“It’s not a story, Carter. I just…is it so wrong to want to see you? To want someone in this family to know the truth?”
It had been twenty years since Vanessa had dropped him, along with his brother, Tyler and sister, Savannah, off with their grandmother, Margot. Ten years since she’d resurfaced to bribe him into lying for her on the stand. And now, suddenly, she thought she deserved a chance to tell her side of the story?
“This family wouldn’t know the truth if we sat on it,” he snapped. He turned to leave, walking up the slight hill toward the end of the alley.
“I didn’t steal the gems and I didn’t plant them in the house. You’re right. I was looking for them months ago, but I didn’t find them. But now that the diamond has surfaced, everyone is going to come looking for that ruby and it could get ugly. For all of us. If they’re not at The Manor, there’s a chance Margot has them on her.”
“Margot?”
“She could be in danger, Carter.”
“I can’t believe this,” Carter sighed. “You’re trying to convince me you care? About us? Or someone else getting their hands on the ruby.”
“Do you think I would be here if I wasn’t worried? If I wasn’t serious?”
“Yes.”
She sighed, exasperated. “I paid that girl a thousand dollars, Carter.”
Right. Money. Not something Mom parted ways with easily.
Vanessa opened her mouth, but from the end of the alley, he heard Jim Blackwell’s voice talking to Amanda.
“I don’t know where he is,” Amanda was saying, very loud.
“You know,” Jim said, “for a PR gal, you’re a shit liar.”
“Monday night,” he said to Vanessa, resigning himself to the fact that he needed to manage his family, because out of his control, they could ruin everything. “At 8 p.m., outside of my office. Anyone asks who you are, you lie.”
She nodded and stepped into the shadows, the faint click of her heels against the asphalt fading away as Jim Blackwell appeared at the top of the alley.
“I never pegged you as the deadbeat daddy type,” Jim said, his face awash with victory. “Not very nice of you.”
Carter stalked up the alley, wishing, truly wishing that politics weren’t so important to him so that he could just haul off and punch Jim in his fat mouth. But his job, the work he did, the work he wanted to do, it all mattered.
“No comment,” was all he said as he stomped by. “And I’ll have your job if even one word of this is blown out of proportion.”
“Come on, now, Carter. I’m a newsman, I only want to tell the truth. I just don’t understand why you have such a problem telling it.”
Carter ignored him and continued to his car, where a very stressed Amanda stood.
“What?” he barked, trying to look past her for a glimpse of the lying pregnant elf. The backseat was empty. “Amanda?”
“She’s gone,” Amanda said. “The girl. She just vanished.”
“THIS REALLY HAPPENED?” Tom Gilbert asked, coming to perch his skinny butt on the corner of Jim’s desk. Tom was to the City Desk what lunch ladies were to playground bullies—ineffective and overzealous. In a word, useless.
“Of course it happened,” Jim said, not looking up from his five hundred words about Carter O’Neill’s testimony for his mother ten years ago.
He’d already handed in his story about Carter O’Neill’s love child.
Honestly, this might be one of the best days of Jim’s life.
“Jim?”
“You’ve got a picture,” Jim said, rolling away from the keyboard to face his boss. “It happened. I’ve got two old ladies saying they had no idea Zoe Madison was having a thing with the mayor pro tem. What more do you want?”
“News,” Tom said, smacking the copy against his knee.
“Carter O’Neill, who is going to announce his candidacy for mayor any minute, knocks a girl up and walks away?” Jim laughed. “That’s not news?”
“I don’t think it’s true,” Tom said and Jim sat up.
“You accusing me of lying?”
“No, Jim,” Tom sighed. “Christ, you’re so defensive I can barely talk to you. What I’m saying is I don’t think it’s a story. The Mayor Pro Tem office is going to issue a statement saying O’Neill’s never even heard of this girl, and I don’t want to have to print a retraction in two days for a story tomorrow.”
“That might not happen, Tom.” You lily-livered, soft-handed coward, he thought. “And right now, you’ve got a public official involved in some pretty crummy stuff. I know it’s been awhile since you were out there, but that is news. The girl’s broke—a dance teacher or something—she has no insurance, and she just accused Golden Boy Carter O’Neill of knocking her up. It’s gonna be all over the region, it’s so good.”
Tom stood up, his freaking king-of-the-world attitude putting a few more inches on his lollipop build. “Your hard-on for this guy is getting in the way of your judgment. You did good work two years ago on the Marcuzzi administration. No one can take that away from you—”
Especially you, you little nosebleed, Jim thought.
“But not every public official is out to ruin this town.”
“Carter O’Neill’s father was arrested with a thirty-carat stolen gem! His sister is dating the son of the man arrested for the original theft. The man comes from a family of crooks. His grandmother was a high-paid whore—”
Tom winced, because he had the stomach of a little girl.
“His mother is a known criminal—”
“Convicted once of grand theft auto.” Tom shook his head. “You did this story when Richard Bonavie was originally arrested and Carter answered every one of your questions. He has very little contact with his family. Not everyone running this town is dirty. I think the Marcuzzi administration ruined you, made you see crooks were there aren’t any.”
“Gem theft!” Jim cried. “If Carter has anything to do with it, he’s dirtier than Marcuzzi.”
“I’m not against you,” Tom whispered. “I want to help you. But you’re young and fairly new to the city—you keep running around here half-cocked and we’re all gonna get burned. There’s a difference between journalism and a witch hunt.”
“What about the love child story?” Jim asked, ignoring Tom’s little pep talk.
Tom sighed. “It runs. Copy already came up with a killer headline,” he said and Jim fought back a smile. Of course it would run. It was top-shelf scandal, and scandal sold papers.
“What else are you working on?” Tom asked.
“I’ve got five hundred words on O’Neill testifying for his mother in a criminal case ten years ago.”
“Are you kidding?” Tom asked. “You’re turning into a one-trick pony here, Jim.”
“You’ve got a hole on page three,” he said with a shrug. “I can fill it.”
“Damn,” Tom sighed. “Okay, Jim, but let’s remember what we’re here to do. Tell news, not stories.”
CARTER DIDN’T WAIT for the emergency Saturday-morning meeting to officially begin. He stormed into Amanda’s office and caught her shoving the last of a doughnut into her mouth.
“What are we going to do?” he