Читать книгу The Ultimate Texas Bachelor - Cathy Gillen Thacker - Страница 10

Well, that was good, Brad thought with no small trace of irony, because he sure as heck didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

“You planted those armadillos in here to chase me away!” Lainey declared with an indignant toss of her head.

“Now why would I go and do a darn fool thing like that?” he demanded right back, furious at being once again erroneously suspected of being the bad guy, and at the same time amused because she was so far off track in her assumption.

Lainey ran a hand through her tousled blond hair, pushing it off her face. “You made it abundantly clear yesterday afternoon that you did not want me here!”

Brad adapted a no-nonsense stance, legs braced apart, arms folded in front of him. He figured he would let her make a fool of herself first, then set her straight. “So?”

Lainey’s green eyes glimmered hotly. “So I accepted Lewis’s job offer anyway.”

Brad released an exasperated breath. “An action I am sure you will quickly come to regret, if you haven’t done so already.”

“Well, these silly little hijinks of yours are not going to work!” She stomped closer yet.

Brad hooked his thumbs through the belt loops on either side of his fly and rocked back on his heels. “Sure about that?”

“I have just as much right to work on this ranch as anyone else.”

“Maybe so. But can you handle it?” Brad stepped closer, purposefully invading her space, not stopping until he had backed her against the sideboard in the center of the room. “Can you handle me?” Not sure why he had started this, except somebody had to set her straight, Brad flattened a hand on either side of her, caging her between his arms, and leaned in close. “You know my rep.” He let his glance drift lazily over her softly parted lips before returning, ever so deliberately, to her eyes. “I’m bad news with all the ladies.”

To Brad’s surprise and grudging respect, Lainey inhaled deeply and stoically stood her ground. “A fact that makes no difference whatsoever to me, since I am a widow.”

And thereby off the market—perhaps forever—in her estimation. Not in Brad’s. Lainey may well have felt she had already been there, done that, but he hadn’t. And being around Lainey, even for a short period of time, had him thinking all sorts of crazy things. Like what it would be like to have her in his bed. Or his life. And not as a thorn in his side. But as a lover, confidante, friend.

Not that this was even a possibility, he reminded himself sternly.

He was in the business of getting her out of here as soon as possible. Before he got in over his head and she got hurt.

“Well, yee-haw.”

She lifted a brow in wordless inquiry, her cheeks turning an even deeper pink.

He smirked in a way meant to infuriate. “If memory serves, a lot of young widows I’ve come across in this town have been hot to trot.” And he was reputed to be randy as could be. If that combination didn’t send her running…and get her safely and quickly off the Lazy M Ranch…he wasn’t sure what would.

Unfortunately, Lainey wasn’t taking his hint.

She lifted her chin, ice in her smile. “I am not in the least bit sex-starved, I assure you, Brad McCabe.”

He felt a stab of jealousy as unexpected as it was intense. He hadn’t heard anything about Lainey having a boyfriend. Nor had she mentioned that as a potential problem yesterday when Lewis had been talking to her about moving to the ranch for a couple of weeks—or longer. Surely if there was a man in Lainey’s life important enough for her to bed, she would have wanted to run the possibility of her moving out here with “the most loathed bachelor in America” with her beloved, if only as a courtesy. Or, at the very least, asked Lewis if it would be all right if she had “visitors”—meaning a territory-staking male friend—at the ranch to see her while she was here. Instead, the only person she had seemed concerned enough about to mention was her eight-year-old son. Who was, coincidentally, also the person in her life most likely to prevent her from kicking up her heels and having a little fun.

Somehow, looking at the stiff way in which she was holding herself, and the defenses that were in high gear, Brad didn’t think Lainey had been kissed in a good long while. Too long, actually.

“Yeah?” He leaned in even closer and lowered his mouth to hers, prepared to have a little fun. “Well, let’s just put that declaration to the test.”

Lainey hadn’t thought Brad was really going to kiss her. She’d thought he was only trying to scare her off the ranch, and out of his way, by pretending to put the moves on her. But there was nothing feigned about the feel of his lips pressing against hers. Nothing fabricated about her reaction to the imprint of his tall, strong body pressed warmly against hers.

