Current day, Chicago, Illinois
You can’t afford to refuse my offer.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Abbie Blanton kept her eyes on the jerky downtown Chicago traffic ahead of her Ford Explorer, which was slugging along in the first sunny day of March. She refused to meet Stuart Trout’s eyes. How could he call exploiting her personal crisis for his own benefit an offer? She wasn’t actually surprised by that, any more than by his asking for a ride back to the office after lunch. The general manager of the WCXB television station did nothing without an ulterior motive.
She was ready for him this time with her own angle.
“If,” Stuey continued. “You want a raise and to work a flex schedule, you’ve got to give me something to hand the board.” His bulbous fish lips stayed in a perpetual pout, more like a largemouth bass than a mountain trout. No fresh outdoorsy scent to go with his looks, though. His aftershave smelled as sickeningly sweet as the French bathhouse-designer name on the bottle suggested.
“The board?” Abbie asked. “The only board member after blood is old man Vancleaver. I’m thinking the rest of our board would frown on using my investigative skills to do what boils down to snooping around like the paparazzi. Do you really think the citizens of Chicago care if one of our senators is having an affair?”
“When it’s with a state judge, yes.”
“She’s a fair judge and you know it. Vancleaver’s just PO’d because she ruled against him in a bullshit lawsuit. And because their politics differ.” Abbie’s knack for research and sniffing out corruption had launched her career investigating for news stories, but she was sorely tired of digging around in people’s dirty laundry. Her soul felt as soiled as the mud-crusted piles of snow shoved up against the street curbs. One day she’d…
“I’m doing you a favor, Abbie. I could have offered this to someone else if I didn’t want to help you.”
She had a favor in mind for more than his lame offer. Not yet. She’d test his threat. “This story sounds like something Brittany could use for her weekend entertainment spotlight. Why doesn’t Vancleaver want his granddaughter to get the scoop?”
“The senator’s affair isn’t with just some woman but a judge under consideration for a justice seat with the Illinois Supreme Court. Chicago’s citizens deserve to know about her and this senator before she’s voted into the highest judicial position in the state and he’s up for reelection.”
She shifted her gaze in time to see Stuey puff up with indignant righteousness. Over morals? Yeah, right. She knew the real Stuart, the predator who fed on interns while secretly dating a woman who could further his career. She swung the Explorer wide to pass a group of cars hugging each other’s bumpers at turtle speed and let him sit on his soapbox a minute.
She hadn’t hit Stu with what she really wanted-yet. First she had to decide if she’d go after the senator or not. Even if she did, WCXB would have to live with what she dug up, which might or might not point a finger at the senator and the judge.
Stuey sighed loudly. “I’ll even consider asking the board about funding the documentary you want to film on abandoned children.”
It took all her control not to react. He would make that offer now when she couldn’t capitalize on it. Not with her mother’s illness. She’d been trying to break into documentaries for several years in hopes of one day pursuing her true passion. Had Stuey been rattled by the recent layoffs? Did he need a ringer story to cement his position?
“Bring me a story with teeth if you want my help,” Stuey pressed. “I’ll get you on the air-”
“No. I work best when no one knows who I am and I have no interest in sitting in front of a camera.” That would mean wearing makeup, having her bushy head of curls tamed into something chic, and wearing real clothes. Not the sweater, jeans, and boots she wore today and every other day.
She might have to sell her soul one more time, but she refused to make this easy for her manipulative, underhanded, scheming boss. That pretty much described all the men she’d had the misfortune to know in her life.
Except, of course, her father. The one who adopted her.
“Abbie?” He barked her name tersely as an order.
“Heard you, Stu. I’m think-ing.”
“Do it while I’m still young.” The forty-six-year-old general manager for Chicago’s second leading news station wore his dull brown hair short and slicked forward, styled camera-ready. His squinty hazel eyes had never met hers during the lunch they’d just finished, but she felt the weight of them bearing down on her now.
Patience didn’t come as part of his job description.
“I don’t want to make a rash decision.” Her father would have laughed at that if he was still alive. Impulsive had been her middle name from childhood until she went out on the town six years ago looking for some action to pay back her cheating fiancé. She’d gotten drunk and woken up in a chain hotel in South Chicago next to some guy with long scraggly hair, a ratty beard, and a buff body the following morning. She never saw him again. She’d called him Samson and he hadn’t corrected her.
She’d curbed her impulsive ways that day.
