Page 57 of Making It Live!

"My agenda is the people who can't afford your drug, Mr.Mercer."Nelson's voice didn't rise.Didn't sharpen.If anything, it got quieter, and it was devastating."If the numbers are out of context, you're welcome to provide the context.That's why you're here."

Three seconds of silence.Live.An eternity.

Mercer blinked.Managed a stiff "I think we'll have to agree to disagree," and Nelson thanked him for his time with a graciousness that was somehow more lethal than the questions had been.

The satellite feed cut.The control room exhaled.

Ray turned to me.His face, which I had never seen express anything beyond stoic competence, was doing something that might have been admiration."That," he said, "was the best live interview I've seen in this building in ten years."

I couldn't speak.

Through the glass, Nelson was already transitioning to the next segment.Smooth.Seamless.As if he hadn't just taken apart a Fortune 500 CEO with nothing but his own numbers and a voice so controlled it could cut glass.He glanced up — briefly, so briefly that if I'd blinked I'd have missed it — and looked directly at the control room window.

At me.

Then he turned to the camera and the broadcast continued.I sat in my chair with my hands gripping the console and something rearranged itself inside my chest.

He'd always been good.I'd known that at twenty-two, watching Nelson do practice segments in the Columbia studio.But this — this man, at thirty-five, with thirteen years of relentless work behind him — this was something I'd been too young and too self-righteous to see coming.Nelson hadn't just gotten better.He'd become the best anchor on television, and he'd done it without compromising a single thing.

Years ago, I'd told myself Nelson was selling out.I'd walked out of that apartment and told myself I was the one with integrity.That wanting the bright lights meant losing the real meaning of journalism.

In reality, I'd been terrified of being left behind by his brilliance.God, I'd been such a stupid, insecure kid.

The broadcast ended.The red light died.The crew began breaking down around me, and I sat very still in the EP chair, staring through the glass at the man I'd once left behind.

I was wrong about you, Nelson.I was wrong about you for all these years.

The thought should have felt like a reckoning.Instead, it felt like a door opening.And I had no idea what I was going to do about the fact that I wanted to walk through it.

ChapterTwenty-Three

Nelson

Iwas almost to my dressing room when Marla fell into step beside me.

She'd taken her time, the way she always did.Unclipped her mic, exchanged a few words with a floor director, adjusted a ring.Marla St.John didn't rush for anything, including the slow implosion of a co-anchor three feet to her left.

"Good show tonight," she said.

"Thank you, Marla."

"The Mercer thing was exceptional.SEC filings.The man's own numbers.That was a surgical takedown, Mackenzie."

"I appreciate it."I reached for my dressing room door.

Marla put her hand on the doorframe.Not blocking me.Just staying.

"I've never seen you look at the control room window during a broadcast," she said, her voice dropping to a register that was somehow more unsettling than if she'd shouted."Not once.The camera is there."She pointed left."The window is over there."She pointed right."You never look to the right.Well.Until tonight."

My hand froze on the door handle.

"It was a good interview," I shrugged."I looked up, Marla.It happens."

"Sure."She nodded slowly, watching me with those shrewd eyes that had interviewed presidents and never once missed a lie."And the blush the other night during the ambassador segment?That just — happened too?"

"It was warm under the lights."

"The lights haven't changed in years.”