Page 125 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
o speak.
Her first clue that something was amiss was the traffic being redirected off forty-first Street. The limousine she and Nola were riding in, however, was waved through the line of orange cones and barricades by a white-gloved traffic cop, who closely examined the Times pass on the dashboard, then nodded at the driver.
After attempting to peer through the windshield into the back seat to get a look at Jack.
Too bad for him, the tinted divider window between the driver’s seat and the back seats was up. Sitting beside her, Nola took her hand, muttering, “This should be interesting.”
It was when the car pulled to a stop at the curb outside the main lobby entrance that Jack understood the reality of the situation.
“You can’t be serious.” She recoiled in horror as a flock of reporters with cameras and microphones surrounded the car, shouting and jostling, clamoring over each other to get close. There were no fewer than six television news vans parked along the curb, their satellite dishes sprung in the air like mushrooms, and a crowd of pedestrians and onlookers had gathered beyond the cordoned-off entrance to the building.
Nola sent her a sympathetic glance. “I know you haven’t been watching TV, but, sweetie, you’re the chum in the shark tank at the moment.”
Jack made a small, choked noise in her throat.
“Veteran reporter, Pulitzer nominee, notorious for all her anti-Shifter rhetoric, vanishes without a trace from New York then reappears from the Amazon jungle weeks later without a scratch . . . think about it.”
Jack closed her eyes and tried not to hyperventilate.
Nola added, “And it doesn’t help that you’re young and pretty and Ivy League . . . and regarded as kind of a bitch.”
Jack moaned and slumped farther down in the seat, hiding behind her hands.
“Hey.” Nola pried Jack’s hands from her face and stared into her eyes. “We bitches have to stick together, okay? Maybe we’ll form a union,” she joked.
Another random memory popped into Jack’s head.
The bitch is back, remember?
She’d been talking to Hawk. Yelling at him, actually. What about? When?
Nola was carefully watching her face. “Jack. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to tell anyone anything.”
Just tell them the truth. Whatever you remember. I know you’ll be fair.
Jack’s hands were shaking. She stared down at them, feeling on the verge of something vast and black and inescapable, a worm hole about to suck her straight into oblivion. Was she losing her mind? Is that what had happened to her out there in the jungle? She’d lost all semblance of sanity?
“No . . . I . . . I have something I want to say. Something that needs to be heard.”
Nola sighed. Gazing at the crowd out the window she said, “Okay. But afterward you might want to get on the next flight to Canada.”
Or Antarctica, Jack thought, bracing herself for the onslaught as the limousine driver got out to open her door.
It’s funny how the sound of a camera shutter shooting rapid-fire can sound completely innocent or like a machine gun, depending on where you’re standing.
That was one of two dozen haphazard thoughts crossing Jack’s mind as Nola, acting as defense, guided her by the arm through the crowd of reporters who were shouting questions and shoving microphones in her face.
Their attention felt carnivorous. She kept her head down, concentrating on getting inside as quickly as possible without being mauled.
Security rescued them as soon as they were inside the glass lobby doors. Surrounded by a team of uniformed men, burly and formidable enough to get the most aggressive of the reporters to back off, they made their way in a tight knot toward the amphitheater and were ushered into a small antechamber adjacent to the main room. It was calmer there, quieter, but Jack’s heart pounded so hard it felt like it might claw its way right out of her chest.
Security left, and then it was just Nola and Jack in the room. She flattened her back against the closed door, panting.
“Where’s Ed?” she asked Nola, lifting a shaking hand to her forehead. “I thought he’d be here already.”
“He is. He’s out front, holding court with the mob. You didn’t see him on his soapbox?”
She should have known her boss would be front and center of this madhouse. Ed O’Malley, Executive Editor, was an old-school, tough-as-nails journalist who closely resembled a circus ringleader both in appearance and personality. He thrived on this kind of chaos.
