Page 7 of Poison Wood

I focus on her question. The rest of the statement is meant to unnerve me. I know women like her. Hell, I am a woman like her.

“It’s my job to be fast.” I point to the now-covered body. “I’m going to be her voice now.”

Her face sours. “Right. Let’s not pretend you’re here for her. You’re here for that.” She points to the camera. “What do you want?”

“Is this a homicide?”

“We just got a body.”

“True. But I’ll bet you’ve got an idea.”

“We’re not ready to divulge that information to the press yet.”

“Keep in mind, I can help you.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t need your help.” She looks around, then back to me. “Don’t mess with my crime scene.”

“So it’s a crime scene now?” I smile.

She does not.

“Can you at least confirm this is Laura Sanders?” I ask.

Detective Mulholland’s stoic demeanor slips. Her eyes widen. “What ... how?” She stumbles over her words, then just stares at me.

My stomach drops. It’s Laura.

I swallow. My nerve endings sizzle. “She reached out to me.”

Detective Mulholland’s mouth falls open. “When?”

“Two days ago.”

She steps closer to me. “What did she say?”

“She said she knew she could trust me and that she wanted to talk to me in person.”

“About what?”

Mulholland’s dark-brown eyes bore into me, but I’m not quite ready to answer that. A decision that will not win me any favors with this woman. My silence is my answer.

Mulholland runs her tongue along the inside of her cheek. “Too late to protect your source.”

I don’t say anything.

“Rita, you’re playing a dangerous game here. Obstruction of justice—sound familiar?”

“Have her next of kin been notified?” I say, ignoring her threat.

Detective Mulholland’s eyes jump to the left, then back to me. “Yes. And leave her next of kin alone.”

“Of course.” Not.

Detective Mulholland walks away from us, and I look left and spot them immediately. A man and a small girl stand off to the side with another man in an expensive suit. The husband, the kid, the lawyer. What an idiot to bring his kid here. Kids have no business seeing this. Especially a little girl who can’t be more than seven or eight years old.

“We need to go live,” Carl says. “Almost noon.”

I find a spot that gives Carl a shot of the ocean and enough of the scene behind us to include the officers but not the body. Never the body. Even though viewers have chastised me for being insensitive, that is a line NCN won’t cross.