Final Breath

middle--the ones who knew about your accident and the ones who didn't. The ones who didn't wondered why you were limping. The ones who knew about your injury didn't want to be reminded of it. Made them feel bad. Plus it's distracting, and not very glamorous.'

'In the future, I'll try not to walk when we're taping,' she replied. Sydney wondered how much the network was paying this guy. Watching this DVD of her work and getting a blow-by-blow analysis reminded Sydney of her figure-skating days, when her coach used to analyze videotapes of her routines. Those screening sessions, which she'd always loathed, had at least focused on her work from the day or week before and helped her to correct her recent mistakes. But this segment from Movers & Shakers was six months old, for crying out loud.

So much had changed in the last six months. Back when she'd gone to Portland to cover Leah and Jared's story, she'd still been based in Chicago and still happily married. Her only real heartaches in life had been her slightly faltering walk and occasionally having to be away from her husband and son while she filmed her stories. Sydney's Movers & Shakers segments profiled athletes, inventors, philanthropists, eccentrics, and everyday people who had done something extraordinary. Sydney loved meeting these individuals and profiling them in her video shorts. She'd always searched for subjects and story ideas in Chicago, so she wouldn't have to go on the road. She'd loved her life at home.

Gazing at herself on the TV, Sydney thought about how that woman up there on the screen had no idea her life was about to fall apart.

'The trench coat is good,' Brad was saying. 'A very classic reporter look, but you've got a nice figure, Sydney. So for this scene inside the restaurant with the old folks, you should have lost the coat. The test audience liked your hair, and thought you looked pretty. I tell you, with high definition, the lines on some of these female correspondents' faces--goddamn, more bags than Louis Vuitton. I know, I know, it's unfair, but people don't expect male reporters to be pretty. Anyway, not to fear, you passed the HD TV test, Sydney. But some time within the next year or two, you might want to go in for a nip and tuck--just for maintenance.'

'I'll make a note of it,' she said, her nostrils flaring.

'You might even want to devote a segment to it--when you go in for the touch-up, I mean.'

She started drumming her fingernails on the desktop. 'Are you serious?'

'People want flashier stories from you, Sydney. Think sexy and edgy. After all, this is On the Edge. The kinds of stories you do aren't as interesting as they used to be. People don't want tales about these do-gooders...'

Sydney glared at him. 'No, they want stories about celebrity train wrecks and screw-ups. They want to see who's gotten a DUI, who's in and who's out of rehab, and that way, they can judge them and feel better about themselves. Then they don't really have to aspire to anything. You want me to give the people what they want? How's that going to enlighten or inspire them? Isn't that a reporter's duty--to educate and enlighten?'

Brad touched something on his earpiece, then he held up his index finger. 'Just a sec...I've got a call here...Yeah, well, what do the marketing people say?'

Later that afternoon, Sydney waited for her plane in the VIP lounge at JFK. She had an easy chair over by one of the windows. Outside, they were loading bags into a Boeing 747. Sydney was on her cell phone with her brother, Kyle, in Seattle. She'd already spoken to her son, Eli, who was staying with him. 'Anyway, my approval rating could be better, and they think I'm due for a facelift next year,' she told him.

'Have your boobs done while you're at it,' Kyle recommended. 'It's important that all female reporters have a good rack. Screw intelligence and creativity, they're overrated.'

Sydney laughed--though a bit listlessly.

'You sound tired,' her brother said.

'And homesick,' she added.

'Which home have you been sick for? Here or Chicago?'

This jaunt to New York had been Sydney's first overnight trip since leaving her husband, Joe, and moving to Seattle. Somehow the excursion had made her miss her life in Chicago even more. Sydney's plane, leaving within the hour, would be flying over Chicago on its way to Seattle.

'I've missed Eli and I've missed you,' she said finally. That much was true. But she also missed Chicago--and Joe. 'Anyway, I'll see you guys in eight hours...'

After she finished talking with her brother, Sydney took out her laptop computer to check her e-mail. It was mostly junk, a few messages from fans, and one with no subject listed from secondduet4U@dwosinco.com. Sydney opened the e-mail:

Bitch-Sydney,

You can t save them.

She was used to the occasional crank or crazy e-mail. She usually deleted them. 'Second duet for you,' she murmured, checking the sender's name. 'Weird....'

With a sigh, she shook her head and pressed the Delete button.

CHAPTER THREE

The digital timer on the dryer's operating panel indicated thirteen minutes were left in the cycle. Opening the dryer door, Leah pulled one of Jared's sweat socks from the pile of warm clothes. It still felt a bit damp.

Without the dryer's incessant rumbling noise, it was suddenly quiet in the basement laundry room. Though well lit by two fluorescent lights amid the network of pipes overhead, the uncarpeted, dingy room always gave Leah the creeps.

Someone had tried to make the place more cheery with a few cheesy fake plants gathering dust and cobwebs on a shelf above the laundry sink. They'd hung ugly brown and orange plaid curtains on the small, barred window not far below the ceiling. A 'Gardens of the World' calendar hung on the graying, paint-chipped walls. Someone had also left several old romance paperbacks and Better Homes & Gardens on the card table.

Leah shut the dryer door, but hesitated before pressing the On button again. She could hear the mechanical knocks and humming from the old elevator across the corridor, but it sounded like someone was headed up to one of the floors above the lobby level. They weren't coming down to the basement.

Restarting the dryer, Leah settled back into the folding chair and opened up one of the Better Homes & Gardens. She was dressed in a T-shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals. Despite the hot, sticky Fourth of July weather, a little shudder passed through her. In addition to being slightly creepy, the laundry room was also--year-round--the coolest room in the building. Sometimes in winter months, Leah sat on top of the dryer to keep warm.

Just to the left of the washer and dryer was a chain-link, gatelike door to the storage area--a dark annex full of junk stowed in locked cages. There was no outside light switch for it. The few trips she'd taken into that gloomy storage room were with Jared, and she always made him walk in front of her--into the darkness a few steps--where he blindly felt around for a pull-string to the overhead light.

Leah might have been more comfortable if the light were on in that storage area, but she wasn't about to brave the darkness inside there to turn it on. So she did her damnedest to ignore that shadowy nook beyond the chain-link door.

She really shouldn't have been scared right now. It was only six o'clock, and still light out. Over the rumble and roar of the dryer, she heard a shot ring out--and then another. It startled her, but only for a second. Some idiots with their fireworks, she thought. They couldn't wait for tonight to set them off. They were probably in the park next door.

She paged through the magazine, and stopped on a feature called, 'Newlywed Nests--Affordable Ideas to Upgrade Your Starter Home!' Leah frowned at the two-page spread showing a happy young couple in their well- appointed little love shack.

She and Jared must have looked just as happy and well adjusted to people watching the rerun of On the Edge a few days ago. In fact, after that incident in Thai Paradise back in December, she'd sort of fallen in love with Jared all over again. Nothing like surviving a life-threatening situation to