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The next day was Friday, and before it was over, Cleo decided they’d have to boil her in oil before she’d admit to ever seeing anything remotely attractive about Alec.
The man she’d seen glimpses of at the park and in her apartment, the man who had opinions and values she could respect, evaporated the moment he walked into the office. She hadn’t spent enough of her first day there to really grasp what kind of environment it was, but before her morning coffee break on the second day, she saw up close and personal how bad it could be.
Because of the Marge fiasco, the plans for her and Alec had changed. Instead of putting them in the middle of the newsroom, management decreed they’d be better off in a private office. Nigel didn’t come right out and say “away from Marge and Linny,” but she heard it in her head anyway.
Since she didn’t have anything to do yet, except to let Alec teach her to write in The Word’s style, she had no excuse not to help him move his things.
She tossed his hula-girl bobblehead into the box on his desk.
“Hey!” Alec picked it out of the box. “Be careful. You’ll break her.” When he straightened the grass skirt and lei, she realized those were add-ons.
“That bobblehead’s disgusting. I didn’t think they made them naked.”
“She’s a custom bobblehead. One of a kind.” He laid it gently back in the box.
Cleo rolled her eyes.
“She was a birthday present from the guys”—he rearranged the contents of the box to cushion her—“and Linny dressed her.”
“Oh. Well, then. That makes it okay for you to be a sexist pig.”
When he looked up, she flashed her biggest fake smile. His hands, so busy moments before, froze, and his eyes widened.
She glanced over her shoulder to see what had caught his attention, but nothing in the bullpen appeared abnormal. “What?” When she turned back, he’d shaken off whatever it was.
“Because I like naked women, I’m a sexist pig?”
“Because naked bobbleheads are inappropriate in the workplace.”
He grinned at her. “You’re just jealous because I have one and you don’t. Tell me your birthday, and I’ll get you one. Maybe I can get you one with a pop-up.” The suggestive tone complete with waggled eyebrows left no doubt what he meant.
She wasn’t jealous of his silly toy, but this was an argument she wasn’t going to win. “Don’t bother―”
A yell interrupted them. She turned to see one of the reporters standing three cubicles away with water dripping down his face. The culprit was nowhere to be seen, but a second later, another reporter across the room fired a florescent green water pistol at Marge. Butch she might be, but she screamed like a girl, then cussed like a sailor as she ran for her cubicle.
The rapid-fire sound of laptops slamming shut came from all corners of the room. A second later, music blared so loud it sounded as though it was piped in over intercom speakers. It was as if Marge’s scream was some sort of signal. Someone adjusted the volume, and the music resolved into Dire Straits’ “Calling Elvis.”
She almost laughed out loud. If that wasn’t the office’s theme song, it should have been.
Nigel peeked around the door of his office. He’d end the hijinks, she thought.
Cautiously, he stepped halfway out. In his hands, he held a high-power soaker that looked like a machine gun. Handling it like an SAS operative, he shot a stream of water deep into the cubicle village where the reporters dwelled.
A noise to her right caught her attention. She turned her head and found Jackson, a crazed grin on his face. His water pistol came up. Except it looked like a penis in an unlikely hot pink, and it was pointed straight at her. Cleo felt her eyes grow wide.
A warm hand closed around her wrist and jerked her down. She’d barely hit her knees when Alec pushed her head-first into the only sheltered space in the cubicle—under the desktop.
“Sweet Jesus, woman. Don’t you have sense enough to get out of the line of fire?” With one hand, he dug into the bottom of a two-drawer cabinet that sat under one end of the desktop. The other molded to her ass and gave her a final shove before he crowded in behind her.
His body arched over hers and she went soft and gooey that he’d risk himself to protect her, even if it was only from a blast of water. The emotion evaporated when he reached around in front of her. “Hey!” she protested, all faith in his protective instincts shattered in the clumsy—and misaimed—groping.
He pulled back and shifted position, then pressed his body even harder against her back. Her ass was firmly nestled into his groin and the question of whether he stuffed his crotch with socks flashed through her brain. This was her chance to find out without committing herself to anything. Before she could make her move, he reached around her again. This time, his hand found what he was looking for, and with a shock, she realized it wasn’t her.
From behind the two-drawer cabinet on her right, he pulled something that resembled an ammunition clip. Except it was clear and filled with water.
She peered over her shoulder to see him pick up what looked like a clear plastic AK47 as he backed out. He slapped the “clip” home and, with a kamikaze shout, charged into the fray.
Alone and defenseless under the desk, she leaned her head against the file cabinet and cursed the genetic anomaly that let men so easily access their inner child.
How was she supposed to work in an environment like this?
~***~
Alec held his ball just below eye level and stared down the alley at the two white pins.
