Nothing But the Truth

Mitch shrugged. “It’s okay. Digging up dirt on people is fun for me, you know that, and I didn’t have anything else urgent—or half as interesting. Glad you worked it out, though.”

He handed Raleigh the folder. “Enjoy it. Then shred the contents, okay? A few bits and pieces in there aren’t, ah, fully in the public domain.”

Meaning he’d done some hacking. On her behalf. Raleigh felt guilty as hell.

She set the folder on her desk, grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “Does Lancer Steak-house sound okay to you? They have good lunch specials.”

“Wait!” Beth’s single word stuck her to the floor.

“What?”

“Aren’t you going to look inside the folder?”

“No way,” Raleigh said. “I no longer need information on the man. It wouldn’t be ethical for me to snoop—”

“Ethical, shmethical. This will make excellent lunch entertainment.” Beth grabbed the folder. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t think we should read the information on Griffin,” Raleigh said again a couple of minutes later as she signed out. Celeste seemed to be heavily involved in a Danielle Steele novel.

“But aren’t you curious?”

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

Celeste gave a disapproving harrumph, reminding Raleigh that even when she seemed not to be paying attention, she was. Celeste was a little sharper than most people gave her credit for.

“Look, Beth,” Raleigh said once they’d exited the building into a gloomy, overcast day. “I think I’ve convinced Griffin of my innocence. He’s not going to print any lies about me. End of threat, as far as I’m concerned.”

“But you don’t know what he’s really planning to write. Even if he told you he believed you—reporters can say anything. You should be ready. Just in case. Knowledge is power.”

“And you’re grasping at straws because you’re nosy. I had a hard enough time ejecting him from my apartment yesterday—”

Beth gasped. “He was in your apartment?”

Raleigh’s face warmed as she imagined what Beth was thinking. “I brought him there to show him evidence that would exonerate me. He seemed convinced. He even warned me that I might be in danger.”

Again, Beth gasped. “Maybe you are!”

Raleigh waved away her concern. “People who commit crimes with paper and computers seldom turned to guns, knives or bombs. He was just trying to manipulate my feelings, so I would agree to…” Agree to what? She wasn’t sure.

“Anyway,” she concluded, “I’m done with him.”

“Well,” said Beth, “if you won’t look at the folder, that’s your business. But I’m going to check it out.”

Raleigh knew she wouldn’t dissuade her friend, so she didn’t argue further. In truth, she was curious about the contents of that folder.

Getting Griffin to leave her apartment hadn’t been easy, but evicting him from her mind was proving impossible. She kept seeing him as he’d looked, large and masculine and utterly out of place in her feminine living room. Her stomach swooped every time that image jumped into her consciousness.

His presence had felt exciting and dangerous, representing everything she tried to avoid in her life. Part of her had wanted to grab a broom and sweep him out into the hallway; another part had almost invited him to have dinner with her. She loved to cook, yet how long had it been since she’d done more than toss a frozen dinner into the microwave?

She and Beth headed for Lancer and got a booth in the back with a bit of privacy. After ordering, Beth opened the folder with obvious anticipation and began sifting through the contents, scanning pages that interested her.

“Seems the journalist has been the subject of more than a few interviews,” she said.

Raleigh put her fingers in her ears. “La la la, I’m not listening.” But of course, she was.

“Born and raised in Houston,” Beth said as she scanned one of the articles, which looked to have been copied from the internet. “Humble beginnings, broken home, rags to riches…wow, he really overcame some tough odds to get where he is.”

“If that’s even true. He could have made it all up. Not all reporters check their facts.”

“He went to University of Texas on a scholarship. Good for him. Oh, look, his college transcript. Almost straight A’s.”

That was a little surprising. Raleigh would have pegged him as the kind who partied his way through college.

“Graduate school, University of Oklahoma,” Beth continued. “I wouldn’t have guessed he was the academic type.”

“I wouldn’t, either.” Raleigh was getting sucked in, despite herself.

“He’s not all about books and classrooms, though. He has a black belt in judo.”

“Now that doesn’t surprise me.” The way he moved, so decisively but at the same time with grace, suggested some type of athletic training.

“Seems he paid his dues, working at small papers, stringing for the wire services, freelancing for magazines, including—” Beth smiled “—Soldier of Fortune.”

“A magazine for mercenaries and assorted gun nuts. Nice.”

“Then the Telegram hired him. That’s when he started to make a name for himself—oh, look at this. A copy of his driver’s license. He lives on The Heights Boulevard. Cool neighborhood.”

His address put him squarely inside the Loop. The Heights was an up-and-coming area with plenty of young professionals and lots of parks for them to play in on the weekends.

“Here’s the ‘Most Eligible Bachelors’ story. Want to read it? That’s totally available to anyone, no invasion of privacy.”

“I’m not interested,” Raleigh said flatly as she copped a peek at the color printout of the story, which featured a large picture of Griffin leaning against a brick wall, looking tough and slightly cynical—and heart-stoppingly gorgeous.

Beth sifted through a few more photos. “Seems he was into the club scene for a bit—pretty models hanging on him. He doesn’t look particularly happy.”

Which gave Raleigh a perverse sense of satisfaction. From her ivory tower, she liked to think that no one in the club scene was happy, filling their empty lives with drinking and drugs and meaningless banter.

“Poor guy,” she said. “Rough life having to hang with gorgeous women.”

“The boy likes to drive fast. Look at all these speeding tickets. His car insurance rates must be through the roof.”

“Beth, enough.”

“Wait—oh, hmm. Interesting.”

The waitress chose that moment to bring their salads and baked potatoes. Beth closed the folder and suddenly seemed keen on loading her spud with butter, sour cream and bacon.

Raleigh added a few drops of dressing to her salad and a sprinkle of pepper to her potato. They ate for a few minutes in silence before Raleigh couldn’t stand it anymore.

“What’s so interesting?”

“Hmm?”

“You saw something in that folder and you said, ‘Hmmm. Interesting.’”

“Did I?” Beth pretended to look confused. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“Okay, I’m a big liar. I’m fascinated. There, satisfied?”

Beth grinned and opened the folder back up. “He was nominated for a Pulitzer. Did a piece on war orphans in Afghanistan.”

“I remember that story,” Raleigh said suddenly. “It ran in the Telegram’s Sunday magazine, couple of years ago.” She apparently hadn’t paid much attention to who had written the piece, but now the details poured back into her mind. It was one of the most compassionate, emotional pieces of writing she’d ever read. Griffin hadn’t just reported a sad situation, he had immersed himself in it. Those children and their tragedy weren’t simply statistics to him. They were real people he’d taken the time to know.

The story had made her cry.

It was hard to dislike, or even dismiss, a man like that.

RALEIGH TOLD HERSELF a million times that it didn’t make any difference whether he truly cared about his subjects or was an opportunistic paparazzo. He was not her concern anymore.

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