The Red Files Page 8

  “I was in the neighbourhood.” Ayers leaned elegantly against the door frame.

  Lauren took in the pale blue jeans, white button-up, perfectly pressed, cotton shirt. Converse sneakers. Actual jeans?

  Ayers assessed Lauren’s shabby-unchic decor.

  Her lips resumed their usual judgmental position, and Lauren felt a flash of annoyance. Sure, her place was small, but it seemed, well, cheap under that scrutiny. And, okay, fine, it was a bit messy. But her nemesis was eyeballing Lauren’s home as if it were an illicit sweatshop.

  She glanced at Josh who gave her his best wide-eyed, oh-my-god look. He was no doubt wondering how much Ayers had heard.

  “Did Tad drop you off?” he asked.

  “Why?” Ayers turned.

  Josh shrugged. “We got along okay at the launch the other night.”

  Ayers’s gaze slid from the top of his gelled, jet black hair, down his designer lilac shirt and tight mustard jeans, to the pointy tips of his polished black boots.

  “Is that so?” Ayers mouth curved into a faintly terrifying smile.

  An uncomfortable silence lingered, and Joshua’s expression faltered. He jumped off the counter.

  “Ah, well, never mind,” he said. “I should go. You two enjoy your fabulous exposé. Unearth some Pulitzer Prize-winning scoop. Bye, Thelma,” he added, giving Lauren’s cheek a kiss.

  “Louise.” He sailed past Ayers on his way out.

  There was a distant bang a moment later as his apartment door shut.

  “What an odd man,” Ayers said.

  “I like him,” Lauren said as she dropped to the floor and scooped up the scattered sodas.

  Ayers was watching her again, making her ridiculously self-conscious.

  “I had an apartment like this once,” she suddenly said. “When I was nineteen.”

  Her voice was neutral, so Lauren had no clue whether Ayers’s thought this was a good or bad thing. She felt her muscles tense as she waited for the scathing insult. It must have shown because Ayers shot her an amused look.

  “Let’s go,” she announced and turned her shapely jean-clad ass in Lauren’s direction.

  Lauren quickly threw the cans in a carry bag and locked up, skidding down the stairs after her.

  “You gonna tell me why you’re really here instead of me picking you up?” Lauren asked.

  “It was more efficient to just grab a taxi.” Ayers opened the front passenger door. “Oh and my bags are to the right. Careful with them.”

  Ayers slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

  “Yessum,” Lauren ground out. “Anything Madame says.”

  She found a perfectly stunning pair of compact Louis Vuitton bags tucked next to the right wheel. She shook her head and placed them into the deep trunk, clanging it closed.

  “Okay,” she told Ayers as she slid into the driver’s seat, “the first rule of our road trip is there’s no dissing The Beast.” She gently patted the dashboard. “You got that? She’s a collectible. A 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454 LS6 with 480 horsepower. Right? A classic.”

  “I hate to break it to you, King, but ‘she’ is an ‘it,’ and my Saab’s hubcap is probably worth more.”

  “Well, if your Saab’s hubcap is worth $75,000, you bought it from the wrong dealer.” Lauren gave her a cool look. “Dad gave her to me when I left for LA. He worked on her every night after work for two years to fix her up. So I mean it—rule number one is non-negotiable.”

  Ayers put on her seatbelt. “As long as the thing is reliable, I couldn’t care less about its provenance.”

  “Oh she’s plenty reliable,” Lauren said as she turned the key. “Seats in the upright position, tray tables away, and prepare for ignition.”

  Ayers sneered. “Alien.” She sighed. “And every other derivative sci-fi film since. My first rule is—be original.”

  “A sci-fi fan? Hot damn. We have so much to discuss. Kirk or Picard?”

  Lauren grinned. Ayers’s expression dropped, and she pointedly positioned her sunglasses on her nose. Lauren revved The Beast once and carefully slipped her into reverse.

  * * *

  The journey had been smooth for the first two-and-a-half minutes. And that was when Lauren discovered Ayers’s taste in music was arty, high-brow, and complete crap.

  They’d both jabbed at the buttons on the radio, seesawing between classical and country, before they’d gone barely a block.

