Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry - Mary Higgins Clark Page 0,2

room window. She had a view of the morning sun that was barely peaking over the horizon. It was the time of day when she keenly felt the death of her mother and experienced the feeling of time rushing by too quickly.

Settling at the table, her favorite place to work, she opened her laptop and watched a wave of unread emails unfold on her screen.

Her first glance was at the new emails that had arrived since she had checked while on the plane. Nothing urgent. More importantly, nothing from CRyan.

Next she scanned through the ones that had arrived over the last week and a half, when she had been in one of the few remaining places on earth where WiFi service was not available.

A note from a woman in Atlanta who claimed she had proof that the recycled rubber being used in school playgrounds was making children sick.

A request to speak the following month at the ASJA, American Society of Journalists and Authors.

An email from a man who claimed he had in his possession the portion of President Kennedy’s skull that had gone missing after the autopsy.

Even though she probably could have recited its content, she went back and clicked on the email she had received the day she left on her vacation.

Hi Gina, I don’t believe we ever met when we were at Boston College. I finished a few years apart from you. Right after I graduated, I went to work at REL News. I had a terrible experience with one of the higher-ups. (And I wasn’t the only one.) Now they’re afraid I’ll talk about it. I’ve been approached about a settlement offer. I don’t want to put more in an email. Can we arrange to meet?

When she had seen the name CRyan on an email, she had tried to remember why the name was familiar. Had there been a Courtney Ryan at school?

Gina reread the email twice, pushing herself to see if there was anything she had missed. REL News was a Wall Street darling among media companies. Its headquarters were at 55th Street and Avenue of the Americas, or Sixth Avenue as most New Yorkers still called it. In a span of twenty years it had grown from a small group of cable TV stations to a national powerhouse. Its ratings had surpassed CNN and were growing ever closer to the market leader, Fox. Its unofficial motto was “REaL News, not the other kind.”

The first subject that had come to her mind was sexual harassment. Hold on, she had thought. You don’t even know if “CRyan” is a man or a woman. You’re a reporter. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Get the facts. There had been only one way to find out. She looked again at the response she had sent.

Hi Mr./Ms. Ryan, I’m very interested in talking to you about the “terrible experience” you referred to. I’ll be out of the country without access to email, but I’ll be back on October 13. As you probably know, I live and work in New York City. Where are you? Looking forward to hearing from you. Best, Gina.

She had difficulty focusing as she scrolled through other emails. I had really hoped to have more than this, she said to herself as her mind drifted to tomorrow’s meeting at the magazine.

Maybe she left a message, Gina thought optimistically. Her cell phone had been down to one bar when she boarded her flight. It was dead by the time she landed in New York. In the email she gave CRyan her number.

Gina walked quickly into her bedroom, removed her phone from the charger, and brought it back to the kitchen. She tapped the phone to wake it up. A quick glance revealed several messages, but none from unfamiliar numbers.

The first was from her best friend Lisa. “Hi girlfriend. Welcome back. Looking forward to hearing all about your trip. I hope we’re still on for dinner tonight. We have to go to a dive restaurant in the Village called the Bird’s Nest. I have a great new case. A slip and fall. My client fell on ice cubes dropped by the bartender when he was shaking martinis. Broke her leg in three places. I want to scope out the joint.”

Gina chuckled as she listened. Dinner with Lisa was always fun.

The other messages were solicitations, which she immediately deleted.

2

Gina took the subway four stops to 14th Street. From there she walked the three blocks to the Fisk Building. The third through