Safe in Your Fire Read online

  His brown hair had grown long and shaggy over his eyes. He kept it that way deliberately, partly because he thought the bedhead look might serve him well in meeting guys, if he ever found the time and motivation to do so. And partly because he thought a real journalist needed to look a bit dodgy and artistic. But he realized now that all of this would likely make him appear immature and like he didn’t give a shit in Suzette’s eyes, an opinion no doubt bolstered by the email she’d just received.

  Their offices were in an old mill building, and Rudy moved through the mostly empty space, a few writers and clerks perched at their stations, early evening light streaming gold through the enormous windows. He ignored the people who called his name in greeting, and headed all the way to the rear, standing before Suzette’s closed office door.

  He knocked, kind of hoping she wasn’t there. But her voice called out, “Come in.”

  When Rudy pushed open the door he paused, watching Suzette hang her coat up on a rack near the window. Missing was her usual tailored suit. Instead she wore a short, sparkly sleeveless cocktail dress, and it threw him off for a moment. “You look nice,” he offered.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she gave him a sour smirk. “I’m heading to a dinner engagement after this. Have a seat.”

  Obediently, Rudy took the chair in front of her desk. Suzette turned from the coatrack and approached her big leather chair. The sight of his boss all dressed up for a night out was disorienting, brown skin visible and gleaming, wine colored lips and silver shadowed eyes. Her black hair, normally pinned up during work hours, tumbled in sleek waves, just brushing her shoulders. It wasn’t that he was attracted to Suzette, but he’d anticipated coming in here to see his boss—the abstract concept of Suzette as authority figure. But this evening she looked not like his boss, but like a woman, humanizing her. He wasn’t sure if the human, pretty Suzette would be easier to talk to than robotic, boss Suzette.

  But when she sat down and her brown eyes locked on his, that look was all business. Sexy cocktail dress or not, it was Suzette-the-boss that stared back at him across the desk.

  “Suzette. That email I sent you…it was a mistake.”

  “Yes.” She smiled tightly. “It was.”

  “No, I mean it was an accident. I was just messing around, I didn’t mean to send that.”

  “But do you believe what you said?”

  Rudy tugged the collar of his tee shirt, then rubbed the back of his sweaty neck. “Am I getting fired?”

  “Tell me, Rudy. What did you mean by nobody fucking cares?”

  “It’s just that I thought I was getting the interview we talked about.” He set the file she’d given him on her desk, pointing at it. “This here just doesn’t seem like much of a story to me. I thought you were going to start giving me more meaty assignments.”

  Her brows shot up. “Meaty? Rudy. Any monkey can interview a celebrity. Are you a monkey?”

  “No.” He frowned. “I’m not a monkey. I just…as I told you before, I want something more challenging than what you’ve been giving me. I mean, you had me cover a bake sale last month.”

  “It was a high profile political fundraiser, not a bake sale.”

  “I just want something more challenging, Suzette, that’s all.”

  “Challenging, yes,” she said. “And interviewing a movie star is about as unchallenging as it gets. They know you’re coming, they’ve prepped answers for the questions they know you’re going to ask. Then you write it up and talk about how kind, attractive, and down to earth they were. That’s not what I’d call a challenge. Would you?”

  “But—”

  “Henry can handle tossing out mundane questions to a movie star. But Henry is not what I’d call an investigative journalist. You told me recently that you want to play to your strengths. You, Rudy, can get people to talk who don’t want to talk. That is your strength.”

  Rudy had hit it out of the park on his first political piece when he’d been hired on, but he’d more or less cheated. He’d lied his ass off. It was a stupid gamble, one he’d never attempt now, but he was younger and greener then. He’d used the age-old tactic of urging one source—Important Public Figure Number One—to tell his side of the story, proclaiming that a political rival—Important Public Figure Number Two—had already weighed in. It was pure fiction—he hadn’t yet contacted said rival, but his subject had taken the bait and talked. He then had to use the same tactic in reverse on the rival second source, the one he’d lied about already having. Had the rival told him to go fuck himself, he wouldn’t have been able to print the piece.