Last game, last frame. He liked to go out on a high note, but the 7-10 split threatened to ruin his aria.
“You’ll never make that,” Jackson said. He kept talking and Alec wondered why his teammate couldn’t be at least as respectfully quiet as the league team they shared the lane with.
Determined to tune Jackson out, Alec filled his lungs in a long, slow pull, then made the three-step approach, releasing the ball at the right edge of the lane. Holding his follow-through position, he watched his ball cut across the lane in a long glide. The skull inside the urethane ball blurred as it headed for the seven pin.
“Whoa, baby.” Jackson sounded hopeful now. And reluctantly impressed.
The ball clipped the pin and sent it across the lane, hitting the ten pin hard. Alec punched the air with his fist as Marge and Linny let loose victory howls behind him.
When he turned, Jackson shook his head in disbelief. “You should have gone down in flames. How do you always pull it off?”
“Human sacrifices to pagan gods,” Alec said.
Even the opposing team laughed at that as they offered congratulatory handshakes. “Good game,” their team high scorer said.
“You too,” Alec said. “You made us work for it tonight.”
Before long, the other team had packed up their balls, changed shoes, and departed with Marge and Linny on their heels.
Alec stretched his arm across the back of the plastic seat next to him and pulled on his beer as Jackson picked up the bowling ball designed to look like a bloodshot eyeball from the ball return. Alec’s own ball was already in his bag, along with his bowling shoes. Rolling balls and clattering pins from the lanes near them provided the backdrop for the conversation he knew was coming.
Jackson dropped down a chair away and nestled his ball in its bag. He took one shoe off, sniffed it, and dropped it in the bag with the ball. “So . . . how’s it going with our hot, new reporter?”
His nonchalance didn’t fool Alec. They were about to indulge in the fine art of dissing.
He should have felt more enthusiasm. Then he remembered the moment when she’d flashed him that smile and totally knocked him on his heels. She hadn’t been sincere, but it had still made him realize it was the first full-on smile he’d seen from her. She had one of those thousand-watt smiles that took over her face. Like Hilary Swank’s or Julia Roberts’. And man, did he want to see a real one. He realized Jackson was waiting for a response, so he wagged his hand in a so-so gesture.
“Yeah, I was sure disappointed today. That suit yesterday? That was hot, but that gray one today?” Jackson tsked. “She looked like the vice president of some uptight advertising firm.”
Alec didn’t say anything. Hell, it wasn’t like he could argue with Jackson. The man was right.
Jackson pulled his street shoes out of the bag. “I don’t know how you’re going to stand it, working with her. That great body.” His gaze zeroed in on Alec’s. “That she’s never going to share.”
Lots of great looking women were never going to share their bodies with him, so Alec refused to take it personal. “You’re being kind of hard on her.”
Jackson snorted as he bent to pull on his sneakers. “How do you figure?”
“She’ll adjust eventually. She’s still a True Believer.”
Jackson straightened, his eyes wide. “You’re kidding.”
Finding a True Believer at a tabloid was the equivalent of finding a virgin at a whorehouse.
Jackson’s incredulous look disappeared as his natural cynicism took over. “You’re pulling my leg.”
Alec sketched an X over the left side of his chest. “Swear to God. She believes in Mom, apple pie, and the sacred mission of the mainstream media.”
Jackson gaped at him. Alec could practically see the gears of his brain trying to make the pieces fit.
“She thinks the media is still fulfilling the duties of the fourth estate,” Alec said even though he couldn’t believe Jackson had missed his point.
A laugh exploded from Jackson in a single ha. A short delay, filled with skeptical silence as he scanned Alec for some clue that would tell him if his buddy was serious. Not finding one, Jackson gave way to true mirth, his laughter coming in Gatling gun bursts. Before he was done, he was wiping tears from his eyes.
His laughter didn’t completely die off until they reached the parking lot. “We weren’t that naïve when we signed on, were we?”
“Hell, no.” Alec clicked his key fob and his taillights flashed. “We were hardcore cynics by the time we got here.”
And that was why he put up with Cleo’s holier-than-thou crap. Because as much as she needed to lose her naïve beliefs to survive her new job, and as much as she’d drive him nuts until he stripped her of those beliefs, it was going to be like watching a kid lose faith in Santa. He wished to God it wasn’t necessary.
~***~
On Monday, Cleo tiptoed around Linny and Marge. She fended off Jackson’s obnoxious comments, wondering if he was really that misogynistic or if something about her brought it out in him. And she smoldered around Alec. God, that man was hot. Smart, principled, and sexy. In short, hot on all fronts. Especially since she’d decided after the water-pistol fight on Friday, that his inner child was actually pretty adorable when he was soaked nearly from head to foot but grinning like a mischievous, little boy.
