Death of A High Maintenance Blonde (Jubilant Falls Series Book 5) by Debra Gaskill Page A

around, not now; especially since there would be a good chance someone else might be dogging the staff about Earlene’s murder charge.
    How long would it be before those reporters would start looking at me and asking questions about who I was? Could I keep my true identity hidden? Even more important, could I hold up under the stress?
    I made him a promise that needed to be broken.
    Dennis walked over to the television that sat on a wall shelf next to the police scanner and switched it on to catch the local morning news. The picture came into focus: it was a TV reporter standing in front of the Journal-Gazette , near the front door’s brass name plate.
    “The publisher of an area newspaper is behind bars this morning, slated to be arraigned shortly on murder charges…” A sandy-haired, pie-faced young man looked straight into the camera, glancing down occasionally at his notes. Remote trucks from other stations could be seen in the background of his shot.
    “Here we go,” Dennis said. “Let the onslaught begin.” He shook his head and returned to the copy desk as the pie-faced boy continued to talk and we headed for the center of a media maelstrom.
    OK, this whole thing with Huffinger is definitely off, if reporters are already lining up outside the door, I thought to myself. I dialed Leland’s cell phone number.
    “Good morning,” he said, gently. “Get any sleep after I left?”
    I ignored the too-familiar tone. “Listen, what we talked about last night, it’s off.”
    “Off? Why?” The soft words were gone.
    I turned to face the wall so no one could hear me. “Because the publisher here got picked up on murder charges and there’s reporters crawling all over this place, looking for whatever they can find,” I whispered. “They’ll figure out who I am.”
    “Murder charges? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve been through a lot of bizarre things in my career but no publisher I’ve ever worked with—”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can’t talk about it right now—I’m on deadline.”
    “But you said last night—”
    “Forget what I said last night. I was tired and stressed from the fire. I shouldn’t have promised you anything.” I disconnected the call as I caught a glimpse of Dennis walking toward me with a stack of papers. Quickly, I dialed the fire department to derail whatever conversation he might start.
    “Hi, Chief, it’s me Charisma Lemarnier. I’m looking for a damage total on the fire at the Jubilant Country Inn,” I said. Dennis didn’t need to know I was talking to a busy signal as I took the stack of news briefs from him. “Uh huh. Sure. I’ll call you back.”
    My other line began to ring as he walked away. It was Leland.
    “You can’t do this to me! I came all the way from Philadelphia to talk to you!” he said.
    “That’s your problem.” I hung up.
    Dennis and Marcus stared at me.
    “What was that about?” Marcus asked.
    I shrugged. “Man problems.”
    “We didn’t know you were dating anybody!” Dennis leered. He was single, but apparently had been dating Jane, the secretary down in advertising, for some time. While everyone else in the newsroom seemed to be content living out of each other’s pockets, easily sharing the daily details of their lives, I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—do that.
    I heard all about Marcus’s wife and their three adult kids, Andrew, an air force pilot, Lillian, a new mother living with her stockbroker husband in New York City, and PJ, a senior journalism major at Ohio University. I knew all about Addison’s farmer husband and their daughter Isabella, Dennis’s dates with Jane and Graham’s baby daughter. I knew Pat’s wife Dorothy was close to retiring from teaching and after he retired from the paper, they planned to buy an RV and see all the national parks. When I was here at night, I listened to sports writer Chris Royal sweet talk his girlfriend Amy on his cell phone as he waited on wire copy.
    They knew I was widowed. They