Page 14 of Blood Moon

“Even you don’t have authority over my vacation plans, Max.”

“Vacation, my ass. When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. There’s no time for delay.”

He’d shot up from his massive chair and stabbed his desktop with his index finger. “You have no authority to go nosing around the police department down there. It’s Louisiana, for crissake! They feed people they don’t like to the alligators. They’ll have a voodoo doll of you in no time. But never mind the danger to yourself.”

Here, he’d gotten really wound up. “I createdCrisis Point. I nursed it through infancy, whipped it through puberty, and eventually placed it in the top five of ratings, where it has remained for years. Your amateur sleuthing will put the show, my baby, at risk.

“In addition to the smudge on my hard-won reputation, the egomaniac who’s taken my place will shit bricks if you go behind his back. This obsession of yours could get your butt fired.”

Quietly, she’d said, “Not if I return with an Emmy-winning story for us to work on together before your retirement.”

Despite his lauded career, that most coveted award had eluded him. She knew the disappointment he suffered for being forced into retirement without having received it.

“Emmy-winning story,” he scoffed. “Based on this crazy notion of yours? Ha! What I think is that you’ll make a fool of yourself and be drummed out of the business.”

“Very possibly. But it’s a chance worth taking.”

“Then go,” he’d shouted, waving her toward his office door. “But if you’re sunk in a swamp down there, expect an ‘I told you so.’”

His rejection had cut deeply, but she’d left without his sanction. She hadn’t consulted Winston Brady at all, a move that very well could get her butt fired, especially if Detective John Bowie complained to him about being ambushed and harassed by one of his producers.

Now, as though Max been following her thoughts, he said, “Just how much of a prick was Bowie?”

“As reputed.”

“Wasn’t happy to see you, huh?”

“Hostile, actually. He wasn’t at all interested or open to discussing Crissy Mellin’s case. He was completely unmoved by my attempts to persuade him otherwise. Why don’t you just say ‘I told you so’ and get it over with?”

“Hell, no. I’m not letting you off that lightly. I want details.”

She gave him a bullet-point account of her unorthodox meeting with the detective. Max listened without interruption except for his wheezing inhales and exhales of forbidden tobacco smoke.

When she finished, he said, “Did he take it like a kick in the nuts?”

“Take what?”

“Mention of the blood moon. How’d he react?”

“He didn’t. He gave me a blank stare.”

“Meant nothing to him, then?”

“No. I’m almost positive.”

Finally he said, “I told you so.”

“I concede, but not happily.” After a moment, she made one final pitch. “You know, it’s not like I dreamed up this mysticism surrounding blood moons. For millennia, mankind has regarded them as omens, both good and bad.”

“Silly superstitions. You’re reading too much into it.”

“Possibly.” She rubbed her forehead, no longer feeling defensive but defeated. “Maybe I should leave it alone. You were certainly right about the detective. It was a contentious meeting from the start. We got off on the wrong foot, and it never got better.”

“What kind of wrong foot? Why a wrong foot?”

She wasn’t going to tell him about the sexual undercurrents of those first few minutes. “Doesn’t matter. As soon as I said the girl’s name, he shut down. How did you know he would?”