She hadn’t felt this alive, this much a woman, since…well, she couldn’t remember when. And though she repeatedly told herself she really had to stop this now, with every shift in pressure of his warm wonderful lips, every stroke and thrust and parry of his tongue, she felt herself sliding deeper and deeper into the mystery that was him. And heaven only knows what might have happened next, had she not heard a discreet feminine exclamation of dismay, and a throat clearing—loudly—behind them.

Lainey and Brad broke apart at the same time, and turned in the direction of the sound. Right away, Lainey recognized Brad’s uncle, Travis McCabe, and his wife, Annie. The handsome couple had both owned ranches before they married some fifteen years ago—since then, the Rocking M Cattle Ranch and the Triple Diamond had been combined.

“Lainey! I don’t know if you remember me,” Annie Pierce McCabe said, stepping forward, looking much younger than her forty-five years.

They had never been friends—there was too much of an age difference—but Lainey had admired the moxie Annie had shown, creating a new life for herself and her three sons after her divorce. “Of course I do.” Lainey accepted the slender, red-haired woman’s welcome. Annie was one of Lainey’s role models, and one of the reasons why Lainey had been thinking about moving back to Laramie permanently, once her job at the Lazy M was done. “I’ve been using your barbecue sauce since it first came out.” Lainey smiled.

“She’s famous for it, all right.” Looking fit and strong as ever, Travis wrapped a hand affectionately around his diminutive wife’s shoulder, then greeted Lainey, too.

“Travis…Annie.” Brad nodded at them both.

“Brad.” Travis glared at Brad in scolding fashion even as he shook Brad’s hand.

“We came to help!” Annie said, in an effort to let them both off the hook.

But Lainey knew that unless they addressed the ardent clinch that Annie and Travis had just witnessed, it would be like trying to ignore the elephant in the middle of the room.

She wrinkled her nose, pretending to misunderstand, while at the same time transferring her embarrassment—and the blame for the romantic fiasco—squarely where it belonged, onto Brad McCabe’s handsome shoulders. “You knew Brad would be putting the moves on me?” Lainey asked their company innocently.

Brad gave Lainey a surly look that let her know he had expected her to get him back; he just hadn’t known—until this moment—how she was going to do it. “Hey,” he chided amiably, clapping a calloused hand across his broad chest. “I saved your life, sweetheart!”

Sweetheart. Why did that sound so good coming from those lips, even if it was in sarcasm, and not a true endearment? Determined to demonstrate she was not intimidated by Brad McCabe, no matter what he dished out, she stood her ground. “I hardly think that’s the case, since those armadillos were not going to bite me.”

Brad chuckled. “You never would have known that by the way you were screaming,” he countered.

Lewis came in behind them, as eclectically dressed as always. “What did I miss?” he demanded, looking about as unsuited for ranch life as was possible.

“Nothing,” Brad and Lainey said in unison, while Annie and Travis shook their heads and stifled grins.

Lewis frowned. “Doesn’t look like nothing,” he murmured.

“Your brother was harassing her,” Travis explained helpfully.

“I thought I told you not to do that!” Lewis reprimanded Brad.

And just that quickly, the balance of power in the room shifted. Lewis hadn’t meant to remind Brad that Lewis, not Brad, actually owned the Lazy M.

“Right. Boss.” Brad slapped his cowboy hat back on his head and stomped out. Travis shot a look at his wife, and then followed Brad.

“I—I didn’t mean—” Lewis stammered, upset.

“I know you didn’t and so does he,” Annie said gently, before turning back to Lainey. “You remember my three older sons?”

“The triplets?”

“Teddy, Tyler and Trevor are twenty now. They’re all working the ranch for the summer.”

Lainey could hardly believe it. “They’re in college now?”

“Yes. Tyler’s planning to be a vet, Trevor a cattle rancher, and Teddy wants to breed horses. They all just finished their sophomore year at Texas A&M. They’re on their way over. They’re going to help us move furniture and try to make the guest house livable for you and Petey. Speaking of which, where is your son?”

Regret swept through Lainey. “Petey is on a trip with his relatives. He’ll be joining me this weekend.”

“Oh. Our two youngest boys will be so disappointed. Kurt is nine and Kyle is eight and they were so excited to hear there’s going to be another guy roughly their own age, on the next ranch over.”

Two boys came in. They were followed by three strapping young men who did indeed look all grown up. All five had rusty red hair and freckles, just like their mother. “They’re bein’ strict with us!” the taller boy, soon introduced as Kurt, said.