Why, oh, why did he have to be a happy hooker at a tabloid? For that matter, what had she done in her previous lives that she was working at such a rag, partnered up with a man who inspired triple-X rated fantasies, and who appeared to be as much of a hound dog as his friend Jackson?
Seated on the other side of the partners’ desk they now shared, Cleo booted up her laptop. Alec had given her a list of the most ridiculous things and told her to research them, not on Google, but on YouTube. At the top of the list, he’d written Elvis sightings.
She pushed her glasses up enough to rub between her eyes. “Why am I doing this again?”
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” Alec said without looking up from his computer.
“Oh, yes, of course. Silly me. I should read Shakespeare for answers.”
He stopped typing and looked at her. “You’re doing this because you need to lose the mindset that only certain types of stories are worthy. We have a policy here of respecting our readers. If they say they’ve been abducted by aliens, we don’t judge. We don’t assume they’re crazy. We hear them out. It requires an open mind.”
Cleo sighed and went back to her “research.” The first few videos featured pictures with a man in the background who resembled an aging Elvis. She’d seen too many Elvis impersonators in Vegas to be convinced.
Then she stumbled on a video compilation of various reports by a Cincinnati news station. Thirty minutes about a man who back in 2002 claimed to be Elvis. The case wasn’t convincing, but it was intriguing because it claimed that the DNA from a liver biopsy Elvis had had didn’t match the DNA from his autopsy.
And there was more.
An alleged half-sister, confirmed by DNA matches with other family members, whose DNA showed a relationship with the man who claimed to be Elvis.
It seemed like the kind of crazy Cleo had seen only in tabloids, but the production values were professional. And their claim that the court was allowing the case filed by the alleged sister against the Presley estate to go forward lent it credibility.
If it were all true. A little digging would undoubtedly reveal crucial pieces of the story to be false or exaggerated, but she could understand how the gullible could be taken in.
She moved to the next topic on Alec’s list: Bigfoot. She watched some videos, hating that Alec was right. Not about Bigfoot per se, but about the people. Yes, some of the stories were ridiculous and melodramatic, but a surprising number of videos were of intelligent, normal-seeming people, relating stories of unusual events in the wilderness. Those tended to shy away from claiming actual Bigfoot encounters. Maybe that contributed to her willingness to watch all the way through.
As she watched, she couldn’t help hearing Alec work his connections as he built a story that was pure hype. The crime beat, he called it. In Cleo’s mind, the crime was that he was writing it at all. He was too talented to waste it on drivel. But what really ate at her was that all his sources appeared to be women whose mother’s had named them Babe. Did he even know their real names? It was disgusting.
Not that it stopped her from having a fantasy that put him under her side of the desk, her panties tucked away in the top side drawer, her in her chair with her legs splayed to allow him room to bury his face in her crotch.
Even distracted by her fantasy and the videos, when he said, “What?” the change in his tone tripped her reporter’s instincts. He’d had his feet propped on the corner of the desk, but they came off, thumping the floor as he reached for a pen. “When did this happen?”
Cleo quieted her breathing, so she wouldn’t miss anything. She tried to see what he wrote. His handwriting generally resembled chicken scratchings, but this was clear as a child’s primer even from her side of the desk.
KTNV.
“Thanks for the heads-up, Babe. I’ll see what I can do with it.” He hung up the phone only to pick it up again and dial another number.
“Hey, Babe, it’s Alec Ramirez . . . Yeah, I’m good. I don’t need to ask about you. You’re always good.”
Whatever “Babe” said got a laugh out of him.
“Look, I’m following up a lead. Don’t you know someone in TV news in Vegas? . . . Yeah, KTNV? Super . . .”
He wrote down a phone number.
“I don’t know yet. Nothing’s confirmed. It’s just . . . Yeah, I’ll do that. Take care of yourself.”
He disconnected and dialed again. While he waited for someone to answer, he started tapping on his keyboard, his attention riveted to the screen.
Cleo couldn’t take it any longer. Whatever it was, it had kicked him into high gear, and the reporter in her needed to know what had him so focused.
She rose and rounded the desk to peer over his shoulder. Just as she got there, he started another Google search.
LAS VEGAS SEBASTIAN KOBLECT
The fine hairs on her arms rose as a chill washed over her. “What are you looking for?”
Instead of answering, he said in that voice one uses to leave messages, “This is Alec Ramirez. Colleen Simmons gave me your number.”
Babe must be her middle name.
“I work for a weekly,” Alec continued without pause. “I’m following up on a story that’s supposed to be breaking there involving the death of Sebastian Koblect. Are you . . . ?”
Cleo couldn’t hear the rest of Alec’s spiel over the sound of blood rushing behind her eardrums. Her breath came short and fast as she dug her fingers into the back of Alec’s seat, trying to wrap her mind around what he’d said.
