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“Is she in danger?”
Adele shook her head as the soda jerk slid their sandwiches in front of them. “Nothing like that. She’s older and we’ve been doing these long interviews. After the last one, she seemed sort of weak.”
“What are the interviews for?” asked Mary.
“A biography.”
“So you want to go into Features?” asked Mary.
Theresa sighed. “Metro, like you, but I’d settle for anything that gets me off of Obituaries and keeps me out of Society and Style.”
Mary grimaced. “The women’s pages. I know the feeling. I wish I could tell you there’s an opening over at the Sun Tribune, but we’re full up at the moment.”
“I doubt they’d hire two women on the Metro desk.”
“Ten years ago, when I started, I would have agreed with you. Now?” Mary shrugged. “Maybe.”
Theresa shot her a skeptical look that earned her a laugh from the other reporter.
“Not fast enough, I will grant you, but it is changing,” said Mary.
“How did you get the job at the Sun Tribune?”
“I begged, borrowed, and stole—and my editor was my professor at USC. I was top of the class, so it was hard for him to argue that I shouldn’t be in his newsroom,” said Mary.
“There’s a spot opening up on our Metro section.”
Mary picked up a French fry. “Who’s leaving?”
“Roy Royle.”
Mary gave a low whistle. “That’s an end of an era. Did the Los Angeles Times finally poach him? They’ve been trying for years.”
Theresa shook her head. “He’s going to be Metro editor up in Santa Barbara. That means there’s an opening.”
“And you want it?” asked Mary.
“I doubt they’d give it to me. Archer Madison will be first in line for that,” she said, pulling a face.
“That guy is smug, and he coughs like a drain,” Mary muttered. “How confident are you feeling that they’ll give you a shot?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. If they don’t give it to Archer, they’ll probably hire some eighteen-year-old boy straight out of high school because he’s someone’s nephew.”
“That does happen,” Mary conceded.
“I feel like if only I could just get a break with that one story,” said Theresa, picking up her sandwich to take a bite.
“We’re all looking for that one story. You could spend your entire career looking for that one story. What you need is an in to bring you the stories that will build up to that one story.”
Theresa thought about it as she chewed. “I’m weekend cover. Sometimes that means I get to do some breaking news reporting.”
“That’s a start. Look, I hope the Metro job works out at your shop, but a job might pop up somewhere else. I’ll keep my ear to the ground and see if there’s anything I can do to help you out.”
“Really?” Theresa asked, touched that a more experienced reporter would go out of her way to look out for her.
“Really. I can’t keep being the only one in a skirt showing up to crime scenes. Now”—Mary glanced at her watch—“I should eat before my editor sends out the hounds looking for me. He wants me to file before the afternoon editorial meeting.”
The following Saturday, after there had been no call warning her to stay away, Theresa drove up to Rosewood House. She parked on the street and let herself through the gate, but halfway down the brick path, she found her way blocked by a tree branch and Matt, saw in hand.
