The Reporter Read Online Free PDF Page A

America’s hottest young actor,
     Jack Nathanson, Sally was thrilled that her daughter got a callback. The part of the little girl who was accused of being
     a witch could launch Meggie into a major motion-picture career.
    They called her back three times to read with the star, Mr. Nathanson, who would play the minister, young Hannah’s father
     in the film. Each time, Sally had washed and brushed Meggie’s strawberry-blond hair, carefully chosen her wardrobe, and tirelessly
     coached her on her lines. At all of the readings, the child was perfect in every way. On the day they learned that Meg had
     the role, the room was filled with studio executives and press, and their pictures were all over the evening news. Heady stuff
     for mother and daughter.
    What phantoms haunted her now? her mother anguished, as she watched Meggie in fitful sleep.

6
    S ettle down, Yukon,” Maxi told her dog, a big, furry, friendly Alaskan malamute who was standing at attention next to the brown
     leather Eames chair in her study, where she squirmed into different positions, trying to get comfortable. “Just because
I
can’t relax doesn’t mean
you
can’t.”
    Maxi had been jittery since the funeral that morning. She couldn’t keep the horrific stream of events and their potential
     consequences from tumbling about in her head. Her well-ordered life had been unraveling on several edges since Jack Nathanson
     had come into it, and now it had turned downright precarious. She knew it would look dicey for her when Sheriff’s Homicide
     began to sift through the flotsam of the late Jack Nathanson’s affairs. Her lawyer had been working with her business manager
     to extricate her as close to whole as possible from Nathanson’s financial twining. The lawyer had put her on alert, phoned
     her as soon as he’d heard the news of the murder that Saturday and told her to expect
a call.
    And Wendy was suspicious. Of course, newswoman Wendy Harris was more analytical than the average person. Still, Maxi thought,
     when the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and the various agencies working with them on this high-profile murdercase unearthed the complex fiscal maneuvering ongoing between Jack Nathanson and Maxine Poole Nathanson, they would be dialing
     M for Motive, and Maxi’s phone would ring.
    Besides the IRS, several banks and lending institutions had filed for attachment of Maxi’s salary, as well as all,
all
of her assets, to help cover unpaid taxes and millions of dollars in loans that Jack had taken out when they were husband
     and wife—loans that Jack had never told Maxi about. Not that she’d have objected. At that time, Maxi, and the
world,
thought that mega-star Jack Nathanson had to be sitting on a fortune, from the way he lavished it on himself and others,
     from his track record as an extremely successful actor with his own production company, even from the way he talked—he
talked
rich.
    Now that Maxi was privy to his books, she saw that Jack had
needed
those loans, needed those quick money fixes, because the top roles weren’t coming his way anymore, and the money kept flying
     out the doors and windows.
    Yes, he would pull down an occasional small-potatoes gig, which Sam would no longer allow him to turn down—a television
X-Files
or some such—but they didn’t put a dent in the bills. And Janet had sold him to star in
Serial Killer
when Clint Eastwood turned it down, but that movie hadn’t come out yet, and his points,
if
it was a hit, would pay off way down the road—too late to take care of his bills. The IRS had caught up with his tax debt,
     and the banks were calling their loans. Jack Nathanson showed zero assets on paper, but he’d had a wife when he’d piled up
     all that debt, a wife who was a well-paid television news reporter, and there was no legal contract separating their estates
     in those years. Which meant that Maxi had faced the possibility of being wiped out, and worse, the insane but very real