Sebastian Koblect owned three high-rolling casinos on the Strip, including the one where her mother had worked as a showgirl and where she now choreographed. Cleo had known him since she was nine when her mother began a relationship with him that wasn’t even exclusive enough to be called an affair. He also held the note her bonus had gone toward paying off.
If Sebastian was dead . . .
“The rumors are already starting that there’s foul play,” Alec said into the phone.
Her stomach lurched.
Her mother didn’t owe Sebastian all that much money—not the way he counted money. There was no reason to believe this had anything to do with Annaliese. Absolutely none. Sebastian had all kinds of enemies. You didn’t run Las Vegas casinos if you were a teddy bear.
That didn’t stop her reporter’s instinct from vibrating through her body. She felt as though she might throw up.
Fingers snapped in her face. She jerked back hard enough to give herself whiplash.
“Earth to Cleo.”
“What?” When had Alec left his chair?
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” Cleo forced herself to let go of his backrest and went back to her side of the desk. She tapped her keyboard, bringing her computer to life, and stared at the list of YouTube videos. She couldn’t cope with these stories now. To look busy, she switched over to one of the online news archives.
She was all too aware of his curious gaze resting on her. He slouched in his chair, his butt barely on the edge of his seat, the way teenagers half-sat, half-reclined to watch TV. He held his pen horizontally between his hands, twirling it with his fingertips.
“You grew up in Las Vegas, didn’t you?” he asked, proving beyond any doubt they had indeed all researched her when she came on board.
She kept her gaze firmly on her screen and clicked her mouse on a random link. “Yeah.”
“Do you know Sebastian Koblect?”
She gave him a one-shoulder shrug. “He owns a bunch of casinos on the Strip.”
“Yeah, I got that. Do you have any contacts in any of them?”
Without moving her head, she looked over the top of the screen to meet his eyes. “One or two.”
His eyebrows twitched, revealing a heightened interest. “You think you might want to call them?”
“Why? This is hard news. Not the sort of thing The Word reports.”
His eyebrows buckled as he made a noise in the back of his throat like a repressed snort. “Are you kidding? This is exactly the kind of story The Word reports. There’s money and murder involved. If we can confirm a sex angle, we’re golden.”
Her smile felt anemic. “Why don’t you just make one up?”
He tipped his head back and forth as if her suggestion was worth considering. “It’s not out of the question, but we shouldn’t have to. Koblect was a womanizer. We ought to be able to dig up something juicy.”
“I thought you were opposed to gossip.”
“There’s a world of difference between playing musical sex partners in Hollywood and doing some guy to death.”
She opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that remark, but his phone rang. He was on it like a striking cobra. She’d barely leaned back in her chair when her own phone rang. She stared at it for a moment. It had to be someone in the building; she hadn’t given the number to her direct line to anyone yet.
When she picked it up, she recognized Linny’s voice. “I’ve got a woman on an outside line asking for you, Cleo. Normally, I’d put it right through, but she sounds, well, a little hysterical, so I thought I’d give you a heads-up.”
“Did you get her name?”
“I’m not sure. She’s kind of hard to understand. I think it’s . . . Ada?”
Cleo’s heart picked up an extra beat, and she felt as if she was about to break out in a cold sweat. Her voice sounded thick as she said, “Put it through, Linny.”
She heard a click then soft burbling noises.
“Jada?” she asked softly, still hoping she was wrong. Knowing in her bones she wasn’t.
The burbling didn’t change.
“Are you there, Jada?”
“You have to come home, Cleo.” Jada’s voice broke on her name. “You have to. I can’t do this.” A couple of hiccupy sobs interrupted. “They won’t listen to me.”
Cleo’s chest felt as though it were being shrink wrapped. “Jada, calm down. Tell me what’s happened?”
“I don’t know what to do. Anna―” Another broken sob. “Annaliese always handles the tough stuff.”
“Jada―”
“She knows what to do. Always. Always, always.”
“Jada―”
“But they won’t let me see her.”
“Jada―”
“You have to come and fix this. They won’t let me see her, Cleo!”
Cleo jerked the phone away from her ear to keep Jada’s shrill whine from bursting an eardrum. When she sensed Jada had paused to take a breath, she asked, “Who’s ‘they,’ Jada? Who won’t let you see her?”
“The cops.”
Cleo felt an arctic breeze brush her skin, and the shrink wrap tightened. “The cops?” she repeated. She didn’t want to ask the question that came next. She didn’t want to hear the answer she knew was coming. The words felt surreal coming from her mouth. “What do they have to do with this?”
“They’ve arrested her, Cleo.” The whine turned into a wail that forced Cleo to hold the phone away from her ear again to preserve her hearing. “They’ve arrested Annaliese, and they won’t let me see her!”