“Yeah, and that is not their job,” his slightly smaller brother Kyle pointed out. “It’s yours and Daddy’s.”

“They were headed for mischief,” Teddy told his mother.

“If anyone would know it when we see it, it’d be us,” Trevor grinned.

Tyler’s eyes twinkled even as he claimed, “We weren’t that bad.”

Lewis and Annie groaned as Brad and Travis came back in. Lainey had been just a teenager when Annie and Travis’s romance began, but even she remembered the triplets—who had been four at the time—had caused lots of havoc in the months and weeks before, during and after Annie and Travis had gotten together.

“Really?” Travis countered, his eyes twinkling, too. “Because I seem to remember, among other things, some ‘flying’ eggs…”

A chuckle resounded through the group at the memory. “All right, all right, maybe we were that mischievous, but we’ve grown up okay,” Tyler claimed.

That they had, Lainey noted admiringly. It was clear all five of the brothers loved one another dearly. She had so wanted for Petey to experience the love and camaraderie of siblings, too. Instead, he was growing up an only child, just the way she had….

But there was no more time to think about that, because Annie had had enough of standing around. She clapped her hands together, looking every bit as anxious to get on with the “organizing” task ahead as Lainey was. “Okay, guys,” Annie told the assembled crew, “now that we’ve got all of you here to do the heavy lifting, let’s get busy and start moving this furniture where Lainey thinks it should go….”

“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT,” Brad said early the next morning when Lainey came face-to-face with him and his brother in the Lazy M ranch house kitchen. “It’s only your second day on the job and you already want time off?”

Lainey ignored Brad—who looked unbearably attractive in jeans, boots and an old chambray shirt—and spoke directly to her real boss, or at least the only person she planned to take any orders from. “I wouldn’t ask if an old friend of mine weren’t in Dallas today, on business.” With me. “I haven’t seen Sybil in a couple of years and she has enough time to have lunch with me. I’d really like to go.”

Clearly aware he was annoying her, Brad looked her over, taking in the fit of her pale yellow, linen sheath dress, matching cardigan and shoes, before returning ever so slowly to her face. “Must be nice to be a dilettante,” Brad mumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Lainey to hear.

“Better than a smart-mouth any day of the week,” she muttered right back.

Lewis stepped between them. He looked annoyed at Brad, too. “Will you leave her alone before she quits on us?” Lewis demanded.

“So what?” Brad finished the second half of his orange juice in a single gulp. He set the glass down on the counter with a thud, as determined to rile Lainey as ever. He shrugged indifferently. “Then we’ll simply hire someone else who will work more than one day in a row.”

“Keep it up,” Lainey told Brad, walking around Lewis to confront him, “and I’ll be tempted to kick you in the shin.” It would serve him right for kissing her the way he had, when she knew he hadn’t meant it. And she, unfortunately for her, had.

“Not going to hurt much with those fancy sandals you’re wearing,” he said in a tone sexy enough to make her want to kiss him all over again. “And speaking of footwear…” He pretended to study her carefully. “This being a ranch—with free-roaming wildlife and all—”

Oh, brother. Like she was going to fall for that again. “Not to mention one very big and ornery beast,” Lainey added sweetly, hoping to shame him into behaving.

“—don’t you think it’s time for you to start dressing a little more practically?”

Lainey had been thinking about it—until he mentioned it, anyway. Clothes that were just right in Dallas seemed a little too fancy here. Lainey had been dressing the way Chip had expected her to for so long, she had no idea how she would dress if it were up to her. Deciding she did not like the presumption in Brad’s eyes, she said, “I suppose you’d like to see me in boots and jeans?” The question was, what would she like to see herself in?

“Depends on how much leg you intend to keep flashing. Yesterday, for instance, when you were climbing up on that kitchen counter, I could see…”

The heat of a self-conscious blush warming her face, Lainey headed for the door before she was tempted to smack Brad McCabe’s ornery face. She couldn’t believe he had kissed her, and she had kissed him back. What in the world had she been thinking, even letting him come to her rescue?

“When are you coming back?” Lewis asked hopefully, as he followed her to the back porch.

Lainey turned around and smiled at Lewis. He at least was truly one of the nicest guys she had ever met. “Later tonight. And don’t worry. Beast or no—” she glared over Lewis’s shoulder, at Brad “—I’ll be here working the rest of the week.”

