Perfectly awful, he thought. Putting Daisy Adams in the WZZZ traffic car was like committing broadcasting suicide. The woman was cute, but her specialty was baking dog biscuits, for crying out loud. True, she received more fan mail than everyone else combined, but that was one of those freak things. She was entertaining. Kind of earnest and goofy all at the same time. Unfortunately, he had no other option. He’d gone through six traffic reporters in the past year trying to find a backup. At least she wouldn’t be doing rush hour, he told himself. How bad could she be?

Without waiting for his reply, Daisy added, “And don’t worry about my Bones for Bowser spot. I can do it on the road!”

He managed a small smile. “Terrific.”

Ten minutes later they were in the Shulster Building parking garage.

“Wow!” Daisy said, looking at the station’s auxiliary newscar. “It’s got enough antennae to get Mars. This is going to be incredible. I think I’m going to like this.” She cracked her knuckles, looked up into Steve Crow’s face, and felt a shiver run along her spine. She wasn’t a shy sort of person, and she wasn’t usually uncomfortable with men. She could tick off on one hand the things that truly made her nervous: the dentist, signing her name to her income tax statement, looking in her rearview mirror and seeing a police cruiser—and Steve Crow. Standing next to Steve Crow was like taking fifteen volts of electricity. He made her feel like her scalp was smoking.

Steve unlocked the car and opened the passenger-side door for Daisy. “I don’t have any meetings until one o’clock, so I’ll ride the loop with you. I’ll do the talking and driving for the first hour, then you can take over.”

An hour alone in the newscar with Steve Crow? She’d die. Her heart would stop beating. “That’s really not necessary. Not at all. I mean, I hate to take you away from whatever it is that you do. Probably you could just give me a few notes and a full tank of gas and send me on my way.”

“You look kind of flushed,” Steve said. “You sure you feel okay? You aren’t sick, are you?”

“It’s you. You make me nervous.”

“You mean because I’m your boss? Don’t worry about it. Your Bowser spot is secure. Those people out there in radio land love you.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“I get a lot of fan mail,” Daisy said. “And last week one of my fans said I should be on Good Morning America.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that weird? You’re just sort of scary. I think it might be something chemical.”