, turning right, and heading down the hall.
If she had turned left instead, she would have seen her father standing at the end of the hallway, watching her with a stunned look on his face.
DONALD Parker stood with a stiff back, perfect posture, and a dark blue suit at the end of the hall. Forty years in the news business had taken him across all seven continents. Parker had covered the inauguration of every president from Harry Truman to George Bush. He had witnessed the first moon launch, the Tet Offensive, the Beijing massacre, the opening of the Berlin Wall, Operation Desert Storm. He had interviewed Gandhi, Malcolm X, Pol Pot, Khomeini, Amin, Gorbachev, Hussein. There was little he had not accomplished.
As Sara limped toward him, Donald Parker caught her eye and smiled gently. His eyes were bright blue, piercing and probing. The eyes of the perfect interviewer. “Hello, Sara.”
“Hello, Donald. Did you get my notes?”
He nodded. “This is quite a story, Sara. The story of the year maybe. Why are you giving it up?”
“I’m too close to it,” she said.
“Personal involvement?”
She nodded.
“Does this have something to do with the statement your husband is making before the show?”
“I’d rather not say just yet.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Any new developments?”
“Another patient, a Riccardo Martino, was murdered last night on the hospital grounds.”
“What?”
“I have all the details here.”
He took the piece of paper and read it. “Good work, Sara.”
“There’s one other thing.”
“Oh?”
“You can’t mention Senator Jenkins’ son on the air.”
“I don’t understand.”
She explained. He listened intently, nodding. “Okay,” he said when she finished, “I’ll leave that part out.”
“Thanks, Donald. I really appreciate it.”
“And let me get something else straight. This Dr. Riker does not want to be on television?”
“Right. Dr. Riker wants to keep his anonymity. His assistant, Dr. Eric Blake, will handle the interviews.”
“Okay, then, I better get this thing wrapped up. Thanks for laying all the groundwork, Sara. You’ve left me with the easy parts.”
“No problem,” she said, walking away. “And thanks for understanding about Bradley Jenkins.”
Donald Parker watched her hobble away, leaning heavily on her cane. Sara was a mesmerizing girl, an awesome beauty masking an awesome intellect. She was good at her job and Donald found his respect for her growing every day.
Unfortunately, he knew, her respect for him was about to be tested. After tonight’s show she would be more than disappointed with him. She would be furious. But Donald Parker had been in this business a long time, and he had developed a certain code of ethics over the years. He did not believe in ignoring important aspects of a story for the convenience of others—no matter what the possible consequences.
And he was not going to leave Bradley Jenkins out of his report.
13
CASSANDRA was about to say something she would later regret.
She had come to Harvey’s office to tell him about the letters she found in her father’s drawer. Instead, unplanned words poured out of her mouth.
“I have something to tell you,” Cassandra began.
“Oh?”
She kept her head low, her eyes afraid to meet his. “I spent last night with another man.”
A brief flash of grief rushed through him, widening his eyes. “The, uh, marketing director?”
She nodded.
“I see,” Harvey said, his face calm now, showing nothing. He circled back to his desk, sat down, and began to jot notes in a file.
“Is that all you’re going to say?” she asked.
“What do you want me to say?”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Do you want it to bother me?”
“Stop answering my questions with a question.”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Cassandra. You come in here and tell me you slept with another man. How do you want me to react?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you tell me?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“I would never have found out,” he said. “Why did you say anything?”
She opened her mouth, stopped, began to shrug, stopped, then said in a hesitant voice, “I wanted to be up-front with you.”
“Fine. You were up-front. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”
“Wait a second—”
“I’m sorry, Cassandra. I really am. I thought we were happy together. I thought—I don’t know—I thought we had something special.”
“We do.”
“Then we have different ideas about special. I can’t afford to get my heart squashed again. It hurts too much. It affects my concentration, my work—”
“It won’t happen again. I swear. I never meant to hurt—”
“It doesn’t matter. I should have never let it come this far anyway. It was a mistake from the beginning. I was a goddamn fool to think you could ever . . .” He shook his head. “Good-bye, Cassandra.” He lowered his eyes and began writing.
“Harv?”
He did not look up. His voice was more firm now. “Good-bye, Cassandra.”
She felt something odd, something hard and painful, form inside her own chest. She wanted to say something more, but his cold expression stopped her.