Page 24

CHAPTER 24

Bruce

One Week After the Flight

None of us could work after the Atlanta police chief held his press conference. Hell, we could barely function. I still had to be in charge, though, and I told everyone to go down to bare-bones mode. Only the most critical stories in Madison would get coverage that day. We could fill the shows with national news—there was always plenty of that available on the feeds. Yet the biggest story at the moment nationally was a news director in Atlanta who was arrested for a possible double murder.

Now Lucy was out for the day. Bernie, the receptionist, had gabbed to a few people that she thought Lucy was in Atlanta. We all moved around in robot mode, whispering to one another. By now, the whole newsroom was clued in that something was amiss with Steph, and they knew about this big national story. They were certain to put two and two together, if they hadn’t already. We were journalists; we were not ones to let something just go past us without a ton of questions. And the business was small enough that gossip whipped around quickly.

At six p.m. Eastern time, police in Atlanta called another press conference. It was five our time, the start of our five o’clock news, so the anchors had to be on set and the director and producer in the booth, but the rest of us gathered around Nora’s computer to see what the latest was coming out of Atlanta. I’m sure the director and producer—probably the anchors too—were sneaking peeks at their phones for updates when they could.

“Good evening, I’m Chief Newman again, Atlanta PD,” said the man in glasses and a chief’s hat, his badge glistening in the TV lights. “I’m here to provide an update on the unfortunate tragedy that occurred in the residence behind me. Trent McCarthy remains in custody. We can now confirm two names of potential victims. Only one of them is confirmed with DNA at this time, though.”

He cleared his throat and looked down at a paper in front of him.

“That one is a Jasmine V. Littleton. The second potential victim is a Stephanie H. Monroe. Personal items from both were found buried in the backyard. We know that Mr. McCarthy and at least one of the victims attended a conference together in La Jolla, California, last week. This remains a very active investigation and we ask anyone with information to come forward. There will be no questions, and I mean it this time: No. Questions. ”

He turned on his heel and walked away.

I felt a darkness creeping up behind my eyes. Nora screamed and someone else groaned. This couldn’t possibly be real life, could it?