The Lives Between Us (40 page)

“May I help you?” The receptionist asked.

Jeff wasn’t in the office. What’s keeping him?

“I’m picking up my son, Jeff Hastings. I called earlier to have him excused.”

“What grade’s he in?”

“Ninth.”

She reached for the phone. “I’ll call the upper school office and see what’s keeping him.”

He looked back at the doorway where more reporters gathered, obstructing the entrance. Damn it. A parent buzzed to be let in, and Edward glared at a reporter as he reached for the door to follow her through.
Don’t do it
, he silently telegraphed. He did not want to bring this circus into the school.

He considered slipping out the art wing, PE, or service exits, but it wasn’t fair to leave the school to deal with the disruptive reporters. Where the hell was Ben?

“Dad, what’re you doing here?” Jeff glanced at the reporters crowding the entry and came to a sudden standstill. His face blanched. “Is Mom—”

“Mom’s fine. We’ll talk in the car.” Edward pulled Jeff aside, away from curious stares and alert ears. “Keep your head down and ignore them. Let’s go.”

Edward pushed the door open and thrust Jeff in front of him just as Ben parted the crowd.

“This way.”

Three reporters with their camera crews lunged forward shouting questions at them. Edward moved Jeff to his other side, using his body to shield him from the swarming reporters. Ben held his arms wide as if trying to herd them all. “The senator has no comment at this time.”

“Just a few questions, Senator,” someone called out. They pressed close, following Edward and Jeff to the car.

Edward opened the car door and shoved his son in the back seat, then climbed in next to him. Ben hopped in the front seat, started the car, and they pulled away.

“What’s going on?” Jeff’s gaze jumped right and left as cameramen circled the car trying to see through the tinted back windows.

“I tried to get to you before them, to warn—”

“Warn me what?”

Jeff watched his father’s clenched jaw. “It’s out. They know how your mother got hurt.”

Jeff’s indignation melted. He slumped in the seat. Everybody knew it was his fault.

“Oh.”
Oh, crap.
“How’d they find out?”

“Doesn’t matter. The damage is done.” Dad frowned and narrowed his eyes the way he did when thinking. “I signed you out of school for the rest of the week. It should blow over by then.”

“What do they want?”

“Forget it.”

Jeff looked out the back window. The white KWG News van pulled out on Lakeshore drive behind them. “They’re following us.”

Dad’s head whipped around to spot the rapidly gaining van. “Ben?”

“On it.” Phone in hand, Ben talked in clipped sentences to somebody.

“They want to talk to you pretty badly,” Jeff said.

“Not me, you.”

“Me?” His voice squeaked unmanly.

“Don’t worry. Ben’ll lose them.” His father turned to see how many vans followed.

Jeff cleared his throat. “Why me? You said they knew everything.”

“They do.”

“Then what do they want?”

He didn’t answer.

Jeff leaned closer. “Dad. What do they want?”

Frown lines between Dad’s eyebrows deepened and his lips tightened. “More.”

What more? There wasn’t anything more. He’d screwed up, and Mom had been hurt. What more could he give them? Understanding widened Jeff’s eyes. “They want to see me cry?”

Crying kids sold papers and magazines. Pain. Devastation. Britney Spears losing custody of her kids. Katrina. Virginia Tech. Trapped miners. Japanese tsunami. People thrived on others’ misfortune with ghoulish fascination.

Dad glared at the van pacing even with them. “Ben, where the hell are the police?”

“On their way.”

“What if I didn’t?” Jeff asked.

Dad spared him an irritated glance before turning back to watch the vans closing in on them. “Didn’t what?”

“Give them any reaction. They’d have nothing to write about, and they’d leave us alone.” Jeff had never spoken to the press directly, but he’d watched Dad and Mom plenty.

“Forget it.” Grim-faced, his dad stared at the road ahead.

“I can do it.”

Face set in hard serious lines, Dad held his gaze. “No. They are
not
preying on my son.”

Jeff’d seen his father mad before, but never this cold and determined. Dad’s absolute resolve to protect him was all the courage Jeff needed. He could do it.

“Go back,” he told Ben. “I want to go back to school.”

