[Jordan Fox 01.0 - 04.0] False Truth Read online

  Patricia Neil’s gruff demeanor dared anyone to mess with her. The dark circles under her eyes implied exhaustion could be the culprit of her attitude. She ran both hands through her wild blonde hair, landing one elbow on the table and resting her head in her hand.

  She rifled through a mess of papers. “All right, the big story tonight is gonna be this missing man,” Patricia said. “His name is Ted Garfield. He was last seen two days ago. Tuesday night. Lives up in Pedro County. He’s in his forties, no kids, no wife. He’s a teacher at Pedro Community College.”

  Patricia passed around a flier with a photo of the missing man. Jordan studied his picture. Curly gray hair, long puffy cheeks, and plump pink lips. He looked goofy. Endearing. Like the kind of teacher students probably loved.

  “Is there suspicion something shady happened?” one reporter asked. “Why is this a story?”

  “The story’s really only a big deal because Garfield won Teacher of the Year from Pedro County School Board last year.” Patricia looked down at her notes. “No, I’m sorry. Two years ago. Anyway, nothing shady that we know of. The hook is that he’s not the kind of guy to just disappear. Police haven’t said they suspect foul play, but it sure looks like that’s what’s going on here.”

  “Pedro C. C. has evening classes,” Richard said. “We can send a reporter to the school. Students are always willing to talk on camera, right Jordan?” He arched both eyebrows as he turned her way.

  Jordan straightened her posture and said nothing. It was obvious enough that she was barely out of college herself. She didn’t appreciate Richard emphasizing the point in front of the whole nightside team. Richard could have implicated Drew just as easily. Drew was as guilty of youth as she was.

  “So Garfield is our lead story for six and eleven.” Patricia finally looked up from her pile of notes and turned to her left. A young Latino reporter sat beside her. “Antonio? Your pitch?”

  Patricia would call on Jordan next. Jordan tuned Antonio out so she could mentally rehearse her pitch again, exactly the way she’d planned for maximum impact.

  But the first words out of Antonio’s mouth slammed through. “Yeah, a new construction project is starting tonight.”

  What? Jordan’s breath caught. Her heart stopped, then pounded hard. Disaster. Hours of prep work evaporated. She needed a backup plan, and fast. Maybe, if she were lucky, they wouldn’t call on her next. Maybe they wouldn’t even call on her at all. She searched her notes frantically, but her mind had frozen.

  “Jordan, did you hear me?” Patricia asked. “What do you have?”

  Jordan stalled. She sat up higher in her chair, thumbed through her notes again. She willed her brain to come up with even one decent pitch.

  Think, Jordan, think. People, places, things. People, people, friends, functions….

  Finally, she remembered an event that could be newsworthy. Market-Number-13, Channel-12-newsworthy, even. If she pitched it well enough.

  She’d practiced countless on-camera pitches in journalism school and had been critiqued by the pros. What she’d learned was that success wasn’t always achieved by the content, but through the enthusiasm and authority with which you presented it.

  Jordan needed to persuade them she was no ditzy cheerleader or one of the silly interns who flitted through the place. She was Jordan Fox, Woman on a Mission. She took a deep breath, lowered her voice tone and spoke with conviction.

  “Tonight at five, there’s a reception at the Florida Casino. It’s in the Aquarium Room, which, I don’t know if you’ve ever been there?” She paused and scanned the room seeking any sort of acknowledgement. One photographer offered her half a nod. She accepted it. “They’re honoring Salvador Caster for donating a ton of money to science education in Tampa. He’s the owner of Caster Shrimp Company. Comes from an old Florida family.”

  She saw blank stares from all directions. She increased volume and urgent inflection. “The Casters built a fortune shrimping in the fifties, when shrimp first became known as ‘Pink Gold.’ Anyway, so now he’s inherited this huge shrimping company that’s defied the odds and grown ever since then.”

  A circle of important people in stiff-backed chairs waited for the rest of her pitch. One guy actually yawned. Two others were checking their cell phones. She searched her brain frantically for more facts.

