Nobody Knows by Mary Jane Clark Read Free Book Online Page B

buzzing sound. She entered the dark and depressing space. A large office, meant for dozens of staffers, was now used by only a handful. Because of the leaner operation across the board, the KEY corporate stock was doing well. Cassie knew this because she was suddenly paying attention. The shares she had accumulated over the years would be up for grabs in the divorce proceedings.
    Her office was off to the side of the no-longer-busy central newsroom. She went in and whipped through the newspapers, listened to her voice mail, and checked her e-mail. Next she scanned her computer for the
Evening Headlines
early rundown. Cassie felt another catch in her throat as she saw that Valeria Delaney was slated to do a story from the Justice Department. Valeria was an ambitious young thing, and she was lobbying hard for the justice correspondent title officially left unfilled since Cassie’s departure.
    Cassie pushed the phone pad keys and waited for further humiliation. She had to keep calling the Fishbowl, pitching story ideas, and see if they’d bite.
    “Bullock,” came the curt answer.
    “It’s Cassie Sheridan, Range.” Why did she feel like a nervous kid when she got the executive producer on the line?
    “Yeah, Cassie. What’ve you got?”
    She knew Range was just going through the motionswith her, though neither of them wanted to acknowledge it. Almost every story Cassie had proposed since she had been in Miami had been flatly rejected. The reasons given had varied, but she knew the bottom line: they didn’t want her on the air. Not unless it was to do the miserable stories that no one at her stage of the game really wanted to do. For those awful natural disaster stories, the Fishbowl would use her.
    “There’s a story in the
Herald
this morning, Range, about the FBI’s Organized Crime/Drug Program investigation of drug trafficking here in Miami. I thought I’d call around and see what I could come up with on it.”
    There was a momentary pause on the line.
    “Range?”
    “I think it would be best if Valeria worked on this one, Cassie. Why don’t you give her a call and ask her to check things out with the FBI?”
    Oh God, the morning’s humiliation was now complete. She took the pen she had been holding and jammed it in her palm.
    But Range wasn’t finished with her yet. “Cassie, what’s the deal with this tropical storm in the Gulf? From the sound of it, we better get in position over there.”
    She’d been avoiding it. If she didn’t bring it up, maybe it would go away. Yeah, right. But she didn’t want to think about the possibility of a hurricane. She wanted to see Hannah this weekend. Cassie was only thirty-nine, she reasoned with herself. Hannah was only thirteen. There was still time to make things right between them.
    But in Miami, as in Washington before, work called the shots.

CHAPTER 9
    The arrival of the Suncoast Broadcasting Company news crew added to the hubbub on Siesta Beach. Trudging through the sand and dripping with perspiration, the WSBC-TV news photographer-editor Brian Mueller followed his reporter. They couldn’t locate the kid who had found the hand, but they recorded an interview with a sheriff’s deputy and got reaction from people on the beach.
    “I think it was a shark,” said one woman.
    “This is a helluva way to start the day,” said a man who identified himself as a vacationing New Yorker.
    The guy’s right
, thought Brian. This was a crappy way to start what was going to be a long, long day. Once they got enough here, they’d have to hurry back to the station and put together the story for noon. Then the news director would have the bright idea that the piece should be updated for the six o’clock hour, so they’d scarf down some lunch, then go back out and try to find some new element to advance the story. Thenrush back again to the station, edit and feed into the show. But that wouldn’t be the end of it.
    Brian had to shoot that charity event at the Ringling