Bylines & Deadlines Page 5

  “Where’s the office,” she asked looking around the living room trying to figure out which hall to take. Will gave directions and met her in the office. She started taking notes and her computer out of the bags.

  “Use my docking station,” he said. She put her laptop in the docking station and pushed the button.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” she said. She pulled out a folder marked “disc” and opened it. She had printed the documents. “I found the news articles,” she said handing three separate stacks of stapled papers to Will. “Here they are. I also have police reports, medical files - don’t ask me how I got those - and some notes from people I interviewed. The one about the illegal immigrant drug dealer shooting one of his delinquent accounts is the hardest because no one wants to admit they saw anything in case this guy gets out of jail any time soon. The other two are an eight year old little boy being killed by a van that jumped the curb while he was walking to school. The van took off. Police have a description, but it didn’t have license plates. The last story is about RJR Corporation acquiring a shipping company.” Will flipped through the documents.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let me go over these and see if anything jumps out at me since I’m looking at it with fresh eyes.”

  “Sure. I’ll work on the rest of this stack,” she said and started going over the remaining documents in the folder.

  Two hours later Kristine tossed her pen on the desk and rubbed her eyes. “Well, someone is cooking their books. That’s all I have here.”

  “I’ve been through these four times. There has to be something here that ties them all together,” he said pulling off his reading glasses.

  “I need a break,” she said. They went to the living room. She picked up the newspaper from the coffee table and started to scan it. Will watched her. “I’m not that interesting,” she said without looking up from the paper.

  “You have no idea,” he said laughing. “What’s wrong?” She looked puzzled.

  “This woman looks familiar to me, but I don’t know why,” she said. She read the headline over the photo. “Wife of Robert Rawlings Leaves a Legacy of Giving.” The story said Carolyn Rawlings was the wife of Robert James Rawlings, the billionaire who owned RJR Corporation along with several others. Carolyn spent her life donating her time and money to charities. She drowned in her bathtub after slipping and hitting her head. Her housekeeper found her. Kristine had a quick flash of the initials RJR. “Hold on,” she said jumping up and running to the office. She brought back a stack of papers. “I know it’s here somewhere,” she said.

  “What are you looking for?” Will asked sitting on the edge of the couch. “Let me help.”

  “I’ve got it,” she said holding up one of the documents. “RJR acquired a shipping company.” She looked at the photo. “Will, this is the woman who gave me the disc,” she felt weak. “What if they killed her?”

  “Are you sure?” He stood up and looked at the picture. He put his hand on her back to steady her as she swayed. “Sit down.” She sat down and put her head between her knees. Will picked up the cordless phone sitting on the coffee table while rubbing Kristine’s back with his other hand. “Joyce, get me Bronston in Business,” he said. He waited a minute. “Bronston, it’s Will. I want everything you have not in print on Robert James Rawlings. Email it, or give it to Joyce and have her fax it to me.” There was a pause. “Yeah, thanks.” Will hung up. He sat on the couch next to Kristine. She sat up, put her head in his chest and let him hold her. She suddenly, and oddly, felt safe. He kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go see what else we have on him.” She nodded, and they went back to the office.

  They searched the paper’s records and the internet to find as much as they could on Robert J. Rawlings. They found some photos. The more Kristine saw, the more positive she became Carolyn Rawlings was the woman in the street. There was a photo of Carolyn, Robert and a son named Ralston. Ralston looked to be in his early forties in the photo. About an hour into their search, the fax machine buzzed. The fax was six pages long - mostly hand written. Will read through the faxes as Kristine continued to look at the computer screen.

  “Rawlings has some subsidiaries that he keeps under wraps and no one has ever been able to completely tie him to them. Some of the holdings are also overseas in some war-torn countries. Macnamar, Stormage, Carolston, Farmcorp, CRR…”

  “Wait. Did you say Farmcorp?” she asked looking up at him.

  “Farmcorp,” he confirmed. “Why?”

  “The boy’s father worked for Farmcorp,” she said looking through the stack of papers on the desk. “Here it is. It’s on his insurance information from the hospital,” she said flipping through the stapled stack. “Where are his other corporations?”

  “Mostly in countries in Africa, but there’s nothing specific mentioned,” he said looking at the information on the fax.

  “Sudan?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t say.”

  “The drug dealer was here illegally from Sudan,” she said with her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her throat. “The police said he wouldn’t say a word to them. They thought he didn’t speak English so they brought in an interpreter, but he just didn’t want to talk.”

  “I wouldn’t talk either if I thought I was going to end up on a slab in the morgue. I’d let them put me on a plane back to Sudan and just turn around and come back,” he said.

  “So Robert Rawlings is our connection. Now all I have to do is fill in the holes and tie all of it together,” she said excitedly.

  “I don’t like this,” Will said apprehensively. “If this guy is willing to kill his own wife and an eight year old little boy, he wouldn’t think twice about a reporter.”

  “Will, you have to separate the editor from the other stuff. If I was Bronston or Newman sitting here with this story, would you be so worried?”

  “I’m not in love with Newman,” he said sincerely and quietly. Her mouth fell open. “But, I’d still be worried. I don’t want any of my reporters dying for a story. I may be a newsman, but I’m a human being first.”