  “Should I be shocked your taste runs to hillbilly blues?” Ayers sniped.

  “Should I be shocked you probably own a ‘best of funeral dirges’ collection? In its original vinyl, of course.”

  Ayers didn’t answer and instead dug through a dark brown leather carryall by her feet and pulled out a sleeve of CDs.

  “You claim to want to be a political reporter,” she challenged. Her smile was pure evil as she inserted the disk and hit Play.

  After a few moments, a distinctive male drone filled the car. Lauren almost drove into a street sign.

  “We are not listening to the goddamned Nixon Tapes the whole way to Nevada!”

  Ayers lifted a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

  Lauren groaned, annoyed at how easily she’d been had. “Just put something else on before I lose my will to live. Nixon is a cure for insomnia, and it’s not too smart to send your driver into sleep.”

  “That he is.” She ejected the CD, and after a pause and a click, the modulated tones of Edward R. Murrow filled the car.

  “If you want to be a political journalist, learn from one of the best.” Ayers leaned back in her seat, stretching her legs. “This compilation has all of Murrow’s most famous Person to Person interviews. And what you pick up isn’t just what he asks, but how and when he pauses, and what he doesn’t say. He waits.”

  Lauren said nothing and changed lanes to merge seamlessly onto Route 101.

  “Oh please tell me you’ve heard of Murrow,” Ayers said and shot her a dismayed look. “Good god—”

  “I was just a little surprised,” Lauren cut her off, “that you would choose his soft celebrity interviews when his hard-hitting material came before that.”

  Ayers blinked.

  “I mean, everyone seems to think he brought down Joseph McCarthy on Person to Person, but he didn’t,” Lauren added. “It was on See It Now.”

  “You seem to know a lot about Murrow.” Ayers studied her.

  Lauren shrugged. “I saw his interview that destroyed McCarthyism.” She thrummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “A journalist who actually changed the world. It lit a flame in me to read up more. And to do more.”

  “I see,” Ayers said. “You really believe journalists in today’s world can make a difference in this country?”

  “Sure. You don’t?”

  “Between publishers interfering in stories, the persecution of whistle-blowers, and passing off entertainment as real news, how can anyone in our field be this naïve?”

  Lauren felt her irritation rise.

  “Idealism burns brightly, but it’ll flare out soon enough,” Ayers continued. “That optimism of yours will die with it.”

  “Really,” Lauren drawled. “Yet here you are in a car, barrelling toward Nevada on the optimistic whiff of a vague story. Why?”

  Ayers didn’t answer.

  “Yeah.” Lauren grinned triumphantly. “Oh hey, I forget, what’s the opposite of a cynic?”

  “A fool,” Ayers said. She hesitated. “By the way, how well does Joshua know Tad?”

  Lauren gulped. “They met at the SmartPay launch, and uh, you know guys. They were just talking about guy things, involving, um, all the many things that guys talk about. So, uh, yeah. Basically.”

  Ayers peered at her. An accusing silence fell between them.

  “Guy things?” Ayers repeated.

  Oh shit.

  “Can’t you just ask Tad?” Lauren gripped her steering wheel tighter. “I mean don’t you two, I dunno, live together or something?”

  “
Not as of this morning,” Ayers said faintly. “He was packing when I woke up. That’s why I decided to go directly to your apartment. It was less…chaotic.”

  “Oh hell! I’m so sorry. How long were you two togeth—Sorry, never mind, none of my damn business.”

  “You seem jumpy. How much of that over-caffeinated fizz have you consumed already?”

  “I’m fine. All good here.” She forced a smile.

  “King,” Ayers said quietly. “Back to Tad. It’s a simple question. Just tell me the truth.”

  Lauren sucked in a deep breath. In one hurried sentence she spat out, “Tad tried to hook up with Joshua at the SmartPay launch, but Josh said no because he doesn’t get between couples, but Tad’s still trying to get into Joshua’s pants, and he says he doesn’t want anyone knowing he’s gay because he wants to be an A-list actor.”

  Silence fell.

  “There, see,” Ayers murmured after a moment. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  What could Lauren say to that? I’m sorry you have no gaydar?

