Tully covered Kate’s hand with her own. “Let me handle the media for you. Just me. That way you don’t even have to think about it.”

Kate smiled for the first time in probably twenty-four hours. “What would I do without you, Tully?”

“Are you kidding me? Three days I wait for your call and when you do bother to call, it’s to say you need more time?”

Tully leaned closer to the pay phone, trying to squeeze a small bit of privacy out of a very public place. “The family isn’t ready to go public yet, Maury. The doctors are respecting their wishes. Surely you can understand that.”

“Understand it? Who gives a shit if I understand it? This is world news, Tully, not some damn sorority gossip circle. CNN has reported that he has a head injury—”

“That’s officially unconfirmed.”

“Damn it, Tully. You’re putting me in a hell of a spot. The higher-ups are pissed off. There was talk this morning of pulling you off the story. Dick wants to send—”

“I’ll get you something.”

“Get me the story today and I’ll move you into the news nook next week.”

Tully thought for a moment she’d imagined the promise. “You mean it?”

“You have twenty-four hours, Tully. At the end of that time you can be a hero or a zero. It’s up to you.”

Tully heard him slam the phone down. Through the glass windows of the empty lobby, she could see the reporters clustered along the sidewalk. For three days they’d been waiting for official word on Johnny’s condition. In the meantime, they’d reported the known facts—the events that led up to the bombing, the field reports of his injuries, and his backstory in Central America. Additionally, they’d used this to springboard on to other tangentially related general stories, things like the danger to journalists covering wars, the specific challenges of Desert Storm, and the myriad types of injuries that commonly accompany bombings.

She stood there, wondering how in the hell she was going to do this. Everything needed to be done exactly right so that both Maury and Kate got what they wanted. It was up to Tully to make it all happen, and if she did this one thing well, it might change her future. She’d die before she’d let Edna down, and like Edna had said, Tully could do her job and still protect Kate. She’d have to break the story, but how she did it was what mattered.

Carefully. Tactfully. No mention of brain damage or potential blindness. That way everyone got what they wanted.

The news nook.

All her life she’d dreamed of that job, imagined it as the start of everything. She couldn’t let go of the opportunity to have it. Surely Kate would understand the importance of that.

Of course.