Cover Story Read online

  Cover Story

  By Brenda Buchanan

  A Joe Gale Mystery

  Maine newspaper reporter Joe Gale is at his best when covering the crime beat for the Portland Daily Chronicle. In the dead of winter he heads Downeast to cover the murder trial of fisherman Danny Boothby, charged with burying a fileting knife in the chest of politically well-connected social worker Frank O’Rourke.

  O’Rourke held a thankless job in a hard place. Many locals found him arrogant, but say he didn’t deserve to die. Others whisper that O’Rourke got himself killed through his own rogue behavior.

  After Joe’s hard-nosed reporting provokes someone to run him off an isolated road, he realizes his life depends on figuring out not only who committed the murder, but who’s stalking him—O’Rourke’s prominent brother, friends or enemies of the dead social worker or members of Boothby’s family. As he digs deeper, Joe uncovers enough secrets and lies to fill a cemetery. He’ll have to solve this one fast...or his next headline may be his own obituary.

  83,470 words

  Dear Reader,

  I don’t know about you, but I need more hours in my day just so I can get more books read. No matter how much I read, I always feel like the next great book is right around the corner waiting for me, and that there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get to everything I want to read. I love my job, but sometimes I wish I’d win the lottery so I could just spend my days reading.

  This month’s Carina Press releases will have you wishing you could just spend days reading, because it’s an incredible lineup of books from Marie Force, Shannon Stacey, Lisa Marie Rice and so many other talented authors. You won’t want to take a pass on any of them!

  Sam and Nick are back in Marie Force’s romantic suspense Fatal Frenzy. With Inauguration Day fast approaching, Sam’s loyalties are divided between a heartbreaking case at work and her need to support Nick as he takes the oath of office as vice president. You won’t be able to turn the pages fast enough to find out what happens next! Don’t forget, the first seven books in the Fatal series are now available in print, starting with Fatal Affair!

  Shannon Stacey launches a brand-new trilogy this month, and it’s available in print, digital and audio. What do you get when you mix the sexiness of Boston firefighters with Shannon’s trademark humor and romance? In Heat Exchange, the first book in this hot new contemporary romance trilogy, meet Aidan Hunt, one of the men of Boston Fire, and the woman he just can’t stay away from, bro code or no, Lydia Kincaid. Look for Controlled Burn, Rick’s story, in December 2015.

  Love the Men of Midnight series by Lisa Marie Rice? Never picked one up before? Don’t miss this sexy, sexy installment of her cracktastic romantic suspense series. The boy Summer Redding loved and thought dead is back—now he’s a hardened warrior, a man out for revenge, and he’ll fight to the death to protect what is his, and that includes her. Midnight Fire can easily stand alone, but you’ll want to pick up the other books in this series as soon as you turn the last page.

  In another cracktastic read, Caitlin Dufresne swears she doesn’t regret any of the sacrifices she’s made in her ruthless quest to be the best lawyer at her elite Chicago firm, but a one-night stand with the sexy, stubborn IT guy makes her realize she may have been missing out on more than she knew... In Her Defense by Julianna Keyes is a sexy contemporary romance that will hit all the right buttons.

  Also in the sexy contemporary romance category this month is author Jill Sorenson with Shooting Dirty. Seasoned stripper Janelle Parker gets tied up in a dangerously sexy affair with Ace Clemmons, the tattooed criminal who shot her ex. Now she has to deal with both him and his motorcycle club.

  A.M. Arthur’s popular Restoration Series wraps up with another great male/male romance, Taking a Chance. The last thing Ell wants is a broken heart, but that doesn’t stop him lusting after the sexy carpenter working on his kitchen. Auggie can’t stay away from Ell, but intense attraction may not be enough to overcome a secret from their shared past.

  If you read Caitlyn McFarland’s debut dragonshifter romance, Soul of Smoke, you’ll be anxious to get your hands on Shadow of Flame, the second book in her Dragonsworn series. To end a war that has raged for a thousand years, Kai Monahan and Rhys ap Ayen, her shapeshifting dragon mate, must navigate a labyrinthine network of spies, prejudice and divided loyalties—but if they can’t stop denying how much they need each other first, they’ll lose everything to an enemy they never saw coming.

  Maybe mystery is what you’re craving this month? In Cover Story, another intriguing mystery by Brenda Buchanan, Maine newspaper reporter Joe Gale’s vigorous coverage of a murder trial involving a member of a high-profile political family leads to a relentless campaign of intimidation by a shadowy force determined to keep the truth buried.

  Also this month, Dee Carney starts a new paranormal romance series, Fire Creek Shifters. All shifters live with their beasts, but in Taming Her Wolf Chris “Brick” Preston’s is dangerously close to the surface. And it wants Kim Sharpe. Sex keeps the beast sated for now, but unless Kim can help him find a more permanent solution, Brick risks becoming a feral, doomed to be banished—or put down—by his pack.

  With all of these to choose from, you might want to call in sick to work one day. (I’ll write you an editor’s note. I’m sure your boss will accept that, right?)

