Ms. Simon Says Read online

  He went on to describe what amounted to a fairly generous offer of continued employment for her staff. “They can use you down in the Lifestyle department, Sandy. Talk to Jean Prewett. She’ll get you settled in.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Stabler.” Sandy’s tears of anxiety turned to those of gratitude. “God bless you.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. You can stop crying now, all right? Jesus.” Hal glowered and swiveled his chair toward the couch. “Jeff, Weekend magazine is planning some special editions and they can use an extra researcher. You’ll want to check in with Joe Detweiler as soon as possible.”

  “Cool.”

  Now that Gilligan was all smiles, Hal directed his gaze at the winsome Ginger. More likely than not, he’d be sending her back to Northwestern on the very next train. “You’ll be assigned to Derek McKay for the remainder of your internship, Kellie,” he said. “Or until such time as the column resumes.”

  Kellie’s reply was a rather breathless “Oh, thank you, Uncle Hal.”

  Shelby tried not to look too surprised or to blink uncontrollably. Uncle Hal? Uncle Hal? She’d had no idea that Kellie Carter was the managing editor’s niece. Actually, she had no idea how the young woman had been selected for an internship. Like all the sweet young things who’d preceded her, they just showed up, semester after semester, year after year. Most of them considered the internship a way to goof off for a semester. Kellie, however, was enthusiastic, energetic, eager to please. The girl arrived early and stayed late. More often than not, she knew what Shelby wanted or needed—coffee, tuna on rye, a particular phone number—even before she knew it herself. Shelby had never had such a wonderful temporary assistant, and had even been considering Kellie for a full-time job after her graduation next year.

  She glanced at Sandy to see if she, too, was surprised by the news. If she was, the surprise was diluted by her tears. Then Shelby reminded herself that she’d just been the recipient of six, seven, maybe eight or more letter bombs, so what difference did it make whether nepotism was running rampant at the Daily Mirror or not. Who cared?

  Hal went on to suggest, in his inimitable way, that everyone calm the fuck down and go about their new assignments now. While Sandy and Jeff and Kellie all stood and prepared to leave, Shelby stood up, too, until Hal said rather grimly, “Shelby, sit the fuck down.”

  “Oh.” She sat back down.

  “Don’t worry,” Sandy whispered to her. “It’ll all be fine.”

  “Take it easy, Shel,” Jeff said.

  “I’m so sorry, Shelby,” Kellie said with tears in her eyes and a warm hand on Shelby’s shoulder as she passed behind her chair. “This is awful. Poor you.”

  And that was exactly how she felt just then. Poor Shelby. Poor old canceled Shelby. Ms. Simon says That’s all for now, folks.

  She watched her colleagues through the glass wall of Hal’s office as they drifted away in three different directions. Sandy went toward the elevator. Jeff disappeared into the stairwell. Kellie sauntered across the floor and perched on the corner of Derek McKay’s desk. Derek glanced up at the young redhead with a wolfish grin, as if he’d been expecting her.

  Well, what do you know! Kellie was quite obviously and quite happily the latest initiate in the Fresh Young Thing Club. How had Shelby missed that, she wondered. She usually didn’t miss much. Maybe, considering the nepotism, Derek was being more discreet than usual. He better watch his lecherous step, too. She would absolutely kill him if he did anything to ruin the best internship in the history of the Daily Mirror.

  Did Uncle Hal know? Shelby shifted her gaze to her boss, who was just then barking a few of his favorite four-letter words into the phone.

  He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “I’ll be right with you,” he told her. “Sit tight.”

  Shelby sat tight. What choice did she have? Outside Hal’s office, at the various Metro desks, people were already writing articles about the events of the morning. Until now, she really hadn’t had time to think about those events. And even now she didn’t want to contemplate the letter bombs that had suddenly blown up her column, her career, and quite possibly her whole life.

