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Unanimous again. “Aye!”
“Anyone opposed to either of those things?”
The room was silent.
Aunt Lori squeezed around me so hard it tweaked my ribs, but I didn’t pull away. She needed my support. “Then the vote carries. Ransom will stay on and Dom will run the company.”
The whoops and hollers of the combined boards was far greater than I expected. Even though Martin and Jamarion tried to ruin my image, tarnish my reputation, and oust me from the company, they didn’t succeed. While I came in here to hand over my company to Dominic, I not only got to keep it, I was still going to be an active part of it.
Despite how proud I was of Dominic at this second, the whole thing was overshadowed by the fact that I lost the woman I loved.
Dominic pulled me in for a hug and clapped me on the back. “Go to her. Take the plane. I’ll come in a few weeks to make sure you did things right this time.”
I clamped my hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you’re the manager of the company, not my love life.”
Texting the pilot, I saw we could leave in two hours.
35
PHOEBE
Slogging through the slush, I remembered why I didn’t like New York in January. When I reached my building after a morning out in this mess, I realized I made it to the magazine and back without being splashed with slush. Maybe my luck was changing. I just resigned from Fresh Faces and I was feeling pretty good about myself.
The moment I entered my crappy stone building, though, doubt hit me. Hard. Was I too hasty? I ran through my conversation with Regina in my head trying to remind myself that everything was going to be okay.
She sounded so positive on the phone yesterday. “That last piece of the puzzle was just what the article needed! That was brilliant, Phoebe.”
I nibbled on my pen cap. “I don’t know how it came to me. It just felt like something was missing and that’s what reminded me of the magazine pages of Jerika’s shoots.”
She tapped on her keyboard in the background. “I never would have thought to look at those. They seemed so tangential to the whole story.”
I gasped. “I know, right? That’s exactly what I thought. I chalked them up to some sort of red herring. But then I looked a little deeper and I found the connection with that photographer.”
I heard a smile in her voice. “And you even gave the police a viable suspect. Not only did you give them evidence to prove there was a serial killer, but then you gave them a suspect too. The same photographer had been at every shoot, every party, even if he wasn’t hired to be there. He really made the rounds.”
I nodded. “Somewhere along the line things shifted in his screwed up brain where it wasn’t enough to take the picture. He wanted to pose them in their final shoot too.”
“God, it gives me goosebumps. You’re a hell of a writer, Phoebe.” She paused. “So, work for me full-time. Be a remote, on-staff writer. I’ll start you at sixty a year and the more bylines you get, the higher that can go.”
I choked. “Are you kidding me?”
Her laugh made me pull the phone from my ear. “Ah, no. You’re amazing and I want to snatch you up before anyone else can.”
I threw my pen down. “Sold. I’m all yours.”
She snickered. “Great. Now, what happened with your hockey player?”
Clearing my throat, I felt little prickles of sweat on my hairline. “Oh, ah, okay. I didn’t know we were going to talk personal lives. Because, if so, I have some questions for you.”
With a sigh, she tossed a pen on her desk. “Yeah, yeah. I’m not the only reporter on the line. I get it.” Laughing, I heard her flop back into her chair. “Then come stay at my little cabin by a lake. It’s perfect for writing. I stay in an apartment in the city, so I’ll never bother you. You can use your signing bonus to buy yourself a car and take day trips to the big cities whenever you need to get out of town, for a story or not. Just think about it.”
While I hadn’t decided if I was going back to Minnesota, the huffing and puffing up to the fourth floor brought me back to current Phoebe and her problems. I was breathing heavily from the stairs but my brain felt calmer. Remembering our conversation, I’d quelled the panic of quitting my job because I had another all ready to go. To celebrate, I turned on the coffee maker. It was time to make my favorite blend.
Checking my phone, I saw a few texts from the girls.
Me: Hey, big news! I decided to work for Regina full-time! I quit Fresh Faces today!
Kiley: Oh, sweetie. That’s wonderful!
