Island Promises

ISLAND PROMISES

JOY CONNELL

SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

New York

ISLAND PROMISES

Copyright©2013

JOY CONNELL

Cover Design by Rae Monet, Inc.

This book is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Published in the United States of America by

Soul Mate Publishing

P.O. Box 24

Macedon, New York, 14502

ISBN-13: 978-1-61935-
228-5

www.SoulMatePublishing.com

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

To Mil

For instilling in me

the love of words and reading

and for making everything seem possible

Chapter 1

“Today’s the day you’ll make history.”

Riley Santey opened bleary eyes to RK, who looked too damn good for so early in the morning. The rumpled, half-awake man beside her had just been named a “Catch of the Year” by a Chicago magazine.

She sat up in the queen-size bed they shared in The Catch of the Year’s one-bedroom apartment. She tried finger-combing her hair, now a virtual rat’s nest after a restless night. Her pulse picked up as RK’s words sank in. Today she was about to expose a local congressman for the rat he was. The guy had been taking kickbacks and selling government contracts as though he were a used-car salesman.

She forced herself out of the warm bed and opened the blinds. Flurries were beginning to fly from a cold morning sky. If she leaned just the right way and squinted she could make out a piece of Lake Michigan between two high rises. Today it looked iron gray and forbidding.

RK grumbled against the light from the sliding glass door. Even after a late night he had a lazy sexiness that was hard to ignore. His brown hair was highlighted slightly so that it was hard to tell the sun hadn’t done it. He had a strong jaw, and a nose that wasn’t too pug or too large. Clear skin with wrinkles in the right places made him look old enough to be trusted but young enough to have boyish charm.

They had been an item for nearly three years now. Dating was maybe too strong a word for what they did and hooked-up was too mild. Sometimes Riley still couldn’t believe he had chosen her. The sex was good, he didn’t cheat (too much), and they complemented each other’s strengths on the job. She, a reporter for WTXZ Channel 95, “always by your side,” and he, one of the managing editors and the all-important nightly news anchor.

They enjoyed each other, enjoyed the conversations they had late at night after the last newscast when they’d sit on the couch in one of their apartments, eating Chinese out of cartons and talking about their dreams. Those dreams were always about where they wanted to go with their careers. Lately they’d made Riley uneasy. Something was missing, something she couldn’t quite identify. The idea of roaming the world, living out of a suitcase, always chasing the next big story was losing its appeal.

“Lookin’ good there.” RK rubbed his eyes and recoiled from the site of the sun and Riley’s morning look.

“Shut up,” she said. “This is nothing a few hours at the salon with a team of experts can’t clean up.”

Riley caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She was short for TV, only five foot three, and ate too many deep dish pizzas to be called thin, especially in the new age of TV when they put models with no brains in the anchor chairs. But she hit the gym as much as she could and covered up the rest with well-cut suits. Her hair, naturally platinum blonde and naturally wavy, was colored, cut, and straightened every other week to a polished, sleek honey brown that looked trustworthy and picked up good lighting in the studio.

Adrenaline pumping, Riley shot to the shower, squealing when RK stretched out from the bed and patted her naked butt. While the hot water ran over her all she could think about was the story. This is what she lived for. Nothing gave her greater pleasure than uncovering scumbags who were stealing from the good people of Chicago; or all the people of Chicago depending upon your mind-set. The fact there might be a local Emmy or even bigger recognition for her didn’t hurt.

RK opened the door and slipped in beside her. “Doing my part to save the environment, save water,” he said as he picked up the soap and began to lather her, lingering a little too long here and there.

“Come on,” she started to say, “you know I have a lot to do today and . . .” Whatever thoughts she’d had about the story were lost when he rubbed the soap over her, touching her in places that made her lose herself in the moment.

By the time they got to the station a few hours later she had been transformed. The true Riley lived in jeans and sweatshirts, wore as little makeup as possible and corralled her naturally wild hair into a ponytail. WTXZ Reporter Riley was a different animal.

In the early days she had chaffed against having to look a certain way, arguing with the idealism of youth that looks didn’t matter. But as her 20’s ended and her career expanded, she came to accept that it was part of the job, and she wouldn’t get anywhere by bucking the system, except maybe a public television service show before sunrise on Sundays.