  Of course, she couldn’t say that besides being incredibly wealthy and successful, Salvador Caster was Claire’s boyfriend. Her best friend had been dating Sal for about three months, but it seemed like a year. Claire gushed over him constantly. She seemed pretty sure he was The One. Sal was thirty, eight years older than Claire…so less than a decade. But when you’re twenty-two, a decade is practically half your life.

  What else had Claire said about the event beyond her boyfriend being the hero of it? Ryburn Park.

  “Sal recently made a huge donation to the Hills County Schools Marine Science Program. Like, unprecedented. It means that a middle school in Ryburn Park can build a science center.”

  Ryburn Park seemed to magnetize their attention. A low-income, crime-ridden, poverty-stricken part of town the city was working to improve, but had a long way to go. Hardly a week went by without word of a shooting in Ryburn Park.

  Jordan spoke with authority, as if she knew the story was perfect. “So, there’s a reception at the Aquarium Room of the Florida Casino at five with wine, and cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, and they’re going to present an award to Salvador Caster.”

  There. She had managed to ad lib a pitch, complete with facts, on her first day, and had sounded downright assertive about it. Thanks to Claire.

  Jordan sat back to bask in the glory of the moment, eagerly awaiting enthusiastic nods. Instead, snickers of laughter erupted on either side of her. A couple of guys at first, and then a woman, too. Had she said something wrong? Surely not. Had her shirt popped open? Her gaze swept down. Nope. Royal blue blouse still in place. Was the pitch too obvious?

  “I’m sorry, did someone already pitch that story today?” Jordan asked.

  A reporter to her left nudged the guy next to him, laughed again, and said, “So we’re covering Happy Hours now?”

  Jordan clamped her jaw shut. Arrogant creep. Who do you think you are?

  He couldn’t be that much higher up the ladder than her. He thought he was hot stuff. A slim-cut shirt one size too small blatantly emphasized his huge biceps like that would prove his investigative skills.

  The recipient of Arrogant Creep’s nudge lowered his chin, maybe attempting to disguise the laughter-induced rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.

  “I know it’s exciting that you’re twenty-one and all, but…a party at a casino?” Arrogant Creep continued. “This is Channel 12 you’re working at now. Big league, little girl.”

  Her head didn’t literally explode, but she thought it might. Jordan’s teeth clamped and she sucked air through flared nostrils. She couldn’t see clearly through her narrowed eyes. First Richard’s reference to her inexperience, and now this.

  “It’s not a Happy Hour,” Jordan said. “I heard the mayor might even be there.”

  More snickers interrupted her defense. When she glanced around the table even Drew was grinning. Her face flooded with heat.

  Finally, Richard stepped in. “That’s enough folks. It’s her first day. She’ll do better tomorrow.”

  She could blow off Arrogant Creep, but Richard was Executive Producer. His condescension carried weight. Jordan felt herself sinking deeper into her chair. Her gaze fell, and the attention of the room turned to the next guy offering his pitch.

  She was still a kid. Fresh out of college. What on earth had made her think she could jump straight up to multimedia journalist in a big-time market like this?

  A moment before Drew was set to pitch his story, Linda opened the door and poked her head into the room. “Jordan? Drew? Can I see you both in my office, please?”

  Now what? Surely Jordan wouldn’t get fired for making a stupid suggestio
n at her very first pitch meeting. Would she? Could someone have emailed Linda from the meeting and told her to get rid of the new kids?

  CHAPTER 4

  Jordan wasn’t sure exactly what Linda’s job entailed, but Linda definitely held firing power. Jordan slunk deep into a leather chair in front of Linda’s desk next to Drew. The tidy office was icy cold. Jordan wondered if she kept it that way to freeze visitors into submission.

  She closed the door and sat across from them. “I have some bad news.”

  Everything about Linda was direct. Straight brown hair fell just below her ears. A row of heavy bangs provided another clear line. Broad shoulders squared up, forearms atop the shiny desk. Like a futuristic robot, Linda seemed to split her vision, looking them both in the eye simultaneously without wagging her head.

