Hide Yourself Away by Mary Jane Clark Read Free Book Online Page B

parties, and weddings into the base of operations for the KEY to America team. Long tables had been brought in for the computers, telephones, videotape editing decks, fax machines, and copiers. Along the side wall, technicians were running yards of electrical cables, setting up for transmissions to New York and then, within nanoseconds, to the rest of the United States. Grace spotted B.J. at the large buffet table set up at the rear of the room. He saw her at the same time. “Come on over,” he called, gesturing to her.
    Grace glanced at the platters of sandwiches, cookies, and fruit.
    “I’m glad you’re here. If you hadn’t arrived soon, I was going to have to leave without you,” B.J. said. “I thought you’d want to come with me. I’m going to see if we can get some video over at Shepherd’s Point… and, if we’re really lucky, someone will talk to us. Get yourself something to eat. You can take it with you in the car.”
    Grace wrapped a tuna sandwich in a napkin, grabbed a bottle of water, and hurriedly followed B.J. out through the lobby.
    “We just got word that dental records confirm that the remains they found in that old slave tunnel belong to Charlotte Sloane,” B.J. said over his shoulder as he led the way to the car.
    “You buried the lead,” Grace replied.

  CHAPTER  
14
    Zoe Quigley watched as Grace left the ballroom with that tall, good-looking white male producer. B.J. they called him. If Zoe were the gambling sort, her money would bet that B.J. was interested in more than Grace Callahan’s mind.
    I didn’t come three thousand miles and give up my summer holiday for this.
    None of the KTA producers had come over to Zoe with a lick of substantive work to be done. Photocopying and answering the phones were all she had been entrusted with at the Broadcast Center in New York. So far, it didn’t look like it would be any different in Newport.
    Next they’ll have me fetching their coffee.
    Flipping back her long braided hair, Zoe was determined. She wasn’t going to let it get to her. She was going to win the job with KEY News. When she went back to England, she could use the trophy as a tool in getting another job there. This accomplishment here in the States, along with the documentary she was filming entirely on her own, could land her a spot with the BBC.
    This time in Rhode Island was fortuitous. Black heritage in the state ran complicated and deep. There was plenty to show the pervasive evils of the American slave trade. In her free time, Zoe planned to take her camcorder and document the struggle of blacks in the so-called land of liberty, focusing on one black in particular. A female slave named Mariah.
    She knew it wasn’t going to be easy to juggle both tasks, but she also knew she could do it. Zoe prided herself on facing reality, and this she also believed to be true: in America, if you were black, you usually had to try harder.
    She was still struggling to wrap her mind around it. In England, skin color didn’t matter much. One was judged by class, not race. When one opened one’s mouth and spoke, certain assumptions were made. A proper accent, signifying social status and the right education, opened doors. Perhaps, in its own way, that was discriminatory, too. But how one spoke, with hard work, could be changed. Skin color couldn’t.

  CHAPTER  
15
    Dear God, people really lived like this? Grace was awed at the majesty of the architectural masterpieces they passed on their ride south on Bellevue Avenue. It was almost unbelievable, mansion after mansion, each one different, each one planned and executed with exacting attention to even the tiniest detail. This couldn’t be the United States. This was like driving down a road flanked by European palaces. Classical Greece, imperial Rome, Renaissance Italy, and Bourbon Paris were all represented in the architectures of the mansions that sat on acres of exquisitely maintained property. Again, Grace tried to imagine