Read Online Presumed Guilty & Keeper of the Bride by Tess Gerritsen - Free Book Online Page B

office. “I doubt he ever got beyond the research stage. You know how he was, Miranda. The master of overstatement.”

    Miranda stared after her in bewilderment. The master of overstatement. It hurt to admit it, but yes, there was a lot of truth in that label.

    People were staring at her again.

    She headed down the stairwell and pushed into the women’s lounge. There she found Annie Berenger, lacing up running shoes. Annie was dressed in her usual rumpled-reporter attire—baggy drawstring pants, wrinkled cotton shirt. The inside of her locker looked just as disorderly, a mound of wadded-up clothes, towels and books.

    Annie glanced up and tossed her head of gray-streaked hair in greeting. “You’re back.”

    “Just to clean out my things.” Miranda found the cardboard box with her belongings stuffed under one of the benches. She dragged it out and carried it to her locker.

    “I saw you at the funeral,” said Annie. “That took guts, Mo.”

    “I’m not sure guts is the word for it.”

    Annie shoved her locker door shut and breathed a sigh of relief. “Comfortable at last. I just had to change out of that funeral getup. Can’t think in those stupid high heels. Cuts the blood supply to my brain.” She finished lacing up her running shoe. “So what’s going to happen next? With you, I mean.”

    “I don’t know. I refuse to think beyond a day or two.” Miranda opened her locker and began to throw things into the box.

    “Rumor has it you have friends in high places.”

    “What?”

    “Someone bailed you out, right?”

    “I don’t know who it was.”

    “You must have an idea. Or is this your lawyer’s advice, to plead ignorance?”

    Miranda gripped the locker door. “Don’t, Annie. Please.”

    Annie cocked her head, revealing all the lines and freckles of too many summers in the sun. “I’m being a jerk, aren’t I? Sorry. It’s just that Jill assigned me to the trial. I don’t like having to drag an old colleague across the front page.” She watched as Miranda emptied the locker and shut the door. “So. Can I get a statement from you?”

    “I didn’t do it.”

    “I’ve already heard that one.”

    “Want to earn a Pulitzer?” Miranda turned, squarely faced her. “Help me find out who killed him.”

    “You’ll have to give me a lead, first.”

    “I don’t have one.”

    Annie sighed. “That’s the problem. Whether or not you did it, you’re still the obvious suspect.”

    Miranda picked up the box and headed up the stairs. Annie trailed behind her.

    “I thought real reporters went after the truth,” said Miranda.

    “This reporter,” said Annie, “is basically lazy and angling for early retirement.”

    “At your age?”

    “I turn forty-seven next month. I figure that’s a good age to retire. If I can just get Irving to pop the question, it’ll be a life of bonbons and TV soaps.”

    “You’d hate it.”

    “Oh, yeah.” Annie laughed. “I’d be just miserable.”

    They walked into the newsroom. At once Miranda felt all those gazes turn her way. Annie, oblivious to their audience, went to her desk, threw her locker keys in her drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You happen to have a light?” she asked Miranda.

    “You always ask me, and I never have one.”

    Annie turned and yelled, “Miles!”

    The summer intern sighed resignedly and tossed her a cigarette lighter. “Just give it back,” he said.

    “You’re too young to smoke, anyway,” snapped Annie.

    “So were you once, Berenger.”

    Annie grinned at Miranda. “I love these boy wonders. They’re so damn petulant.”

    Miranda couldn’t help smiling. She sat on the desktop and looked at her ex-colleague. As always, Annie wore a wreath of cigarette smoke. It was part addiction, part prop, that cigarette. Annie had earned her reporter’s stripes in a Boston newsroom where the floor was said to be an inch deep in cigarette butts.

    “You do believe me, don’t you?”