Once inside her SUV, she cast a glance at the house—a pitiful old building, really, considering James’s wealth or soon-to-be wealth—then backed up and put her Escape into gear. As she nosed toward the lane, she saw the porch light snap off.

“Bastard,” she muttered under her breath, that oath stinging a bit. Hands clenched over the wheel, she silently vowed James would regret this night forever. Before you knew it, he’d be begging for her to get together with him again, and not just for the sex he liked so well. He’d be down on one knee, ring in hand, professing his love and pleading with her to marry him.

There was more than one way to handle this situation, to ensure that he would never let her go.

That thought warmed her from the inside out.

Just you wait, James Cahill, just you wait.

You’re going to want me again, and it’s going to hurt so bad, so damned bad you won’t be able to think.

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 36

December 9

It was barely seven in the morning, and already Earl Ray Dansen was having a bad day.

Well, hell, weren’t they all bad?

The heyday of print newspapers was long gone, and it was a miracle he was able to publish a paper edition of the Clarion at all. As he stood in his office, the ancient furnace unable to keep up with the cold that drifted through the thin walls of the big, open space, he surveyed what seemed like acres of empty desks in the old warehouse, and he felt that he, like the newspaper he’d worked on for over fifty years, was a relic from a bygone era. Journalism had been swallowed whole by technology, the Internet, and everybody not giving a good goddamn about real, hard news. Everything now was opinions and spin, and slick anchors on cable news.

Not like the old days, the good old days.

His cell phone buzzed, moving like a huge flattened cockroach as it vibrated across his desk.

Ignoring the call, he eyed the counter along the far wall, where the digital edition was being formed, and noted that Gerry wasn’t at his station. Again. Probably out smoking dope or getting another fucking tattoo. When the hell would he grow up? Thirty was already in his damned rearview.

At least Jeanette was at her area, ostensibly proofing tomorrow’s edition. Seated on a stool at the raised desk in her split-kneed jeans and sloppy camo jacket, her spiky blond hair showing dark roots, wide gold hoops dangling from her ears, she was bent over her computer.