Free Fall

Sixty-Four

Los Angeles, California

Kate couldn’t shake her sense of unease, feeling that somewhere, something major was breaking on the story.

And I don’t know what it is.

Her anxiety had arisen from what Nick Varner had told her when she’d called to alert him to Robert Cole.

We’re on the same track and things are unfolding.

What was unfolding? What had Nick meant by that?

Something was up. Kate could feel it in her gut, and it tormented her as she inched along the security lines at Los Angeles International Airport for her return flight to New York.

She needed more information from Varner. She’d tried contacting him again last night and today but it was futile. She’d also reached out to Erich for help but so far he hadn’t responded. Her worry deepened with each passing minute because once she was on the plane she’d be incommunicado for at least five hours.

Maybe she should alert Chuck.

Alert him to what-my failure to advance the lead we got on Cole? No, I’ll handle this my way. Once I get back to New York, I’ll go flat out to find Cole and I’ll press Nick to tell me what the FBI’s doing. He’s got to give me something. We put out the story with the appeal like the FBI wanted, and I told them about Cole.

At last, Kate reached the front of the line and the scanners, where she hefted her carry-on bag to the table, removed her laptop from its case and presented her boarding pass.

Once she’d cleared security and made it to the preboarding area of her gate, she immediately went online, checking for any reports on the story by other major news organizations.

Nothing so far.

But that did little to calm her feeling that the story was about to bust wide open.