Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [119]
The receptionist was dumbfounded. “Forgive me,” she said, flushing to the roots of her short brown hair, “but…you look just like one of our staff, the cohost of Denver AM!”
“I’m Mary Ther—Marquise’s sister. Her twin.”
“Oh. Geez. I didn’t know. But it doesn’t surprise me. Well, sign in here—line thirty-six.” She scribbled in the time, then slid a logbook under a protective glass window. After the formalities, including a name tag, she was escorted by a petite woman who walked almost as fast as she spoke on their way to the station manager’s office.
Ron Bishop was waiting. A portly man who smelled faintly of cigars and whose hair had given way to a neatly clipped horseshoe that ringed his head, he rounded a battle-scarred oak desk and extended a hand. When she clasped his fingers, he placed another over the top and gave her palm a vigorous shake. “Ron Bishop. God, you look just like her. I…we…none of us knew about you. I mean we knew that she had a sister of course, but not a twin. Would you like to go on the news with a plea to her or whoever’s holding her hostage?” he asked, as the thought entered his head, and the wheels, oiled by the idea of soaring ratings, started turning.
“I’ll think about it,” Maggie said, eyeing the surroundings. A stuffed marlin shone and arced above the desk, and the other three walls were adorned with awards and eight-by-ten glossy pictures of the manager shaking hands with celebrities he’d met over what appeared to be a span of thirty-odd years in the business. A television was mounted in the corner. Denver AM was already in progress.
She glanced at the set where Craig Beaumont, all blond hair, tanned skin, and blue eyes was interviewing a local Martha Stewart wanna-be. Wearing jeans, a plaid shirt, and a know-it-all expression, the petite woman was explaining about making bird feeders out of things from the kitchen cupboard. Peanut butter, seeds, and other grains were molded into various shapes and displayed on a table for the camera to pan.
“Hell,” Ron said, showing off teeth that glinted with gold fillings as he considered all the implications of Maggie’s resemblance to her sister, “you could even co-anchor her program, at least for a segment, or so.” Behind thick glasses his eyes started to gleam in anticipation. He reached into a humidor for a cigar, though he didn’t light it. “We’d advertise it on the five o’clock and eleven o’clock evening news, then again in the early morning at six.”
He was pushing too hard, too fast, and Maggie didn’t like the feeling. She didn’t trust this man, though she’d barely met him. She was starting to feel like Thane—unable to trust anyone. “I’ll have to think about it,” she said, sizing the station manager up and wondering whether he had a sincere bone in his body. “I’m only here because I’m looking for my sister, trying to find out what happened to her.”
“Of course, I understand, and you have the station at your disposal. No one would love to find out what happened to Marquise more than I,” he added, seeming sincere. He leaned back in his chair, letting his suit coat drape open, his fingers still running over the smooth surface of the cigar. “I won’t lie to you, Ms. McCrae, there was a little trouble, well, not really trouble. Let’s just call it a difference of opinion between Craig and Marquise on which direction their show should take, but I can assure you that everyone here at KRKY is only interested in your sister’s welfare. We were the first to start looking for her, you know, and rival stations might make a bigger story than there is about some disagreements between the two hosts, but that was mainly just industry gossip and envy. Denver AM has been consistently at the top of the ratings.”
“Until recently,” Maggie prodded, and the large man lifted a dismissive shoulder.
“It’s true, there had been a bit of a slump this past year, but we’re taking care of that.”
I’ll bet, Maggie thought callously as, after a quick commercial, Craig Beaumont explained to the audience again that the reason