  But to his amazement, his ruse had worked, and he had his first major article printed. And now Suzette was calling it one of his strengths. He couldn’t tell her that his only strength was a willingness to be a sleaze-ball to get the story. “But…you say interviewing a celeb is mundane, yet here you’ve given me a file on some has-been kid star. What am I missing?”

  “Did you read the file on James Waterman, Rudy?”

  He considered lying, but suspected she’d know, and it would only tarnish him further. “I skimmed it.”

  She nodded. “You skimmed it. Great.” She grabbed the file and dragged it toward her, flipping it open. She pulled out a photograph and set it down before him. It was an old promotional shot of the late Tucker Waterman. In it he wore a cowboy hat and checkered shirt—his ‘Sheriff Tuck’ persona—surrounded by a gaggle of smiling nursery school children. One of them, a blond cherub with big dark eyes, was his grandson, James.

  “The program Sheriff Tuck ran for several years from a small Boston station, but was broadcast throughout the country,” Suzette told him. “When it got canceled due to money problems the station was having, Tucker Waterman took his life savings and purchased the station himself. By the time of his death, he owned three more television stations and twelve magazines nationwide.”

  “Okay.”

  “And this is his son, Calvin Waterman, James’s father.” She placed another photo before him. “Lives in California now. Inherited his father’s legacy and expanded upon it. Really expanded upon it. Calvin Waterman has recently appeared for the first time on a list of the world’s richest people in media. He’s a billionaire. He’s kept up his late father’s legacy with kids as well. He runs a charity called ‘The Sheriff Tuck Foundation’ that helps underprivileged kids and education programs.”

  Rudy’s eye lingered on the photograph. Calvin Waterman definitely had the look of a billionaire. He appeared to be in his late fifties. Nice suit, expensive smile, perfectly groomed graying blond hair. In the photo he had his arm around a tall, thin, teenaged boy. The boy had a narrow face, short blond hair, and black-framed glasses. He wore a white, short-sleeved button down shirt with a tie, and leaned slightly away from his father’s embrace, his expression not so much sour as it was…timid. “Is that James?”

  “That’s James.” Suzette tapped a long fingernail on the image of the teenager. “Grandson of the late Tucker Waterman. Calvin Waterman’s only child. Appeared on his grandfather’s TV program when he was just a baby. He’s about fifteen in this picture. Incredibly intelligent. Finished school early. Was being groomed for a cushy job in his father’s media empire, and started running one of his cable stations at the age of seventeen.”

  Rudy nodded. He kept his mouth shut, not wanting to screw up his second chance by saying something stupid.

  “We ran a ‘where are they now’ segment two months ago, and James was included as one of the subjects. If you actually read the magazine you work for, you’d know this.”

  Rudy remembered skimming the piece. Twelve or so people, each with no more than a paragraph beneath their photos. He supposed one of them could have been James, but honestly couldn’t remember. “Okay. And?”

  “And, we got thousands of write-ins and comments on our website about Baby James Waterman. Lots of nostalgia. Along with a lot of pranks and kooks. Some said he’s dead. Or that he’d transitioned and is now living as a
woman. Or that he’d joined a Muslim extremist group. Nothing legitimate. But there was a lot of interest. So see, Rudy, some people do fucking care.”

  Rudy winced. “So…I take it James Waterman is no longer working for his father?”

  She reached over and slid a third photo onto the desk before him. “This is the last known photo of James Thomas Waterman. Taken a month before he disappeared ten years ago.”

  Rudy blinked. “He disappeared? He’s missing?”

  “You really didn’t read the file.”

  “I’m sorry. Were the police involved?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “According to a former intern who worked for James in the brief time he was running the cable company, James ultimately sent word to his family that he was not in any trouble. That he’d simply opted to leave. It was his eighteenth birthday. According to my sources, James has never contacted his parents or been back home since. No one knows where he is or what he’s doing.”