“Jeff, by tomorrow, all the kids will know. They’ll stare at you, feel sorry for you.”

“I’m a senator’s kid. They already do that. I don’t need babysitting.” Dad’s impatient tone only deepened his will. He’d made a lot of mistakes lately, but in this he was right. “Take me back. I’ll answer their questions.”

The car slowed. “He could be right, Edward. Going on the offense could take the wind out of their sails.”

“Forget it,” Dad said in a flat, uncompromising voice he used all the time with him, but Jeff never heard him use with other adults—not even those who worked for him.

“But—”

“Did I tell you how to handle your divorce?” His father snapped.

“No, sir.”

“All right then.”

Wow. Dad really did love him. Jeff squared his shoulders and sat a little taller. “Dad, let me face them. I can handle it.”

His father looked at him several long seconds. “You can?”

He nodded.

“How long have you been skiing?”

He frowned. Dad knew how long he’d been skiing. “Six years or so.”

“Would you say you’re a pretty accomplished skier?”

He nodded, tentative. “I’m decent.”

“So what happened the day your mother got hurt?”

So Dad wanted to play games? Wanted to teach him a lesson? Fine. This was one game Jeff was gonna win. His old man was not going to make him cry like a baby. “You want to know what happened? My mom and I were skiing. I couldn’t resist some fantastic powder and skied out of bounds. She followed me and got hurt.”

“Was the area clearly marked as out of bounds?”

“Yes, sir, it was.”

“So you
knew
you were going out of bounds?”

“I did.” He nodded.

“Did you know it was taped off because the ski patrol judged the area unstable and dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“Do you make it a habit of breaking rules and skiing out of bounds?”

Jeff looked Dad in the eyes, challenging. “No, sir. This is the first and last time I’ve ever gone out of bounds.”

“How exactly did your mother get hurt?”

“I ran over something and dropped right in front of her. To avoid hitting me, she swerved to the right and slid into some trees.”

Dad’s friendly tone disappeared, replaced by a fast, brusque question. “So how does it feel to know your disobedience and carelessness permanently crippled your mother?”

Jeff raised his chin and stared down his father. “It feels pretty shitty. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, is there?”

Ben laughed. Their eyes met in the rectangular rear view mirror and Jeff swelled with pride at the approval he saw there.

Respect lightened his father’s expression. He looked at Ben. “Maybe he is ready.”

“Um... Can you find a better word than shitty?” Ben asked.

Dad stared at him a few seconds. “I liked the ‘shitty’.”

Skye stomped into the pressroom. Looking right then left, she zeroed in on several men crowding the doorway of one cubby and stalked over.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Skye squeezed past Brett and Neil to stare at John Daniels.

Daniels rocked back in his chair, like a king holding court. A middle-age paunch rolled over his belt and his thinning hair was combed over a rapidly expanding bald spot. On the right side of his desk sat a family portrait, blond, blue-eyed wife, two children—boy and girl. The boy she’d met last week.

“I need to talk to you,” Skye said.

He raised one eyebrow and looked her up and down. Interest crinkled his eyes. “I’ve seen you around, but I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Skye suppressed a shudder.

“I’d like to talk to you in private.” She pivoted toward the other men, giving them a pointed look. “If you don’t mind?”

The men dispersed willingly, knowing that the cubby-filled room offered only the illusion of privacy.

“In private?” he drawled. “Sure, honey.” He stood and sucked in his gut to hitch up his belt.

“This way.” Skye marched into an empty conference room, flipping on the light as she passed. Closing the door behind Daniels, Skye stood to the side of the table and crossed her arms.

“You’ve got me all to yourself.” He swaggered close. “What now?”

Skye grimaced. “Save it Romeo. I called you in here to let you know what an insensitive, amoral, imbecilic cretin you are.”

Daniels froze. The smile wiped from his mouth as his face crumpled into a mask of hurt. “Well, that’s not fair. You don’t even know me. Yet.”

Skye glanced at his left hand and platinum wedding band. Slime ball. “Is Todd Daniels your son?”

He dropped his eyelids and tipped his head back. “Why?”

“He’s your son, isn’t he?”

Daniels rested plump arms on his belly in answer. His eyes now lit in wary curiosity.

