Best-Kept Lies by Lisa Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

about him and the magic of the night, the lovemaking that had caused her to steal away early in the morning, before dawn. As if she’d been ashamed.
    Now she wended her way off I-5 and down the steep streets leading to the waterfront. Through the tall, rain-drenched buildings was a view of the gray waters of Eliot Bay—restless and dark, mirroring her own uneasy feelings. She pulled the Jeep into the newspaper’s parking lot, grabbed her laptop and briefcase and faced a life that she’d left months before.
    The offices of the Seattle Clarion were housed on the fifth floor of what had originally been a hotel. The hundred-year-old building was faced in red brick and had been updated, renovated and cut into offices.
    Inside, Randi punched the elevator button. She was alone, rainwater dripping from her jacket as the ancient car clamored upward. It stopped twice, picking up passengers before landing on the fifth floor, the doors opening to a short hallway and the etched-glass doors of the newspaper offices. Shawn-Tay, the receptionist, looked up and nearly came unglued when she recognized Randi.
    “For the love of God, look at you!” she said, shooting to her feet and disconnecting her headset in one swift movement. Model tall, with bronze skin and dark eyes, she whipped around her desk and hugged Randi as if she’d never stop. “What the devil’s got into you? Never callin’ in. I was worried sick about you. Heardabout the accident and…” She held Randi at arm’s length. “Where’s that baby of yours? How dare you come in here without him?” She cocked her head at an angle. “The hair works, but you’ve lost too much weight.”
    “I’ll work on that.”
    “Now, about the baby?” Shawn-Tay’s eyebrows elevated as the phone began to ring. “Oh, damn. I gotta get that, but you come back up here and tell me what the hell’s been going on with you.” She rounded the desk again and slid lithely into her chair. Holding the headset to one ear, she said, “ Seattle Clarion, how may I direct your call?”
    Randi slid past the reception desk and through the cubicles and desks of co-workers. Her niche was tucked into a corner, in the news section, behind a glass wall that separated the reporters from the salespeople. In the time she’d been gone, the walls had been painted, from a dirty off-white to different shades at every corner. Soft purple on one wall, sage on another, gold or orange on the next, all tied together by a bold carpet mingling all the colors. She passed by several reporters working on deadlines, though much of the staff had gone home for the day. A few night reporters were trickling in and the production crew still had hours to log in, but all in all, the office was quiet.
    She slid into her space, surprised that it was just as she’d left it, that the small cubicle hadn’t been appropriated by someone else, as it had been months since she’d been in Seattle or sat at her desk. She’d set up maternity leave with her boss late last summer and she’d created a cache of columns in anticipation of taking some time off to be with the baby and finishing thebook she’d started. Between those new columns and culling some older ones, hardly vintage, but favorites, there had been enough material to keep “Solo” in the Living section twice a week, just like clockwork.
    But it was time to tackle some new questions, and she spent the next two hours reading the mail that had stacked up in her in box and skimming the e-mails she hadn’t collected in Montana. As she worked, she was vaguely aware of the soft piped-in music that sifted through the offices of the Clarion, and the chirp of cell phones in counterpoint to the ringing of land lines to the office. Conversation, muted and seemingly far away, barely teased her ears.
    In the back of her mind she wondered if Kurt Striker had followed her. If, even now, he was making small talk with Shawn-Tay in the reception area. The thought brought a bit of a