  Until next month, here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Editorial Director, Carina Press

  Dedication

  For Diane, as ever.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Excerpt from Quick Pivot by Brenda Buchanan

  Acknowledgments

  Also By Brenda Buchanan

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Sunday, January 4, 2015

  The evergreen boughs glittered in the setting sun, but I couldn’t afford to even flick my eyes at their beauty. A cold front had chased the morning’s freezing rain out to sea, and the following wind was brutal, scouring sand off the icy two-lane highway as fast as the road crews could spread it. Five miles south of Machias an oncoming Jeep slewed sideways through a curve, righting itself an instant before we scraped paint.

  Downeast Maine—dazzling and treacherous in equal measure. It would be a fitting slogan for the remote stretch of coastline that winds the hundred miles between Bar Harbor and Canada.

  That truth, and the related concept that luck walks hand in hand with trouble, had fled my mind by the time I spotted Eddie O’Rourke, the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, outside the Machias Stop ’N Go. Maneuvering across the tundral parking lot, my right hand extended, I misread the look on his face for a smile. In a blink I
was on my butt.

  O’Rourke was careful to turn his back the instant before his driver kicked my right leg from under me. By the time I regained my bearings, the security man had scuttled away and O’Rourke had put the door of his Ford Expedition between us.

  “Don’t you dare spit on my brother’s grave.” His hiss was barely audible above the wind.

  Apparently the Honorable Edmond J. O’Rourke knew exactly who I was, and had no intention of shaking the hand of the man responsible for the in-depth profile of his brother published in that morning’s Portland Daily Chronicle. We weren’t visible from the convenience store’s plate glass windows, but a cheap shot wouldn’t be cheap without deniability. When the driver of a salt-splattered truck emerged from the store carrying a twelve-pack of Budweiser, O’Rourke covered his ass.

  “Watch your step.” His voice boomed across the parking lot. “This guy just fell. It’s like a skating rink out here.”

  He dropped his voice and looked me in the eye. “You’re a hell of a long way from Portland, Mr. Gale.”

  The smart part of my brain clicked into gear before I committed what O’Rourke surely would have called an unprovoked assault. Maine’s most high-profile politician had his sidekick take a whack at me because I’d written a factual story about his brother. The attack came without warning, when there were two of them and I was alone, which was useful intelligence about Edmond J. O’Rourke.

  After brushing damp grit from the seat of my jeans, I nodded at the effective shield of the Expedition’s door.

  “You’d best be careful yourself, Mr. Speaker. Washington County’s a dangerous place.”

  I said it with a smile, to make sure O’Rourke knew he was being mocked.

  * * *

  The Speaker’s youngest brother had been killed on a warm afternoon the previous May. Frank O’Rourke fell in the line of duty, stabbed to death while investigating a child neglect case in East Machias. In the first week of the new year, with winter’s merciless arms clamped around the state of Maine, a jury was about to be selected to sit in judgment of his alleged killer.

  My piece in that morning’s Chronicle summarized the situation for those just tuning in. Thirty-year-old fisherman Daniel Boothby, accused of killing O’Rourke, had lost his wife to cancer two years earlier, leaving him alone to raise his twelve-year-old daughter, Corrine. O’Rourke had been investigating reports the girl was neglected.

  There was nothing remarkable about my pretrial piece save three sentences near the end describing the younger O’Rourke’s history of transfers within the DHHS ranks. It was the only deviation from the media narrative established right after the murder, which was like a pitch for a made-for-TV movie. “Handsome social worker—selfless kid brother of prominent politician—stabbed to death while trying to protect adolescent girl from her neglectful father.”

  The pretrial media narrative made Frank out as a fallen hero and Boothby a booze-addled thug. I knew O’Rourke’s job must have been high on stress and short on thanks, and it was public record that Boothby had tangled with the law. But every crime reporter who’s been around the block more than once knows there is no such thing as an uncomplicated murder. Thanks to my mentor, the late great Paulie Finnegan, I have old-school reporter habits, which was why I’d spent six hours driving on terrible roads in the sparse January daylight in order to get the lay of the land before the trial started. Monday the jury would be chosen, and I’d be sitting on an uncomfortable bench in a drafty courtroom, watching the elaborate dance of direct and cross examination. Before then, I had questions of my own to ask, and the Speaker’s ambush made me as interested in the dead O’Rourke brother as I was in the man about to be tried for his murder.

  * * *

  In apparent defiance of Chapman Media, the out-of-state holding company that acquired the Chronicle and a bunch of other red-ink-bleeding New England dailies in a corporate asset swap a year or so earlier, my editor had booked me a room at the Easterly Inn, a grand Victorian two blocks beyond the courthouse. In so doing she ignored the incessant memos of our ostensible leader Ronald Chapman—a man who’d owned a chain of convenience stores before his foray into newspapers—stressing the need to cut every conceivable financial corner. I’d probably get a lecture about the extravagance, but on that bitter night I was tickled to be staying at the snug-looking Easterly rather than a thin-walled, space-heated motel room with a door that opened directly to a frigid parking lot.

