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“I think you need to switch to a different department,” I said, smack-dab in the middle of something I didn’t understand. “Sports or something. Movie reviews, maybe. Because city politics is clearly making you crazy.”
“No,” he said, “what’s making me crazy is watching O’Neill lie—”
The door behind us popped open and I spun, eager for some interference. It was the blond dealer poised in the bright doorway, a cigarette in her hand.
“Sorry,” she said, about to duck out.
“No!” Jim said, those little boy looks snapping back into place like a mask. He was good, I thought. Good and scary. “Come on out.”
The dealer looked wary, but she stepped out anyway, the door shutting behind her, closing out the light.
Her lighter flared in the darkness, and I could smell tobacco on the breeze.
The heavy air felt like trouble.
“Can I ask what your name is?” Jim asked.
“Why would you?” the dealer asked, and I smiled.
Jim held out his press card. “I’m a reporter.”
“Anna,” she said.
“No last name?”
There was a long pause, and the tip of the cigarette burned brighter and hotter. “Nope,” she said on a long exhale. I honestly wished I was half as cool.
“How’d you get this job?” Jim asked.
“I’m new out at The Rouge,” she said, naming one of the casinos on the river. “Owner was looking for some staff for this thing and I signed up.”
“It’s charity.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You giving up your wages?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your damn business.”
Yeah! I thought, Take that, Jim Blackwell.
Jim didn’t seem fazed. “You know Carter O’Neill?”
I held my breath.
“Carter who?” Anna asked, and Jim snorted through his nose.
“You’re good,” he said. “But I’ll find out what’s going on.”
He turned back to me, his eyes like some kind of ooze traveling down my body, making me feel naked and gross. Like I needed a hundred showers. “May I say, you look stunning,” he said.
“No,” I snapped, “you can’t say.” Finally he left, not back into the building, but over the small wrought iron fence and into the dark parking lot.
I exhaled long and hard, my bones sagging with relief.
“You all right?” Anna asked.
“Me? Sure. I get interrogated and threatened by journalists all the time.”
I took a deep breath and watched “Anna” smoke half her cigarette. “I remember you, you know. The thousand dollars.”
Anna nodded.
“Is your name really Anna?” I asked.
“Vanessa,” she said with a small smile. “Something about that guy made me want to lie.”
“How do you know Carter?” I asked, the words firing out of my mouth.
The woman looked down at her cigarette, blew ash off the glowing cherry. “You need to ask him that question,” she said.
“I don’t know if I want to.”
“What do you mean?” the woman asked.
“Carter’s like one of those pixel puzzles, you know? You stare at it and stare at it until your eyes get blurry and suddenly in all those pixels you see an ice-cream cone and then you blink and the ice-cream cone is gone. It’s nothing but pixels again.”
Vanessa was silent and I turned to look at her.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Vanessa said.
“He hides himself. He’s there, and then he’s not.” I sighed. “He’s a lot of work.”
“Ah,” Vanessa said, but that was all, and I suddenly felt stupid.
“Well, lovely chatting with you, Vanessa, but I do think it’s time for me to go home. This whole damn thing was a mistake.”
“Zoe,” Vanessa said, and I paused, the door open. “Carter hasn’t had it easy, you know.”
I blinked in surprise, but then forced myself not to care.
“Who has?” I said and stepped into the hallway.
The door shut behind me, leaving the night and the mysterious blonde outside. I glanced up and down the long hallway filled with tuxedoed men and women in gorgeous gowns and I just wanted to leave. Curl up in bed for the next four months until I had to go to the hospital.
And the next part of my life could begin.
Under my fancy red dress, my baby kicked and I rubbed the spot in commiseration.
“I can’t wait, either,” I breathed.
“Excuse me, Zoe Madison?” a warm Southern voice drawled behind me. I turned to find an older man, short and gray and built like a bulldog, but handsome in a hardworking way. Like he knew his way around a tool belt.
“Yes,” I said. “Is there a problem?”
“No.” The man laughed. “This is a party, so there aren’t supposed to be any problems. Not for lovely women.”
“Well, someone forgot to tell me that,” I said with a tired smiled. “I’m heading home.”
“Please,” he said, touching my arm briefly when I turned to leave. “Wait. I’m Eric Lafayette. Carter O’Neill told me you’re working on a program that might interest me.”
My heart pounded once in my throat and my hands got clammy.
This is for me. For me and the baby and my future.
