Once More With Feeling (35 page)

"No one else from home?"

"Not that I know of."

"Lives you've ruined on the air?"

"I've done this before, when Nan was
splashing blood around at the studio. And if it's someone like
that, it's connected to a story I did before the accident. I just
can't help there."

Casey tapped his pen. "You've watched
videotapes of past shows?"

"I've watched every single one of them."

"Maybe that's the key. Maybe we should go
through them again, one by one. Make notes of any real exposés that
you were responsible for. Then we can follow up. See how people
have picked up the pieces of their lives. Where they are and what
they're doing."

"In other words if someone's life was
ruined, he might want to ruin mine in return? I can buy that. But
what would Mark have to do with it? He was only here for a short
time. Would he have been involved in a story? Was that the reason
he was murdered right in front of me?"

"Like I see it, there are three
possibilities. One, you and Mark were both connected to some sad
sack's woes, and whoever it was started a campaign of retribution
with Mark. Two, the first gunman was a lousy shot. He meant to take
you out and he took out Mark instead. And if it's the same guy, he
missed this time because his aim hasn't improved. Three, Mark's
death was a warning. Someone was hoping you'd back off a story the
two of you had been working on together. Or maybe Mark had nothing
to do with it, and he was killed just because he'd had lunch with
you."

"If you ever plan to lunch with me again, we
might consider takeout in a dark closet."

He stuffed his notebook back into his
pocket. "We might as well talk about that now."

She opened her eyes. Casey's were absolutely
serious. "Maybe not," she said. "I don't know if I can handle
anything else tonight."

"Gyps . . ."

She sniffed back tears.

"Come here." He opened his arms.

She slid closer. Her voice trembled. "We
tried this in Cleveland, remember?"

"Not this." He leaned over and pulled her
against him. "Relax. You're safe. Nothing else is going to happen
tonight."

He smelled good, felt good, and he always
looked wonderful. The magical tug that had existed between them
since the moment he'd walked into her hospital room was still in
full force. She could feel her body warming in response to his.
There was a loose wire deep inside her that connected and charged
every time he touched her. She knew she could easily turn toward
him, rest her fingers against his cheeks and guide his lips to
hers. She had no doubt that in her current state of mind, sexual
attraction and human warmth could double as love.

But tonight, after her dinner with Owen, she
knew for certain that they weren't the same things at all.

He smoothed her hair back from her forehead
with his palm. His hand wasn't quite steady. "I think we both know
this isn't working anymore."

The "this" in question was absolutely clear.
"Do we?" She sniffed.

"You're not the same since the accident, and
I guess I'm not, either."

He was holding her, but Gypsy had never felt
more alone. She suspected that if Casey had said almost anything
else or even nothing at all, she might have succumbed to the potent
urge to lose herself in his lovemaking. But he was too fine a man
to play second fiddle to another man's memory, and she was not the
woman he had loved. He had loved the former Gypsy Dugan. Perhaps
the word had never surfaced in his thoughts. Perhaps he had
repressed it because it was so impossible. But he had loved her.
And the Gypsy he had loved was no more.

"I'm not the same. You're right." She turned
in his arms and held out her hand. "Are we going to be
friends?"

He linked fingers with her, his hand warm
and comforting. "I'm leaving the show."

"No, Casey."

"I'm leaving. I'm tired of it. All of it. I
don't know who or what I am anymore, but I know I'm better than
what I do here. I've got enough money saved to live for a year, two
if I'm frugal. I might try writing. I might even take a newspaper
job, but not at one of Tito's rags. I want to be a serious
journalist again, even if it's someplace in the middle of
nowhere."

"When?"

"Once I know you're safe."

"But that's not fair. You shouldn't have to
put your plans on hold for me."

"It'll give Des time to replace me. I'd like
to leave in a cloud of goodwill. It's a small world, and I might
need references."

She couldn't tell how much of his decision
had to do with the job and how much with their relationship. But
she knew that whatever that balance, he was doing what was best for
them both.