LAINEY JOINED HER OLD FRIEND Sybil for lunch at The Mansion on Turtle Creek, and typically Sybil got right to the point. “Were you able to find out where Brad McCabe is right now?” she asked as soon as their iced teas had been served.

Lainey knew it would serve the Texas cowboy right if she were to put the most tenacious magazine editor in the country on his tail, but Lainey couldn’t do it. And not just because of the way Annie and Travis’s crew—and Brad and Lewis, too—had pitched in to help her begin the task of organizing the Lazy M Ranch and guest houses the previous afternoon.

Pure and simple, ratting out Brad would be the wrong thing to do. Even if doing so would help her old friend and former college roommate. “I have to tell you, Sybil, from what I learned, Brad McCabe is in no mood to be interviewed.”

“So?” Sybil ran a hand through her short jet-black curls. “Be persuasive. Change his mind. You’re a pretty single woman. He’s supposed to love pretty single women.”

One would certainly think so, given the way Brad had been portrayed on the reality TV show. “Even if I were able to get an interview with him—a feat which it is doubtful I’ll be able to perform—I can almost guarantee you that he wouldn’t answer a single question about what happened on Bachelor Bliss. Nor is he likely to agree to be photographed for Personalities Magazine.”

Sybil frowned, disappointed but not defeated. She leaned across the table, looking as lithe and trendy as ever in her designer pantsuit. “I need that cover story, ‘America’s Most Loathed Bachelor,’ if I am going to prove myself worthy of the editor-in-chief position.”

Lainey knew Sybil was in hot competition with another senior editor for the post. The July first edition of the bimonthly celebrity magazine was Sybil’s chance to prove herself. Her competition was working on the June fifteenth edition. Whoever had the highest sales would win the post. Lainey wanted Sybil to win, but she did not want to sacrifice the privacy of her family and friends to make it happen.

Even though, Lainey added sarcastically to herself, it would almost serve Brad right if she did expose his whereabouts. Where had he gotten off thinking he could haul her into his arms and kiss her as if there were no tomorrow? She wasn’t one of the babes who had lined up to win his heart on the show!

“His family won’t tell anyone where he is,” Lainey said, sticking to what she could—in good conscience—reveal. “And the citizens of Laramie are just as protective of him.” Had she not stumbled across him, and been hired to organize the Lazy M, she still wouldn’t know where he was currently residing.

“Maybe they’ll change their minds,” Sybil said as the waiter returned with two bowls of tortilla soup.

“I doubt it. Brad is very well loved in his hometown. More than one person told me they didn’t know who that was on the reality show, but it sure as heck wasn’t the Brad they knew, before or since.”

“So they think he was screwed by the producers.”

Lainey nodded, savoring the spicy mixture of flavorful broth, tender chicken, crisp tortillas, creamy avocado and cheddar cheese. “At the very least, portrayed in a deliberately unflattering light.”

“Except that doesn’t make sense, since the producers very much want their bachelors to be extraordinarily heroic.”

And Brad had been portrayed as the world’s biggest cad.

“Viewers won’t watch if they don’t like the bachelor,” Sybil continued between spoonfuls.

Except they had watched, in record numbers, if only to see the handsome lothario get what was coming to him.

“Look, you knew him as a kid, right?”

Lainey made a seesawing motion with her hand. “Sort of. He and his family moved to Laramie when Brad was sixteen, a few years after their mother died.”

Sybil leaned forward impatiently. “My point is, you have an insight into this guy—a personal connection—that none of my other reporters have. If you can find him, you have the ability to get close to him.”

At least in theory, Lainey thought. Right now Brad was so prickly she couldn’t see anyone getting close to him, man or woman. Even his beloved younger brother Lewis was giving him wide berth.

“This could be your big break, Lainey. A cover story that could catapult you into the big time and erase all those years when you didn’t work as a writer. Getting this story for me would make your lack of journalism degree a moot point. And if I’m hired as editor-in-chief, largely because you got the story of the summer, I promise you a job as a staff writer.”

The waiter cleared their plates and returned with warm lobster tacos for Sybil and Texas crab cakes for Lainey. “I told you—I don’t want to live in New York City. I want Petey to grow up in Texas, the way I did. Maybe even in Laramie.”

Sybil rolled her eyes. “Two weeks out in the sticks and I guarantee you will change your mind about that and go running back to Dallas.”

