Stay (Dunham series #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Summer
     
     
    * * * * *
     
     
    5: Platinum Linings
     
     
    January 5, 2009
     
    The Chouteau County, Missouri prosecutor fought his
way through the crowd of people lining the sidewalk to the
courthouse. He shoved aside the cameras and booms, shouldered past
disembodied hands holding out micro-recorders, and attempted to
shield his eyes from the lights aimed ruthlessly at his face. Out
of the din around him, he could understand only his name.
    “Mr. Cipriani—!”
    “Mr. Cipriani—!”
    “Mr. Cipriani—!”
    “No comment at this time,” he barked intermittently,
trying not to grin. He’d worked and prepared and waited for this
moment. He’d woven his web, caught his prey, and rolled them up in
silk, right here in front of the courthouse.
    Time to start eating.
    He reached the steps that led up to the doors and
turned to face the crowd of bloggers and reporters. At six A.M. in
January, the sky didn’t show even a tinge of pink, making the
bright lights from the cameras against the darkness blinding. He
held his hands up for silence and got it.
    “Which part of ‘the press conference will be held at
ten A.M.’ didn’t you all get?”
    That accomplished nothing except to restart the
shouting, as he had intended.
    They were so easy, especially that prick Glenn
Shinkle from the Chouteau Recorder who hadn’t realized that
newsprint was dead. He’d kept his little twelve-page rag alive for
years on Knox’s back, always striving to be the next Bob Woodward.
He would have succeeded if he’d just realized that every bit of
Knox’s reputed corruption was an elaborately constructed façade and
had figured out a way to prove it.
    Oh, yeah, Eric had plans for Shinkle.
    He shook his head with a chuckle, turned, and opened
the door to go in the courthouse. He jerked his head at the
deputies on duty and they went out to control the crowd. He bounded
up the grand walnut staircase to the second floor, then through the
outer door of the prosecutor’s office—
    —only to stop cold at the sign stuck on the closed
door of the private office toward the back of the bullpen.
     
    ERIC CIPRIANI
    PROSECUTOR
     
    Knox must have had that placed as a surprise for
him, his last act.
    He flinched when the lights flickered on and a hand
clapped him on the back. “Congrats,” Patrick Davidson said as he
brushed in behind Eric, walked to his desk and dropped into the
chair to rifle through his files.
    “Don’t congratulate me yet,” Eric said over his
shoulder. “I still have to get through the press conference this
morning.”
    Davidson shrugged. “Just keep your eye on that,” he
said, pointing to the white board hanging on the wall behind Eric’s
old desk, its to-do list printed in Knox’s precise block
lettering:
     
    GRADUATE FROM COLLEGE 5/99
    GRADUATE FROM LAW SCHOOL 5/02
    TAKE OVER PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE 1/09
    START CAMPAIGN FOR CC PROSECUTOR 1/09
    START CAMPAIGN FOR MO AG 4/10
    MO AG 2012 - 2016
    MO GOVERNOR 2016 - 2024
    1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE 2024
     
    GET A MOVE ON!!
     
    Eric felt a deep growl of satisfaction welling in
his chest. If he stayed on track, he’d be forty-seven when he hit
the White House, the perfect age—old enough to quash credibility
murmurs and young enough to avoid questions of senility.
    As for the public scrutiny that had begun the minute
Eric had abruptly taken over as interim prosecutor the month
before, well, it’d take him a while and some savvy PR to sort that
out. His refusal to distance himself from Knox would make the task
more difficult, but Annie had hired a top-notch firm to help. On
the other hand, Knox’s relatively powerful family had already put
its political and financial wheels in motion to get Eric where he
wanted to go—and where they wanted him.
    Richard Connelly huffed and puffed his way into the
office, then to his desk. “Why the long face? You still worried
about your juvie record?”
    Well, yeah, he was, and Connelly interpreted Eric’s
silence