She bit her lower lip to keep herself under control. This was the chance of a lifetime. She had enormous school expenses, a big rent payment due, a live-in little brother who was eating her out of house and home, and a car that drank a quart of motor oil a week. She was determined to make it on her own. Besides her dog lady job, she worked as a school crossing guard, a cab driver, a waitress on the dinner shift at Roger’s Steak House, and delivered newspapers. She’d written Bones for Bowser to give herself additional income, but she wasn’t due a royalty check for three more months. If she took the traffic job, she could drop waitressing. Maybe she could even give up the newspaper route. She was doing the dissertation for her doctorate, and she could work on it at night.

She swiveled in her seat and looked across the room at Steve Crow. She’d always been a little frightened of him. With his jet-black hair, dark, piercing eyes, and slightly aquiline nose, he was an intimidating figure. His complexion was dark, his shoulders broad, his hips narrow. The scuttle-but at the station said his father was pure-blood Native American; his mother was Hispanic.

Nervously, Daisy waved at him with just the tips of her fingers. He scowled back and immediately averted his eyes to some pressing piece of business on his desk. She sighed. Stubborn, she thought. She’d nagged him for a month before he gave her the five-minute Bowser spot. She wondered what she’d have to do to get the traffic job.

Nothing ventured nothing gained, she told herself, pushing the hair out of her eyes. She might as well give it a try. “Excuse me,” she said, knocking on Crow’s open door. “I’d like to talk to you about the job of traffic reporter. I’d like to apply for it…just until Frank’s leg is better. I wouldn’t want to steal his job. Even if I was wonderful, which I’m sure I’ll be, I still wouldn’t expect you to keep me on. Actually, the timing is perfect because I’ll get a royalty check in three months and then hopefully I won’t need so many jobs.”

Steve looked beyond her, to his secretary eavesdropping through the glass window. He watched Charlene mouth the word “perfect” to him, watched her eyes fill with suppressed laughter. He lifted an eyebrow, and she scuttled away.