  Jordan’s breath held. She temporarily forgot how to exhale. Who would have emailed Linda from the conference room? Arrogant Creep? Could he possibly have that much authority?

  “We were just told that we have to make major budget cuts.” Linda’s arched eyebrows and sympathetic tone seemed overly dramatic, as if she knew how devastating her words would be to Jordan and tried to offer support where none would be sufficient.

  Jordan’s eyes stared straight ahead even as her stomach twisted into knots. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t even blink. One hour on the job before she got fired. That had to be some sort of dismal record. What the hell was she going to do now? She gripped her hands together in her lap and waited for the axe to fall.

  “Here’s the deal, and I won’t kid you, it’s not great.” Linda’s brows dipped toward the bridge of her nose and her lips formed another grim line. “Our budget’s been slashed ten percent. I really had to fight for you. But the good news is that I won. We can keep you both on board.”

  Jordan finally exhaled. She felt lightheaded and her heart fluttered. She wasn’t fired. Maybe things would be okay. For the moment, she held onto that lifeline as Linda kept talking.

  “Here’s the catch,” Linda said, delivering the news without frills. “Your title won’t be multimedia journalist. Legal stuff, you know?”

  Jordan nodded. She could live without a fancy title for a while.

  “And we can’t pay you much.”

  No. Jordan glanced at Drew. His head nodded like one of those stupid bobble-head dolls, as if he was cool with anything.

  Maybe he was cool with anything. Maybe he was just cool. Super-cool. Super-human. And perfect. A charming guy like Drew probably had plenty of choices.

  Jordan didn’t. She wasn’t overly charming, she couldn’t golf, her dad wasn’t rich and she needed the money.

  She looked at Linda and said, “Okay.” Because this was her only option. Not forever, but for a while anyway.

  Linda wasn’t done yet. “Your title will be intern because we’ve got a line item in the budget for that already.”

  Oh, come on. Jordan looked at the floor so she didn’t reveal her feelings. Couldn’t be that hard to create a new line item. It was just a matter of rows and columns, right? And the “intern” title was so humiliating at this point. Maybe they wanted her to refuse. Her magical job was evaporating almost before it started.

  “Now, don’t get me wrong,” Linda said. “You won’t be running for coffee. You’ll do real work. Answer phone calls, go on stories, all that. But you won’t have your own equipment, except maybe a phone. And you won’t be on air. It’s the best I could get out of corporate for you.”

  Jordan blinked to clear unshed tears from her vision so she could at least begin to hold her chin high and face the facts. An intern. She’d already done two internships during college. She should be beyond that now. She needed more money than an intern position would pay. Then again, this was Channel 12, where she had to be. She’d make some salary at least, when plenty of her friends were making no money at all yet.

  “So how does that sound?” Linda had switched into a forced cheerful mode. She asked the question as if the only possible answer was that it all sounded fabulous.

  Jordan looked Linda directly in the eye. “I mean, I’m disappointed.” She realized the second she said it that her reply was all wrong.

  Drew chuckled. “Hell, I’d do the job for free.”

  Jordan sat on her hands to prevent the possibility of slapping him silly.

  “Jordan? Are you on board?” Linda asked, leaning forward.

  Linda knew how badly Jordan needed the job. And Linda wasn’t aware of Jordan’s intense desire to hunt down Brenda’s killer. Jordan sensed no one would approve of her plan, so she’d kept that to herself. She hadn’t even told Claire.

  Jordan took a deep breath. With as much grace as she could muster, the best compromise between what she actually wanted to say and what Linda wanted to hear, she said, “I was excited to jump in as an MMJ. But I’m committed to growing my career at Channel 12, and if being an intern to start is what it takes, that’s what I’ll do.”

  She gritted her teeth the moment her lips closed so she didn’t say more than she intended.

  “Excellent.” Linda pushed her chair back and stood. “It’ll be a while before we have any full time positions, given the budget cuts. But we will put you both in line for the next job that opens up.”

  Following Linda’s cue, Jordan and Drew stood up, too.

