Hard News

men?”
    “Sure, why not?”
    “Because most men are damaged to start with. Why should I go somewhere where it’s
easier
to meet men? I’d think you’d want to go where it’s harder.”
    “What’s wrong with men?”
    “Haven’t you noticed something?” Rune asked. “How many men do you know whose IQ matches their age?”
    “You gonna marry Sam?”
    “He’s a great guy,” Rune said defensively uneasy with the
M
word. “We have a good time….”
    Claire sighed. “He’s twenty years older than you, he’s going bald, he’s married.”
    “He’s separated,” Rune said. “Anyway what twenty-five-year-olds with hair have you met that’re such good catches?” Admitting to herself, though, that the married part was definitely an ongoing problem.
    “You move to Boston, you’ll be married in six months. I guarantee it.” Claire pirouetted. “How do I look?”
    Like a hooker, circa 1955
.
    Rune said, “Stunning.”
    Claire grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I owe you one.”
    “I know you do,” Rune said and watched her clatter unsteadily down the gangplank on high-heeled saddle shoes.

    chapter 6    
     
    THE NOTE ON HER DESK THE NEXT MORNING, FROM MAI sel, was to the point.
    Sutton’s office. The minute you come in!
    —Lee
     
    Rune had received a lot of notes like this and they were usually the preface to flunking a course, getting fired or getting yelled at.
    Heart pounding, she left her Morning Thunder tea on her desk and walked out of the studio. In ten minutes she was standing in front of Piper Sutton’s secretary. Yesterday’s look of terror at Rune’s unauthorized entry had been replaced by a subtle gloat.
    Rune said, “I’m supposed to see—”
    “They’re waiting for you.”
    “Is it okay to—?”
    “They’re waiting for you,” the woman repeated cheerfully.
    Inside, Sutton and Maisel turned their heads and stared as she approached. Rune stopped halfway into the big office.
    “Close the door,” Sutton ordered.
    Rune obeyed then walked into the room. She smiled at Maisel, who avoided her eyes.
    Oh, boy, she thought. Oh, boy.
    Sutton’s eyes were flint. She said, “Sit down,” just as Rune was dropping into the chair across from the desk. Rune felt a shiver down her back and the hairs on her neck stirred. Sutton tossed a copy of one of the city’s tabloids on her desk. Rune picked it up and read a story circled in thick, red ink that bled into the fibers of the newsprint.

N ETWORK W ANTS TO F REE K ILLER OF I TS E XEC
     

By Bill Stevens
    The story was short, just a few paragraphs. It recounted how a reporter from
Current Events
was investigating Randy Boggs’s conviction for Lance Hopper’s murder. Boggs’s defense lawyer, Fred Megler, had no comment other than to say that his client has always maintained his innocence.
    “Oh, shit,” she muttered.
    “How?” Sutton tapped her glossy fingernails on the desktop. They were as red and hard as the finish on a Porsche. “How did this happen?”
    “It’s not my fault. He lied to me.”
    “Bill Stevens?”
    “That wasn’t the name he gave me. I was at the Department of Corrections and this guy came up and said he worked for the press department and could he help me and he was real nice and he even told me things off the record so I assumed it was okay to—”
    “Assumed it was okay?” Sutton’s voice rose. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “I don’t believe it.”
    Maisel sighed. “This’s the oldest trick in the book. Jesus, Rune, you fucked this one up. Stevens is a beat reporter for the paper. He covers the government agencies. When he sees a reporter who’s new and doesn’t recognize him he finds out what their assignment is then scoops them.”
    “You walked right into his arms.” Sutton lit a cigarette and slapped the lighter down on the desktop. “A fucking babe in the woods.”
    “He seemed like a nice guy.”
    “What the hell does ‘nice’ have to do with anything?” Maisel asked, exasperated. “This is journalism.”
    All ruined. My one big chance and I blew it, right out of the gate.
    Sutton asked Maisel, “Damage assessment?”
    “None of the other nets are that interested.” He touched the tabloid. “Even Stevens didn’t follow up on Boggs. The focus of the story was that
we’re
trying to get him released. So we look like idiots if it doesn’t pan out.” He toyed with an unlit pipe and stared at the ceiling. “The story’s hit some