  Who hated her that much? Who wanted her maimed or dead? How could this be happening? The postal inspectors had asked her if she’d received any threats, and Shelby had told them in all honesty that there hadn’t been any. Oh, there had been the usual snotty letters and E-mails from people who disagreed with her advice, along with the usual off-the-wall rants that had nothing to do with anything Ms. Simon had ever said.

  Once there was an unpleasant incident when Shelby had gotten a pie in her face from a woman whose boyfriend had moved out based on Ms. Simon’s advice. But, by and large, there had never been anything that threatened more than a fierce determination to never read her column again. At least, not to her knowledge.

  Of course, it wasn’t like the old days when she’d personally read every piece of mail that came in. The success of Ms. Simon Says and its syndication in scores of papers meant a huge increase in the volume of her mail, and Shelby couldn’t read everything anymore. Between her speaking engagements and her media appearances, there just wasn’t time. Sandy and whatever intern was on staff did the initial reading these days, and then passed the most interesting correspondence along to Shelby for a reply. The letters she didn’t see were answered with a form letter and whatever helpful printed matter that pertained to the particular writer’s problem.

  She still felt guilty about that. It was better in the old days when she read everything and answered everything. But such was the price of success.

  Some success, she thought bleakly. Unless she could talk Hal or Brian and Bob out of their decision, she was temporarily out of a job. On the bright side, maybe they’d give her a desk out in Metro, where she could put her old journalism skills to good use. That was what she’d dreamed of, after all, a dozen years ago when she’d been a fresh young thing herself.

  While she perused the activity outside Hal’s office, Shelby saw a man leaning against Hal’s secretary’s desk. Her gaze strayed past him, and then jerked back to scrutinize him more closely.

  He wore dirty blue-and-white Reeboks, jeans that were ripped at both knees, and a plaid flannel shirt that looked just this side of the rag bag. Over the faded shirt was a dark blue down vest, patched here and there with...Was that duct tape? Good God.

  The guy’s shaggy brown hair was long enough to curl over the collar of his shirt, and when he reached up to rake his fingers through his hair, Shelby could see that his forehead was deeply furrowed, as if a permanent headache were etched across his brow. It suddenly occurred to her that he was actually good-looking in an unkempt and dangerous sort of way.

  That was when she noticed that his mouth turned down in an expression somewhere between disgust and anger, probably not so different from the way her letter bomber might look.

  Did Security know this guy was up here? Who the hell was he? Just as Shelby began to feel panic begin to claw at the back of her throat, the guy looked directly into Hal’s office, right at her. As if he knew just who she was. As if...

  “Shelby, did you hear what I just said?”

  “What?”

  She turned to find Hal glaring at her across his desk, obviously finished with his phone call.

  “I’m talking to you,” he bellowed. “Now will you please pay attention and listen the fuck up.”

  Shelby blinked, trying her best to concentrate on his words at the same time that she tried to keep an eye on the probable felon just outside Hal’s glass door.

  “Brian and Bob have talked to the police, and they’re advising that certain precautions ought to be taken,” Hal said.

  “Precautions?” Shelby echoed.

  “To keep you safe,” he said. “Just in case this letter bomber tries anything else.”

  She swallowed hard. Her palms were sweating now. It wasn’t so easy to breathe. “Anything else?”

  “They want to relocate you.”

&nbs
p; “Relocate?” She was starting to sound like a damn parrot, she thought, but her mind didn’t seem to be generating anything but fear at the moment.

  “Just in case this guy knows where you live, Shelby. Brian and Bob want to get you out of town ASAP. So they’ve...”

  “Out of town?” Polly want a cracker?

  “. . . used their contacts at the Chicago PD, who’re supposed to be sending somebody to make sure that you get away okay. Safely. You know.”

  No, she didn’t know. Not much of anything just then. Except that she didn’t want to leave town. Except that the angry looking guy was still there, lurking no more than fifteen or twenty feet from her.

  “Let me check on that with Doris,” Hal said, picking up his phone again and punching in his secretary’s extension.

