“Five!” the voice called, counting down. Tommy held up a finger to the writer, as if to signal, Just a minute. He looked toward the anchor desk and Jane.

I did the same. Jane seemed frozen, staring at the writer. The room went quiet.

“Four!”

“Augustine, you ready?” called the floor director who stood to the right of Jane’s anchor desk.

“Three!”

Jane wasn’t moving, her eyes unblinking. I glanced back at the writer. He was still jotting notes. But just then, he looked up, right at Jane, and he smiled.

“Two!”

The look from the writer seemed to break Jane’s shock. She peered down at the monitor in front of her.

No one yelled “one” but the red lights showed the cameras were rolling.

And then Jane’s face rose again, a face that was calm, satisfied, authoritative. “Good morning, I’m Jane Augustine.” She gave a smile of pleasure. “Welcome to Trial TV.”

Jane turned and faced a different camera. “At Trial TV, we bring you gavel-to-gavel coverage of the courtrooms that are topping the news. We’re revolutionizing the coverage of litigation. Not only will we provide up-to-the-minute reporting, but we’ll also give you the real stories of what’s happening behind the courtroom doors. We’ve assembled the best news team in the business along with seasoned lawyers who know what’s really going on, and we’ve got our ears to the ground. If there’s breaking legal news, you’ll hear it first on Trial TV.”

TV monitors flanked both sides of the anchor desk, Jane’s beautiful face on each of them.

She turned back to the first camera. She smiled a grin that had a hint of playfulness to it. “So let’s get started. Joe Kelley is in Boston, Massachusetts, where the governor has been in hot water and appears in court today.”

The monitors changed, now showing a guy in a trench coat in front of a capitol building.

“Joe,” Jane said, “what’s the story there this morning?”

Joe Kelley began talking. The room started buzzing with activity and conversation. Trial TV was up and running.

Jane’s face relaxed for a moment, but I saw her glance toward the back of the room.

I followed her gaze.

The writer was gone.

Because I lost my father when I was eight, you might think I have a daddy-complex, some need to find a father figure in men of his age. Well, Tommy Daley was about the age my dad would have been-fifty-eight-but I wasn’t experiencing any kind of daughterlike devotion toward him.

“Why are you here?” he demanded after I’d introduced myself, his voice a series of sharp snaps.

“Jane sent me over.” I waved behind me at the anchor desk. “She said you were the master of my universe.”

That gave him a pause. He smirked in Jane’s direction. “I friggin’ love that girl,” he said. “She’s the only reason I’m here.” He turned his steely gaze back to me. “C’mere.”

I followed him through a different door from the one I came in. It led to a large room filled with cubicle desks, each with two computer screens and small TVs. Along the wall was a grid of nine televisions. Two showed Joe Kelley, the current on-air shot, and another showed Jane sitting at the anchor desk, waiting to go back on. The other TVs were tuned to CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other such stations. Above the TVs hung three clocks. Signs underneath them read Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. On another wall was a huge monthly calendar on a dry erase board.

Tommy crossed his arms. “I meant what are you doing here on a national television network? Huh? I know we lost what’s-her-name last week.” He shook his head, muttered something that sounded like Ivy League, my eye. “Anyway, I gave the green light to hire you because Jane vouched for you, said you could handle it, but now I want to know, what are you really bringing to the table?”

I flushed a little. On one hand, I’d been asking myself the same question over the weekend. On the other hand, I knew enough guys from the law like Tommy-guys who needed to haze you, to put you through your paces until you could earn their respect. And I understood that. You just couldn’t show ’em you were scared.

“I’m a lawyer,” I said. “I’ve got jury trial experience as well as contract negotiations. I worked at Baltimore & Brown-”

Tommy growled and tugged at his yellow tie. “How long did you practice?”

“About five years.”

His brown, red-rimmed eyes peered at me, then he actually rolled them toward the ceiling. “Jesus,” he muttered. “You’re a baby.”

I wanted to say, No, “the baby” was the guy I shoved out of my apartment at five this morning. Instead, I quickly continued, “For most of the time I practiced, I was head legal counsel for Pickett Enterprises.”

That brought his eyes back to me. “You knew Forester?”

“I knew him very well. I miss him every day.”

He grunted. “Good guy. So what’s your broadcast experience?”

“I used to give statements to the news on behalf of Pickett Enterprises. And Jane said that the trend in news was broadcasters with real life experience.”

He winced. “You don’t even have a demo, do you?”

“A demo tape? No. Just me.” I held out my hands and smiled extra big.

Tommy rubbed the sides of his head, which made his gray-blond hair frizz more. He pointed at the calendar on the far wall. “You know what that is?”

I studied it, read some of the things written there. Pitello trial. Congressional hearings on athlete enhancement drugs, Mackey appellate argument. “Looks like different legal stories you’re covering.”

“Not bad.” He gave me a brief nod. “Now listen, you mentioned a trend in the news business, but I don’t believe in trends. You know what I believe in?”

I looked at his bloodshot eyes and thought, Whiskey in your coffee? I shook my head.

“I believe in smoking at the Billy Goat Tavern. And I believe in newscasters covering the news.” He leaned toward me. “Trained newscasters. I do not believe in personalities in the news.” His eyes flicked over my face, and he frowned. “And I don’t believe in newscasters and guests sitting on a couch and shouting over each other.”

I stayed silent. Once again, I had a feeling that I knew his type-a true professional who went into the business because he had a passion for it, who came up during a certain era, and who needed to bluster about how things have changed before any work could get done. My old law firm was full of such types, and I had been on the receiving end of more bluster than most, since Forester had taken his work away from one of the older, more respected partners and given it all to me. I didn’t mind the bluster at all. In fact, I felt I deserved it. I had lucked into that legal work, just as I had lucked into this news job. I liked luck. I wasn’t one of those people who would turn my back on it just because I hadn’t been striving toward some goal for ten years. But I understood that it made some people crazy, those who had strived for a decade. And so I felt it my duty to let myself get called to the mat and to take a little drubbing.

“The other thing I don’t believe in,” Tommy continued, “is newscasters spouting their opinions or pressing their positions on something.” He sighed. “But no one agrees with me on this anymore. So you’re here to report, but you’re also here to give your opinion, as much as I can’t stand that. We need you to get the backstory on everything you cover, and the network wants you to filter the information through your experience in the law.” Another up-and-down glance. “However little that might be.”

I nodded. “Got it.”

Another sigh. “I wanted you to tail another reporter for a few weeks, but this is a start-up network. We’ve got no time and even less money. So you ready to cover a story today?”

I swallowed hard. “Cover as in on-air?”

“Yeah, you know. Describe the reaction of the defendant-shocked, happy, whatever. Try to talk to the jury. Standard stuff.” He looked at his watch. “By the way, in the future, I won’t keep giving you this stuff. You have to get your own stories.”