  “You’re in love with me?” she whispered, stuck on his first words. “I didn’t know it was that far along. Will, you don’t even know me,” she said quietly. “If you knew me, I don’t know that you’d feel the same way.”

  “Kris, I’m not a silly teenager.”

  “I know, but think about it. I’m a royal bitch. No one in the newsroom likes me. I’m mean to everyone, and I slept in my clothes last night,” she said completely forgetting about her big story.

  “You aren’t a bitch, Krissy. You’re defensive and you build walls around yourself. The newsroom doesn’t dislike you - you just haven’t given anyone a chance to get to know you,” he said soothingly.

  “Joyce the pit bull hates me,” she said.

  “She doesn’t hate you. She’s concerned about you.”

  “Concerned about me?”

  “Well, I should say she’s concerned about me. Joyce can read me like a book - she knows what I want before I do. She warned me away from you before I knew what was going on with me.”

  “Oh,” she said and sat quietly for a moment. “Burt Newman hates me,” she said.

  “Truth be told, you’re the brightest part of Burt Newman’s day. Sparring with you takes his mind off the rest of his life. He thinks of you as the bratty daughter he never had,” he said. She looked at him suspiciously.

  “Did he tell you that?” she wondered.

  “Kris, I didn’t go from the mailroom to the boardroom without being able to read people,” he said almost fatherly. “Give me some credit.” She thought for a moment. He was good at reading people from what she could recall. “How do you think you got this job? Of course I was attracted to you immediately, but I watched you in the newsroom on your tour. Your eyes darted around taking in everything. You asked the right questions at the right times. You had the ‘it’ factor I look for when I hire.” She was quiet. She had no idea he w
atched her that closely that day. She didn’t know whether to be freaked out or honored. Quick, she thought. Get off the subject. She looked down at the stack of research.

  “Okay. Let’s get back to my story,” she said.

  “Right,” he said and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. She had no idea what she was doing. She was moving papers around. He put his hand on top of hers to stop her. “Stop. Think. What’s the next step?” She thought about how he could possibly know she wasn’t concentrating. Maybe he did know her.

  “I need to fill the holes,” she said and looked at him. “The bank records and that other weird document,” she said. She pulled them out of the stack, and he looked at them over her shoulder.

  “Hold on,” he said. He left the room and came back with the business section of the paper. He opened to the stock pages. “See this?” He pointed to the page. “I think that’s the abbreviation for RJR, and here it is on this document.” She looked. He had something. He took the phone he had hooked to his waist. “Joyce, it’s me. Put me through to Bronston again.” Kristine wondered if Joyce knew she was staying with Will. “Are any of Rawlings’ other companies public?” There was a pause. “Check it out. If they are, I want their market abbreviations. Give me whatever you find.” He paced around the living room. She found him even more attractive when he took charge like that. They looked at the numbers while they waited. “If these are other companies, he’s moving money around. And a lot of it,” he said. “Let’s go back to the office.”

  They went back to his home office and waited for the information. Some of the companies were public, but some weren’t. Farmcorp wasn’t. They matched the public companies to the abbreviations and then found one that didn’t match - PMF.

  “Will. PMF could be Farmcorp backwards. The P is the last letter, the F is the first and M is in the middle,” she said pointing.

  “If it is, he’s moving a lot of money to Farmcorp,” he said. “Do a search on Farmcorp.” She turned to the laptop and searched in every database and search engine she could. Nothing. “We’re going to spread out the research to take the focus off of you,” he said. He phoned Bronston and told him to put a couple business reporters on Farmcorp. He told Bronston to tell them it was high priority but highly confidential. Their research should be done quietly. He hung up.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “We wait. It’s going to take them awhile, but they have good contacts,” he said. “Want to have some lunch?”

  “Sure,” she said looking for a clock. It was after 1:00. She hadn’t realized so much time had passed since breakfast. Her stomach was in knots. She could feel the story beginning to unfold.

  Will and Kristine made some sandwiches, and she started to relax. As Will carried the plates to the table, Kristine said, “I have a better idea.” She took the plates from Will and carried them into the living room. She put the plates on the coffee table and sat on the floor. “Carpet picnic,” she looked up smiling. He smiled back.

  “I’ll get the drinks,” he said. He brought them in and put them on the glass coffee table. He sat down next to her. She shook her head.

  “You can’t have a carpet picnic with shoes on. Jeez! Didn’t you learn anything growing up?” He took off his shoes. She looked him over. “Better. Now, undo one or two buttons on your shirt and roll up your sleeves.”

  “Carpet picnics take a lot of preparation,” he said as he did what she asked. She watched carefully.

  “I think that’s it,” she said and reached for her sandwich. “We used to have carpet picnics growing up,” she said before taking a bite of her turkey sandwich.

  “Ah,” he said and started eating his sandwich.

  “We also used to make forts out of furniture,” she said.

  “Forts? How did you do that?”

  “Oh come on,” she said. “Forts. You know with sheets or blankets and furniture.” He laughed. “Seriously,” she added.