  A bell rang when I bumped my way inside the heavy front door, duffel in one hand, laptop bag in the other. A woman with long dark curls sat with her back to the tall reception desk. I cleared my throat. No response. I coughed once, then again. She spun around in her chair, eyes closed, and held her index finger in the air. Minutes passed, causing me to wonder if the motel might have been a better bet. Eventually the woman sighed, reached under her tangled hair and plucked out ear buds. She smiled but didn’t speak, as though waiting for me to explain myself.

  “I have a reservation. Joe Gale.”

  “You’re the Portland newspaper guy here to cover Danny’s trial.” She stood as though to get a better look at me. I must have appeared to be the chatting sort. “Do you think he’s guilty?”

  “Boothby, you mean?”

  “Yeah, do you think Danny murdered Frank O’Rourke in cold blood?”

  “Hard to know before the trial starts.”

  The phone rang while I was filling in the registration card. She told the caller she was busy and would call back in a few minutes. Then she sauntered back to where I was standing and picked up our conversation as though it hadn’t been interrupted.

  “Just so’s you know, a lot of people in this town know Danny, and knew his wife Karen,” she said. “Since she died, we’ve watched him try to hold it together for Corrine. It’s been hard, no two ways about it, and Danny’s gotten into a few scrapes in the past year or two, but nobody’s perfect, you know?”

  To keep her talking, I nodded in a way that implied agreement.

  “Of course DHHS expects you to be perfect. Never mind that you nursed your wife through her cancer, and you work every day digging worms or fishing on someone else’s boat because you lost your own, doing whatever you can do to pay off the damn medical bills that no one forgave, to keep a roof over your daughter’s head and food on the table and buy her new boots every winter because she’s growing like a weed.”

  She took a breath. “DHHS don’t count any of that. They only count your screwups. It makes no sense that Danny’d kill anyone—even Frank O’Rourke—because that’d leave Corrie an orphan.”

  I had no wish to break off the flood of insight into the local point of view, but the desk clerk clamped her lips together and offered a rueful grin, as though accustomed to being told she talked too much. “My name’s Willow, by the way. I don’t own this place, but pretty much run it in the winter. I put you in Room 14. Fronts on the street, but there’s no noise to speak of this time of year.”

  She opened a cabinet and removed an old-fashioned key.

  “Breakfast runs from six thirty to nine, and it’s the real deal, eggs every day and hot cereal, too. The dining room’s down the hall to the right. If you’re hungry for supper, the Old Fort Pub’s down the hill. Good food. Great beer.”

  She stopped for a breath. “Any questions?”

  “Anyone else connected with the trial staying here?”

  “Like who?”

  “Members of the O’Rourke family.”

  She gave me a long look. “You planning to buddy up to them?”

  “Not hardly. Just want to be prepared for who I might bump into at breakfast.”

  “You won’t be fighting them for the last blueberry muffin.” She haughtified her voice. “Mr. Speaker and the rest of the O’Rourke family have private accommodations in a luxurious oceanfront home in Machiasport. Away fro
m the hustle-bustle of downtown Machias.”

  Resisting the urge to reciprocate the snark, I gave her a wink, hoisted my bags and headed for the ornate staircase. Willow didn’t need to know I’d already fought a round with Speaker O’Rourke in the ice-covered convenience store parking lot, and that I’d be ready for his next sucker punch.

  Chapter Two

  Sunday, January 4, 2015

  The room was spacious and the bed was comfortable. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, just stretch out for a few minutes and contemplate what might have infuriated Eddie O’Rourke. But the soft clanking of the radiator sent me to dreamland, something my friend Christie Pappas would have called an emotional response to being assaulted, if I were foolish enough to tell her about my late afternoon humiliation.

  Any lingering post-nap fuzziness was slapped out of my head the moment I stepped outside to look for supper. Every inch of exposed skin froze on contact with the wind, forcing me to zip my parka to my chin and yank my watch cap down to my eyebrows. Head down, I speed walked down the hill toward the center of town and found the Old Fort Pub in a brick building that might once have been a warehouse. A long bar to the left of the doorway was more than half full. I slid onto a stool at the far end, a comfortable distance from the overhead TV, grateful for the big woodstove in the corner pumping out BTUs. The taps included Coal Porter, brewed down the road in Bar Harbor. My stomach growled when the waiter walked past with two plates laden with fish and chips. Christie had cooked me a giant breakfast that morning at her diner, but lunch had been a stale protein bar and an overripe banana.

  I was half watching a basketball game on a muted overhead TV when the bartender slid down to take my order. He asked if I was in town for the trial, as if there was no other conceivable reason a stranger in his early thirties might wander into his pub on a Sunday night in January. When I told him I was a reporter at the Chronicle, he grinned.

  “Had you pegged,” he said. “I’d know if you were a local. You’re too young to be one of the O’Rourke boys. Even though they say the prosecutor who’s going after Boothby is a young guy, he’d be on a first name basis with a barber.”