Front Page Fatality by Lyndee Walker Read Free Book Online Page B

in my ridiculously unsuitable shoes, scanning the rest of the crowd for another familiar face.
    Jenna was still wobbly and still silently hanging on my arm, and my teetering attempt to see better was all it took to throw her off balance. She probably would have ended up with a broken ankle if Parker hadn’t reached for us, his hand catching my elbow as I started to fall with her. Leaning on him, I grabbed Jenna’s left arm with both hands and pulled. She weighed next to nothing, and my grip was enough to help her get her feet back under her.
    “Nothing like nearly busting your ass on a big rock to kill a buzz,” she said.
    I twisted my other hand around and grabbed Parker’s forearm, jerking my heel out of a crevice between two rocks. I imagined the blue stilettos I’d so painstakingly cleaned wouldn’t look quite as fabulous after hiking along the waterfront.
    “Thanks.” I smiled at Parker as I regained my balance and let go. “Turns out my shoes aren’t suited for traipsing around slimy rocks in the dark.”
    “Shoes like that are only suited for one thing: making a woman’s calves look good,” he said, the grin that garnered thousands of readers three mornings a week making his eyes crinkle at the corners. “That’s what my mom always says, anyway. Were you looking for someone? Before, I mean. I am a little taller than you. Maybe I can help.”
    “Oh, I…no one in particular. I was just checking to see if there was anyone else here I wanted to talk to.”
    He nodded, stepping up onto a bigger stone and surveying the riverbank himself. The rocky shoreline dissolved into overgrown grass, and the grass gave way to mammoth trees, their hulking outlines creeping right up to the water’s edge a few hundred yards downstream.
    “Hey.” Parker stepped down and pointed through the crowd. “That’s Katie DeLuca. She is—was—Nate’s new wife. They got married in March.”
    I followed his gaze to a striking young blond woman standing near the crash site with two uniformed officers and an older man in a Richmond Generals baseball cap. She nodded at the officers as they talked and gestured toward the river, her face frozen in a mask of horror.
    We picked our way toward her and as we got closer, I could see the tears streaming down her face. The patrolmen walked away, deep in conversation themselves, before we reached the little huddle.
    “I hate this part of my job,” I grumbled, my stomach lurching as my foot slipped a fraction of an inch on another rock. “I can get on a tight-lipped cop like a duck on a June bug, but just exactly what are we supposed to say to this woman who went from star pitcher’s bride to twenty-something widow in the past hour?”
    “Beats the hell out of me,” Parker said. “This is your gig. I’ve met her a few times. You want me to try first?”
    I started to say no, but a closer look at the young woman made me think twice. Maybe a familiar face would be a good thing, for her and me both.
    Jenna bumped into me when I stopped short, motioning Parker ahead of me as we approached Katie. She’s probably not even as old as I am , I thought. Parker nodded at the man who had his arm around Katie’s waist and I thought I recognized him from the sports section as the Generals’ head coach.
    “Katie?” Parker’s voice was low and smooth; soothing. “I’m Grant Parker. We met at the team’s playoff celebration last fall. Do you remember me?”
    Katie looked lost. She tilted her face up, gazing at Parker like he might tell her the way out of this nightmare.
    “Aren’t you from the newspaper?” she asked.
    “Yes, I work at the Telegraph ,” he said.
    It put me in mind of the way you would talk to a frightened child, surprising coming out of Parker. Ultra-confident and a little smartassed is how I’d describe his normal conversational tone. I stepped forward so she could see me, and Parker continued seamlessly into an introduction.
    “This is Nichelle Clarke. She works with