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “You’ve never made forts? Not even for the girls?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Can’t say as I have. Plus, the girls’ mother wouldn’t exactly allow us to make a mess of her furniture.” Kristine looked around and found a throw blanket on a chair. She stood up and unfolded the blanket. She put one corner on the mantle of the fireplace and weighed it down with a heavy candlestick. She took the other corner to the other end of the mantle and put a leaded glass vase on that corner. She walked over to the glass coffee table. Will watched her in amusement.

  “Look out,” she said. He moved a bit and she slid the glass table closer to the fireplace. She took the other ends of the blanket and found weights for them. She placed the ends of the blanket on the opposite ends of the coffee table. “Come on in to Fort Kris,” she said and went under the blanket. He followed her, and they sat on the hearth while they finished their lunch. Will couldn’t stop smiling. “See? Isn’t this fun? I don’t think I’ve ever had a fort with a fireplace, though. This is a fancy fort.”

  “You’re amazing,” he said looking at her. She smiled. She didn’t think she had ever been called amazing and didn’t really see anything amazing about a carpet picnic or a fort.

  “Eh, you’re just saying that because you’re in my fort.”

  “No, you’re truly amazing,” he said.

  “Thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever been amazing to anyone before today,” she said quietly.

  “That’s not true,” he said and took her hand. “You have a gift.” She looked at her hand in his. His hand was so big it swallowed hers.

  “I think I should warn you I’m not very good at relationship stuff,” she edged closer to him. He leaned into her.

  “Neither am I. Maybe we can learn together.” His voice was deep and soothing.

  “This is totally unexpected,” she said smiling. “But, I think I want to see where this goes.” His smile grew wider. He leaned in to kiss her.

  “You’ve made me a happy man,” he said and kissed her again.

  “Will this impact my job?” she asked nervously wondering if she had made the correct decision. He sighed, and she thought she knew the answer.

  “It should, but not right now. We’ll take things slow and deal with office policy when we have to.”

  “Won’t you get into trouble if the publisher finds out?”

  “Let me deal with it when the time comes,” he added. “For now, we’re just getting to know each other better. No harm in that.” She smiled weakly.

  They spent the rest of the day in the fort. She told him about her childhood, and he told her about his. They talked about politics, religion and world affairs. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been more open with anyone, especially a man. Of course, most of the men she dated couldn’t name three current events other than who won what sporting event. She had a huge story waiting for her, she thought. It will be there in the morning. They laughed at each other’s silly jokes.

  After a late dinner, they spent the evening snuggling on the couch. She must have fallen asleep in his arms, because he woke her with a kiss to the forehead. “Time for bed, sleepy head,” he said. They walked down the hall hand-in-hand and stopped at the bedroom doors. She turned to him.

  “I think I should sleep in here,” she said nodding to the spare bedroom.

  “Yeah,” he said disappointed. “I’m still technically a married man.” She nodded. They kissed goodnight and parted in the hall.

  Chapter Four

  Between the budding relationship with her boss and the story she wanted finished, Kristine couldn’t sleep. She got up, went to the kitchen, got a bottle of water and headed back to the office. She did another search on Robert Rawlings. There were a lot of hits. No, there were a ton of hits. She sighed and started going through each one.

  There’s no way to know how much time passed before she opened the story about the reopening of an RJR manufacturing plant only days after a tornado nearly destroyed it. There were photos, which she clic
ked through one by one. The President of the United States was visiting to congratulate the workers for getting the plant going so quickly. There were different shots of the president shaking hands with Rawlings behind a production line. Something caught her eye. She clicked on the zoom button. She clicked again and again. Her heart leapt into her throat. The Sudanese drug dealer was standing in the background! “Oh my God,” she whispered. She pushed the print button, but she wasn’t mapped to print to Will’s printer. She ran to his room and burst through the door without knocking. “It’s him!”

  “What?” Will asked groggily looking at the clock. It was 3:15 a.m.

  “Will, you have to see this,” she tugged at his arm.

  “Okay, okay,” he said as he got out of bed. Will was only wearing silk boxer shorts, so he grabbed a robe on his way out of his room. She led him back to the office and pointed to the screen.

  “The drug dealer who shot that guy,” she said. She had the photo blown up so much you couldn’t see the rest of it. “That’s him and it’s Rawlings.”

  “Slow down,” Will said still waking up. She looked at the screen, but it was grainy.

  “Hold on,” she said and clicked back through to make the photo smaller. Will looked closely.

  “Let me see the mug shot,” he said. She pulled out the photo and put it next to the computer screen. “Blow it up again.” She did that, too. “I’ll be damned,” he said as he leaned toward the screen.

  “The photo didn’t run anywhere. I found it in the AP archives. He’s not in any of the other ones I’ve seen,” she said excitedly. “Do you think there’s some sort of connection to the White House? Do you? Because I’m not afraid to go there,” she said at a high rate of speed.

  “Whoa. Just because he was there at the opening, I don’t think you can lump him into anything,” Will said. “Send a request to the AP for the photo. We’ll run it with the story. Not now though. I don’t want anyone seeing the time on the request. It will set off bells if someone sees you working at 3:15 in the morning.”