Maybe, and maybe not, Lainey thought. She had already been there a few days, and already she felt calmer, more relaxed, more in touch with her true self than she had in years.

Being back—even temporarily—was like having a fresh start in her life.

Sybil sat back in her chair. “How many times have you said to me, on the phone or in e-mail, that you wished you’d had the chance to work for a while before you got married, to see if you had what it takes?”

Lainey sighed. “Hundreds.” Whenever Chip or his family had made her feel small and inconsequential, she had wished she had more of a sense of herself, more inner strength. She had wished she had a life apart from her husband and son. Something to call her very own.

“If you don’t want to leave Texas, that’s fine. You could work for Personalities Magazine as our southwest stringer.”

Sybil didn’t know how tempting that sounded. “That would still mean travel.” Lainey forced herself to be practical.

“Day flights. You could hop on a plane in the morning, interview someone and be home in time to cook Petey dinner. I promise.”

Which would make the situation workable, Lainey knew. And the job would fulfill Lainey’s long-held dreams of being a reporter and challenge her in ways she hadn’t been challenged in a long time. Certainly, being a staff reporter for Personalities Magazine would be a lot better than trying to make it as a freelance reporter, selling stories here and there.

“The point is, Lainey, you and I both know that the story the producers presented to the viewing public was not the whole story. If Brad McCabe is the wonderful guy at heart that his family and the entire citizenry of Laramie, Texas, think he is, then other stuff must have happened behind the scenes that maybe only Brad—and the woman he ended up first choosing and then unceremoniously dumping at the end—know about.” She took a sip of water. “And you’ve read the stuff Yvonne Rathbone’s been spouting. That he was a Jekyll and Hyde, her heart was shattered all to pieces…and she will never ever get over what happened in a million years.”

“I saw her on one of the morning news shows, after it happened,” Lainey admitted reluctantly. Yvonne had been crying her eyes out. “She appeared credible.”

Sybil looked cynical. “You and I have both known women who are capable of twisting the truth. It’s up to you to discover what really occurred and write it up, so everyone knows what happened, instead of the lies and the half-truths Yvonne and the producers are putting out. In the meantime, I’ve got some standard contracts and releases for you to sign.”

She handed them over. Lainey perused them while they waited for their dessert and coffee. The documents were fairly straightforward. Until Lainey got to the amount being offered for the article. She glanced up. “You’re willing to pay me five thousand dollars for one three-thousand-word article?”

“If we publish it,” Sybil concurred. “And we won’t publish it unless you can come up with something new, factual and fairly sensational.”

And therein lay the challenge, Lainey thought, as she kept reading the terms of the contract. How could she become friends with the McCabes, while at the same time secretly investigating—for public disclosure—the true character of one of their own? If what she found out flattered—and freed—Brad from this nightmare of bad publicity, she could very well be a hero in their view. But if the worst happened, if Brad actually had been a cad, for absolutely no reason, as his ex alleged, what then? If Lainey were the bearer of news like that, the citizens of Laramie would not be happy with her. And that resentment could prevent Lainey from returning to Laramie—with Petey—to live.

“You’ll notice we have the exclusive right to publish whatever you do find out,” Sybil pointed out.

“As well as make any editorial changes you see fit,” Lainey noted, all of which was standard.

Sybil handed over a pen. “I’ll need you to go ahead and sign this agreement—and then we’ll get down to the brass tacks of what the magazine expects from you on this assignment.”

Lainey complied and Sybil countersigned, then handed a contract to Lainey and slid the other back into her carryall.

“So this is what I am proposing,” Sybil said as they sipped their coffee. “I want you to use your knowledge of Brad and anything else you can find out about him and his family that is not currently known. And then I want you to interview Yvonne Rathbone for the magazine and use that intimate knowledge to try to trip her up, see if you can catch her in some obvious lies. And maybe, just maybe, get her to at least give you a clue, if not an outright confession, about what really happened behind the scenes at Bachelor Bliss. Maybe if you get her to admit enough, you’ll be able to use your desire to clear Brad’s name and rep to get his family to tell you where you can find him for a sit-down interview. That way, he’ll see how much you want to help him, and he will fill in the rest for you.”

Did she want to help him? How could she not? Certainly, she wanted to know the truth of what had happened, and be responsible for getting that truth out for everyone to know! “That’s a lot of ifs,” Lainey said finally.

