Riverside Park. Laura Wormer Van

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      “I know how terribly busy you are, Cassy,”Emma Goldblum was saying, “but I’m calling to ask your help. Normally Sam Wyatt keeps an eye on my affairs but at present he is occupied with other matters so I am turning to you.”

      This got her attention. Cassy picked up the phone. “What may I do?” She walked into the master bedroom to look out the largest window. It was cloudy outside, making the Hudson look gray. It was windy, too, creating white caps on the water. Directly below in Riverside Park the flag at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument was flailing wildly.

      “I have some legal matters to attend to and I wondered if you would be so kind as to accompany me to my lawyer’s office. It is downtown. I know it’s a great deal to ask, but I need someone I can rely on and I prefer not to have Rosanne with me because I don’t want to upset her. And she will be, that’s just the way she is when it comes to—” she hesitated “—wills and such.”

      Emma meant death. Cassy imagined it was hard enough for Emma to face her mortality without Rosanne looking on.

      “Did you have a specific day and time in mind?”

      “I waited until I had spoken to you before making an appointment.”

      “I should be in town this week,” Cassy said, “but let me get my calendar in front of me at the office and then I’ll call you back. In, say, an hour?”

      “I’m very grateful to you, dear.” Pause. “I fear time is slipping away.”

      “Don’t I know it,” Cassy murmured. “Listen, Emma, is there something going on at the Wyatts’? You said ‘concerned with other matters’ in a rather ominous tone.”

      “I’m afraid nothing that I am at liberty to discuss.”

      After Cassy got off with Emma she went to the kitchen and flipped open the address book to check a number and make a call. “Good morning. Is Sam there, please? It’s Cassy Cochran calling.”

      After a few moments Sam Wyatt came on the line. “Hey, girl.”

      “Girl, I wish.” She laughed, looking at her watch. She was late.

      Sam had been a good friend to her. Their relationship had been a baptism by fire in the final stages of her ex-husband’s drinking. Cassy didn’t know what would have happened had Sam not been there to help her through it. “I’m good, Sam, but I just got a call from Emma Goldblum. She asked me if I would take her to her lawyer’s office, which I said I would.”

      “I would have taken her if she asked.”

      “She seems to think you have a lot on your plate right now and the way she said it—well, it made me wonder if everything was okay.”

      Silence.

      “Sam?” She imagined he was reading something on his desk and was distracted.

      “So Rosanne goes home and tells Emma,” Sam said, “and then Emma calls you—is that how this works? I admire her restraint, it’s been three whole days.”

      Cassy hesitated. She’d known Sam for years and was well acquainted with the fact that he could be—well, scratchy on occasion. Irritable. She wasn’t offended particularly; that’s just the way he was when stressed out. “Sam, no one has told me anything. And if everything’s fine then that’s great, I’ll just hang up and get to the office.”

      “Now there’s a plan,” he told her.

      Well, that was an exercise in futility, Cassy thought, hanging up and going back to the bedroom to retrieve her bag. She was using up so much energy living two lives to begin with she didn’t need to nose into the affairs of her neighbors to expend any more.

      “Mrs. Darenbrook?” she heard the housekeeper call.

      “Good morning.”

      “Ah, there you are,” the housekeeper said from the doorway. “You’re usually gone by now.”

      Nothing like feeling unwelcome in your own home. Cassy knew the housekeeper was anxious for her to leave so she could turn all the TVs in the house on to begin her daily regime. Oh, for the days of Rosanne! When someone arrived who was interested in the house and the family in it!

      

      Cassy’s plan to slip unobtrusively into the DBS News conference room had clearly failed; whatever discussion had been taking place stopped dead the moment she came through the door. She took the only seat left at the long conference table, which was at the other end from where their SeniorVice President and Executive Producer of DBS News, Will Rafferty, was presiding. She felt self-conscious with all of these eyes on her because they belonged to younger people, many of whom made their careers in front of the camera, which is to say they were trained to view their appearance critically and tended to do the same with everyone else.

      Alexandra Waring was there, of course, the symbolic head of the news division and around whom it had largely been built. Alexandra recently celebrated her four-thousandth on-air hour for DBS News and, at forty-one, was, Cassy thought, even better looking than when they had launched the network. Maturity suited her. Alexandra had exquisite blue-gray eyes (which all five children of Congressman Waring, the longtime Kansas politician, had), high cheekbones, a full mouth and nearly black hair that had only recently begun to show an occasional gray hair. She also had a brilliant smile that was said to be able to generate ratings by itself.

      Alexandra was fiercely bright and well-liked at the network, if not somewhat adored. She was demanding but fair and anyone who was trying their best usually found favor with her. A few people had come and gone very quickly at DBS News because it became quickly evident who fit in and who did not. If someone understood what Alexandra and Will were trying to do he or she would do fine; if he or she disagreed with their direction and had no constructive alternative to offer, he or she soon wanted out. (The chill factor could be unbearable.)

      Many of their key players in the news group had been with DBS since the beginning, when there had only been DBS News America Tonight with Alexandra Waring, Monday through Friday, for one hour at nine.

      Sitting next to Alexandra was half of the anchor team for DBS’s new 6:00–7:00 a.m. national news hour, Emmett Phelps. He was formerly a professor of law at USC and looked every inch the part, only younger. He was in his middle forties, had a nice head of hair, insisted on wearing horn-rimmed glasses and, regardless of the climate or season, a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows. Emmett was well-spoken and deliberate in his speech; he had the gift of being able to concisely summarize the complicated details of news stories that broadcast news could not stop to explain.

      Across the table from Emmett was his more outgoing and outspoken coanchor, Sally Harrington, whose edge it was part of Emmett’s job to smooth while Sally’s was to make Emmett have one. She was almost thirty-five and possessed elocution no voice coach could ever teach. Sally was very pretty, with blue eyes and light brown hair streaked with blond. She had formerly served as a special producer for Alexandra, but also belonged to the Writers’ Guild because she could write almost as well as (some said better than) her boss, the latter of whom notoriously believed a newscast was only as good as the writing behind it.

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