guard at the KROK building. He checked his watch. He had just enough time to meet Erica at the deli. He couldn’t wait to show her what he’d found.
“Adam! Wait up!”
He turned and saw Carl hurrying toward him. Great. The last thing he’d wanted was to run into Carl. “What are you doing here?” Carl asked when he reached Adam’s side.
“I came by to talk to Pat. He had something of mine I needed.” That was more or less the truth. He wasn’t ready to share the rest yet. Not until he’d spoken to Erica.
Carl nodded. “You doing okay?” he asked.
“I’d rather be working.”
“To tell you the truth, I’d rather have you working. I thought Bonnie was a prima donna when I had her on weather and traffic, but now that she has her own show, the demands never stop. ‘Carl, I need a more comfortable chair.’ ‘Carl, we need a new billboard advertising the show.’ ‘Carl, my name should be bigger on the Web site.’” He pressed his hands to his head, as if trying to block out the memory.
“So let me come back,” Adam said. “Erica, too. We’ll pay the FCC fine. We’ll even apologize if we have to.”
Carl shook his head. “It’s out of my hands now. Corporate is up in arms and they don’t want either of you near a microphone until the FCC has finished its investigation and issued a report.”
“And after that?”
He frowned and refused to meet Adam’s eyes. “After that, we’ll see.”
“Right, well, see you around.” He turned away.
“I’m headed over to the Side Street Deli. Why don’t you come with me?”
Adam stared at Carl. “You’re going to the deli?”
“That’s what I just said. Actually, Erica invited me. Any idea what that’s about?”
Adam shook his head. “She asked me to meet her there, too. At seven-thirty. But she wouldn’t say what it was about. She said I had to trust her.”
“Same here.” Carl clapped Adam on the back. “Guess we’d better get over there and find out what’s going on.”
“THERE’S BONNIE.” Tanisha jabbed her elbow into Erica’s ribs and nodded across the parking lot.
“I see her.” She rubbed the sore spot on her ribs and watched Bonnie stalk across the parking lot. The two friends were sitting in Tanisha’s Mustang, scoping out the deli before they made their move. “She looks like Catwoman in that outfit.”
“What does that make Doug? He looks like the Terminator.”
Dressed in fatigue pants and a tight black T-shirt, Doug did look ready to do battle. “I think Bonnie brought him along as a bodyguard,” Erica said. “Maybe she’s afraid of us.”
“She ought to be afraid of what we have that could ruin her career.”
“Yeah, except we don’t have anything.” Their plan was to have Tanisha say she’d seen Bonnie make the recording and put it in the computer. “Now that we’re here, I’m not sure she’s going to be worried about your word against hers.”
Tanisha checked her look in the visor mirror and fluffed her hair. “I can plant doubts in people’s minds. That should be enough to worry her.”
“But will it be enough to get her to admit she did it? Assuming she really did it.”
Tanisha gave her a sharp look. “I thought you said you were sure she did it.”
“Pretty sure.” Erica squirmed. “I mean, who else could have done it?”
Tanisha reached for the door handle. “Come on, let’s go.”
Once through the deli’s front door, they stopped to check things out. Erica spotted Adam and Carl right away, together in a booth near the back. Her heart hammered against her ribs. All of a sudden, this crazy plan seemed too real. What if she failed and made a fool of herself in front of him? The two men were deep in conversation and didn’t see her. She grabbed Tanisha and pulled her over until they were half-hidden by a display case filled with bowling and soccer trophies won by teams sponsored by the restaurant. “I don’t want Adam and Carl to see us yet,” she whispered.
“Gotcha.” Tanisha nodded to a table near the kitchen doors. “There’s Bonnie and Doug.” She looked at Erica. “What do we do now?”
“We have to get everybody together, so Adam and Carl hear Bonnie’s confession.”
“There’s a table near them. If we can get Bonnie to sit there, with her back to Adam and Carl, then they can hear what she says.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“I’ll go in first. She won’t notice me. I’ll go tell Adam and Carl that