Sybil dipped her spoon into the raspberry sauce on top of the crème brûlée. “I remember very well how tenacious you are when you’re on a story. I have faith you will be able to get the job done.”

Lainey admitted to herself that she wanted all the answers as much as Sybil did—if not more. Thinking about the task ahead, knowing she was up to the challenge, she savored her chocolate cake. It was time to prove she had what it took to be a reporter, time to build a new life for herself and Petey. “What’s the time frame?”

“You have the rest of this week to prepare and do your digging. I’ve set the interview with Yvonne up for Sunday afternoon. She’s going to be in town this weekend to appear at a charity gig—and she agreed to meet with you and a photographer from the magazine at the Fairmont Dallas, where she’ll be staying. I’ll need the article on her and Brad one week from today.”

Seven days. “That’s not much time.”

“It’s enough for a pro. You’re a pro, Lainey. You know it and I know it. You’ve just been off the job for a while. Now it’s time to get back to the work you were born to do.”

“What if I can’t get Brad to talk to me and tell me his version of events? I mean, it’s been almost three months and he hasn’t told anyone what happened thus far.”

Sybil shrugged. “You’ll still have the article you write about his ex—Yvonne Rathbone—after you interview her. And you can write the article about Brad whether or not he allows you to interview him. That fact alone might induce him to cooperate.” She continued. “And even if it doesn’t, you still have your Laramie connections. You’d be surprised what little tidbits you can pick up here and there when people feel comfortable enough to open up to you. Once compiled, they could make a hell of a story, or at least lend powerful insight to what happened to make Brad change his mind about proposing to Yvonne. I’m counting on your intimate knowledge of the family and the town where he spent his teenage years to give you an edge and an in that no one else has had to date.”

“Because unless there’s something new to be told about the breakup, you don’t want it.”

“Right. No sense in rehashing what has already been said a hundred different ways. That won’t sell magazines. Readers want to know how Brad McCabe could seem so head over heels in love with Yvonne Rathbone one minute, and then treat her like dirt the next.”

It was a puzzle.

Brad was ornery but he didn’t seem cruel. And yet on the show he had abruptly seemed so cold, irrationally angry and bitter. Lainey paused. “Everything you’ve said thus far makes sense.”

“And—?”

“I have to tell you,” Lainey sighed, wishing she didn’t have such a guilty conscience. It would be so much better for her career. “It doesn’t feel right going after the story in such an underhanded manner.” It felt like a betrayal. To herself, to the McCabe family, and especially to the target of her story, Brad McCabe. To the point that at least part of her was already regretting signing that publishing contract.

Sybil studied her. “All I am asking you to do is discover the truth and help Brad McCabe regain his reputation as a good and decent guy.”

If Lainey did that, maybe the brooding look would disappear from Brad’s eyes. Maybe he would regain his innate good cheer and the optimism he’d once had about love and life. Maybe then all the McCabes would rest a little easier. On the other hand, if he didn’t, he could easily end up like her late father—embittered, angry and resentful the rest of his life….

“I’m sure all Brad McCabe needs is a journalist to whom he can tell his side of things and he will open up,” Sybil continued.

But how could Lainey get Brad to trust her now, when she had gone out to the ranch to hunt him down? If she told Brad the truth, he would kick her off the ranch so fast her head would spin. If she didn’t, she would be staying there under false pretenses.

“I think I understand where you’re coming from,” Sybil said gently.

Lainey didn’t see how that was possible, given all she hadn’t told her old friend.

“You’re scared. You haven’t had to work in a long time, whereas a lot of women our age have done nothing but gain experience and devote themselves to their careers the past ten years. But you have to start somewhere if you want a career, Lainey. And I have to be honest with you—offers like mine are going to be few and far between.”

Lainey toyed with the last of her dessert, feeling torn between her own ambition and her loyalties to those she had grown up with. “I know that.”

“Then be sensible and take me up on this wonderful offer. Put your personal feelings aside and act like the tenacious reporter you were when we were in college! Find the facts. Put them in an article. And to help you get started—” Sybil opened her carryall and extracted a trio of DVDs.

“What’s this?”

Sybil smiled. “Copies of the episodes that featured Brad McCabe and Yvonne Rathbone. I know you’ve seen them, along with the rest of the country, but watch them again, slowly and carefully this time. I guarantee you will see things you didn’t see the first time, and that—plus your nose for news—will lead you to the truth about Rathbone and McCabe.”