Devil in the Deadline
note that I’d be in the newsroom as soon as I got a few hours’ sleep.
    Standing under the super-bright security light I’d recently added to my backyard, I watched Darcy run a lap around the fence line, still wondering what kind of person could do something so unspeakable.
    The puzzle invaded my sleep, dreams peppered with flashes of blood-soaked walls and glassy green eyes, a voice from nowhere repeating a refrain of “they killed her.”
    They who?

3.
    Â Â 
    Hard truths

    Â Â 
    Ikicked the tangled covers the rest of the way to the floor around eight-thirty, giving up on sleep the third time I woke with blankets strangling my legs. I never rest well when there’s a big story in the works—it’s nearly impossible to get my brain to shut down—but a potential psycho on the loose added a whole new level of fitful to my slumber.
    Darcy didn’t move when I plunked my feet to the scarred 1920s hardwood and shuffled to the bathroom. A ponytail and a little concealer later, I found two texts on my BlackBerry from my editor. Charlie didn’t have close to what I did, which always put Bob in an excellent mood. Score one for the crime reporter.
    Juggling a latte and my notebook, I stepped off the elevator into the newsroom at nine-fifteen and nearly walked into Shelby Taylor. Her eyes narrowed, her full lips twisting into a sneer before I could get the “excuse me” out of my mouth.
    Beating Charlie made Bob happy. It also pissed Shelby off. Not that our copy chief wanted the TV station to scoop us. She just wanted my job, so anything that got me a brownie point or two with the bosses stuck in her craw. And now that she was no longer sleeping with the managing editor, she was more irritable than usual.
    â€œHow’d you manage to get more than everyone else in town this morning?” she asked, swiping her spiky black hair off her forehead before she laid her hands on her Barbie-doll-sized hips.
    â€œWhy in God’s name are you here on Sunday?” I countered, stepping around her and turning toward my desk. “Don’t you have a life? Surely Les and his hairplugs moving on hasn’t been that devastating. Except when you count the loss of job potential. It must be humiliating, having the guy you were only sleeping with to get my beat dump you.”
    She gaped at me for a second, recovering with a smirk and a Splenda-coated tone. “I’m sure you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Because you didn’t have an exclusive this morning that’s got Charlie Lewis ready to spit nails. How’s that ATF agent friend of yours? Still in bed?”
    â€œI don’t have to stoop to your tricks to get ahead, Shelby. And it’s not an ATF case.”
    â€œMmm-hmm.” She widened her eyes and offered a conspiratorial nod. “Whatever gets you through the day, sugar.”
    The glare I fixed on her retreating back should’ve burned a hole right through her lacy peach tank top. Her jibe stung more than a little behind the memory of Kyle’s lips on mine after I asked him about the murder. I stomped to my desk. If Shelby was half as good at reporting as she was at pushing my buttons, she’d have a column in The New York Times .
    I dropped my stuff to the tacky brown seventies carpet in my little ivory cubicle, the weekend crew quieter than usual. Settling into my chair, I glanced at Bob’s door. Closed. Rare was the story that would get him into the office on a Sunday. Even several years past his wife’s death, he honored her wish that his weekends be his own. For the most part, anyway. If he’d seen what I saw last night, he wouldn’t leave the newsroom for a month. But given the looming first anniversary of his heart attack, I’d rather keep stress away from him.
    I flipped my computer open, laying my notes alongside, and began typing everything I could recall about the murder scene.
    An hour
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