  “Are we sure that’s true? Has anyone here at the magazine talked to his parents?”

  Suzette nodded. “After getting jerked around for a while, I finally got Calvin Waterman on the phone.”

  “Really? The big kahuna himself? What did he say?”

  “He threatened me. And I don’t like to be threatened.” She smiled.

  “No way.”

  “All I did was ask if he could tell us where James is living now. He went absolutely nuts on me. Said if I even thought about exploiting his family he’d buy me out, put me out of business, I’d never work again and so on. He used the term ‘You people’ a lot, so I imagine I’m not the first media outlet that’s searched for James. But legally Calvin can’t do a thing, so I’m moving forward with this. I think it’ll make an interesting piece.”

  “So what do you think happened to James?”

  Suzette shrugged. “What do you think happened to him?”

  Rudy eyed her carefully. “You want my honest take on this? Can I speak freely?”

  She nodded slowly. “Of course.”

  “I still say this isn’t much of a story, Suzette. We’re obviously dealing with nothing more than a rich kid with daddy issues. A lot of kids fuck off…I mean take off and leave home at eighteen.”

  “Perhaps. But a lot of kids aren’t leaving a billion dollar legacy behind. My source tells me James was set to get a big fat inheritance when he turned twenty-one. He only had to wait three years. But he left without a cent to his name.”

  “That sounds like bullshit to me.”

  “Only one way to find out, Rudy. There’s something to this, I can feel it. I pooled all my resources to try to locate any current record of James Waterman’s existence, and he’s nowhere.”

  Rudy frowned at the photo. The kid looked older in this one, but hadn’t changed all that much. Still with the narrow face, the big eyes, and the glasses, he’d grown taller, which only served to accentuate his lanky thinness. He had the looks of his father, the preppy haircut with a swoop of blond bangs and a side-part, yet without his dad’s shiny smile. In the photo, he stood alongside his father on a golf course, staring off at something unseen. But his expression was slightly different in this one. His eyes didn’t appear timid, as in the younger photograph. Something in his eyes seemed…resolved. Troubled, but resolved.

  “Well okay, that’s all fairly intriguing, but some people like being off grid. And not everyone cares about money,” Rudy said. “Particularly in the teen rebellion years. What story angle are you going for?”

  “You’re supposed to find the story angle, that’s what I pay you for. So you tell me.”

  Rudy fidgeted, but forced himself to focus. Suzette was testing him, and he was already too close to failing. “Okay,” he said. “I’m guessing finding James would make a good tie-in with his father just making that billionaire’s list.”

  Suzette nodded. “What else?”

  “The Sheriff Tuck show started in Boston, so there’s relevance in that. And…Suzette, I have to ask. Is it a smear piece you want?”

  Her eyebrow cocked. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’ve got Calvin Waterman carrying on his father’s ‘I love kids’ legacy with that charity foundation. Yet his own child, his only child, took off. Literally on the day he became a legal adult. I can only surmise you think finding dirt on this billionaire media mogul would make a shocking smear piece. Like if we found out Mr. Rogers beat children or Sesame Street funded child labor camps or something.”

  Suzette chuckled. “Look, Calvin Waterman annoyed me, yes, but that’s not the driving force behind my interest here. I’m not asking you to smear anyone. I’m asking you to find the story. If there’s dirt in that story? Well, then there’s dirt.”

  “And what if there’s nothing? What if there’s no story?”

  “Rudy. There’s always a story.

  “Well sure, but what if it’s not interesting?”

  “Then it’s your job to make it interesting. When I hired you, you claimed you could find something interesting in any aspect of life. You begged me to give you a chance. I’m trying to give you that chance now. Yet here you are, sitting in my office and whining that you didn’t get to meet a superhero.”

