what Mom meant when she warned me
about his temper and said that I should rethink my decision to tell him that I
wouldn’t live on the East Side when I moved to New York. He’d kill me if he
ever found out how right he was about that. God, I was stupid!
What
had happened to make Heather write that? Lacey wondered. It can’t be too
important. Whatever it was, it took place four years before she died and that’s
the only reference to it.
It
was clear from the last few entries that Heather was deeply troubled about
something. She wrote several times about being caught “between a rock and a
hard place. I don’t know what to do.” Unlike the others, those last entries
were on unlined paper.
There
was nothing specific in those entries, but obviously they had triggered
Isabelle Waring’s suspicions.
But
it could have had to do with a job decision, or a boyfriend, or anything, Lacey
thought hopelessly, as she put the pages back in the drawer. God knows I’m
between a rock and a hard place right now.
That’s
because someone wants to kill you, a voice inside her head whispered.
Lacey
slammed the drawer shut. Stop it! she told herself
fiercely.
A
cup of tea might help, she decided. She made it, then sipped it slowly, hoping to dispel the heavy sense of fear-filled isolation
that was again threatening to overwhelm her.
Feeling
restless, she turned on the radio. Usually she flipped the dial to a music
station, but it was set on the AM band, and a voice was saying, “Hi, I’m Tom
Lynch, your host for the next four hours on WCIV.”
Tom
Lynch!
Lacey
was shocked out of her homesickness. She had made a list of all the names
mentioned in Heather Landi’s journal, and one of them was Tom Lynch, an
out-of-town broadcaster on whom it seemed Heather had once had a mild crush.
Was
it the same person? And, if so, was it possible Lacey could learn something
about Heather from him?
It
was worth pursuing, she decided.
16
TOM
LYNCH WAS A HEARTY MIDWESTERNER. RAISED IN North Dakota, he was one of the
breed of stalwarts who thought twenty degrees was a bracing temperature, and
believed that only sissies complained about the cold.
“But
today they’ve got a point,” he said with a smile to Marge Peterson, the
receptionist at Minneapolis radio station WCIV.
Marge
looked at him with maternal affection. He certainly brightened her day, and
since he had taken over the station’s afternoon talk show, he apparently had
been having the same effect on many other people in the Minneapolis–St. Paul
area. She could tell from the steadily increasing volume of fan mail that
crossed her desk that the popular thirty-year-old anchorman was headed for
big-time broadcasting. His mixture of news, interviews, commentary, and
irreverent humor attracted a wide age range of listeners. And wait until they
get a look at him, she thought as she looked up at his bright hazel eyes, his
slightly rumpled medium brown hair, his warm smile, and his attractively uneven
features. He’s a natural for television.
Marge
was happy at his success—and therefore the station’s— but
realized that it was a double-edged sword. She knew that several other stations
had tried to hire him away, but he had announced his strategy was to build WCIV
into the number-one station in the listening area before considering moving on.
And now it’s happening, she thought with a sigh, and soon we’ll be losing him.
“Marge, anything wrong?” Tom asked, his expression solicitous. “You look worried.”
She
laughed and shook her head.
about his temper and said that I should rethink my decision to tell him that I
wouldn’t live on the East Side when I moved to New York. He’d kill me if he
ever found out how right he was about that. God, I was stupid!
What
had happened to make Heather write that? Lacey wondered. It can’t be too
important. Whatever it was, it took place four years before she died and that’s
the only reference to it.
It
was clear from the last few entries that Heather was deeply troubled about
something. She wrote several times about being caught “between a rock and a
hard place. I don’t know what to do.” Unlike the others, those last entries
were on unlined paper.
There
was nothing specific in those entries, but obviously they had triggered
Isabelle Waring’s suspicions.
But
it could have had to do with a job decision, or a boyfriend, or anything, Lacey
thought hopelessly, as she put the pages back in the drawer. God knows I’m
between a rock and a hard place right now.
That’s
because someone wants to kill you, a voice inside her head whispered.
Lacey
slammed the drawer shut. Stop it! she told herself
fiercely.
A
cup of tea might help, she decided. She made it, then sipped it slowly, hoping to dispel the heavy sense of fear-filled isolation
that was again threatening to overwhelm her.
Feeling
restless, she turned on the radio. Usually she flipped the dial to a music
station, but it was set on the AM band, and a voice was saying, “Hi, I’m Tom
Lynch, your host for the next four hours on WCIV.”
Tom
Lynch!
Lacey
was shocked out of her homesickness. She had made a list of all the names
mentioned in Heather Landi’s journal, and one of them was Tom Lynch, an
out-of-town broadcaster on whom it seemed Heather had once had a mild crush.
Was
it the same person? And, if so, was it possible Lacey could learn something
about Heather from him?
It
was worth pursuing, she decided.
16
TOM
LYNCH WAS A HEARTY MIDWESTERNER. RAISED IN North Dakota, he was one of the
breed of stalwarts who thought twenty degrees was a bracing temperature, and
believed that only sissies complained about the cold.
“But
today they’ve got a point,” he said with a smile to Marge Peterson, the
receptionist at Minneapolis radio station WCIV.
Marge
looked at him with maternal affection. He certainly brightened her day, and
since he had taken over the station’s afternoon talk show, he apparently had
been having the same effect on many other people in the Minneapolis–St. Paul
area. She could tell from the steadily increasing volume of fan mail that
crossed her desk that the popular thirty-year-old anchorman was headed for
big-time broadcasting. His mixture of news, interviews, commentary, and
irreverent humor attracted a wide age range of listeners. And wait until they
get a look at him, she thought as she looked up at his bright hazel eyes, his
slightly rumpled medium brown hair, his warm smile, and his attractively uneven
features. He’s a natural for television.
Marge
was happy at his success—and therefore the station’s— but
realized that it was a double-edged sword. She knew that several other stations
had tried to hire him away, but he had announced his strategy was to build WCIV
into the number-one station in the listening area before considering moving on.
And now it’s happening, she thought with a sigh, and soon we’ll be losing him.
“Marge, anything wrong?” Tom asked, his expression solicitous. “You look worried.”
She
laughed and shook her head.
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