In Plain Sight by Fern Michaels Page A

was as good as her word. A spiffy young man in a Savile Row suit, with messy hair that was all the fashion and manicured nails, appeared from a hidden doorway and motioned them to follow him. He had a fussy walk and kept waving his hands as he led the way down a well-lit corridor with framed pictures of various front pages of past editions of In the Know. When he reached the last door at the end of the hallway, he knocked softly. Then he opened the door and stepped aside. The door swished shut on well-oiled hinges.
    It was a white-and-black office with white furniture, black carpeting with not a speck of lint, glass-topped tables, and overhead lighting. A black vase held two dozen beautiful white roses and was centered in the middle of the glass-topped coffee table. The desk at the end of the room was a slab of glass on stainless-steel columns. Not a comfortable room at all, but then, as Nikki said later, maybe that was the point.
    Joel Goodwin got up and walked around the glass desk. He introduced himself, as did his visitors. He motioned for them to take a seat in two low-slung, furry-looking, black chairs that faced his desk. He sat back down and leaned forward. “Miss Warren said you’re here to claim the prize. If you’re referring to the prize for information on the model whose picture we ran in the current edition, I’m sorry to tell you that was a big mistake on our part. We’re retracting it all in next week’s edition. As much as I hate to admit it, we were scammed. I am, however, authorized to give you a free year’s subscription to the paper if you fill out this form,” he said, sliding two single sheets of paper across his shiny see-through desk.
    “Well, that’s not fair. What do you mean you were scammed? A paper like yours! I was counting on taking a vacation with that money,” Kathryn snarled. Nikki worked her face into an expression of disgust.
    “We even brought our proof, and we came all the way from Delaware, and we didn’t come this far for a free subscription to your paper. We acted in good faith, so you need to pay us,” Nikki said.
    “It wasn’t a valid story, ladies. Like I said, we were scammed, and we’re going to be making a sincere apology in the next edition.”
    “Who said you were scammed? How did you find that out? How do we know you aren’t lying to us because you just don’t want to pay us? Don’t go thinking we’re stupid, Mr. Goodwin. We can go to the Attorney General and a real paper like the Post and tell them all about this. This is fraud! We want our money,” Kathryn snarled again.
    Goodwin worked his fingers under his collar, and the girls could see he was starting to sweat despite the fact that the room was ice-cold.
    “Look, ladies, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. We pulled the story. Because there is no story. I can’t help you. How about a two-year subscription?”
    Nikki laughed. “Nope! How did you find out you were scammed? You must have thought you had a story last week when you put that model’s name on the front page. Tell us what changed, and maybe we’ll let you off the hook. I said maybe,” Nikki said, menace ringing in her voice.
    Goodwin sighed. These two were trouble, he could smell it. Common sense told him to up the free subscription to five years and get them out of the office as quickly as possible, but one look at the tall, mouthy one, and he knew that wasn’t going to work.
    “Look, two days ago, right after the picture ran, two men from the government showed up here and told me to pull it. That’s the beginning and the end of it. That’s all I can tell you. How about a five-year subscription?”
    Kathryn laughed in his face. She looked at Nikki, who nodded. At the same moment, both women reached into their handbags and pulled out their gold shields. They leaned halfway across the desk to make sure Goodwin could read the fine print on the infamous shields. “Talk!”
    Goodwin turned pasty white. He licked at his lips and