  Rudy shrank in his seat. “I know. But…if nobody knows where this guy is, I could just be chasing my tail.”

  Suzette smiled, took a small scrap of paper from the file and slid it his way. “We did get one promising tip. Anonymous. Traced it to a pay phone in Singing Bear, New York. A man who claimed he knew where James Waterman was. He gave an address but hung up before we could get any follow up questions in. And he sounded nervous.”

  Rudy took the scrap of paper from her outstretched hand and examined it. “Singing Bear. Where is that?”

  “It’s far upstate in New York, a wealthy, lakefront tourist destination. A place I’d assume someone like James Waterman might feel at home.”

  “But I thought he walked away from all his money.”

  Suzette shrugged. “Let’s not forget, James was an extraordinarily intelligent kid. Educated. And it’s been ten years. He’d be twenty-eight now. It’s unlikely that he’s living in squalor.”

  Rudy took his phone out of his pocket and found a map search for Singing Bear Lake. “Well, if your anonymous tip is right, James moved about as far away from his California family as he could get without leaving the country. And surrounded himself with a barrier of mountains.” He smiled at Suzette. “Like I said. Daddy issues.”

  Suzette nodded. “So, Mr. Sansone, what do you think? You’re looking for a man who does not want to be found, and who likely does not want to talk to you. You’re always insisting I’m wasting your talent with the assignments I give you. So what’s it going to be? Are you willing to take the challenge, or is this still too far beneath your high journalistic standards?”

  Rudy stiffened at her sarcastic tone. “Does it mean I’m not getting fired?”

  “I’d like it if your motivation was based on something more than not losing your job.”

  “No, I’m motivated! I am. I swear, Suzette. I can do this.”

  “Good.” She checked her watch. “Damn, I’ve really got to get going. Any final questions?”

  Drumming his fingers on the desk, he asked, “So all I have is an address?”

  “That’s right. Unfortunately, no info available on who owns the property.”

  “No phone number?”

  “Nope.”

  “And this guy has no idea I’m coming.”

  “Bingo. I’d like you to head up as soon as possible, hopefully we can get this out while the Calvin Waterman billionaire list aspect is still timely.”

  Rudy scowled at the map on his phone. “Damn. Driving up to the mountains. Can I at least get a nice rental car?”

  Suzette’s expression said she was beginning to lose patience with his complaining.

  “I’m joking.” Rudy stood. “Thank you, Suzette. I won’t let you down.”

  Suzette stood, th
en surprised him by reaching over and squeezing Rudy’s hand. “Bring me something good. If I’m impressed, your next assignment can be of your own choosing.”

  Rudy’s spirits lifted. “Really?”

  His boss laughed. “Really.”

  This was what he’d been waiting for. With that promise, he decided he was going to find Baby James Waterman no matter what. And he’d get his story if he had to tie the guy up and waterboard it out of him. “Deal. I’m on it.” He started out of the room.

  “And Rudy?” Suzette called out as she grabbed her coat. “Get a haircut before you go.”

  Rudy brushed a long lock of brown hair out of his eyes. “Really? But this is my look.”

  Suzette smirked as she wriggled into her coat. “And it’s charming. But if you’re going to try to mix in with some rich kid with daddy issues, you need to clean up. Buy some clothes. And get some new photos done for the magazine when you get back as well. This…”

  Shaking her head, she opened a drawer and pulled out a copy of the magazine. Flipping through, she handed it to him, open to one of his articles from months ago. His photo was a side profile, his hair wild, sunglasses hiding his eyes.

  “What about it?” he asked.

  “You’re not Hunter S. Thompson. Not yet anyway. Get a haircut, buy some presentable clothes, and find me James Thomas Waterman. Goodnight, Rudy.”

  When Rudy left the offices and stepped out on the sidewalk, he immediately called Ben.

  “Hey,” he said when Ben answered. “I was wondering. Since my cat seems to like you so much…can you take care of her for a while?”

  Chapter Two