to be turning in copy or the editor would get suspicious. As a features man, by the time anybody realizes I’m not doing any work, my real job could be done.”
“Do you think it could be over that soon?”
That was another question he wouldn’t answer.
That had been Tuesday. She’d gone right from lunch to the airport and got home early that evening. She spent Wednesday kicking herself. What she had done was more or less to hire the FBI (or somebody the FBI could call on, which amounted to the same thing) the way she would a private detective agency. It hit her like a faceful of ice water. Concern for her mother, respect for Rines’s reputation, and (she had to face it) a certain amount of My-Family-Has-a-Fortune arrogance had led her into the folly of approaching them with something this tenuous in the first place. She had nothing but the bizarre phone call and her mother’s reaction, something no outsider could be blamed for chalking up to vapors or menopause.
But if Regina had been a fool to ask, why had they gone along? If the FBI was seriously into this kind of thing, she had strolled into a great story, then immediately promised to wipe the whole thing off the record, no matter where it went. She tried to think of some way around it, some alternate path to the same facts, somebody she could quote, so that she could keep her word and still print the story.
It would be completely ethical, she felt obligated to remind herself. Nothing Deep Throat had told Bob Woodward about Watergate had been on the record, for instance. Maybe the thing to do was to become a Deep Throat herself, for some other reporter, just tell him something was going on that ought to be looked into ...
No. It wasn’t going to work. She’d let her instincts as a daughter override the ones she was supposed to have developed as a journalist. Her mother might be peeved if she found out Regina had gone behind her back about this Cronus business, but she would hit the ceiling if she found out her daughter had given a government man clear sailing to meddle in family business without even the possibility of exposure to keep him honest.
The worst thing about it was that she didn’t think she could have done anything else under the circumstances. Her mother had never been afraid of anything before—at least that she’d let her children see—but this had her terrified.
She had even (and this was what had Regina terrified) begun to neglect the business. She had missed a Worldwatch editorial meeting. Fred Smith, the managing editor, had called Regina in a panic, demanding to know where Petra was. Of course, Fred had been more or less a trial since his son had died, but Regina could understand that. It was the power of one word to change her mother’s lifelong habits that got to her.
It had been that phone call that had decided her to get help somewhere. Regina knew herself to be particularly susceptible to emotional states of the people around her, and she was around no one more than her mother. If Petra’s behavior was going to drive everybody at the Hudson Group nuts, Regina would be doomed. It would happen all the sooner if her mother kept disappearing.
It turned out that there had been no cause for alarm the day of the missed meeting. Petra Hudson had decided to drop in on Tina Bloyd. The visit, Wes Charles told Regina later, hadn’t done Petra much good and had agitated the hell out of the bereaved mother. Besides which, Mother had lied. She’d said she had become so involved in the visit, she completely forgot about the editorial meeting. According to Charles, she had specifically refused to call and say she wasn’t going to make it and had forbidden him to do so.
That had really torn it. Regina made an excuse to leave town, and by Saturday she was in Washington. Tuesday was the lunch in New York, and Wednesday was for self-recrimination.
And now it was Thursday, and here was Allan Trotter, for now, at least, the FBI’s gift to
“Do you think it could be over that soon?”
That was another question he wouldn’t answer.
That had been Tuesday. She’d gone right from lunch to the airport and got home early that evening. She spent Wednesday kicking herself. What she had done was more or less to hire the FBI (or somebody the FBI could call on, which amounted to the same thing) the way she would a private detective agency. It hit her like a faceful of ice water. Concern for her mother, respect for Rines’s reputation, and (she had to face it) a certain amount of My-Family-Has-a-Fortune arrogance had led her into the folly of approaching them with something this tenuous in the first place. She had nothing but the bizarre phone call and her mother’s reaction, something no outsider could be blamed for chalking up to vapors or menopause.
But if Regina had been a fool to ask, why had they gone along? If the FBI was seriously into this kind of thing, she had strolled into a great story, then immediately promised to wipe the whole thing off the record, no matter where it went. She tried to think of some way around it, some alternate path to the same facts, somebody she could quote, so that she could keep her word and still print the story.
It would be completely ethical, she felt obligated to remind herself. Nothing Deep Throat had told Bob Woodward about Watergate had been on the record, for instance. Maybe the thing to do was to become a Deep Throat herself, for some other reporter, just tell him something was going on that ought to be looked into ...
No. It wasn’t going to work. She’d let her instincts as a daughter override the ones she was supposed to have developed as a journalist. Her mother might be peeved if she found out Regina had gone behind her back about this Cronus business, but she would hit the ceiling if she found out her daughter had given a government man clear sailing to meddle in family business without even the possibility of exposure to keep him honest.
The worst thing about it was that she didn’t think she could have done anything else under the circumstances. Her mother had never been afraid of anything before—at least that she’d let her children see—but this had her terrified.
She had even (and this was what had Regina terrified) begun to neglect the business. She had missed a Worldwatch editorial meeting. Fred Smith, the managing editor, had called Regina in a panic, demanding to know where Petra was. Of course, Fred had been more or less a trial since his son had died, but Regina could understand that. It was the power of one word to change her mother’s lifelong habits that got to her.
It had been that phone call that had decided her to get help somewhere. Regina knew herself to be particularly susceptible to emotional states of the people around her, and she was around no one more than her mother. If Petra’s behavior was going to drive everybody at the Hudson Group nuts, Regina would be doomed. It would happen all the sooner if her mother kept disappearing.
It turned out that there had been no cause for alarm the day of the missed meeting. Petra Hudson had decided to drop in on Tina Bloyd. The visit, Wes Charles told Regina later, hadn’t done Petra much good and had agitated the hell out of the bereaved mother. Besides which, Mother had lied. She’d said she had become so involved in the visit, she completely forgot about the editorial meeting. According to Charles, she had specifically refused to call and say she wasn’t going to make it and had forbidden him to do so.
That had really torn it. Regina made an excuse to leave town, and by Saturday she was in Washington. Tuesday was the lunch in New York, and Wednesday was for self-recrimination.
And now it was Thursday, and here was Allan Trotter, for now, at least, the FBI’s gift to
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