The minute she hit the newsroom, the energy sucked her in. The urgency and bustle of a newsroom scared a lot of people but she thrived on it. The constant noise, the confusion, the click-clack of computer keyboards, desks piled high, the characters; she found it all soothing in a perverted way. Cell phones were beeping, people were talking, and televisions were on, different channels competing for attention.

In the center of it all, Mildred, the senior producer, was orchestrating the chaos.

She was typing at her computer, a phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder. Every few seconds, she stopped, stood up, and yelled at one of the other people in the newsroom to check a fact or rework a script. She always dressed in black, from her boots to her turtleneck, and pulled her black-as-midnight hair severely back into a bun.

Riley and Mildred had been best friends since they both started at the station as young, naïve news people out to do good and save the world. Over time they’d evolved into seasoned veterans who could cover a mass shooting during the morning and talk about their love lives over lunch.

Mildred had a nervous tic in the corner of her mouth. Right now it was twitching like mad, in time to the pencil she was tapping against the desk.

“Riley,” she yelled. “You’re ready to go to the press conference, right? It’s in three hours. We’re going live. The truck will be in the street. We’ll have two cameras inside. Make sure you’ve got all the angles covered.”

The next hour flew by as Riley checked her notes, wrote what she would say when the story broke, and chatted with her colleagues who were either happy or jealous she was about to break the story of her career. She was ready to hit the vending machines and treat herself to a candy bar when she felt the energy in the newsroom change.

No one was shouting, the keyboards had stopped clicking, cell phones were beeping and playing music but no one was answering. The competing TV monitors were being tuned to the same station, their biggest rival in the Chicago market.

People had tilted back in their chairs or stood to watch. The scumbag congressman’s head filled the screen. His face was handsome but serious, with a hint of having known hard times. It was a charade, Riley knew, because he had grown up in a wealthy, privileged family, but the look got him elected and re-elected.

He was saying something about honesty, about living an open life, about accountability.

Why now?
The press conference wasn’t scheduled for another two hours.

“I confess today that I was
not
involved in the corruption and kick-back scheme alleged by reporter Riley Santey of Channel WTXZ in the series that appeared last week.” He looked into the camera. “Instead, I was involved in an affair of the heart with the reporter herself.”

Quiet fell over the newsroom. No one jumped up to post a blog, no one rushed in with a question, everyone just sat. Even the trained reporters, who were used to hearing everything and reacting with only one goal in mind—get the story—seemed stunned for an instant.

Riley felt stuck to her chair.
What? What had he said?
Surely she had been daydreaming, letting her mind wander and now had lost the gist of what was happening.

She took in a deep, calming breath, opened her mouth to blow it out and that’s when they turned to her and all hell broke loose.

“I think you need to get out of here, get home where you can have a stiff drink or two or three.” Mildred took her arm and was hustling Riley through the newsroom, waving off the ringing phone calls from every news organization under the sun wanting a comment and the open-mouthed stares of her colleagues. Not even 15 minutes had passed and the story had blown up.

As they walked, Mildred spit out instructions at a rapid rate while she paused to wrestle Riley into her coat and to motion RK to follow.

“I think I should stay here,” he said from his office door. “Manage the story. Take a stab at damage control.”

Mildred glanced from him to Riley who was standing stock still staring into nothingness. “Come,” Mildred commanded RK, who gave a heavy sigh then grabbed his coat and followed them.

Riley barely registered getting into the elevator. Numbness enveloped her and the loud hum in her ears made it difficult to think about anything.

“Breathe,” Mildred ordered as they arrived in the building’s lobby, steeling their courage before plunging into the sleet and the mob waiting for them outside. “And whatever happens, don’t stop. Hold on and keep going.” Her voice was strong but the hands that tucked Riley’s scarf into her coat and smoothed her hair were gentle. She looked from Riley to RK. “Ready?”

It was amazing to Riley that the Chicago press corps could have gotten to the station so fast. The part of her brain that was still functioning realized they must have been tipped off. They formed a semi-circle around her, camera lights in her face, flashes blinding her, questions being shouted.