But she had a stubborn streak that could kick Stuey’s overbearing attitude any day. He was right to some degree. She couldn’t afford much right now, like the luxury of pissing him off. Not when she desperately needed something he held within his power.
An engraved invitation to the Tuesday-night Wentworth fund-raiser for the Kore Women’s Center. She had to get inside and not be marked as media.
“Your cell phone’s buzzing.” Stuey’s pissy tone indicated how much he hated having his time imposed upon.
She dug her cell phone from the black-and-brown leather bag next to her feet. The caller ID said it was Hannah, the only one of her two sisters Abbie would take a call from.
Driving with one hand was not a problem since the traffic was getting worse. She answered, “I’m in a meeting.”
“Dr. Tatum needs to talk to you.”
“What about?” Abbie didn’t want to discuss their mother’s situation in front of Stuey, who had enough leverage on her as it was from when she’d asked to go on flextime. She’d added the raise thinking he’d give her the relaxed scheule before he’d turn loose more money.
“How should I know? I assumed it’s about Mom’s condition, but when I told him to tell me he said he really needed to talk to you.” Hannah’s tone spewed insult between each word.
Abbie’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. Tatum had shared information about her mother’s condition in confidence-with Abbie only-last night and made her swear not to tell Hannah or anyone else. Information that might shed some light on why their mother had become critically ill ten days ago.
She’d rather be at the hospital with her mother right now, but Tatum’s disclosure had dropped his best hope for helping her mother in Abbie’s lap, which had instigated today’s lunch with Stuey. “How are things today?” she asked Hannah.
“She’s incoherent, in and out of it.” Her sister’s voice wobbled a little, then toughened up. “Her blood pressure keeps fluctuating. Skin color isn’t good. Her liver’s… worse.”
“Crud.” Abbie hadn’t slept much in days for worrying about her mother, but hearing the fear in Hannah’s voice amplified her own stress. Hannah rarely let anyone think she didn’t have the world by the balls.
“Hold on,” Hannah said. “I need to move out of the way for the nurse.”
“Abbie?” Stuey repeated in a low but insistent voice.
She managed not to snap at him, but her quick glance must have transmitted a bite of annoyance.
He blew out a stream of air to let her know how irritated he was at being ignored.
She wanted to tell him to stow the attitude.
Don’t lose sight of the goal. She still needed that invitation from him. She needed her job, too, for all the obvious reasons, but Stuey couldn’t afford to lose her either. She hoped. He’d hired a new hotshot who had potential with some training, but Abbie had handed WCXB’s anchors a wall of Emmys. She hoped that played heavily in her favor. Getting into the Wentworth fund-raiser offered the only glimmer of hope for finding out what had happened to her mother.
Tatum said if he could discover why her spleen had started malfunctioning after her mother visited the Kore Women’s Center ten days ago he’d have a fighting chance to cure her. But the Kore center blew him off, stating her mother had only donated blood and participated in routine tests. Nothing else.
That’s when Tatum had divulged details on Kore that would rock the Wentworth Foundation, which supported the women’s center, if Abbie released Tatum’s disclosure as news.
And she would do just that if she didn’t get to speak with Gwenyth Wentworth, who had yet to return a phone call. The Wentworth heiress hosted the fund-raiser. If Abbie could get inside the event, she’d find a way to talk to Gwen.
When Hannah came back on the line, Abbie said, “I’ll call him when I get to the office.”
“When are you coming to the medical center?”
“Soon as I can, but I’m busy right now-”
“Give me a break, Abbie. Just because I don’t clock in somewhere doesn’t mean I’m not busy, too.” The real Hannah had returned, shrouded in her usual self-importance and unwilling to be one-upped by a sister who worked for a television station. “Besides, how serious can digging up dirt on our police be? Whose life are you ruining this week?”
“You want crooked cops on the streets?” Abbie snapped.
“Of course not, but you act like everyone in law enforcement is on the take. Some of them are protecting us.”
“I know that and I don’t think they’re all bad seeds.” Not really. Abbie switched lanes and pretended to ignore Stu’s finger tapping on his knee. “Back to what we-”
“I have appointments, too,” Hannah said, cutting her off. “But I’m not letting mine take priority over Mom.”
Bully for Hannah that she put Mom ahead of spa treatments and having her house redecorated. “I’ll come by tonight, but I gotta go now. Call you later.” Abbie ended the call before Hannah forced her to say too much in front of Stuey.
“Boyfriend?” Stuey asked.
“My personal calls are just that.” She threw a look of low tolerance at him. “Personal.”
