Chow Down (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

have something he wanted to promote; but I’d been so busy looking around that I’d missed the interview and didn’t have a clue. It was time for me to get back to Faith.
    I slipped out the nearest door and found myself in a room filled with mostly empty cubicles. That wasn’t the way I’d come in. When I went to retrace my steps, however, I found that the heavy door that led back to the set had locked behind me.
    Just great, I thought. Now I had no idea how to get back to where I was supposed to be.
    An open doorway on the other side of the room led to a corridor that appeared to go in the right direction. I headed that way. I’d almost reached the opening when the sound of a familiar voice stopped me in my tracks.
    “I can’t believe you let this happen!” Doug Allen was saying.
    He sounded furious, and I wondered who he was talking to. The conversation seemed to be coming from the hallway on the other side of the wall. I shrank back into the nearest cubicle and ducked down beneath the partition.
    “You’ve got a lot of nerve blaming me,” a woman said, sounding equally irate. It took me a moment to place her voice. But when she spoke again, I realized it was Simone Dorsey, Champion’s PR director. “It’s not my fault that she isn’t here.”
    They had to be talking about Lisa. I inched a little closer around the partition. I didn’t want to miss a thing.
    “Try telling that to the producers. They don’t care whose fault it is, they just want me to fix things. And that means coming up with the five finalists I promised them.”
    “I don’t know what you expect me to do about that now.”
    “I expect you to do your job. This contest was your idea, your baby. You were the one who said you knew how to make everything work out. You were supposed to be staying on top of things.”
    “I am on top of things.”
    “Great,” Doug said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Then where is our fifth finalist? Even the dumbest member of the audience is going to be able to count high enough to realize that one of the dogs that appears in all our promotional material is missing.”
    I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Allison on the bus back from New York. She’d told me that Doug and Simone were romantically involved. What I was overhearing didn’t sound like a lover’s spat, however. This fight was all business and clearly serious.
    “You’re in charge of public relations,” Doug was saying. “Go find the producer and smooth things over. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be good at? But for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t tell them the truth.”
    “I’m not stupid,” Simone snapped. “I’ll think of something.”
    “Do that. You got us into this mess, now you can get us out.”
    I heard the sound of their retreating footsteps. One set of heels and another of leather-soled shoes headed off in different directions. After a minute, I popped out of the cubicle and stuck my head into the hallway. The coast was clear.
    Even better, I could see the reception area at the end of the corridor, which meant that I knew where I was. And how to get back to where I belonged.
    As I hurried to return to the green room before the producers came to get us for our segment, I thought about what I’d heard. Doug had criticized Simone’s behavior with regard to Lisa’s absence. Was he simply lashing out and looking for someone to blame? Or did he actually believe that Simone had had something to do with Lisa’s disappearance?
    Then I turned onto the hallway that led to the green room and saw that we’d already been summoned. All other thoughts fled as I hurried to catch up with the other finalists. Allison was walking at the back of the group with my Poodle by her side. Both of them were looking for me anxiously.
    “Thank God,” she said, when I caught up. She pressed Faith’s leash into my hand. “You just made it. It’s time to go be on TV.”

26
    W ell, not quite.
    It turned out that live television operated like much of the rest of the world. Hurry up and wait was the order of the day.
    Our group was escorted back to the large room I’d just come from. Standing in the wings, I saw that the show was currently off the air; the network had cut away to local affiliates for morning news and weather. Darlene, Rob, and members of the crew were standing around chatting, drinking coffee, and relaxing for a few minutes until it was their turn again.
    While the rest of the finalists