For an instant she froze on the Chicago street, trembling with cold and mad as hell. Her expensive coat, no match for Chicago in winter, was already sticking to her like bargain plastic wrap. Her chic leather heels were cracking and curling as the heavy sleet pelted them. She felt sure mascara had turned both her eyes into an imitation of a raccoon and that the push-up bra she’d put on this morning was now pushing everything into a configuration God never intended.

The only good news was that her hair had stopped flying around because it was so heavy with freezing rain it was plastered to her skull.

In that instant she thought about turning and running back to the newsroom. She reached for an arm to steady her, reached for RK, so glad she had someone as fearless and confident as him by her side. He never backed down from a story or an interview in a dangerous neighborhood. But RK’s arm wasn’t there. It was Mildred who had a wrestler’s grip on her elbow; Mildred who charged at the horde, swiping them away with her forearm, snarling repeated “no comments,” staring them down when they tried to intimidate her.

Not until they were in the car Mildred had ordered, and pulling away from the scene, did Riley process that RK was still not there. He had disappeared somewhere into the crowd, melding in as one of them. Yesterday she would have been part of that crowd, too, standing in the street, shooting the breeze with her colleagues, bumming cigarettes, mainlining caffeine, waiting to pounce on some unfortunate subject. Today she had no idea where she belonged.

A week later, she was sitting in her apartment watching the snow. Big, soft, heavy flakes were drifting down, starting to stick to the sidewalks and streets. Twilight was falling. The world had gone soft. Sounds muted, traffic slowing, Chicago was heading home, gearing up for the latest winter storm.

Riley’s mood matched the weather. She was drifting in a soft, muffled world. Up until today, her life had finally become what she wanted it to be.
She
had become who she wanted to be. TV reporter Riley was hard-charging, goal-oriented, didn’t take time to think about her life.

This “break”, as the station termed it, was a forced opportunity to think about the old Riley, the one who wore torn jeans, had time for fun and friends, and didn’t put such a premium on how she looked. The old Riley was in the photos from journalism school she’d dragged off the back shelf in the closet. In every picture she appeared relaxed, even happy. In every picture she was in a group, goofing over late-night pizza, dressing up for Halloween, cramming until the small hours of the morning for the next day’s exam.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she delved further into the box and uncovered a brochure and the paperwork for a sailboat. Riley hadn’t thought about their impulsive purchase in a long time. She and RK had come back from a fantastic vacation deciding they wanted their own piece of paradise. They’d plunked down some money, and that was the last she thought about the sailboat.

She sighed. She’d had such a great time with RK on that vacation. Felt closer to him than she had in a long while. Since she’d been at home, at her apartment, RK had been a frequent visitor. But that was just the problem. He was visiting. Riley couldn’t forget reaching for his hand when the reporters swarmed her and coming up with dead air. He’d been full of explanations that sounded more like excuses about how he’d stopped to talk to a few people he knew and gotten swept up in the crowd. How he’d thought he could lobby for her position better as an insider.

Mildred had been around, bringing her take-out food, feeding her station gossip, urging her to “do something, anything” besides hide out.

She touched the glossy brochure of the sailboat and then reached for her cell phone, ignoring the 67 missed calls, almost all of them from reporters wanting a story, and dialed her accountant. Soon the damn phone would probably blow up or overheat or something and stop working. That would be fine. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

“Hello?” the accountant’s voice was gravelly, older than dirt, even though Edgar himself was only in his 40’s. “Glad you called. It’s been awhile. We, I mean you and me, need to get together, go over year-end stuff.” Typical, he didn’t waste time on small talk.

“Yeah, Edgar, thanks, I’m getting along fine. No, I don’t need anything.”

He cleared his throat, as if trying to decide what to do with that information.

“Edgar, I have a vague memory of buying a sailboat.” Silence as papers rustled and computer keys clacked. “Edgar? Edgar? Do I still own a sailboat?”

“Correction. You own half. RK owns the other half. It’s line 37 in the asset description sheet I sent you.” When she ignored that, Stan cleared his throat again. “This is why we, by that I mean you, me, and RK, need to conference.”

“Sure. Anytime. After I get back.”

“You taking a trip?” he asked.

“Yeah, I am.” She gazed out at the snow, the gray sky, then down at the brochure with the picture of the sailboat in sky blue water with a background of lush jungle. “I think a tropical vacation is just what I need.”