He twisted his fish lips, frowning as though he had a hook in his jaw. He was in his standard stewing mode, the reason her secret Stuey nickname fit so well.
She used a fingernail to scratch the middle of the thick curls she’d twisted up off her neck and secured with a plastic clip. She couldn’t let temper interfere, not now when she had to get into that fund-raiser. Attending a snooty party meant wearing shoes designed by sadistic trolls and dressing to compete with women born to make fashion statements.
She’d been born to pig farming.
And had one outfit that might suffice. Her sister Hannah had given her a satin dress a half size too small for Abbie after being told dark green was not Hannah’s color. The only reason Abbie might be able to wear the Saran Wrap dress now was because she’d spent so much time with her mother at the medical center, where food just wasn’t appealing.
Her mother was losing weight faster.
“We’ll be at the station soon.” Stu’s voice switched from social to superior.
Not helping his case one bit.
Abbie sighed loudly enough to ruffle the flat silence perched between them in the seven-year-old sport utility. Flipping on the turn signal, she hung a right onto Michigan Avenue, where-hallelujah-the traffic was moving. Some people considered driving through Chicago challenging, but she’d grown up in south Illinois hauling loaded livestock trailers behind a twenty-five-foot-long flatbed truck.
Guess it was time to start negotiating. Abbie lightened her tone. “How about a deal? I’ve earned the raise and flextime option. So what if I agree to look into the senator’s affair with the judge if you’ll get me an invitation to the Wentworth fund-raiser tomorrow night as a guest?” She’d found out Brittany Vancleaver had an invitation, because of her grandfather. Stuey could use that angle to get Abbie an invitation.
Stuey didn’t reply, intense as a fish stalking bait.
Come on, baby, take it. Abbie wanted to steal a glance and see if he’d bite, but she kept her shoulders relaxed and her attention on the road. He might have thought their hour-and-a-half-long lunch had been about him prepping her to go after the judge, but Abbie had been luring Stu toward this moment.
“Deal?” His acidic tone surprised her. “I’m offering you what you need-a position with more money and flexible hours, because you’ve obviously got some family crisis happening. That’s the deal.”
Her heart sank. No wonder he kept going through office managers faster than water through a rusted-out pot.
Stuey had the perceptiveness of a rock. He was guessing at her having a family crisis, but if he really thought that was the case the bastard could show some understanding.
Money had never been at the core of her motivation to do anything other than survive. Something crooked officials who’d tried to pay her off had found out. She’d taken to investigative work like a duck to water when she first dug into her father’s suicide, but she was sick to death of chasing shakedown cops and political weasels. Of having law enforcement treat her as if she’d sell out her grandmother for a story.
Abbie had asked Stu to allow her flexible hours for personal reasons. What did Stuey do? He saw a chance to use it against her to help his position. One day she’d have the money to call her shots and travel the world as an international journalist filming documentaries that made people feel good.
That wasn’t in the cards this week.
“You know,” Stu murmured slyly, his clothes rustling when he moved close to whisper, “I have better things to offer than getting into a fancy party. You could sweeten the pot on the deal… later tonight.”
Stuey thought she was willing to, to… to prostitute herself for a freaking job?
That pig. Like the one I almost married and not near as useful as the ones Dad had raised.
Abbie wheeled her vehicle into WCXB’s parking lot, slid into the first open space, and stomped her brakes.
Stu slammed his hand against the dash, stopping his forward momentum. “What the hell?”
She shifted a steel-hard gaze at him, hands gripping the wheel to keep from locking them on his throat. “Number one, I’m not sleeping with anyone to get anything, much less do that for a job. Number two, you flatter yourself if you think I’d sleep with you, and number three? You’re dating Brittany.”
God, but she hated men some days. Most days.
They lied, cheated, and manipulated their way through life.
Her heart thumped from a dangerous mix of adrenaline and anger. She would never let another man screw her over again.
All of them were dirtbags, especially her boss.
Boss… crud. She’d let her temper boil her brain senseless. She still needed the pass to the damn fund-raiser.
“How’d you know-” Stu caught himself and snapped his lips shut. His face turned a deep shade of guilt.
Hmm. Maybe she could work this in her favor.
She hated having to give Hannah credit for this news scoop, but fair was fair.
“How’d I know you were dating Brittany?” Abbie put the car in neutral and left the engine running. She turned to face him. The possibility of impending triumph surged into her voice. “Brittany’s brother went to school with my sister Hannah, who is now in a book club with Brittany. During their last book club meeting, Brittany started talking about how much she loved being a society reporter for WCXB and said that’s how she met this wonderful guy-Stuart-she’d been seeing for the past month.”
