Chapter Two
Miami, Florida
Four hours later, I’m standing at the front entrance of the Setai dressed for the camera in a navy pantsuit and layer after layer of the makeup I thankfully packed: primer, concealer, foundation, powder, blush, mascara.
Over and over. An art NCN had their makeup artist teach me years ago.
It’s a wonder I have any eyelashes left after the amount of Vaseline it takes to undo this mess at the end of the day.
I check my reflection in my compact and touch up the thick layers.
I add another layer of mascara and swipe red over my lips.
I look good even though I know viewers will still weigh in after I go live.
They’ll comment on my hair, my weight, or the sound of my voice.
Comments I’ve noticed my male colleagues at National Crime Network never get.
Just once I want someone to comment on Pete Major’s fucking roots.
I check my phone. Carl should be here any minute.
Dom got him on a flight out of DFW as soon as I called and told him my lead could possibly now be a homicide.
The body on Hobie Beach could be anyone, but Laura has gone dark and the butterflies in my stomach feel as if they are on fire, and I don’t believe in coincidence.
I’d told Dom I needed to discuss something with him, but he’d told me to call back once Carl was here. He was juggling too many stories to talk. I could have blurted it out. I could have said this involves a school I attended. And somehow involves a girl I went to school with.
An image of three girls running through the dark woods, singing Tom Petty’s “American Girl” and holding stolen bottles of vodka fills my head.
Rita. Katrina. Summer. And a fourth girl with wild red hair who never quite fit in with our clique, tripping over the tangled brush as she tried to keep up with us. Heather.
If I get on camera and don’t disclose my connection, my career will pay a price. The number one building block in a successful career as a journalist is integrity. I’ve got to make sure I don’t blow that block up.
I searched online for police-scanner activity in Miami-Dade County and found an unofficial website.
Two posts on it got my attention: Missing Person Alert 02/11/19 20:25.
key biscayne. 35 year old female reported missing.
(FLA169). Trauma Alert 02/12/19 06:30. Hobie Beach.
Station 12 on scene. Possible female victim.
I need to know if Laura Sanders is the possible female victim.
A white van pulls up with Carl behind the wheel. I jump in before the valet can get the door for me.
“What the hell, Rita?”
I pull up my GPS app and type in Hobie Beach. “Get us here,” I say. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”
Hobie Beach is a strip of white sand that sits between the Rickenbacker Causeway and the Atlantic Ocean. The water offshore could be called fifty shades of green. Windsurfers glide across its surface as Carl parks the van in a sandy lot and we hop out.
It’s beautiful and warm and completely tainted by a swath of blue uniforms. My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I whip it out.
It’s not Laura. It’s Debby. Usually her messages come in one long run-on sentence and rarely make sense: What’s that kit thing you can order check up for your dad today bad weather coming darcy longfellow broke her hip snakes are on the move a little worried.
The one today, though, is unusually short: Call me.
I slip my phone back in my pocket and remind myself to find out why as soon as I have a free minute.
Carl pulls his camera and tripod from the equipment bags when I meet him behind the van. The inside walls are covered with audio and video equipment.
Carl sees me eyeing it.
“Dom wants to go live,” he says. “He made a call to get this equipment for us on short notice.”
I nod. The van has everything we will need for a live segment: a portable broadcast antenna, a Wi-Fi hot spot, extra monitors, and random IFBs. Not my personalized earpieces, but they’d do in a pinch. I pick one up and frown. God knows whose ear this has been in.
Carl follows me across the sandy lot toward the water. I stop as the lot turns to the beach.
The scene in front of us is chaotic. There is a tent set up, and deputies are trying to keep the surfers and lookie-loos away, but they are doing a piss-poor job.
Tells me what I need to know about my chances of getting closer.
From this vantage point, I can see tangled fishing nets and a swath of blond hair.
My pulse thumps in my neck. It’s her. I know it’s her.
My cell vibrates in my pocket again, but I ignore it as I glance down at the sand, then at my heels. No way my red bottoms are making it through that. I reach down, pull them off, and set them on asphalt. “Ready?”
Carl lifts his camera and motions for me to lead.
As we approach, I notice the body being carefully untangled from the fishing net. Definitely female. I’d guess early to mid-thirties. I swallow. Like me. Her water-logged jeans and top look designer. No decomposition yet. She hasn’t been here long.
Block it out, I tell myself. Put your emotions on mute.
It’s the only way to look into the vacant eyes of victims, to look into the shocked eyes of their next of kin.
Bury it. Of course, burying my emotions was something I learned to do years before I started this job, at ten years old when I looked up at my father in the parking lot of a funeral home and he told me to be strong for others.
Tears are for the weak. And then we buried my mother.
I hang back and assess how many officers are here. What’s the rank of the ones flanking the scene? Today I count ten. Several state deputies, a few that look like sheriff’s department types, and two who are plainclothes. Those are who I need to aim for.
“Showtime,” I say to Carl.
A door slams behind us, and I follow the sound to the coroner’s van. I need to get going. They’re starting to move the body.
Remnants of sea debris have washed up next to the tent pitched over the body.
The police are huddled together nearby it, sweating through their shirtsleeves.
But even with the crowd and the fishing net, I can still see the woman is lying face down, and something on her shoulder gets my attention.
A tattoo. I can’t tell what it is, but I make a note of it.
It will help confirm her identity faster.
I lead Carl to the huddle of law enforcement officers, beelining for one of the plainclothes detectives. She glances up as I approach and shakes her head. “No comment.”
I ignore her and point to Carl. The camera is up and on before I turn back to the detective. “I’m Rita Meade,” I say.
“Well aware,” she says. “And I’m not in the mood to be Rita’d.”
That’s a new one. I like it. “And you are?”
“Lead detective Janice Mulholland.”
“Detective Mulholland—”
“What are you doing here?” she says. “Weren’t you just in Fort Worth talking live about all that shit that happened to you down in that bayou town? How’d you find out about this one so fast?”
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.
And yet I feel like I’m crossing an even bigger line as Carl squares the camera in front of me.
“Ready?” he says.
I put in the unfamiliar earpiece. “Ready.”
I hear the studio in my ear. My pulse quickens. Say it. Disclose it. I stare into the camera lens, and Carl points to me.