  On the other side of the glass, Doris picked up her own phone and nodded as she said something into the receiver. The woman seemed completely oblivious to the criminal loitering around her desk. Or maybe she was wisely ignoring him, maintaining the appearance of calm while she waited for Security.

  “That was quick,” Hal said on his end of the phone. “What’s his name? Okay. Well, great. Thanks, Doris. Yeah, go ahead and send him in.”

  Send who in? Shelby wondered. Then she watched in horror as the felon, the perp, the possible letter bomber and probable serial killer in the duct-taped vest levered off the edge of Doris’s desk and walked the short distance to Hal’s glass door.

  And then opened it!

  Hal immediately rose from his chair, hopefully to defend her, to throw his bulk between Shelby and certain death, but instead he said quite cheerfully, “Come on in. Glad to see you.”

  Shelby decided it was a conspiracy. Her life—all thirty-four glorious and too few years of it—flashed before her eyes, then came to an abrupt halt when Hal announced, “Ms. Shelby Simon, meet Lieutenant Mick Callahan.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mick Callahan wished he were anywhere in the world but where he was at the moment. Anywhere. Stretched out in the middle of the Dan Ryan Expressway. Parachuting into Afghanistan. At the North Pole in his BVDs. Hell.

  Still, it probably wasn’t much worse being here at the Daily Mirror than half an hour ago when he’d walked into his captain’s office, after being summoned on his pager.

  Captain Rita Bruzzi hadn’t even said “Good morning.” She’d looked up from the open file on her desk and said, “How are those anger management classes going, Lieutenant?”

  There wasn’t much sense lying since she was looking at his damned personnel jacket. “I’m having a hard time fitting them into my schedule,” he said.

  “Right.” She sighed deep within her ample, Wagnerian chest and closed the file, then clasped her hands on top of it almost as if she were praying. “Headquarters has a special assignment for you. Starting today.”

  “Yeah, but I...”

  Those prayerful hands flew up in a gesture demanding silence. “Maybe you didn’t hear me, Callahan. I said Headquarters has a special assignment for you. Now sit your rogue ass down in that chair”—she stabbed a finger across her desktop—“and keep your legendary anger managed and your mouth shut while I tell you what you’re going to do. Capisce?”

  Rogue ass? He almost laughed. Then he was tempted to say, “Rita, you’re beautiful when you’re mad,” because she truly was, but the captain was wearing her service revolver, so Mick kept his mouth shut and lowered himself into the designated chair.

  She briefed him on the letter bombs, the tight relationship—as in I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine— between city government and the Helm-Harris Syndicate, and the reason why he was going to comply with this order. Namely because he’d find himself behind a desk for the next six months if he didn’t.

  “I’ve got a lot going down on the street right now,” he said.

  “It’ll all still be here when you get back.”

  Hell. How could he argue with that?

  But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about babysitting some idiot columnist who’d obviously offended some whack job. And now that he noticed, the idiot columnist didn’t look all that happy about it either.

  Ms. Simon was even better-looking than her picture. Of course, most of the ones he saw on buses in the Eleventh District had a blacked-out front tooth or a mustache, and instead of saying “Read the Daily Mirror” Ms. Simon usually said “Fuck you.”

  Not unlike her expression at the moment.

  Stabler, on the other hand, seemed delighted to see him, no doubt because Ms. Shelby Simon would soon be Mick’s problem instead of his.

  “Well,” the newspaperman said, “what happens now?” “The sooner we leave the building, the better,” Mick answered. He turned to his assignee. “Anything you need to get before we go? You probably won’t be back here for a while.”

  He reached out to take her arm, but she pulled away and turned to her boss, hissing. “Isn’t this just a little excessive, Hal, for heaven’s sake?”

  “I don’t think you appreciate the kind of danger you’re in, Shelby,” he said. “And what’s more, I don’t think I should have to point out the risk you pose to your colleagues by your very presence. Isn’t that right, Lieutenant?”

  “That’s right.” Mick reached out for her arm again, this time grasping it with more authority than before. “Let’s go, Ms. Simon.”

