Chapter 6
Hayley couldn’t breathe as she stood in front of the magazine and newspaper rack at the Big Apple convenience store where she picked up her coffee before work every morning.
She wasn’t near a mirror, but she knew her face was beet red.
Her heart was pounding.
She stared at the photo on the front page of the Bar Harbor Herald, the Island Times’ rival paper. It was a picture of Hayley and Wade Springer canoodling in the gazebo at the Balance Rock Inn, along with a caption, “The Way to a Man’s Heart Is Through His Stomach.”
The article went on to say that Hayley was being hired to be the official chef for Wade while he was staying in Bar Harbor, and that the big question now was, Is it really business, or pleasure?
The figure in the bushes.
The flash.
It was a photographer.
And the Herald probably bought the picture so they could trump up some silly story about a romance brewing between a world famous singer and a simple-minded local girl. She always knew the Herald was just a shameless tabloid dressed up like a quirky small-town paper.
At least her own paper, the Times, wouldn’t stoop this low.
Right in the next rack was the Island Times.
The same photo was on the front page.
Their caption said, “What’s Really Cooking Between Wade Springer and Our Very Own Food and Cocktails Columnist?”
No.
Sal would never print something like this without warning her first.
But, then again, she had left work early the previous day, before the paper was put to bed and she had turned her cell off because she didn’t want any calls interrupting her meeting with Wade.
She forgot to turn it back on.
Hayley fished her phone out of her coat pocket and fired it up.
Sure enough, there were four messages.
All from Sal.
Message #1:
“Hey, Hayley, I’m at the office late. We’re about to go to press and I got this kid Darrell Rodick here in the office with a photo of you and Wade and I just wanted to get your side of the story to see if there’s something here. Call me back.”
Darrell Rodick was a ruthlessly ambitious fifth-grader and amateur photographer who fancied himself the town’s paparazzi. The only trouble was, very rarely did celebrities frequent Bar Harbor, and, when they did, it was in the summer. He once ambushed a pretty girl who had appeared once on The Vampire Diaries while she was biking around Eagle Lake.
The kid was a big pain.
And Hayley was about to call his parents and tell them so.
Message #2:
“Uh, Hayley, please call me back. I’m not sure what to do here. We’re nearing deadline. My wife just saw the Rodick kid heading over to the Herald offices, and you know how I don’t like to be scooped.”
Hayley knew what was coming next.
Message #3:
“Hayley, I need to decide what to do soon and you’re off the grid for some reason so I’m going to make an executive decision and print the photo. I know you’re not going to like this, but we just interviewed the bartender at the Balance Rock Inn and he confirmed you two looked like you were on a date.”
The bartender?
Seriously?
Message #4:
“Okay, Hayley, it’s done. Sorry about this, but I had to go with my gut. I didn’t want the Herald getting the jump on us. Maybe you can do an exclusive interview with us. Just to clarify things in case we got something wrong.”
Hayley was fuming. Her face got hotter.
Yes, she was ticked off at that bratty shutterbug Darrell Rodick for spying on her. Yes, she was furious with Sal for turning the Times into a small-town version of Star magazine. But, most of all, she was really pissed at the unflattering photo of herself.
Wade, of course, looked stunning and natural as always, like he was accepting a Country Music Award.
But she just wasn’t photogenic. Her head was thrown back and her mouth was open, laughing, and it looked like she had some kind of weird underbite. She looked just like her dog, Leroy. They do say dogs tend to resemble their owners.
Hayley rushed out of the Big Apple, hopped in her car, and drove straight to the office. When she blew through the front door, Sal was nowhere to be seen. She stormed into the back bullpen, but his office door was closed and locked.
“So is it true?” a man’s voice said from behind, startling her.
Hayley spun around.
It was Bruce.
He dangled a copy of the Times in front of him.
“Of course it’s not true. I should sue for libel. Where the hell is Sal?”
“Don’t know. My guess is he’s hiding from you,” Bruce said, studying the photo on the front page. “Sure looks to me like something’s going on between you two.”
“We’re not going to go through this again, Bruce,” Hayley said, remembering how Bruce reacted when she first began dating Lex. She knew he had the hots for her and they had known each other a long time, but there was no way she would ever go there. Especially with a coworker.
“Have you talked to Wade? Has he seen the papers?”
Hayley’s heart nearly stopped.
She hadn’t thought of Wade. What must he be thinking? Would he suspect that Hayley had ulterior motives for going to work for him? Wade knew she was a columnist at the paper. Would he think she had pursued the job as his personal chef so she could pump him for intimate details about his personal life? Or maybe he would suspect she was some kind of pathetic fame-whore trying to make herself part of the story.
Hayley couldn’t bear the thought of her beloved Wade making those judgments about her.
Bruce folded the paper in his hand. “So?”
“No, I haven’t talked to Wade. Why waste his time with this garbage?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Bruce said, following Hayley back out to the front office, where she sat down at her desk and turned on her computer, ready to begin the day’s work.
“It makes me sick to my stomach that this is our front-page story when there is a serious crime spree going on in this town,” Bruce said.
Hayley clicked on her e-mail and was relieved she hadn’t yet received one from Wade’s people, terminating her.
Maybe they hadn’t seen the papers yet.
“Did you know this mysterious robber broke into another home yesterday when the residents were at work? In broad daylight. He’s getting more brazen every day,” Bruce said.
Hayley tried ignoring him.
“I do have a suspect, though,” Bruce said, trying to stir Hayley’s interest.
Hayley clicked on her file of recipes and searched for the perfect one for her next column, but curiosity got the best of her and she swiveled around in her office chair to face Bruce.
“Who?” Hayley asked.
“That punk ass, Jesse DeSoto,” Bruce spit out.
Jesse DeSoto was an obvious choice. A nineteen-year-old high school dropout hellion who got a perverse joy out of picking on younger kids. Hayley despised him because when Dustin was in fifth grade, he became a target. Hayley had noticed Dustin’s mood changing at home, but her son refused to admit he was getting chased home from school and pushed around by Jesse.
Until Gemma witnessed one particularly nasty episode where Jesse had Dustin flat on his stomach and was shoving his face into a snowbank. Gemma had raced to his rescue, and, luckily, Jesse had always thought Gemma was cute, so when she ordered him to stop bothering her brother, Jesse immediately let Dustin go with the promise of never touching him again.
And he had kept his word. Hayley was going to call Jesse’s mother to complain, but Dustin begged her not to and she finally let the whole matter go. Still, she was no fan of Jesse’s, and Bruce was probably right.
“What evidence do you have?” Hayley asked.
“Nothing concrete yet. But it’s only a matter of time. I’m going to tail him and catch him in the act and blow this whole story wide open.”
“Good for you,” Hayley said, humoring him.
“And then maybe we can shove all this ridiculous coverage of some subpar singing cowboy off the front page.”
For once, Hayley agreed with Bruce.
Well, except for the part about Wade being subpar.
Bruce wasn’t a country fan. He was more of a heavy metal enthusiast. He had looked like Steven Tyler in high school.
Maybe that’s why she once had a thing for him.
Too bad he cleaned himself up.