Dateline: Kydd and Rios by Tara Janzen Read Free Book Online Page A

normal hustle and bustle of the city night. Nikki sat at her desk in front of the open French doors leading to her apartment balcony. Humidity and her own sweat soaked her cotton T-shirt and shorts, but she barely noticed the oppressive weather. Her life had started to unravel seven hours ago, and she’d been running at breakneck speed ever since, trying to salvage the remnants.
    Three years almost to the day, she thought. Please, Josh, remember. Please remember.
    She typed frantically, pounding the keys of her small manual typewriter, hating herself for every subtly worded phrase designed to bring him back to her. She didn’t even know where he was. His own editor didn’t know. Still somewhere in South America, he’d guessed. Josh’s latest stories had come out of Colombia, but with the last one he’d requested a few weeks off. She only prayed that wherever he was, he was still reading the newspapers: His life, and her mother’s life, depended on it.
    A dazzling array of candles flickered around her desk, dripping wax into their platters. Her computer sat uselessly on a file cabinet, a slave to the electricity San Simeon seemed incapable of providing in reliable quantities. The whole country was plunging into chaos again, but this time Nikki was determined not to go down with it.
    A voice crackled on the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear. She immediately stopped typing and covered her other ear with her free hand.
    “Hello? Hello?”
    “Your call is . . .” The operator’s voice trailed off in static.
    “Dammit,” she muttered.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Nikki?”
    “David!” Nikki sighed with relief.
    “Collect call from Nikki Kydd. Will you accept—”
    “I accept!” David yelled into the phone.
    “David, I’ve got the story of the century breaking here,” Nikki said in a rush. “Strictly front page, and a guaranteed twelve-hour lead on everybody else in this godforsaken country.”
    “That’s what I pay you the big bucks for.”
    Normally she would have taken the opportunity to try to wrangle a raise out of him, not that she’d get it. David had a line of bull a mile long about budget restrictions at the
Washington Post
. But the only thought on her mind was the deal Travinas had offered her.
    “I want you to take a very light hand on this, David,” she said, working to keep the desperation out of her voice. “
Very light
. Print it the way I give it to you and I promise to stay out of trouble for the rest of the year.” It was an easy promise to make. If her editor ever found out about the message she had hidden in the article, she’d lose her job and he would never have to worry about her again. Neither would any other editor working for a respectable newspaper in the States.
    “You always ask for the moon, Nikki.” He sounded leery.
    “This time I want the whole Milky Way, and you’ll be happy to give it to me. Listen to this.” She whipped the top sheet of paper off the pile next to her typewriter. “ ‘Intrigue and betrayal remain the watchwords of politics in San Simeon. In two surprise moves on Thursday, General Travinas followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, Enrico Aragon de Manuel, by imposing martial law and disbanding his own cabinet. Included in the purge was the minister of economic development, Carlos Delgado, a man many consider Travinas’s most dangerous opponent.’ ”
    “It’s only Wednesday night,” David said.
    “And we’ve got an exclusive.”
    “Where did you get this story?”
    “From Travinas. This afternoon.”
    “How?”
    “I sold my soul,” she answered truthfully. Travinas had given her no other choice. Her mother’s freedom for Joshua Rios, he’d said bluntly. Nikki didn’t know what in the hell Josh was up to, but he’d suddenly become the hottest commodity in San Simeon—if she could get him back in the country. “Come on, David. Get me a typist. Let’s go with this. Check my track record if you have trouble sleeping