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"Likely
prospect?" he greeted Angela, as she came back down the hall. They paused
in front of the large room where the reporters worked.
"Maybe.
But we really don't have any openings. Something about her caught my attention.
I'm not sure what." She rubbed her temples and attempted a smile.
"Please tell me Dad isn't trying to install another arcade game on the
file server?" She gestured at the cluster of workers gathered around the
stacked unit of CPUs and printers, with a jungle's worth of cables leading out
to the other computers in the office.
Andrew
Coffelt had inherited the Tabor Picayune
from his father and had gladly embraced every advance in technology. Curt
sympathized with Angela, because her father was a little too eager to rest on
his credits as publisher, semi-retired yet still in the office every day. His
delight in trying out new software on the office system was a constant source
of frustration for Angela. The only thing that kept her from banning her father
from the office was the fact that his experiments hadn't interfered with the
publication of the paper. Not yet, anyway.
Curt
suspected that even if Andrew caused a power blackout of downtown Tabor Heights
for a week, Angela still couldn't ban her father from the paper. They both
loved it too much. He just wished she wasn't stuck with being the adult while
her father enjoyed his second childhood.
"I
think he's just checking out the FBI site that Loni decided to access. Tracking
the White Rose and identifying him has become the favorite hobby here,"
Curt offered.
"Unfortunately."
Angela's brown eyes lost focus. Then she shuddered, wrapped her arms around
herself, and continued down the hall to the lunchroom, her shoulder-length
black hair streaming out behind her with the impetus of her exit.
"Something
wrong?" He followed her.
"Everything
lately reminds me of the White Rose. That woman who was just in here—”
"Looks
like both his targets?" He nodded when she stared at him. "I noticed.
She reminded me of someone I knew when I was a kid."
"You
might have known her. Toni said she lived here for a few years. Toni
Napolitano. Sound familiar?"
Curt
started to say no, then choked. "Short for Antoinette?"
He
remembered Angelique's little sister, trying to tag along with them when their
gang from school went to play kickball. A scrawny kid, she pouted a lot when
Angelique told her to stay home. Curt thought she was four years younger than
him, putting her in third grade while the rest of them were in seventh.
"Yes,
Antoinette. Her credits are impressive. She brought a folder full of
clippings." Angela sighed and put down the coffee carafe without filling
her mug. "We can't really afford another reporter on staff right now. But
it wouldn't be fair to just tell her no without at least examining her
work."
"Look
at it this way." Curt's smile felt stiff. "She looks so much like the
White Rose's targets, would you feel right giving her a job that would have her
all over town, letting him get a good look at her?"
"That's
not funny." She dumped cream and sugar into her cup before reaching for
the carafe again.
"I
wasn't trying to be funny." He glanced toward the open door of her office.
"So, those clippings she brought. What did she write?"
"Everything.
Her specialty seems to be investigative reporting. If you ever feel like you
need a partner, I'd seriously consider her."
"Nah,
not yet." Curt stayed in the kitchen when Angela went back to her office.
Investigative reporter, huh? He felt sick with the certainty of what brought Toni Napolitano back to Tabor Heights. Somehow, she had heard about the White Rose, the two women he had terrorized, the one he had killed. She heard about the notes, demanding undying love and purity; the white roses left on doorsteps and even inside the victims' houses. The threats against any men who trespassed on his territory.
Just like he had done, had Toni made the connection between the White Rose and her sister's murder? Did she feel duty-bound to hunt him? Just like Curt felt duty-bound? After all, he found Angelique's body, left lying like so much discarded forest trash in the park.
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