Nighttime Guardian. Amanda Stevens

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СКАЧАТЬ Virgil Dallas’s booming voice carried over the usual pandemonium of the newsroom. He stood in the doorway of his office, and when Nathan glanced up from his monitor, his uncle motioned him inside.

      Clearing his computer screen, Nathan smothered a groan. In the three months since his uncle had offered him a partnership in the paper, Nathan had had difficulty asserting his autonomy as editor. He’d entered the relationship on one contingency: that he be allowed complete editorial freedom. He would run the newsroom while Virgil would remain at the helm as publisher and business manager.

      But Virgil couldn’t quite relinquish control. He’d managed every aspect of the paper for over thirty years, and he couldn’t help offering unsolicited advice on everything from the editorials to the obits.

      His uncle’s obstinacy sometimes grated on Nathan’s nerves, but he knew he had to suck it up for one very good reason. He had nowhere else to go. He’d once been an award-winning reporter for one of the most respected newspapers in Washington, D.C., but by the age of thirty, he was finished. Unemployable. A has-been. A freelance hack for the tabloids because no reputable newspaper in the country would touch him after one of his stories had been repudiated as a fraud. He’d trusted the wrong source, and just like that, his career was over.

      The partnership with his uncle was Nathan’s last chance to prove his journalistic worth, to redeem not just his career and reputation, but his self-respect.

      But working at the Argus was proving to be more of a challenge than Nathan had anticipated. For one thing, he’d been astounded to learn how poorly managed the paper had been in the last few years as Virgil’s age and flagging health had taken a toll. Circulation and ad sales were at an all-time low, and the paper relied much too heavily on filler—stories picked up from news services—with no real reporting. If the trend couldn’t be reversed, the Argus was destined to go the way of so many small-town newspapers. First, they would have to cut back from a daily circulation to weekly, and then perhaps fold altogether.

      Nathan couldn’t allow that to happen. He’d poured every last cent he had into the partnership, but it was more than just financial ruin he had at stake here.

      He stuck his head inside his uncle’s office. “You wanted to see me?”

      “Close the door.” Virgil leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head as Nathan took a seat across from his desk.

      At sixty, his uncle was still an impressive-looking man. Tall and muscular, with keen eyes and a thoughtful, if sometimes mulish, disposition, he had the same world-weary air Nathan had seen on editors and publishers of much larger publications. His hair was completely gray and his face heavily lined by a lifetime of deadlines, pressure and—Nathan suspected—hard drinking. He wouldn’t be the first Dallas to succumb to the temptation of the bottle.

      “I heard about Danny Weathers at the diner this morning,” Virgil said grimly.

      Nathan nodded. “I was with the Buford boys last night when they found the body.”

      His uncle unfolded his hands and placed them on the desk, leaning toward Nathan intently. “I heard that, too. What were you thinking, son? What in the holy hell were you doing out on the river with that pair of lowlifes?”

      As always, Nathan grew a little defensive. “I had my reasons. Besides, I’m a grown man. You don’t have to worry about bad influences anymore.”

      “Hell, it’s too late to worry about that,” Virgil blurted.

      “Yeah, I’m a lost cause,” Nathan agreed.

      As if regretting his harsh words, Virgil’s expression softened. “If I thought you were a lost cause, you wouldn’t be here, son.”

      “I appreciate that.” Nathan paused, then prompted, “So, is that what you wanted to see me about?”

      “Partly. I wanted to find out what you knew about the accident.”

      “Not much. Only that I seem to be the only one who isn’t convinced it was an accident. I hope Sheriff McCaid has the good sense to treat this case as a homicide.”

      “Homicide?” Virgil looked as if the word were almost foreign to him. “Why would he do that?”

      “It’s standard procedure. Evidence could be destroyed or lost if he waits for the autopsy results.” Nathan glanced at his uncle. “Of course, maybe that’s the whole point.”

      Virgil gave him a long, worried appraisal. “This isn’t Washington, D.C., son. There’s not some ‘vast conspiracy’ behind every accident.” He put quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “You’ve got to learn to think like a small-town newspaperman, not like some hotshot city reporter. If you don’t, you’re apt to make yourself some real enemies around here.”

      “Isn’t that the purpose of the fourth estate?” Nathan argued. “To be cynical? To question motives? We’re supposed to be the public’s watchdog, not some cuddly pet who rolls over and plays dead.” He leaned forward in his chair, as if to stress his point. “You can bet I’m going to be all over this story, no matter who I tick off. If Danny Weathers was murdered, I won’t rest until his killer is exposed.”

      Virgil sighed, running a hand through his gray hair. “Look, son, you’re the editor now, and far be it for me to tell you how to do your job. But if you ask me, there’s another story right in your own backyard you ought to be focusing on.”

      Nathan lifted a brow. “Which is?”

      “Shelby Westmoreland. I hear she’s back.”

      That tingle again at the very mention of her name. Nathan said carefully, “Yeah, she’s back. I saw her last night. But her name’s August now. She’s married.”

      “No, she’s widowed.”

      “She is?” Nathan tried to keep his tone neutral, but the truth was he still hadn’t gotten over the shock of seeing her last night. She’d been sixteen when she’d left Arcadia for the last time. Her parents had come for her after yet another reconciliation, but Nathan had consoled himself with a certainty that she’d soon return. Her parents would split up again, as they always did, and Shelby would be shipped back to her grandmother.

      But months had passed, and then a year. Eventually, even her letters had stopped. Nathan had finally become convinced that he would never see her again.

      But there she’d stood last night, looking a little too much like the girl he’d never been able to forget.

      And now his uncle had informed him that she was a widow. What kind of person would feel happy about that?

      “How long has her husband been dead?” he heard himself ask.

      “Just over a year. He was murdered.”

      A shock wave rolled through Nathan. “My God, what happened?”

      Virgil shrugged. “Best I recollect, he owned some kind of restoration business. Antiques, I think. He was working alone in his office when a gunman walked in, made him open the safe and then shot him dead. Shelby was the one who found the body.”

      “Damn.” No wonder she’d seemed so fragile last night. So frightened.

      Virgil СКАЧАТЬ