Kimberly Elmont’s bloody body in the parking lot.
A strangled sound emerged from Alison’s throat, and Michael glanced up to see the horrified look on her face. Before he could say anything, Scott was already there, taking the sugar from the girl’s hand and turning her toward the kitchen. “Come on,” he said, scowling at Tina. “If we’re going to throw up, we might as well do it on the kitchen floor. Or maybe we should just do it on Tina’s dress.”
Michael shot Scott a grateful look, but it was too late. The damage was done — Alison had seen it all. Still, he shoved the photos back into their folders, closed them, then looked directly at Tina. “I’d like to fire you right now, but you’re too good a reporter. But hear me and hear me good. Do not ever come here on a Sunday morning — or any other time — and spread stuff like that out in front of my daughter. That belongs in the newsroom, and in the future it will stay there.” He could tell by the look on Tina Wong’s face that she didn’t have the faintest clue as to why he was angry, and he also knew that despite his words, he wouldn’t fire her even if she dragged a body in next Sunday. “All right,” he sighed. “Let’s get to it. What do you want?”
“My special,” Tina instantly replied. “The one you committed to when Caroline Fisher was killed, on the condition that I get another body.” She tapped the folder containing the pictures of Kimberly Elmont. “This is it, Michael. I get my special. I need it now. There’s a lunatic out there and we need to catch him before another young girl”—she tipped her head meaningfully toward the kitchen, where Alison and Scott were talking quietly—“gets hacked to pieces.”
Michael put the two files into Tina’s briefcase, as certain as she was that both girls had been slain by the same man. The carnage was just too similar to have been done by a copycat, and besides, a copycat wouldn’t have waited a year to copy the first murder. “You need to keep me advised of every step you take,” he said.
“Not a problem,” Tina replied. “The first thing I need is to get a budget authorized. Then I’ll go to San Diego and San Jose and get whatever information I can to connect these murders with those killings from sixteen years ago, okay?”
Michael hesitated, but then nodded.
“I’ll be taking a film crew with me.”
“No way.”
Tina leaned in, fixing her eyes on him. “Interviews, Michael, for the special. Family members, police, coroner. These are unsolved murders, and we may find enough clues to solve them.”
He hesitated.
“
Michael thought for a moment. “Have your budget on my desk tomorrow—”
Tina pulled another sheet of paper from her briefcase. “Here it is — I worked it up two hours ago. Sign off on it, and I’ll be ready to air in two weeks.”
Michael scanned the budget items. “You be careful what you air. We’re not a Fox affiliate, you know. I want to vet all footage before it’s added.”
“No problem,” she said. “But Sunday night ratings haven’t been much lately, so we can push the envelope a little.”
Michael glanced over the budget a second time. It was far more reasonable and well-thought-out than he’d expected, especially considering that Tina Wong had put it together. Her pattern was always to ask for the moon, then settle for what she could get. But not this time. Clearly, she wanted this special, and hadn’t taken the chance of blowing it by asking for too much.
Still, he drew a line through her request for a sound tech on her two trips — she’d have to make do with just a cameraman-and initialed it.
Tina put the page back into her briefcase and snapped the locks. “I’ll be on the police this afternoon for preliminary information, and probably go to San Jose tomorrow.”
Michael walked her to the door, saw her out, then went back to the dining room, where Alison was straightening the place settings and Scott was serving the French toast.
“What was that all about?” Alison asked. “What’s going on?”
“Just Tina Wong,” Scott said sourly. “Ruining yet another brunch.”
“It’s not ruined,” Michael said. “Nothing could ruin your French toast.”
Scott smiled. “Not even Tina Wong?”
“Not even Tina Wong.”
Alison picked up Tina’s untouched coffee, took it to the bar, and poured it down the sink. She wished the memory of the two mutilated bodies in Tina’s photographs would disappear as quickly as the coffee vanished down the drain, but she knew they wouldn’t.
Instead, she was sure, they would haunt her dreams for a very long time.
ALISON ACTUALLY DID LAUGH out loud reading Cindy’s recounting of her parents’ attempt to get the whole family ready to go to Mexico for spring break. It might have worked out if there’d only been two kids, but given that Cindy was the oldest of a flock of eight, things had gone from bad to worse to disastrous in a hurry, and by the time she got to the part where Cindy’s youngest brother got left in a gas station in Ensenada, she was laughing so hard her eyes were blurring with tears. She was just about to type a response to Cindy’s Instant Message when she heard a soft knock on her door.
“Come in.”
Her father opened the door. “Hey.”
Alison typed SB to Cindy, hoping the other girl wouldn’t have to stand by for more than a minute or two, then turned to her dad. “Hi. C’mon in.”
“Just for a minute — we’re headed to bed, but I wanted to say good-night and tell you what a great day we had.”
“It was fun,” Alison said. “I love the beach.”
“And we forget how much we enjoy it, so thanks for reminding us. Not that we’ll find the time to get back to it on our own, but at least next time you won’t have to talk us into it.” Michael dropped onto the edge of Alison’s bed. “I also want to tell you how much I love having you here, and Scott does, too.”
Alison looked at her hands and willed herself not to start crying. “I like it, too,” she said, letting only the slightest tremble creep into her voice. She wanted to ask him why she couldn’t just stay here, and not go to Beverly Hills and Wilson Academy and everything else her mom was planning. If she lived here, she could take the bus to Santa Monica High every day, and even though the house was in the hills, it wasn’t much different than what she’d been used to before—
She tried to cut off the thought, but couldn’t quite do it.
— before everything that had happened a year ago. And now everything had already been decided, and there was nothing she could say to change it.
“What are you doing?” her father finally asked as the silence went on too long.
“Just chatting with Cindy,” Alison replied, seizing the opportunity to talk about something better than the future that was about to begin. But as she saw the smile on her father’s face fade, she realized she’d made a mistake.
“Chat?” Michael asked. “You chat online?” He stood up and came over to the computer.
“I’m just talking to Cindy,” Alison said, but even she could hear the defensiveness in her voice. Here came the lecture, just like it had come to at least half her friends….
“With anyone else?” Michael pressed.
Alison hesitated, but knew her father wouldn’t believe that Cindy was really the only person she ever IMed with. “Sometimes. It’s no big deal — everybody does it.”
Michael’s brows furrowed. “Where do you chat? How do you find people to chat with?”
“MySpace, usually.”
“MySpace? You have a MySpace page?”
Alison’s eyes rolled. “
Michael crouched next to her desk chair so his eyes were level with hers. “Do you remember those photographs this morning?”
Alison shuddered. “God, how could I forget?”
“I’m sorry you saw them, but in a way I hope you never forget them. The girl who was killed last night was
