Hostile Makeover Read Online Free PDF Page A

shows this town is infamous for.”
    He leaned close in confidence. “Now, I personally think this makeover nonsense is a stupid idea, and an expensive idea, but those high-priced consultants have sold the idea to our boss lady.”
    “Claudia?” Lacey liked Claudia Darnell, the publisher, but once she had an idea, it was pretty much cast in concrete. “Why on earth—”
    “They say it will put a friendlier face on the news. Warmer. Fuzzier.”
    Lacey growled at the very idea.
    “That’s not a friendlier face.” Mac chuckled. Lacey ignored him and looked for a fresh notebook and her favorite pen. “With your ‘Crimes of Fashion’ column, maybe you could wear a trench coat, deerstalker hat, magnifying glass, stalking the wild fashion criminal, that sort of thing.” Mac was most dangerous when he was being creative.
    “No picture, Mac.” She glared at him. He is getting all the wrong ideas about my fashion beat, Lacey thought. And my column. “I mean it.”
    “Think about it; you’ll like it. Besides, you’re, what’s the word? Photogenic. You’ll have the best picture in the paper. As long as you keep your eyes open.” Lacey snorted. Mac suddenly inhaled deeply and turned at the aroma of freshly baked cinnamon muffins approaching from behind him. Felicity Pickles, food editor and carbohydrate pusher, chose that moment to offer Mac her platter of cinnamon muffins. Wearing a wilted, faded pink, sleeveless organdy dress, Felicity looked like the last rose of summer. Mac selected the largest one with the most icing. He favored her with the kind of smile he rarely gave to Lacey. A sugar-high smile.
    Mac’s wife, Kim, was trying to get him to watch his weight and his blood pressure. But Kim wasn’t there, and Felicity’s muffin was. He munched off down the hall. Lacey knew he would blithely ignore any good advice she might offer. So she didn’t try.
    Felicity offered her wares to Lacey with a crocodile smile and those glassy blue eyes. “Try one. You’ll like it.” It was nearly impossible for Lacey to keep in shape, especially in Washington, where work kept most people’s butts in their chairs all day, and stress and long working hours encouraged bad eating habits. And there was Felicity, making it a little harder. Fresh air and exercise seemed to be for other people, like the President and his Secret Service detail, forever pounding around the White House running track in their sweats. He thinks he’s got stress, Lacey thought. He doesn’t have Felicity.
    The cinnamon buns were just a symbol of the war between them, as the food editor sought desperately to win friends and fatten them up in one fell swoop, Lacey surmised. Before dragging them off to her gingerbread house in the woods. In that case, Wiedemeyer would make a tasty morsel for Felicity, the Gingerbread Witch. Lacey shuddered at the thought. Of course, with the Wiedemeyer Effect in the picture, could an exploding stove be far behind? Headline: “Mysterious Blaze Guts Gingerbread House in Woods. Fire Investigators Blame ‘Bad Luck.’ ”
    Lacey couldn’t mistake the hostility behind the gesture and Felicity’s recent attempt to steal her beat. Felicity couldn’t forget that her minivan was bombed because somebody thought she was Lacey Smithsonian, even though it was her own fault for trying to steal a story from Lacey, and the effort blew up in her face, so to speak.
    “No, thanks, I’m trying to quit,” Lacey said. She thought again of Harlan Wiedemeyer and his forlorn crush on Felicity. “Why don’t you offer one to Wiedemeyer?” She waved down the hall toward the death-and-dismemberment beat.
    It was an offhand comment, but Felicity blushed and turned away quickly. A blush? Could it be that Felicity likes Harlan Wiedemeyer? But Felicity just said, “Harlan already brought in a box of doughnuts.”
    “I guess you two have something in common then.” Food and destroyed vehicles, Lacey thought. “Maybe you could