Heart Of The Matter

Her gaze, skittering around the room as the two men fenced with verbal politeness, landed on the framed photo on her father’s desk. The family, taken at the beach on their Christmas Day walk last year. It was the same photo she had on her desk. Somehow the sight of those smiling faces seemed to settle her.

She focused her attention on Ross. He was asking a series of what seemed to be routine, even perfunctory, questions about her father’s work and the function of the base.

“The Coast Guard is now under the Department of Homeland Security,” her father said, clearly not sure Ross knew anything about the service. “Our jobs include maritime safety. Most people think of that first, the rescue work. But there’s also security, preventing trafficking of drugs, contrabands, illegal immigrants. We protect the public, the environment and U.S. economic and security interests in any maritime region, including lakes and rivers.”

This was her father at his most formal. He could be telling Ross some of the kinds of stories she’d heard over the dinner table since she was a kid—exciting rescues, chemical spills prevented, smugglers caught. Why was he being so stiff?

A notebook rested on Ross’s knee, but he wasn’t bothering to write down the answers Daddy gave. Maybe he was just absorbing background information. She often worked that way, too, not bothering to write down information she could easily verify later with a press kit.

But that didn’t account for the level of tension she felt in the room—tension that didn’t come solely from Ross. Her father’s already square jaw seemed squarer than ever, and his lips tightened at a routine question.

“I don’t see why you need information on our local contractors.” He bit the words off sharply.

“We’d like to show how much money the base brings into the local economy.” Ross’s explanation sounded smooth.

Too smooth. She’d already sampled his interview style, and this wasn’t it. As for her father…

Ordinarily when Daddy looked the way he did at the moment, he was on the verge of an explosion. No one had ever accused Brett Bodine of being patient in the face of aggravation.

There was no doubt in her mind that he found Ross’s questions annoying. But why? They seemed innocuous enough, and surely that was a good angle to bring out in the articles.

“So you’ll let me have the records on your local contractors?” Ross’s expression was more than ever that of a wolf closing in for a kill.

She braced herself for an explosion from her father. It didn’t come.

Instead, he tried to smile. It was a poor facsimile of his usual hearty grin. “I’ll have to get permission to release those figures.”

He wasn’t telling the truth. Her father, the soul of honor, was lying. She sensed it, right down to the marrow of her bones. Her heart clenched, as if something cold and hard tightened around it.

Her father, lying. Ross, hiding something. What was going on?

Please, Lord.

Her thoughts whirled, and then settled on one sure goal. She had to find out what Ross wanted. She had to find out what her father was hiding. And that meant that any hope of keeping her distance from Ross was doomed from the start.

Chapter Four

Ross paced across his office, adrenaline pumping through his system. Lt. Commander Brett Bodine had been hiding something during their interview. He was sure of it. His instincts didn’t let him down when it came to detecting evasion.

Too bad those instincts hadn’t worked as well in alerting him that his so-called friend had been preparing to stab him in the back to protect the congressman.

He pushed that thought away. He’d been spending too much time brooding about what had happened in Washington. It was fine to use that as motivation—not so good to dwell on his mistakes.

This was a fresh case, and this time he would do all the investigative work himself. He wouldn’t give anyone a chance to betray him.

He’d have to be careful with Amanda in that respect. All of her wariness with Ross had returned after that interview with her father. Was it because of Ross’s attitude? Or because she, too, had sensed her father’s evasiveness?

He didn’t know her well enough to be sure what she was thinking, and he probably never would.

Pausing at the window, he looked out at the Cooper River, sunlight sparkling on its surface. A short drive across the new Ravenel Bridge would take him to Patriot’s Point and its military displays; a short trip down-river to the harbor brought one to Fort Sumter. Everywhere you looked in the Charleston area you bumped into something related to the military, past or present.

The Bodine family was a big part of that, apparently. Brett Bodine’s attitude could simply be the natural caution of a military man when it came to sharing information with the press. Ross didn’t believe that, but it was possible.

He’d have to work cautiously, checking and double-checking every fact. Still, he couldn’t deny the tingle of excitement that told him he was onto something.

Once he had the list of suppliers that Bodine had so reluctantly agreed to provide, he could start working from that end of the investigation. Finding the person who was paying the bribes would lead inevitably to the one accepting them.

Sliding into his chair, he pulled out the folder containing the anonymous notes and the transcript of the phone calls. He hadn’t felt this energized in over a year. This was the real deal—he could feel it.

He’d just opened the folder when a shadow bisected the band of light from the door he always kept open to the newsroom. He looked up. It was Amanda, with an expression of determination on her face.

“I’d like to speak with you.”

Closing the folder, he leveled an I-can’t-be-disturbed stare at her. “This isn’t a good time.”

Instead of backing off, she closed the door behind her and advanced on the desk. “It’s important.”

“Not now.” He ratcheted the stare up to a glare.

Her gaze flickered away from him. Good, intimidation still worked. Amanda believed that her job depended on his goodwill.

Whether it really did, he wasn’t so sure. Cyrus seemed to have a soft spot for her, for some reason. But as long as she believed it, she’d do as she was told.

Except that right now, she wasn’t. She clasped her hands together as if she needed support, but she didn’t back away.

“What exactly is the slant of the story you’re planning to do on the Coast Guard?”

He raised a dismissive brow. “I thought we were clear on this. Your only role is to arrange the interviews, not to contribute to the story, no matter how well you feel you know the subject matter.”

“I’m not talking about my contribution. Or lack of it. I want to know what you’re after.”

“My plans for the story don’t concern you.”

“They do when you use me to get to my father.” She shot the words back at him like arrows.

“Get to him?” Annoyance rose, probably because she was exactly on target. “That implies that he has to be protected from the press.”

Those green eyes widened. In shock? Or because she agreed and didn’t want him to know it? He expected backpedaling on her part. He didn’t get it.

“My father doesn’t need protection. But he also doesn’t deserve some kind of hatchet job, if that’s what you have in mind.”

Apparently Amanda could overcome her fear of him when it came to her family.

“Why would you assume that? I’m sure my interview style isn’t quite as laid-back as the one you generally employ in your painstaking search for the facts about the latest dog show or charity ball, but that doesn’t mean I’m planning a hatchet job.”

That was below the belt, and he knew it. After all, he was the one who assigned her those stories. And he’d been the recipient of enough sarcasm from his father to dislike using it on anyone else. Still, he had no choice but to keep Amanda away from the truth.

A faint wash of color came up in her cheeks. “You’re after something more than a profile piece, aren’t you?”