Stu’s face lost the cocky angles and turned pasty. Dating old man Vancleaver’s granddaughter might not have been Stuey’s best idea, even if they were well suited. Abbie would normally have felt it was her duty to clue in Brittany about dating the lecherous Stuart, but Brittany had a reputation for two-timing her men and bragging about it.
Who was Abbie to interfere with a perfect match?
But Brittany wouldn’t overlook his infidelity.
Abbie added, “I’d venture to say she thinks you two are dating. If you’re available you should let her know right away.” She never thought she’d be thankful for having endured Hannah’s recent rambling about her own latest conquest-a self-made millionaire with three houses in different states. But in the midst of her all-about-Hannah review, her sister had suggested that Abbie should take a tip from Brittany, who had nailed a man considered one of the most eligible bachelors at Abbie’s television station.
I do not hate my sister.
Well, at least not Hannah.
Casey, her twenty-five-year-old baby sister, was another story.
Abbie rarely suffered from the green-eyed monster, but hearing how she should learn how to get a man from gorgeous Brittany or conniving Hannah hadn’t made it one of her better days.
Now she pitied Brittany almost as much as she did the poor rich sucker Hannah had in her feminine crosshairs. As the middle child of three kids, and one who hated growing up on a pig farm, Hannah had started sleeping her way to an impressive investment portfolio the minute she’d turned eighteen. She’d made it clear she would not dirty her hands ever again.
As if Hannah had ever helped out on the farm.
Casey had set her sights on more attainable targets. Unfaithful men. Hard to aim much lower than that.
Abbie had loved her dad and his farm. She would one day prove he hadn’t committed suicide and left her mother destitute.
Stu swallowed hard, the sound loud in the car. His fish lips narrowed and turned down at the corners. The shoulders of his navy Brooks Brothers suit slumped. “I, uh, may have given you the wrong impression about my intentions.”
Nice try, Stuey, but no free deals today. “Oh, I think I understood exactly what you were saying.” Abbie had an evil side that rose to the surface in the presence of assholes.
He studied her a moment, his eyes flickering with unchecked worry. “About that deal…”
She wanted to smile, just a little, but this was not the time to gloat. Not when she had Stuey dangling by his short hairs. “I want the raise you offered-” Never leave money on the table. “-and the flex schedule, and…”
Stu’s frown deepened with each demand. He leaned forward slightly. A sign in her favor.
“I want an invitation to that fund-raiser tomorrow night.”
His lips parted, some objection hanging there.
What wouldn’t fly? The money? Okay, Abbie could bend on that one, but not the flextime or getting an invitation to the fund-raiser. She had to enter as a guest and not as someone connected to the media. She doubted Gwenyth Wentworth, who avoided the media, would knowingly allow an investigative reporter inside.
Brittany was of the same social class. Not a threat.
Abbie would never be one of them and posed one hell of a threat to the Wentworths. Every passing hour decreased her mother’s chance of recovery from whatever ravaged her body.
“I’ll find the money to give you a raise and approve your schedule, but there is no way I can get you into the Wentworth event,” Stu said almost apologetically, as if he would dearly love to ease his balls out of Abbie’s fist. “Brittany’s using her grandfather’s invitation. She isn’t even taking me.”
“Not good enough.” She relaxed her grip on the steering wheel with great effort and started tapping her index finger. She wanted to give him the impression that she had her own limit on patience. She’d never considered blackmailing anyone, and this didn’t constitute blackmail so much as forcing Stu to take stock of the blank pages in his moral code book.
Thanks to Dr. Tatum, who had been her mother’s doctor for as long as Abbie had been alive, she now had a glimmer of hope, a chance to save her mother. Tatum had told Abbie about how her mother had made visits to the Kore Women’s Center for thirty years.
Three decades of secrets. Tatum had handed Abbie a weapon to bargain with that no public relations firm could spin.
Blackmailing Stuey was the least of what she’d do.
Stuey shrunk back, staring at her with the fear of a weasel that had chased dinner into a snake hole.
Abbie stopped tapping the steering wheel. “I’d hate for our little discussion to get out in public.”
“I can’t, Abbie. I would, but I can’t…”
Bullshit. Stu could make this happen. “Why not?”
“Because the only way you could go is if Brittany doesn’t. Any chance of getting her invitation and giving it to you would end up with her thinking something was going on between us. We’d both lose our jobs. Can’t do it.”