To Catch the Moon by Diana Dempsey

tripod. “It’s too goddamn cold out here.”
    All three made for the white Ford Explorer,
whose rear compartment was packed full of the bulky aluminum
stowage containers loaded with broadcast gear that they hauled from
site to site. They were using two vehicles: the rental Explorer
plus an ENG—or electronic news gathering—truck on loan from the
local WBS affiliate, which gave them live-broadcast capability.
Milo claimed the Explorer’s front passenger seat—shotgun being the
standard correspondent position—while Mac got in behind the wheel
and Tran crammed his smaller body onto the collapsible seat. Milo
cranked the all-news radio station.
    They’d settled in to wait the twenty-odd
minutes until the final live shot, when the cell phone in Milo’s
inside jacket pocket vibrated. He pulled it out. “Pappas.”
    “Milo?” A breathy female voice, whispery,
clearly half asleep.
    He sat up straighter, his heart beginning to
thump.
    “Milo?” the woman repeated.
    Instinctively he turned away from Mac toward
the passenger window. “Yes?” He didn’t want to say—or to
assume—Joan?
    “I saw you on TV. You’re here.”
    It had to be Joan. And she’d seen him. But
she didn’t sound angry so much as out of it. How had she gotten his
cell number? Apparently she was as resourceful as ever. “How are
you doing?” he asked carefully.
    “I’m fine.” He heard a rustle—sheets?—and
then she let out a long, soft breath. Milo remembered that breath.
“You’re very good, you know,” she said. “Even better than you used
to be. You’re just”—another sigh—“amazing.”
    “No ...” Automatically he began to demur.
    “Oh, yes. Amazing.”
    She said nothing more. Had she fallen asleep?
He was unnerved. He gazed out the Explorer window at the gloaming
sky. It seemed darker now than it had five minutes before.
    “Why don’t you come over?” she asked
suddenly.
    “What?” He was shocked. “Come over?”
    “I’m at the Lodge. You know where that
is?”
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I mean
...” He stopped. Your husband’s been dead twenty-four hours and
you want an old boyfriend to visit you in your hotel room?
    “Are you thinking about Daniel? Oh”—and she
sounded dismissive, at the same instant she read his mind—“don’t
worry about Daniel. It doesn’t matter about him anymore,
anyway.”
    Soft click. She’d hung up.
    *
    Alicia lingered in the corridor outside
Penrose’s office while he made his phone calls. He even shut the
door when he phoned the governor, as if her overhearing him would
somehow be disruptive. Afterward he pulled the door open and
ushered her back in. She felt like a kid being summoned into the
principal’s office.
    He reclaimed the throne behind his desk.
“Let’s get a few things straight here and now,” he said the instant
she crossed his threshold.
    That immediately got her back up. “Like
what?”
    “Don’t think I haven’t seen how you’re trying
to inject yourself into this case.” His eyes were cold. “It’s
unseemly, this naked ambition of yours.”
    “You’re going to sing that old tune?” She sat
back down in the chair out of which she’d been hoisted twenty
minutes before. “If Rocco Messina behaved the way I did, you’d be
trying to think of a way to promote him. I’ve got news for you,
Kip. The old-boys’ club is officially illegal.”
    He looked affronted. “This has nothing to do
with gender favoritism.”
    Right. “You also seem to forget I was the one who picked up Bucky’s initial call.”
    “That’s irrelevant.”
    “Is it also irrelevant that it was me who
called Niebaum and Shikegawa to the scene?” She heard her voice get
louder but couldn’t seem to rein it in. “And me who got the
Sheriff’s department deployed to handle the press?” All while
you were AWOL, which didn’t surprise anybody around here.
    “I don’t like that tone of voice,” he said.
Then he slapped his desk and abruptly rose to