“You have
got
to be the most despicable person I know. You used your son to pump Jeff Hastings for private information about Senator Hastings’s wife and then printed it. You didn’t even have the balls to put it under your own byline.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady.”

“How much did
The Times
give you for that story? Ten grand? How about our own Ted Marley? What’d he give you?”

He maintained his silence, but dusky red embarrassment creeping up his neck gave him away.

“You’re such an asshole.”

“What’s it to you? Beat you to the punch?”

Skye’s anger got the better of her. “
I
was there
before
the punch, you moron—”

She clenched her fists at her side. She wanted to pummel him until her knuckles stung. Instead Skye looked away and bit back several more crude names. “I just have more respect and compassion to take advantage of a situation and send a kid into therapy for the rest of his life.” Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t give a damn about—”

The door opened and Jenny slid in. “Hi, guys. Problem?”

Skye’s jaws clenched and unclenched. “I was just telling Daniels what I thought of him.”

“Yeah, ball-less cretin, asshole. We all heard. Sports writers; they don’t quite know what to do with themselves in the off season.” She turned to John Daniels. “What’d you do now, John?”

“He used his kid to make friends with Hastings’s son and pump him for private information about the Senator’s wife’s accident, then sold it.”

“You can’t prove anything.” He dropped into a chair, then swung his feet up onto the tabletop, smug and confident.

The door swung wide open, and Karen swept into the room. Her eyebrows rose at the three. “Am I interrupting?”

Daniels dropped his feet to the floor and sat up straight in the chair. “Uh, no.”

Karen crossed to the end of the table and picked up her reading glasses. “Skylar, you’re back. Got that follow up article on Hastings?”

Still seething, Skye was reluctant to take her eyes off Daniels. “Not yet. I just had a private matter to discuss with John.”

Karen gave the three a considering look. “When are you going to have it?”

“Just finishing it up.”

“Is it as good as the first?”

Skye nodded.

“Good.” She looked at Jenny. “And you?”

“Refereeing.”

Karen leveled a steady stare at Daniels, then shook her head. “I don’t even want to know. Get out.” She waved her hand as if shooing away a bee.

Daniels was the first through the door, then Jenny and Skye. As they walked away, Jenny leaned close to her ear, whispering, “You’ve got bigger problems than him.” She looked around the crowded newsroom, then took her arm. “Let’s go.”

Once they’d cleared the building, Skye slowed as they headed for Jenny’s car. “Where’re we going?”

“Lunch. I haven’t eaten yet.”

“So what’s the big mystery? Why can’t you tell me here?”

Jenny kept walking. “It’s complicated, and I’m starving.”

“Fine.” Skye rushed to catch up to Jenny.

* * *

Skye had plenty of problems, so what mysterious problem could Jenny possibly know that was worse than what that low-life Daniels had done?

Once settled at Panera with her broccoli cheddar soup, Jenny’s salad, and drinks, Skye leaned forward and spoke softly. “I’m being blamed for leaking info about the Hastings family. My boyfriend thinks I’m a heartless bitch and won’t take my phone calls. I know who did leak the information but can’t tell.

“I’m going to write the Hastings story—even though I promised Edward what he told me would be off the record, so now he and Mark will be justified in hating me. And that asshole Daniels won’t clear my name. What could
possibly
be a bigger problem than that?”

“You know that article I did a few months ago about designer babies?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I did a follow up piece about the embryo glut in America.”

“And this has, what, to do with me?”

Jenny took another bite of her salad, quickly chewed, and swallowed. “You know this whole ESC thing has got everybody’s panties in a twist, so somebody finally did a rough count of all the embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. Guess how many?”

“Since the government got about forty stem cell lines from there, I’m gonna guess about four thousand.”

“More like six hundred thousand in the US alone.”

Skye’s hand stalled halfway to her mouth. “Wow. That’s a lot.”

She took a big sip of her iced tea as she nodded. “The parents—or donors— are in moral paralysis. There’s even a legal term for what to do with the leftover embryos: disposition decision. Deciding the fate of frozen embryos became so hard and problematic that the parents couldn’t make a decision, so they don’t.”