Ouch. “Umm . . . ” started Savannah, at a loss for words.
“Jeez, there I go. I’m not known for my tact.”
“You don’t say.”
“Listen, let me get right down to it. I’ve been keeping tabs on you since that conference, reading your articles, following your stories. You wrote that groundbreaking piece on the New York subway system. And you deserved the award you won for the article on the preferential treatment some lawyers are given in the DA’s office. Not to mention the time you rode in the back of an NYPD police car for a week and did that terrific piece about the habits of New York’s Finest. You’re talented, Savannah. More talented than most. I can’t figure out what happened with the Monroes, but it sounds like you were taken for a ride.”
Savannah swallowed the lump in her throat. “It was my fault. I should’ve seen—”
“We all get a bad source now and then. That was a doozy.”
Savannah grimaced, wondering if Derby would ever get to the point of the call and stop making her feel about two inches tall. She started every day with a heavy heart, grieving the loss of her dream; she didn’t exactly need someone to drive it home for her.
“Anyway,” continued Derby, “I already knew it that weekend, but you’re a heck of a reporter. Top-notch. I’m betting you’ll never make the same mistake again with a source, and any paper would be lucky to have talent like yours.”
“Well, that’s, er, nice of you to—”
“So here’s the scoop: the Phoenix Times is looking for someone to take over the Lifestyles section. I know it’s not New York, and I know it’s not the Sentinel. But for someone with ambition, someone looking to get back on her feet . . . ” Derby let that thought linger, and Savannah battled her conflicting emotions.
Lifestyles?! She’d been an investigative reporter for arguably the most well-regarded newspaper in America. Lifestyles would mean reporting on cook-offs and fashion shows, charity benefits, and star sightings. Not to mention, the Phoenix Times was second-string at best. And it was in . . . Phoenix. Hot, dry, middle-of-nowhere Phoenix.
Then again, it was Phoenix. The sixth-largest city in the United States and a hub of Southwestern activity. Far enough from New York that her calamitous failure at the Sentinel would feel removed, yet close enough to LA and San Francisco that maybe she could segue to one of those bigger outfits after a few successful years. And no, Lifestyles wasn’t exactly her dream department, but it was a way back in, wasn’t it? After a few months—a year, tops—she could ask for a transfer to one of their other departments.
“Derby,” she said, determination lowering her voice to a serious pitch. “What do I have to do to make it happen?”
“Our editor in chief knows who you are. He’s willing to give you a swing at the job, but you have to wow him with a Lifestyles piece first.”
“Oh, I have a ton of stuff I could send—”
“No, Savannah. You don’t. I tried to find something, anything, that you wrote that could pass as a human interest piece. I came up dry.”
Savannah nodded, gloom encroaching. Derby was right. She didn’t have anything.
“But Maddox McNabb, our editor, he’s all about hot scoops and he loves that you’re coming from a New York background. He can be a little heavy on the edits, but I haven’t had any complaints so far. He makes a good story more sensational, and at least a quarter get picked up on the national news wire.”
“Wow. Great numbers. Sounds like he’s got the magic touch.”
“Like I said, no complaints. Anyway, he needs a piece. Something big and heart-tugging and personal in time for the Fourth of July. That’s, uh, five weeks from now. Think veterans. Think returning soldier dad home in time for the big Fourth of July barbecue. Small-town Americana stuff that makes every reader cry before breaking out in a chorus of ‘America the Beautiful.’ How you write it is up to you, but Maddox wants updates every Friday from now until the second. If he likes it, he’ll run it on the front of Lifestyles on the Fourth, and let’s just say he’d probably like to see you in Phoenix soon after.”
Savannah’s brain whirled, but she could feel the excitement gathering inside her. No, human interest wasn’t her forte, but she could change that. She’d write the best goddamn piece of lifestyle Americana the Phoenix Times had ever seen.
“I’m all over it. Tell Maddox he’ll have the idea and the first installment by next Friday. Six days.”
“I knew you’d bite,” said Derby, her voice laced with approval. “I’ll e-mail you with Maddox’s info. The rest is all you.”
Savannah shook her head, smiling into the phone, marveling at second chances that came from unexpected places, and determined not to squander this chance. “Derby, I don’t know how to thank you. Really. I don’t even know what to say.”
“Hey, I’m not Mother Teresa. You come work here? I figure you owe me a few more of those late-night sessions cracking stories. I sure wouldn’t mind another Sunshine Award.”
“You got it,” Savannah said with feeling. “Anything I can ever do for you, all you have to do is shout.”
“I hope you don’t regret that offer,” said Derby, “because I promise I’ll be collecting.”
Savannah chuckled and exchanged information with her guardian angel, thanking her again for reaching out and sending her thanks to Maddox for the chance. When she hung up the phone, the sun was even lower, aggressively gold on the horizon, brightening the hills beyond her small neighborhood.
She squinted, her eyes pulled to the grand, old Victorian house straight ahead, about two miles away, up on the hillside.
Asher Lee’s house.
The front door of her own house opened, and Scarlet appeared dressed in an adorable cotton candy–pink sundress, modestly covered with a mint-green cardigan.
“Hey, Scarlet,” Savannah said, still staring at the massive brown house in the distance. “What do we know about Asher Lee?”
“Asher Lee?” Scarlet fanned herself as she followed her sister’s gaze into the distant hills like her sister. “Some folks call him “Hermit” Lee. Poor thing. Used to be a big-time football star over at Danvers High. But he got his face and hand blown off in some war, and no one’s seen him for a million years. He got real strange when he came home, refusin’ to go into town, hirin’ Miss Potts to be his maid. No one’s seen him in almost a decade. Nobody knows what he does up there, but there’s the normal fiddle-faddle about the bogeyman and such. Really, it’s easier just to forget he’s up there. It’s just so awkward and sad.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
Scarlet shook her head pursing her lips and looking away from the old brown mansion. “Why are you so interested?”
Savannah turned to her sister, cocking her head to the side. “I think it’s about time someone showed a little Southern hospitality to our very own wounded veteran.”
“What’re you up to, Vanna?”
“Nothing bad, little sister, don’t trouble yourself. I just wonder if he’d like to tell his side of the story.”
“Leave him be. All he wants is his privacy.”
“Not if he’s got a story to tell, Miss Scarlet. Not if he has a story he’d like the world to know.”