"I'll miss you." Her voice trembled. Tears
swam over her eyelashes and spilled to her cheeks.

For a moment he looked as if he wished he
could cry, as well. "The strange thing is that I'll miss you, too.
You. Exactly like you are now. Somewhere along the way we did
become friends. Apparently we weren't meant to be lovers at the
same time." His lips quirked into an infinitely sad smile. "Fate's
played quite a trick on us."

She could only echo that. "Quite a
trick."

He squeezed her hand, then he brought it to
his lips. "I wish you the best, Gyps, and maybe love if that's what
you want. But let's keep you alive in the meantime. Let's find out
who wants you dead before the guy with the gun finds you again, and
this time he's learned how to aim."

"You're sure I don't look like Shirley
Temple with this hair?" Perry peered at her image in the mirror of
Gypsy's dressing room.

Gypsy stood back and squinted at her.
"Cuter. Much, much cuter."

"Sweet thing, you got me into this, you'd
better look me over good or I might just embarrass you to
pieces."

Gypsy grinned. "You look wonderful."

Perry had agreed to a makeover for her first
day in front of the camera. She'd kept the dreadlocks, but they
were shorter now and pinned back from her face. She wore fuchsia
linen pants, a turquoise wool jacket, and a yellow blouse that were
bold enough in design to assure the viewers that the days of Nan's
simpering pastels had ended. Perry looked sassy, intelligent, and
ready for trouble, and all the test clips indicated she was a star
in the making.

"Then I'm off to Staten Island." Perry
adjusted her jacket. She was on her way to film a brief stand-up
for a feature in the works about New York City's smallest borough
and its continuing desire to secede. Tomorrow she would be
transformed into a Norman Carroll transfer student in tight faded
jeans.

The one-day shoot at Norman Carroll had
undergone a change. After careful negotiations, the show had
decided to enroll one of their reporters as a student. Perry had
been the obvious choice since she was new and her face was still
unfamiliar. She would attend the school for two weeks, and at the
beginning of the third, she would become the student whom a camera
crew would tape for a week, both overtly and covertly. She had
proved to everyone's satisfaction that she could look and act young
enough to pull off the deception. And it was a great way to really
introduce her to the viewers.

"Break a leg."

"Thanks, Gypsy. You didn't have to go to bat
for me."

Gypsy put her hand over her heart. "You
called me Gypsy. It's a first."

"Yeah, don't know how it slipped out."

"I appreciate the thanks, but I haven't done
anything you didn't deserve. And I don't know how I would have
gotten through these months since the accident without you."

"You're sure paying me back big time." Perry
put her hand on Gypsy's arm. "All this and being your friend,
too."

Gypsy felt the same strange sense of loss
she had felt after Casey's announcement that he would be leaving
the show. Perry would still be around, but she was moving into her
own sphere. They would still see each other frequently, but Perry
would no longer be at Gypsy's beck and call. That was exactly the
way it should be, but Gypsy already missed her.

She covered Perry's hand. "We're going to
stay friends. Just don't get so successful that you don't save time
for an occasional sandwich across the street with me."

After Perry left Gypsy finished doing her
preliminary makeup for the day's taping. In the weeks since the
shooting she had persuaded Des to let her take full control of the
Norman Carroll segment, and her days had been busier than usual.
She had wanted as little time for thinking as possible. When she
wasn't working on the high school story, reworking the day's copy,
or taping anchor spots she viewed videotapes of former shows and
made notes. Des had assigned Kendra to discover what had happened
to the subjects of particularly scandalous stories that Casey or
Gypsy asked her to investigate. So far they had come up with no
useful leads, although Des, ever the bureaucrat, planned to do a
series entitled "Where Are They Now?" with the most bizarre
information that Kendra uncovered.

Gypsy hadn't been back to see Elisabeth. Now
that she was under constant surveillance again, the visit would
have been difficult to explain. And she hadn't wanted to run into
Owen. She'd had drinks at the Plaza a week ago with Marguerite, and
they stayed in constant touch, but Gypsy had asked her not to
discuss Owen, and Marguerite had obliged.