  “Would you have preferred I hadn’t told you?” she asked.

  “I suppose it’s insulting that you assumed I didn’t suspect,” Ayers said. “But I prefer the truth. In all things.”

  * * *

  Ayers had fallen asleep, leaving Lauren alone with her own thoughts for almost an hour. She turned right onto the Sierra Highway just as Ayers began to stir. It was a slow process, like watching a cat stretching in the sun and testing its extremities, one after the other.

  Her eyes finally fluttered open. She then sat up so abruptly Lauren glanced at her in alarm.

  “Where on earth are you going?” Ayers snapped.

  “We’re on the Sierra. We’ll be on Pearblossom Highway in less than a minute…”

  “I can see that. So I repeat my question. Where are you going?”

  “What? Nevada. What do you mean?”

  “Pull over—right now!”

  Lauren hit the brakes and pulled off to the right onto a dusty brown service road. In a cloud of dirt, the car skidded to a halt.

  She turned to stare at her companion. “Okay. We’re stopped.”

  “Why have you left Aerospace Highway?”

  “What?” Lauren asked. “Hang on, where in Nevada do you think we’re going?”

  “Carson City.”

  “What? No!”

  “Well where were you driving us?” Ayers demanded.

  “Las Vegas.”

  An awful silence fell between them as they looked from each other and back to the pile of dirt and traffic and nothingness all around.

  It suddenly occurred to Lauren that they had never actually had a discussion about their route or destination beyond mention of the Nevada governor’s HQ.

  “The governor’s offices are in Las Vegas,” Lauren began uncertainly. “The Grant Sawyer building. I looked it up. It’s four hours from LA.”

  She’d found a whole bunch of stories online about official state meetings held there, planning committees convening monthly, the whole bit.

  “No,” Ayers said with an irritated sigh. “An amateur error. The Grant Sawyer is where a few sub-committees meet, and where a number of government branch offices are. But the real work is done in Carson City. A seven-hour drive. How can you want to write politics and not know this?”

  Lauren’s stomach sank, and she flushed bright red. It’s true she’d been rushing and hadn’t had a chance to double check their destination and…oh hell. Ayers was right.

  “I assumed that—” she began feebly.

  “Assumptions will get you into trouble,” Ayers snapped. She regarded Lauren quizzically. “I don’t understand—Frank’s secretary assured me she’d given you the details of our motel for the week, which would have had a Carson City address.”

  “Um…” Lauren said and winced. “Yeah, she did, but I didn’t get a chance to…read them.”

  Florence was notorious in the office for providing poorly written, disorganized instructions that dribbled on for pages. So Lauren had kept putting it off. She figured she’d suck it up and trawl through the notes nearer to Las Vegas. Maybe at their lunch stop. If she was really honest, she’d assumed Ayers would play navigator and be the one to make sense of the woman’s hieroglyphics.

  “Maybe this was a mistake,” Ayers said quietly.

  Lauren glared at her. “Which part? Me or the trip?”

  “Yes.” Ayers said, dangerously low.

  “One little mistake, and you’re ready to bail?” Lauren accused, fear pricking at her. “What about your grand speech about seeing this ‘through to the end’?”

  She stared out the window, too afraid to look at Ayers.

  “This was not a ‘little’ mistake.”

  “Well, you’re not exactly blameless,” Lauren snapped. “I didn’t see you coming to run our itinerary past me at any point.”

  She finally turned her head to the right. Ayers regarded her silently. She did not seem angry for once. It was far worse.

  Disappointed.

  She knew the expression well given it was the way Ayers looked at pretty much everyone. But she had never directed it at Lauren. Annoyance, sneers, and eye rolls, sure, but not that.

  Lauren turned away again, embarrassed.

  “Look, just get us back to the Aerospace Highway,” Ayers said in a low voice.

  Lauren nodded and started the engine. She fixed her eyes forward, unwilling to risk seeing that disappointment again.

  The minutes ticked on with only the rhythmic whir of tires sounding in the background. Eventually Lauren sighed and sneaked a glance at her companion.

