[BAD 07] - Silent Truth Read Online Free PDF

knows who I am and I have no interest in sitting in front of a camera.” That would mean wearing makeup, having her bushy head of curls tamed into something chic, and wearing real clothes. Not the sweater, jeans, and boots she wore today and every other day.
    She might have to sell her soul one more time, but she refused to make this easy for her manipulative, underhanded, scheming boss. That pretty much described all the men she’d had the misfortune to know in her life.
    Except, of course, her father. The one who adopted her.
    “Abbie?” He barked her name tersely as an order.
    “Heard you, Stu. I’m think -ing.”
    “Do it while I’m still young.” The forty-six-year-old general manager for Chicago’s second leading news station wore his dull brown hair short and slicked forward,styled camera-ready. His squinty hazel eyes had never met hers during the lunch they’d just finished, but she felt the weight of them bearing down on her now.
    Patience didn’t come as part of his job description.
    “I don’t want to make a rash decision.” Her father would have laughed at that if he was still alive. Impulsive had been her middle name from childhood until she went out on the town six years ago looking for some action to pay back her cheating fiancé. She’d gotten drunk and woken up in a chain hotel in South Chicago next to some guy with long scraggly hair, a ratty beard, and a buff body the following morning. She never saw him again. She’d called him Samson and he hadn’t corrected her.
    She’d curbed her impulsive ways that day.
    But she had a stubborn streak that could kick Stuey’s overbearing attitude any day. He was right to some degree. She couldn’t afford much right now, like the luxury of pissing him off. Not when she desperately needed something he held within his power.
    An engraved invitation to the Tuesday-night Wentworth fund-raiser for the Kore Women’s Center. She had to get inside and not be marked as media.
    “Your cell phone’s buzzing.” Stuey’s pissy tone indicated how much he hated having his time imposed upon.
    She dug her cell phone from the black-and-brown leather bag next to her feet. The caller ID said it was Hannah, the only one of her two sisters Abbie would take a call from.
    Driving with one hand was not a problem since the traffic was getting worse. She answered, “I’m in a meeting.”
    “Dr. Tatum needs to talk to you.”
    “What about?” Abbie didn’t want to discuss their mother’s situation in front of Stuey, who had enough leverage on her as it was from when she’d asked to go on flextime. She’d added the raise thinking he’d give her the relaxed scheule before he’d turn loose more money.
    “How should I know? I assumed it’s about Mom’s condition, but when I told him to tell me he said he really needed to talk to you.” Hannah’s tone spewed insult between each word.
    Abbie’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. Tatum had shared information about her mother’s condition in confidence—with Abbie only—last night and made her swear not to tell Hannah or anyone else. Information that might shed some light on why their mother had become critically ill ten days ago.
    She’d rather be at the hospital with her mother right now, but Tatum’s disclosure had dropped his best hope for helping her mother in Abbie’s lap, which had instigated today’s lunch with Stuey. “How are things today?” she asked Hannah.
    “She’s incoherent, in and out of it.” Her sister’s voice wobbled a little, then toughened up. “Her blood pressure keeps fluctuating. Skin color isn’t good. Her liver’s… worse.”
    “Crud.” Abbie hadn’t slept much in days for worrying about her mother, but hearing the fear in Hannah’s voice amplified her own stress. Hannah rarely let anyone think she didn’t have the world by the balls.
    “Hold on,” Hannah said. “I need to move out of the way for the nurse.”
    “Abbie?” Stuey repeated in a low but