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Chapter One
Beaten by theBarracuda
“H
ELLO, THIS IS — ”
“I know who you are, Ms. Samuel.”
The barracuda’s voice emanated from the phone as bleak and dark and implacable as the sinister depths she probably swam in, and as slimy as the scales on her probably fishy skin.
No, no. It wasn’t like Mary Samuel to think of anyone that unkindly. Even if Nemo — a better fish to think of? — stood between Mary and the interview she had to have.
“But — ”
“The whole town knows who you are, and half of them undoubtedly want to talk to you.”
“But — ”
“I knew who you were the last time you called and the ten times before that. Francis Van Deventer the Fifth is not one of the people in this town who wish to speak to you or anyone else in the media.”
“Ma’am, I just want — ”
“I knew who you were in a clown suit when you tried to startle me into letting you past. I knew who sent the male stripper to distract me while you slipped by. He was attractive, but I’m not susceptible to such things when I’m on the job.”
She was probably an unfeeling, immovable rock at home too. No, no, Mary had to keep a leash on suchunkindthoughts.Thiswomanwasanunfeeling, immoveable — pet rock. There. That was better. Even if it wasn’t quite true. But maybe it was partly true? Enough that the pet rock could be moved to sympathy by a direct appeal from a fellow — er — friendly collection of minerals in need? Mary had to have this interview. She’d never get a reporting job if she didn’t. Pete had been furious that Mary even asked for the transfer into the newsroom. Maybe furious enough to fire her for good this time if she didn’t come back with this story.
“Please, Ma’am, I need — ”
“Perhaps I should admire your persistence and imagination,” Ma’am said. “I don’t.”
Click.
The sound ricocheted from one end of Mary Samuel’s worn, comfortable home-office cave to the other. She glared at her antique rotary dial phone.
“Whoeverheardofanassistantwhogetsintowork at this hour?” Mary asked her Saint Bernard.Guinevere quirked an I-don’t-know eyebrow.
“I thought I might get Francis Van Deventer the Fifth himself to pick up.”
“Woe-oe-oe,” Guinevere said in commiseration.
“Who would’ve thought the Guardian of the Inner Sanctumwouldbethereatsixo’clockinthemorning to protect the Tycoon Who Saved Toronado from Mary the Malevolent Minion of the Media?”
“Wo-o-ow,” Guinevere said.
Sometimes her vocabulary left something to be desired.
“Everybody else in town loves Mary Samuel, gossip columnist extraordinaire. My writing, at least. Even the boss says I’m not bad. If he said that to a guy, it would mean the guy was the best reporter Pete had ever hired.”
Guinevere wrinkled her already fissured brow in female solidarity.
Mary ran her hand through a shock of her blonde hair, which promptly flopped back down into her eyes. She whuffed at it. That didn’t work either. Bad work day, bad hair day. What else could go wrong? Surely not much more at this still-ridiculously-early hour in the morning.
At least she could take off her aggressive-reporter hat now. She didn’t like wearing it and rarely needed to. She rarely had to fight a shark or the even bigger fish the shark protected. Her confidence, though, evaporated with the doffing of her hat.
“Guinevere, is the boss right? I don’t belong on the news-reporting side?”
“No-o-o,” her dog said.