  Five minutes later, in her corner office on the eighth floor, Shelby opened the center drawer of her desk, glared at the contents, then slammed it closed. She repeated the process with the three drawers on the left and the three on the right.

  Her office was a mess after the bomb people and their dogs had searched it. Several file drawers gaped open. The trash basket had been overturned, and the usual foot-high stack of incoming mail on her credenza was nowhere in sight.

  “If there’s nothing here you need, let’s get going,” the formerly nefarious guy said. He was leaning in her doorway, no doubt anticipating an escape attempt on her part.

  She’d whisked past him through Hal’s glass door, then ignored him in the elevator and pretended he didn’t exist as he followed her along the corridor that led to her office. And she ignored him now, which probably wasn’t fair since this mess wasn’t his fault, but she needed a target for her anger, dammit, and Lieutenant Mick Callahan just happened to be the nearest one.

  It wasn’t anger so much as fear that she felt, Shelby acknowledged. But on second thought, she wasn’t really afraid. There just hadn’t been time to comprehend the situation or to consider these letter bombs as a personal threat. They still felt more like breaking news, something happening someplace else—in Buffalo and Hartford— happening to someone else, certainly not to her. And the only really scary person she’d seen all morning had turned out to be her very own bodyguard, compliments of the Chicago PD.

  She felt off balance, at odds with reality. Maybe her column had been canceled for her own good, but Shelby felt as if she’d been fired. Out of sheer frustration, she slammed her desk drawer again. Harder.

  “Hey, I don’t like this any more than you do, lady. Okay?” the lieutenant said from the doorway. “Just get whatever you need and let’s go.”

  “I don’t know what I need. I can’t think,” she replied, sounding childish now and almost as helpless as she felt.

  “Handbag?” he suggested. “Laptop?” He shoved off the door frame and sauntered toward her desk. “Date-book?”

  She stared at him a second. Son of a gun. Those were the exact items she needed. “What do you do?” she asked him. “A mind-reading act in a nightclub in your off-duty hours?”

  He smiled for the very first time. All the worry lines in his face disappeared, and that hard, almost cruel mouth gave way to a brief but exquisite grin. “Something like that,” he said. “Is this your laptop?” He pointed to the black leather case on her desktop.

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay.”

  He hiked the strap up his arm and settled it
over his shoulder while Shelby gathered up her handbag and planner.

  “Where’s your car?” he asked.

  “I don’t have one. I take the bus or the El.”

  “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about. Come on. I’m parked down in front.”

  Indeed he was. His ancient dark green, fastback Mus-tang was parked directly in front of the Daily Mirror building in a No Parking zone with a young patrolman standing guard nearby.

  “Hey, Lieutenant,” the kid cop said with a wave of his hand. “You ever want to get rid of this mean green machine, just give me a call, okay?”

  “Will do,” Callahan said as he opened the passenger door, then promptly swore under his breath and began pitching junk from the front seat into the back.

  Coffee cups and lids. Big Mac boxes. Water bottles. A paperback book. A pair of jeans.

  Shelby stood behind him, clucking her tongue at the incredible mess and doing her best not to ogle his very nice backside where a small frayed hole near the bottom of a pocket revealed that the lieutenant was wearing purple briefs.

  “I wasn’t expecting company,” he muttered over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, I can tell. I wasn’t expecting to be company.” He was down to seat leather now, picking up loose change and paper clips, plastic spoons and a few AA batteries.

  “There.” He straightened up and gestured for Shelby to get in.

  But she didn’t.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Wait just a minute.” Suddenly she wasn’t quite so sure she wanted to go along with this bodyguard thing. How many years had she been advising her readers to be cautious about strangers, particularly those in uniform.

  She didn’t know this Mick Callahan from Adam. What’s more, if he was a cop, why didn’t he dress like one instead of looking like some ratty homeless guy? And what about those purple briefs? They certainly weren’t Chicago PD standard issue. She lifted her chin in defiance and demanded, “Do you have a badge or something? Some ID? I mean, how do I know who you really are?”