Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (i can read books TXT) 📕

and into the control booth, where Bishop waited with a spiky-haired blonde named Marie. Pete and Ramos stood outside the studio door as if lending muscle to the red ON AIR sign above it. Bishop and I stayed in the control booth. Ronnie and Marie donned headsets and sat at a massive board of slide switches and dials. They tested the audio levels, the camera controls, and the monitors. Finally, they gave Donohue a thirty-second warning before the Morning in Buffalo theme music and title montage began.

The interview lasted the better part of an hour. Donohue began by saying NCADI, the National Conference on American Diversity and Inclusion, would open tomorrow at the Torrance Towers downtown and would be covered on Morning in Buffalo throughout its four-day run. Today, she would have a one-on-one interview with a woman whose encounter with hatred led to a best-selling book. With delicate questions, Donohue led Drea through the chain of events familiar to anyone who’d read her book, with periodic cutaways to footage of police cruisers outside her Virginia home, still pictures of her with her husband, a clip from his funeral, another clip from her Frontline interview, a photo of missing suspect Wally Ray Tucker, and a close-up of the cover of In the Mouth of the Wolf. After getting Drea to preview some of the topics she would address during the conference, Donohue brought things to a close by asking what would come after the conference. “I hope we can all come away from this event with an understanding of what we’re facing,” Drea said. “There’s a rising storm in this country, hurricane-force winds that threaten to sweep away the dream that is America if we can’t reign in the evil that makes people hate.”

After an early catered lunch sponsored by Bill Cathcart, we piled into the van to drive the twenty miles back downtown to the Buffalo News. We took Main Street, the name given to Route Five which stretched from downtown, where it cut the city in half, to a rural area fifty miles east. Highways would have made the trip faster, but we had plenty of time and Drea had plenty of questions about Western New York. Having ridden along on Bobby’s guided tours for out-of-town guests, I could have spent the entire time rattling off answers. But it was our first full day together as a security team and unit cohesion was critical. It was important that Ramos and Bishop be brought into the conversation as much as possible, that we all get to know each other and Drea to know us. The scenic tour down Main—with the inevitable slowdown in the Village of Williamsville and the parks, colleges, and historic sites we passed—was an opportunity of inestimable value.

We were more comfortable with each other when we reached the News headquarters, on the edge of Canalside. With ten minutes to spare, we were directed to a reserved spot by the Scott Street lot parking attendant, who had been given our plate number and told to expect us. We repeated our exit pattern, though the high level of afternoon pedestrian traffic made Pete and me spend a longer time surveying our surroundings before we let the others out and crossed to the building.

In tight jeans, a short-sleeved summer sweater, and expensive-looking open-toed shoes, Amanda Corso was waiting for us in the vast lobby. Petite, with dark hair and full lips, she had been straightforward but vaguely flirtatious in my two previous encounters with her. Now she smiled as I led Drea and company inside.

“Been awhile, Rimes,” she said, her voice as smoky as I remembered. “The last time I saw you was in the hospital, after you—” She looked at the group accompanying me, perhaps wondering if they knew I had been shot almost two years earlier. “After you had that mishap. I hope you’re luckier this time around.”

“Accidents happen,” I said.

“Especially to people with a knack for putting themselves in the wrong place.”

I shrugged. “A guy’s gotta eat.”

She looked me up and down. “You don’t look like you’re missing too many meals. I guess your Latina friend is feeding you a lot of that good Puerto Rican food. Mofongo. Arroz con gandules.”

“Muy bien.”

Corso laughed. “I think my accent’s way better than yours. Tell her I said hi.”

“Will do,” I lied. Phoenix had met Corso once and taken an instant dislike to her. I didn’t know the reporter well enough to determine whether the feeling was mutual but I suspected it was, even though I was uncertain whether they would recognize each other.

I introduced Corso to Drea but to no one else. We had agreed in our earlier telephone conversation that her feature story would carry no mention of the subject’s security detail. Also agreed upon beforehand was the site of the interview, a private first-floor conference room rather than the bustling newsroom upstairs. Now Corso took Drea’s arm. We followed them past the security desk and around a corner to a room with a wall of glass separating it from the corridor. After Corso closed the vertical blinds, we spent another hour and change in silence as she questioned Drea and took notes.

The two women seemed to get on well. Drea was more relaxed without cameras present, and Corso was a less unctuous interviewer than Donohue. She worked to establish common ground with her subject, asking questions that evolved into friendly conversations before she moved to her next line of inquiry. There was no concluding question selected for climactic effect. “You see this as a struggle between what Lincoln called our better angels and evil,” Corso said. “Anything to add?”

“No,” Drea said. “Mr. Rimes promised me an hour at the children’s museum across the way. If we go on much longer, I won’t make it because I have to get ready for tonight.”

“Then I’ll take you over to Buddy Dobbins for a picture and go write up what I have now. I’ll add a few finishing touches