Cross Roads by Fern Michaels Read Free Book Online Page A

vigilantes, don’t you think? Are you starting to see what I’m seeing?
    â€œWhen you’re done asking yourself that, ask yourself why Jellicoe hired Ted and Espinosa. JGS had a newsletter that went out to all employees four times a year. Clients got a slightly different version. There’s nothing wrong with that. He had smart people in a suite of offices in New York taking care of the text of both versions. He shut that down and opened offices in Rome, where he sent Ted and Espinosa. All they do is travel the globe, get info from all the group leaders or whatever they’re called. Ted puts it all together in a glossy twelve-page magazine that goes out once a month. Espinosa does the pictures. Ted said it’s all bullshit. Espinosa agrees. But…they’re not here. Meaning here in the States. Particularly here in Washington. No one is here but the three of us, four if you count Lizzie. And until now, Annie, you were nowhere near the capital.”
    Annie and Myra both threw their hands up in the air at the same time. Their words were identical when they spoke simultaneously. “What does it mean?”
    â€œI’ll be damned if I know,” Maggie said as she finally bit into the chicken leg she was holding. “But the reporter in me and Ted says it means something. You can take that to the bank!”

Chapter 4
    M yra and Annie looked at each other, their eyes wide. It was Annie who spoke first. “So what you are saying is, Hank Jellicoe did not consider either Myra or me a threat. I’m not sure about you, Myra, but I feel insulted. It’s like he thinks you and I don’t count. Off the top of my head, I’d say you, Maggie, are a huge threat. He takes away Ted and Joseph Espinosa and leaves you behind. You’re the EIC of the Post. The position alone should be a threat to him if he’s up to some kind of shenanigans.”
    â€œAh, but without my star reporter and star photographer, I just have regulation reporters, greenhorns, guys and gals who don’t have that fire in their bellies like the three of us do…did. They don’t think outside the box. Ted and I were born outside the box. We always took it to the next level with no coaching or pleading from anyone.
    â€œThink about it. In the blink of an eye, everyone is gone. G-O-N-E! Didn’t even one little red flag go up?” At Myra’s and Annie’s blank looks, Maggie shook her head in disgust.
    â€œHow about this? Hank Jellicoe disappears. For well over a year and a half. I can understand you maybe not knowing that, but now you do. That’s a red flag all by itself. Then he gets very publicly engaged, and that gets a lid clamped on it. To the president of these here United States!” Maggie drawled. “That’s another great big red flag. At least to me it is, and to the reporter in me, too. Jellicoe has gone to ground, and he certainly knows how to do that considering the business he’s in. To be honest, I’m not even sure he’s at his farm in Pennsylvania. That place is like Fort Knox. Impossible to penetrate. I know because I tried.”
    â€œYou did!” Myra cried in surprise.
    â€œWell, yes, Myra, I did. When I started getting these weird e-mails and texts from Ted, I knew that’s what he wanted me to do. Look, Ted is the best of the best. So is Espinosa. Jellicoe dazzled Ted and Joe with all that money. Ted saw it as a way to get a house for us, some new vehicles, sock some money away for retirement. I can’t fault him for that. First, last, and always he is a gut reporter. He smelled it before anyone else did. And he’s on it in his own way. I have to admit that I’m more than a little worried. G.I. Joe, as Ted calls Jellicoe, is up to something. Since we three are odd men out, so to speak, I guess it’s up to us to ferret out what is going on.”
    â€œI can’t believe the man thinks you, Annie, and I are no threat