The Stolen

41

"Tomorrow," Paulina said. She was sitting at her desk, leaning back in her desk chair, the one the assistants commonly referred to as the "bitch throne." She'd caught

James Keach referring to it as such one day, but rather than admonish the boy, she merely laughed and told him not to be shy about it. From that day on, James commonly referred to the chair with that moniker, using the slight whisper of a child who can't believe his parents permit him to curse in the house.

The copy was set. The pictures had been laid out. She'd pored over every inch of the article with greater focus than any story she could remember. She couldn't say for sure whether this piece would be her crowning moment as a journalist-in fact, she wasn't sure she'd want it to be-but in many ways it meant the most to her. It represented a clear turning point in her career, and would mark perhaps the first official shot of the war. To this day it had been the newsprint version of Russia versus the U.S. No casualties, lots of trash talk and hidden agendas everywhere they turned.

Paulina's article would change all of that. So while nobody quite knew just who fired that first shot at Lexington and Concord, in the future they could pin this one to her blouse. The Parker stories had been small potatoes.

Going after a baby fish as though people would care. To this point, Henry hadn't been in the game long enough for people to truly care. Like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, the sting would have been worse if they had the tenure of, well… Paulina laughed.

A bottle of Dom was waiting in her fridge. Myron's phone number was on her cell phone. At first she debated calling him again-the last thing she needed tonight was another pity party-but ending the night with a good drink and a great lay would be the perfect capper. The end of the beginning, the beginning of the end.

And even though she hadn't seen him in many months,

Paulina rather wished she'd be able to see the look on

Henry Parker's face in the morning.