  Jordan held onto the back of her chair. “So basically, whichever one of us does better as an intern is the one who gets the first job?”

  Linda smiled. “You’re catching on quickly.”

  Jordan forced her lips upward as camouflage. Fighting Drew for the next job was a challenge she didn’t need. Like her, Drew had graduated in the top ten percent of their class. He’d captained the golf team, garnered several trophies and a spot on the pro tour. Making the cut proved Drew was a fierce competitor.

  Truth was, Jordan wasn’t sure she could beat him. He could easily match all her skills and perform with panache she couldn’t deliver.

  Which meant she’d need to find her mother’s killer as soon as possible. Her job here could end at any moment. When that moment came, her key to the Channel 12 answer vault would vanish from her grasp. She wouldn’t let that happen.

  FALSE TRUTH 2

  A JORDAN FOX MYSTERY

  BY DIANE CAPRI

  WITH BETH DEXTER

  CHAPTER 1

  The Afternoon Meeting from Hell should have been over. Jordan peered around the corner into the conference room as she exited Linda’s office. No such luck. The crew was still gathered around the table. She had to go back in there and pretend everything was perfect. She was a lousy liar.

  Jordan followed Drew to the conference room doorway. She hung back, but he stepped into the room.

  Patricia turned around. “Drew, we want you to go with Antonio. He’s doing the missing Ted Garfield story. He’ll be live at six and eleven. You can shadow him.”

  “Nice!” Drew said. He smiled and jogged off.

  Jordan’s envious gaze followed. He was one up already. He’d received today’s hottest story. Competing with this guy promised to be exhausting.

  She stood alone in the doorway now, unsure whether she should sit at the shiny table again or if the meeting was over.

  Patricia looked her up and down, making some sort of assessment, maybe? “Jordan, do you think you can handle the casino story alone?”

  Seriously? They were going to send her to the story she suggested? And not only that, but they trusted her to go alone?

  She refused to grin even though she wanted to. “Absolutely.”

  The meeting concluded and Jordan found herself upstream amid a school of departing journalists-on-the-go. Reporters, photogs, and managers fixed their eyes straight ahead and walked briskly, completely ignoring her as they whizzed past.

  Jordan stood frozen in place. She had no equipment and no idea where to get any. She looked around the busy newsroom where extreme chaos was normal. Everything seemed to move at the speed of light and pressure felt pa
lpable. The place was exciting and frightening and intimidating and about a thousand other things all at once. Would she learn to thrive here?

  Producers settled into their stations at the pod in the center of the newsroom and buried themselves in the work. She knew gossip and secret meetings and rank speculation were standard newsroom fare. Right now, were they sending rapid-fire gossip-filled emails about her? Two producers glanced at her and smirked, so maybe they were. But these were mature adults, not the college students she was used to. Maybe she was just being paranoid.

  Jordan approached the assignment desk, a round, multi-tiered structure where several layers of semi-circular desks faced the newsroom. Patricia’s station consumed most of the top layer.

  Jordan climbed the steps toward Patricia, who remained focused on a stack of work. Jordan shrugged. Maybe they didn’t play the small-talk, courtesy-nod game around here. Fine with her. She didn’t excel at small talk, either.

  “Patricia, where should I collect equipment for my assignment at the Casino? I’m assuming I need a camera for the day.” Jordan tried to be assertive but polite.

  Patricia made brief eye contact. “Go to the photog lounge. They’ll set you up.”

  Jordan stopped by the producer pod and approached one of the guys. “Can you point me to the photog lounge?”

  He gestured to the left. “If your badge doesn’t open the door, just knock and they’ll let you in.”

  Jordan collected her assigned equipment package: One smartphone. Top of the line—crystal clear, high definition screen, snappy performance and sharp photos. But that was all. One smartphone. Maybe if she demonstrated some newsroom street cred she would get more tomorrow. But today, she was lucky to get the smartphone.

  Jordan also received keys to a station-issued Jeep, which meant she could leave Hermes in the garage. With her recent pay cut, it’d be nice to save on gas.