You Can’t Stop Me by Max Allan Collins, Matthew Clemens Read Free Book Online Page B

investigating, as soon as the show ends tonight…and we will work as long as we have to. Join us in September when we start Crime Seen! , season two, by bringing you up to date on our progress on this case over the weeks ahead.”
    His eyes narrowing, Harrow added, “Finally, a special message to one person—the killer of my family. I’m coming for you…and I’m coming soon.”
    Then the credits were rolling, which often signaled the control room getting rowdy, but right now it was like church—in more ways than one, because several people were praying.
    The screen faded to black as the show went off the air.
    Byrnes said to Nicole, “Get him. Now.”
    She nodded, cell at the ready, turning away, speaking quietly; then, cupping the phone, she said, “He’ll be in his office. He says…he’s expecting you.”
    “No shit.”
    Soon the exec was moving down the corridor, which would normally be filled with staffers quickly finishing up and getting the hell out. With the season over, the network had arranged a wrap party at the newest swank LA bistro, El Viñedo, to which they should all be on their way.
    But Byrnes found the hall lined with cast and crew.
    As his gaze swept over them, their eyes either found something very interesting in the carpeting to focus on or turned toward lead reporter Carlos Moreno.
    Byrnes’s frown withered his staff the way sunlight did vampires. “What’s this about?”
    But Moreno, six feet tall with short spiky black hair, was impervious to the exec’s gaze. His eyes locked unblinkingly on Byrnes’s. “We’re here to support our boss,” he said.
    Byrnes never flinched. “That’s very gratifying, Carlos…since I am your boss.”
    “We support J.C.”
    A few nervous nods backed up that claim.
    “All right, duly noted,” the network president said, keeping his tone even, nonconfrontational. It was a union town, after all. “I’ll see you all at El Viñedo.”
    People peeled off the wall and headed down the hall and around the corner—hostages released after a siege—though Moreno stood firm.
    Byrnes met the man’s gaze. “You don’t think I should fire J.C.’s ass?”
    “Nope.”
    “What do you think I should do?”
    “Give him what he wants. He’s an accidental genius. He didn’t mean to, but he just handed you and me and all of us the biggest potential ratings winner in history. If he’d come to you first, you—”
    “But he didn’t come to me.”
    “Dennis! So what? He isn’t your standard TV whore. You were well aware when you hired him that J.C. took this show hoping to find his family’s killer.”
    “And here I thought it was the truckload of money we backed up and dumped at his feet.”
    The reporter rolled his eyes. “Right, Dennis. Money. That’s what makes J.C. Harrow tick.”
    Byrnes frowned, but had no response ready before the reporter gave him a little salute and ambled off down the hall.
    The exec strode down the corridor to the dark-wood door with the name J.C. HARROW in banker-like gold lettering. For a split second, Byrnes considered knocking, then decided screw it , and went in.
    Behind his desk, J.C. Harrow appeared as relaxed and confident as a man who had just scored his biggest success, and not committed career suicide on national television.
    Byrnes didn’t bother to sit down, just strode up to the desk and gave his star a cold, confrontational glare.
    “I just want to know one thing,” Byrnes said.
    Harrow did not take the bait. He just waited silently, leaning back in his chair, his expression not quite smiling, but certainly self-contained.
    “Why did you piss it all away on a whim, J.C.? You could have come to me, we might have put something together, instead you skyjack the airwaves. Weren’t we good to you?”
    For a long time, Harrow said nothing, then, “That’s more than one thing, Dennis. If you want an answer to any of those questions, pull up a chair and sit down.”
    Byrnes had a moment—a moment where he had