Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [6]
He glanced back to see what had caused his fall. Something solid. He expected to see a fallen tree. But not more than a yard away was a small, white body nestled in the mud and leaves.
Nick scrambled to his feet, his knees weak, his stomach in his throat. The smell was more noticeable now, and it filled the air, stinging his nostrils. He approached the body slowly as if not wanting to wake the boy, who looked asleep despite those wide eyes staring up at the stars. Then he saw the boy’s slashed throat and mangled chest, the skin ripped open and peeled back. That’s when his stomach lurched and his knees caved in.
CHAPTER 2
“All it takes is one bad apple,” Christine Hamilton pounded out on the keyboard. Then she hit the delete key and watched the words disappear. She’d never finish the article. She leaned back to steal a glance at the hall clock—the lighted beacon in the tunnel of darkness. Almost eleven o’clock. Thank God, Timmy had a sleepover.
Janitorial services had shut off the hall light again. Just another reminder of how important the “Living Today” section was. At the end of the dark hall, she saw the newsroom’s light glowing under the door that segregated the departments. Even at this distance, she could hear the wire services and fax machines buzzing. On the other side of that door, a half-dozen reporters and editors guzzled coffee and churned out last-minute articles and revisions. Just on the other side of that door, news was being made while she fussed over apple pie.
She whipped open a file folder and flipped through the notes and recipes. Over a hundred ways to slice, dice, puree and bake apples, and she couldn’t care less. Perhaps her clever wit had run dry, used up on last week’s hot little tomato dishes and a dozen ways to sneak fresh vegetables into your family’s diet. She knew her journalism degree was rusty, thanks to Bruce’s pigheadedness and his insistence that he wear the pants in the family. Too bad the asshole couldn’t keep his pants on.
She slammed the folder shut and tossed it across her desk, watching it slide off and scatter clippings all over the cracked linoleum floor. How long would she remain bitter? No, the real question was, how long would it hurt? Why did it still have to hurt like hell? After all, it had been over a year.
She shoved away from the computer terminal and raked her fingers through her thick mass of blond hair. It needed to be trimmed, and she tried to remember how much time she had before the roots would start darkening. The dye job was a new touch, a divorce present to herself. The initial results had been rewarding. Turning heads was a new experience. If only she could remember to schedule the hairstylist like everything else in her life.
She ignored the building’s no smoking rule and slapped a cigarette out of the pack she kept in her handbag. Quickly, she lit it and sucked in, waiting for the nicotine to calm her. Before she exhaled, she heard a door slam. She smashed the cigarette into a dessert plate that bulged with too many lipstick-covered butts for a person trying to quit. The footsteps echoed down the hall in quick bursts. She grabbed the plate and searched for a hiding place while swatting away the smoke. In a mad panic, she dumped the plate into the trash can under her desk. The stoneware shattered against the metal side just as Pete Dunlap entered the room.
“Hamilton. Good, you’re still here.” He swiped a hand over his weathered face in an unsuccessful attempt to remove the exhaustion. Pete had been with the Omaha Journal for almost fifty years, starting as a carrier. Despite the white hair, bifocals and arthritic hands, he was one of the few who could single-handedly put out the paper, having worked in every department.
“Major writer’s block.” Christine smiled, trying to explain why anyone would be working late in the “Living Today” section. She was relieved to see Pete instead of Charles Schneider, the usual night editor, who commandeered the place like a Nazi