Private Lives

proof in a special issue….”

“Why, that pink-faced little weasel!” Megan burst out. “He’s using the captain’s case to get a little free advertising for his own rag of a magazine!”

“Well, he seems to back up what Captain Winters’s lawyer was saying,” Mrs. O’Malley observed. She squinted to look at the channel selector. “Judging from the roasting HoloNews is getting, I’d guess this is some other network.”

Wellman’s face disappeared, replaced by the newscaster. This time a different heading appeared behind her head — a stylized car crashing into the HoloNews logo.

“In any event, proof for these allegation will be harder to come by. In a late-breaking report HoloNews personality Tori Rush of Once Around the Clock was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver less than an hour ago. Reporting live from George Washington University Hospital is Liz Fortrell…”

Megan stared, her whole face slack with shock.

17

Groaning in disbelief, Matt squinched his eyes shut and clung to his pillow. The room was dark — he’d arranged the shades with care. It was Saturday. He had no school and no plans except to make up for recent sleepless nights and yesterday’s legal excitement with as much sack time as possible.

Before going to bed last night, he’d personally ordered the house system not to extend the phone chimes into his room. If anybody called him, the answering program would cut in and record a message for him. Nobody would be bothered — especially not Matt.

So why — how — was his father looking in the door of the dim room, telling Matt that David Gray was on the line for him?

Groaning again, Matt crawled out of bed and staggered around the room, bringing the lights up, then engaging the computer components back into the home system. The display system flashed a holographic image of David Gray, looking disgustingly clean and chipper for—

Matt checked the time. Humph. Nearly noon.

“You okay?” David asked. “You’re not sick or something?”

“Asleep,” Matt replied, trying to rub some life back into his face. “Crashed early last night. Cut myself out of the system—”

“That’s why I’ve been trying to get through to you for the last hour!” David said with some annoyance. “I finally called your dad. You must have hit the hay very early last night — before the late news.” He hesitated for a moment. “Tori Rush is dead. Hit-and-run.”

Matt’s blinking eyes shot open. “Say again?” he demanded.

“Tori Rush came down to Washington ‘for unknown reasons,’ according to HoloNews. I think we can imagine her reasons for visiting. I don’t imagine her bosses were very happy with her after that press conference yesterday. Anyway, she was leaving the local HoloNews offices via a back way — trying to avoid reporters eager to ask embarrassing questions about where she got her information. Now we’ll never know. She was cutting across E Street and got nailed by a passing car.”

“Is this from the local news nets, or have you got a closer source of information?”

David’s father was a detective in the D.C. police force, working the homicide beat.

“You can see some of it on the news, but my sources are a bit closer,” David admitted, tight-lipped. “Dad’s got the basic on-scene coroner’s comments, and a bunch of conflicting accounts from eyewitnesses. She was walking, she was running, she got hit by a car, truck, or bus. At least Dad thinks he can rule out murder by UFO.”

“Murder.” It was an ugly word that seemed to stick in Matt’s throat.

David nodded. “Under the circumstances, it seems like a highly fortuitous accident.”

“Does that push your father’s investigation closer to the red line?”

“Dad takes every case seriously,” David replied. “From what he said, he’s barely in the opening rounds of this one. But I have heard a couple of things that I thought should be passed along. Dad talked to a bunch of suits from HoloNews. They were very clear that no corporate money was used to hire ‘improper research assistance,’ was the way they put it.”

“What a big surprise,” Matt mumbled. “Would they really know?”

“Dad thinks so. Even a newsdiva can’t go throwing big amounts of money around without explaining to the network bean counters where it’s going. And a quick look at the late Ms. Rush’s finances doesn’t show any checks to I-on Investigations.”

“Blast!” Matt said with feeling.

“On the other hand, there is a pattern of cash withdrawals in recent months. Big sums of money left Ms. Rush’s accounts…and every time right before she broke new scandals on Once Around the Clock.”

Matt scowled. “So now we have some suggestive facts to back up the hearsay account that Tori Rush was paying for information. But we still don’t have hard evidence to show who was doing the dirty work, or who was getting the money.”

Matt gave David an uneasy glance. “And it looks as though people who know anything about what’s going on are beginning to suffer fatal accidents. Should we be doing something about that intern up in New York?”

“Maybe, but I’d call Leif. My dad’s a cop down here, not in the NYPD,” David pointed out. “Besides, I think our bearded detective friend is trying to save a dam with too many leaks in it. When The Fifth Estate comes out with its story, Marcus Kovacs — or whoever — will discover how it feels to have the spotlight of publicity glaring down on him. And there won’t be a thing he can do about it.”

Megan O’Malley couldn’t believe what she was seeing on the evening news. Students gathered outside a shattered building on the Columbia campus while a HoloNews reporter offered the results of instant expertise on the subject of bombs.

“There’s no evidence as yet to show if this was the work of terrorists, or some terrible personal act of violence. Shattered windows showered glass on students passing on their way to classes. A research library was destroyed, as well as the offices of Professor Emeritus Arthur Wellman….”

Megan swallowed hard. The outer wall on one of the upper floors had been completely blown out. She thought the room revealed to a light rain looked familiar. The large desk Arthur Wellman had sat behind during their holographic chats was scorched and turned on its side. The camera focused in, climbing up the wrecked building as the reporter went on about rescue efforts and the number of people killed. As the most prominent, Wellman’s name led the list.

The holocamera’s focus zeroed in on something on the floor by the desk — a briar pipe snapped cleanly in two, the broken wood slick with raindrops. Because this was HoloNews, there was no mention of The Fifth Estate or the magazine’s connection to the growing Tori Rush scandal.

Megan found herself blinking back tears of pain and anger as she gave the computer orders to find other coverage with the information she sought. It was a fight to control her voice.

The holographic display shifted to one of the other news services, who, behind their shocked comments on the bombing and its effect on the Rush case, seemed downright gleeful.

“The sole set of files for the upcoming issue of Wellman’s news review, The Fifth Estate, was contained in the late professor’s computer system.” The thin female news reporter struggled to keep an umbrella over her perfect blond hair as she spoke into a microphone. “Only yesterday, Wellman had announced that his publication was prepared to reveal details of unprofessional conduct by HoloNews anchor Tori Rush. Rush herself perished recently in a suspicious hit-and-run incident, while avoiding reporters’ questions on the propriety of her information-gathering methods. She was rumored to be hiring covert operatives for illegal Net taps and surveillance in several high-profile exposes. But this mysterious explosion leaves reporters — and the public at large — without the hard facts to prove or disprove these allegations. And, unless the data can be recovered — a job which will require many experts and perhaps months of time — we may never find out.

“Did Tori Rush’s journalistic ambitions drag an entire network into the murky business of creating news? She