It didn't matter if she talked about Owen or
not. Gypsy still dreamed of him at night. Sometimes she would wake
up and expect to find him in the bed beside her. She would turn to
her back and stare at the ceiling, wondering where he was at that
moment. The resulting mixture of anger and sadness kept her awake
until dawn.

She was lucky that Gypsy's metabolism
allowed for very little sleep.

With her makeup finished she got up to
change into the clothes she'd chosen for the taping. She was just
buttoning the waistband of a scarlet Armani suit when someone
knocked. She called an invitation to come in as she bustled to the
closet and retrieved the matching jacket from a hook beside the
door.

"I'm intruding. I knew I would be."

She turned. She would know the voice
anywhere. "Grant."

"Hi, Gypsy."

She stared at Grant and was reminded of
evenings when he was a little boy. If she had been required to go
to a party or out to dinner with Owen's clients before Grant's
bedtime, she had always brought him into her room as she finished
preparations to go out. He had perched on her bed and chattered
about his day as she finished her makeup or chose jewelry.
Sometimes he had hidden as she studiously pretended not to notice,
then he'd leaped out at her from some perfectly visible corner as
she gasped and pretended to be terrified.

Tears sprang to her eyes and threatened her
makeup. "You're not intruding." He had never intruded. She had
loved every second of raising him. While her friends had bemoaned
their children's adolescence, she had only mourned the fact that he
would soon depart for college.

"Are you all right?"

She forced a cough. "I think I'm getting a
cold. Or I'm allergic to something. My eyes are watery."

"Vitamin C." He favored her with his Owen
smile. "If it extends life expectancy, I'll live to be a thousand.
My mother was unbelievably conscientious."

"I'll get some immediately." She turned back
to the closet and took her time removing the jacket from its
hanger. "Nobody let me know you were here. I'm surprised to see
you. And delighted."

"I met Perry in the lobby. She okayed having
me sent up. You invited me to see a taping. Remember?"

She did remember. She just hadn't known he
would take her up on it. "How'd you get out of your classes?"

"I took a personal day. They're finishing up
placement tests today, and a substitute can handle that as well as
I can."

"Well, I'm glad you came." She slipped on
the jacket and adjusted the shoulders. "I don't think you'll find
it very different from your television courses at
Northwestern."

There was a brief silence. "How did you know
that?" he asked.

She looked up. "Know what?"

"That I took television classes, or even
that I went to Northwestern?"

She froze. Her mind went blank. The Gypsy
Dugan part of her, that amoral and manipulative psyche-leftover
that had so often helped her get out of jams seemed to have headed
for higher ground. "You know, I really don't know." She shoved her
hands in her jacket pockets. "How on earth did I know that?"

He cocked his head. She'd seen the same
suspicious look on his face as a little boy when he'd asked where
babies came from and she'd told him the hospital. He'd known there
was more to the story.

"Either you mentioned it, or we got it from
background material for the Norman Carroll story," she went on.
"You'd be surprised how much research our staff does."

"Why?"

But how do they get in the hospital,
Mommy? Does the Daddy put them there
?

"We have to be thorough," she said.
"Background checks are routine. Imagine what would happen if we
singled out particularly devoted teachers to interview on camera,
and we found out later that they were all child pornographers."

"Then you'd have the kind of story you could
air until the Apocalypse."

She dimpled. "Exactly."

He laughed. "Find out anything more
interesting than where I went to school and what I studied?"

With the worst over she moved toward the
door. "You are a surprisingly clean-cut and virtuous young
man."

He put his hand on her arm as she started
past him. "I might surprise you."

The air was sizzling. She looked up from
Grant's hand to his eyes. The invitation in them was perfectly
apparent. Even to his mother.

The emotional and sensual wallop almost
knocked her to the floor. She could divorce herself from the
situation just far enough to see what a startlingly attractive man
she had raised. Grant, her polite, good-natured, unfailingly kind
and totally beloved son, was a lady-killer. Had she been any other
woman, the word "yes" would be forming on her lips.