“So where is this place he ran off to?”
“Montana, a ranch outside the tiny town of Bliss, and from all accounts, he seldom leaves it.”
“No favorite haunts, no daily schedule in here?” she asked, tapping the folder.
“Sorry, if it were that easy, someone would have done the story by now.”
“Okay, there has to be a way to make him stick his head out of the bunker. Then the trick is to get him to talk.”
He sat forward. “Getting him to talk is the easy part for you. You could get a monk to break a vow of silence. Look what you did with the Blanchard story.” He smiled at her. “She wouldn’t talk to anyone, and you got her to do an exclusive for us.”
“That’s different. I went to the same deli she did and saw her there all the time, and she recognized me.”
“See what I mean? You use what you have to get what you want. Only you could turn a trip to the deli into a great interview with a woman who had just been acquitted of murdering her husband. You had an ‘in’ with her, and like it or not, you’ve got an ‘in’ with Parish.”
She hated it when he was right. But he was. If the man’s weakness was blondes, she’d have to factor that into the equation, whatever she did. “Bliss?” she asked.
“Bliss as in a podunk town out in the middle of nowhere. Bliss for the gophers and cows, I guess.”
“Maybe for the doctor, too,” she said.
“That’s what you’ll find out, won’t you?” he asked, stretching his arms over his head.
“I hope so.”
“Also, the bonus for an exclusive kicks in, and that can’t hurt, either.”
She could use the money, but more than that, she loved this part of the job. The hunt, the discovery. She pressed her hand on the closed folder. “What’s the deadline?”
“I can give you a week, maybe a bit longer if it looks really good after you get there, but that’s about all the budget will bear. Also, it’ll give us time to make the semiannual special issue, too, if you come in around then.” He took a thick envelope out of a side drawer. “Here’s your packet.”
She took it, and said, “Okay, I’ll give it a shot.”
“Just be prepared. From what’s in the research, Bliss is a tight little community where the townspeople don’t talk and won’t even give directions to Parish’s place.” He tapped the envelope. “That’s what county assessors are for. There’s a map in there of his place.” He studied her. “So, any ideas how to get to him?”
She didn’t think, despite James’s optimism about her looks, that putting on a skimpy silver dress and walking the streets would work. “Something will come to me. By the way, is there anyone living with him?” The man never seemed to be alone in L.A., so there was no reason to think he suddenly became a monk in Montana.
“No ranch hands this time of year, but there’s a housekeeper, or a friend of some sort who keeps the house, and a little boy. Word is it’s his dead brother’s child, but there isn’t a birth certificate on him in that county. Maybe the kid’s his?” He glanced at the envelope. “You’ve got an air ticket for tomorrow out of LAX in there, car rental and your per diem. Sign off for the folder and read it on the plane.” He scrounged around and passed her a pen.
As she signed the folder front and dated it, she asked, “What about a place to stay?”
“There’re no hotels or motels listed in Bliss, but there’s a bed-and-breakfast called Joanine’s Inn. You’re expected tomorrow evening by seven, under your own name. I wasn’t sure about getting you a place to stay because of the holiday.”
“Holiday?”
“Thanksgiving, Kate, remember?”
“I remember,” she muttered.
“You come from a strange family, Kate. I’ve never heard of a family who ignores holidays the way yours do.”
“They’re a waste of time,” she said, echoing her mother’s words from years ago when she’d asked why they didn’t do anything for Christmas. She’d stopped caring about holidays around the same time she stopped asking about them. “We never noticed them very much.”
“By the way, how are Frank and Irene?”
“I haven’t heard from them since…” She had to think about that one. Contact with her parents was rare. They left, and when they thought about it, they called. Kate was used to it. She’d been on her own since she was a teenager. “I guess it was in July sometime. They were in Borneo working on some irrigation project.”
He sat back in the chair. “Fascinating people,” he said. “Lousy parents.”
She didn’t argue with that. “They are what they are, and it’s not important,” she said, cutting off that discussion as she stood holding the folder and envelope.
“Kate?” he said when she would have left.
She turned to look at him. “Something else?”
“I’m not expecting miracles on this, but anything you can find I’ll use.”
She nodded and as she crossed to the door, she glanced at the still-frozen image on the monitor, the man and that smile. A real challenge. She tossed over her shoulder, “Keep that spot in the special open.” She looked back at James before she went out the door. “Maybe the cover.”
SNOW WAS BEAUTIFUL in pictures and on greeting cards, but that was the only experience Kate had ever had with the white stuff. She had no idea that in real life it could be blinding, even in the early evening, or that it could be driven by wind so hard that it shook a car and made it tremble, even though the car was a sturdy sedan she’d rented at the airport two hours before.
She had no concept of cold bone-chilling it penetrated the car windows while the heater fought fiercely to defeat it. Between cursing the weather and cursing herself for driving out here without checking the weather first, she maneuvered the car along the winding, hilly road that climbed into the Montana wilderness. The last sign for Bliss had said twenty miles, and the longer she drove, the more she thought a man like Dr. Parish couldn’t possibly be anywhere near this godforsaken place.
The man was used to fast cars, luxury, pampering, leggy blondes. None of which would be out this way. At least not a leggy blonde with any sense at all. The idea made her laugh. She was beginning to feel like a dumb-blonde joke. She squinted at the road ahead. She was the punch line. All for a story. Then again, she would do just about anything for a good story. Her parents went to some primitive place to build water systems. She went to some primitive place for a story. She was more their daughter than she’d realized.
As she frowned at that thought, the car skidded slightly to the left. Before she could panic, it found traction again on the curve and settled on the road. Another sign for Bliss was caught in the headlights—ten more miles. She glanced at the clock on the dash. Five-thirty, yet it was so dark it might as well have been the middle of the night, and road visibility was almost nil.
The
