The Guilty - Jason Pinter [13]
"That might work better than a 'no comment,'" Jack said.
"Now get a move on," Wallace continued. "I have no doubt
there'll be some fireworks at this conference. You won't want
to watch from the back row."
6
Paulina Cole sat at her desk, holding a warm cup in her
hands. She took a sip. Coffee and Xanax. Better than toast and
a runny omelet. She'd squeezed Dr. Shepberg's name into an
article naming the best psychiatrists in NYC and ever since
then the prescriptions arrived in her mailbox once a month.
Behind Paulina's desk were half a dozen picture frames
containing front pages pulled from the New York Dispatch.
Stories she'd broken, papers so hot they'd sold out their print
runs and been dissected on blogs around the world. Since
she'd joined the Dispatch, the paper's circulation had grown
1.5 percent, a number many tried to attribute to a new marketing campaign, but those in the know knew it was solely
because of her. Ted Allen, the Dispatch' s publisher, had said
as much during the last shareholders meeting, and promptly
given her a ten percent raise. He said Paulina Cole represented
the bold new direction the Dispatch would be taking into the
twenty-first century, that despite all the perils facing the print
industry, technology simply couldn't compete with an oldfashioned nose for news. According to Allen, the Dispatch
was tired of being the number two newspaper in New York.
And come hell or high water (possibly both) they would even- The Guilty
47
tually best their number one enemy. Even if it meant simply
hiring away their top reporters.
That's how he phrased it. Their enemy. This wasn't business, this was war. The longer you stayed satisfied being
number two the more likely you'd fall out of the race completely. Nobody remembered the guy who lost the election,
the ex before meeting your soul mate. The second-best were
forgotten, pulped. If you weren't willing to kill to grab the
lead, you deserved to get trampled.
That was Paulina's job; to do the trampling, to sell newspapers.
And for all the battles waged between the two newspapers,
the coverage of Athena Paradis's murder could be the Dis-
patch' s Gettysburg. Athena was the most recognizable
woman in the world, more than the president's wife, more
than Princess Diana (hell, most of Athena's fans were too
young to have even heard of Lady Di), even more than that
lucky gal who scribbled the words Harry Potter on a notepad.
The battles lines had been drawn. More newspapers were
going to be moved during the Paradis investigation than any
event save a terrorist attack. Of course Paulina could argue
that more people had seen Athena's reality show than had
voted in the last election, so by sheer volume alone this was
the biggest news story of the decade. Besides, the Lindbergh
baby had never posed on the cover of her self-titled album
wearing stockings and wrapped in a fire hose.
Until three o'clock this morning, Paulina had been digging
into the personal life of David Loverne, congressional candidate, philanthropist, father of Henry Parker's ex-girlfriend
Mya, and alleged keeper of somewhere in the vicinity of four
mistresses. It was a cover story in the making. David was
beloved. Tall, handsome, the kind of man other men looked
48
Jason Pinter
up to and women wanted to look down upon. She was going
to blow the whole thing wide open, expose the creep for who
he really was. His fans and supporters would be demoralized.
His detractors (yes, there were some) would eat it for breakfast. And every one of them would fork over their fifty cents
to read it.
Over the past week, Paulina had interviewed two women
who claimed to have slept with Loverne, both within the past
year. One dalliance occurred in a limousine after a stump
speech, the other in an airplane flying to Dubai. Taking
Loverne down would sell papers. Getting in another dig at
someone close to Henry Parker was just icing on the cake.
There was a knock on her door.
"Come in," she said. In walked Terrence Bynes, the
Dispatch'