  “You know part of our problem is we have lousy communication,” she said. “Which is pretty stupid for a pair of journalists. You don’t tell me anything—you’re, like, all secret spy business. And I hate having to ask anyone for anything. Right?”

  Ayers gave a faint acknowledging head tilt.

  “See? You’re doing it again. I’m sure that dark mysterious act is awesome at getting contacts to reveal all their shit but we’re supposed to be a team. You know—trusting, sharing, all that jazz?”

  Ayers snorted. “Trusting and sharing won’t get you far in this game. Ever tried trusting a senator?”

  “Relevance? I’m not a senator. I’m on your side. Same paper. Remember?”

  Ayers drummed her fingers on the frame of the side window.

  “So what are you proposing?” she asked. “Braiding each other’s hair and swapping gossip about the boys we like?”

  “Only after hell has frozen over. And even then, I’ll pass.” Lauren shuddered. “I was thinking more along the lines of you tell me something about yourself that I don’t know, and vice versa.”

  At the guarded expression that immediately flashed across Ayers’s face, Lauren rolled her eyes.

  “Not your personal stuff. What about where you’re originally from and why you chose to work at the Daily Sentinel?”

  For a few moments, Ayers didn’t speak. Lauren became convinced she wasn’t going to, and her already crappy mood sank.

  “You first,” Ayers suddenly said. “Tell me, King, what lured you off the Midwestern prairies to the land of fake tans and plastic dreams?”

  “Okay.” Lauren grinned. “I grew up in Cedar Rapids. My dad and five older brothers work in our family’s mechanic business. Dad loves to fix up classics like this one.” She patted the dash fondly.

  “Mom was a teacher. She died when I was twelve. I got my passion for books and writing from her.

  “In high school I discovered I had a good fast ball. Softball helped me get a partial ride to college to earn my journalism degree.

  “The first paper I worked at after college was a tiny rag barely thick enough to block out the light. At the Liberty Gazette I was a copy kid, but then I worked my way up to writing crop yields. High school sports results. Stories of big-ass root vegetables. And just for variety, more crop yields.

  “The boss was the edit
or, publisher, and advertising department. He made his own home brew, wore yellow suspenders, quoted Johnny Carson and Jesus, and called all the women on staff honey—which was to say both of us.

  “I got my first page one with a groundbreaking story on the cow made out of butter at the Iowa State Fair. Dad had that framed, much to my eternal shame. Oh, and I got another page one for my interview with the newly crowned Pork Princess. That’s actually a real title,” Lauren added when she heard a soft snort beside her.

  “Goddamned Iowa,” Ayers drawled.

  Lauren smiled. “Seriously, there were a couple of girls who would probably hogtie their own grandmas for the title.”

  “Stop talking,” Ayers suddenly commanded. She reached into her carryall and pulled out a thermos. She poured herself a coffee and after a few deep mouthfuls gave a grateful sigh. She waved the back of her hand in Lauren’s vague direction. “Continue.”

  “Right, so, the most exciting thing that happened in my second year was the local political race,” Lauren continued. She rubbed her thumbs into the leather stitching on her steering wheel as she remembered.

  “It was between three powerful local businessmen, two of whom were cousins, all trying to outdo each other over the size of their gun collections and love of ‘this here damn fine country.’

  “I’d dug up so many irregularities in their campaigns, I could prove they should all be disqualified. My boss decided retreat was the better part of valor, and it’d be safer for his community standing if I stuck to butter cows. He spiked the story. I walked.”

  “My next paper was the Des Moine Standard.”

  “Well,” Ayers said after another slug of coffee, “a masthead I’ve actually heard of. You were moving up in the world.”

  “Yeah,” Lauren mused. “The Standard’s pretty famous for its political section.”

  “Which is what you wanted.”

  “Yes. I did all kinds of stories. Finally I asked to be given a shot at politics. They said to be patient. So I was. I patiently watched all the boys get their chance, including the cub reporter ten years my junior who got a political story on his first week on the job.

  “So I went back to my bosses. They told me they ‘highly valued my skills and hard work’ and maybe if I remained patient, they could see me slotting into Matt McKay’s job when he retired.”