Something crossed Prince’s eyes. I couldn’t tell what. “Ah, yes. A tragedy.” He dropped my hand. “I was very fond of Jane. We had worked together for years.”

“Worked together? How do you mean?” I’m not sure why, but I wondered for the first time if Prince had been one of Jane’s dalliances.

“I frequently gave interviews to Jane before anyone else.”

“You trusted her to cover your stories well.”

“I did indeed.” His eyes flicked around the newsroom. “Well, I must be going. It was a pleasure.”

“Izzy,” I heard C.J. call from behind me. “I need you on the desk in one minute.”

“Got it,” I called over my shoulder. I turned back to Prince and moved a little in front of him so he couldn’t walk away. “Were you and Jane working on any stories recently? I mean, other than the King Pharmaceuticals lawsuit?”

“No, not recently. And this case has been in a holding pattern for some time. I would have called Jane about this recent ruling, but we didn’t even know when the judge was going to issue it, and by then, of course, Jane was…”

“Killed.”

“Yes.”

Did you do it? Did you need to keep her from the story she said was going to nail you the wall?

“What was the last story you gave Jane to break?”

“Izzy,” C.J. called. “Let’s go.”

I held up one finger and began backing toward the desk, but my eyes were still on Prince, waiting for his answer.

“I can’t recall,” he said. “Possibly a fire case I had at the end of last year. Anyway, good luck with your broadcast.” He turned and left, but after a step or two he looked back, as if to see that I was still there. And he gave me that charming and warm smile again. One that left me cold.

43

A s soon as the morning shift of Trial TV was over and the afternoon anchors and producers started taking over the set, C. J. Lyons held a meeting to recap the show and quickly summarize the stories for the next day.

When everyone left, I stopped C.J. “Can I ask a question? Do you know about a story Jane was working on that involved Jackson Prince?”

“Just this King case.”

“What about the case exactly?”

“You know-the motion to dismiss, whether the lawsuit would go forward.”

I frowned. It didn’t seem like anything that would make Prince stalk off the set a few days ago. “What about the members of the class action and how they got to become members? On the first broadcast of Trial TV, Jane was asking Prince about that.”

C.J. nodded. “I saw it. She was just asking basic questions to get the audience up and running.”

I bit my lip. “It sounded like something bigger. Something involving Prince himself.”

C.J. squinted a little behind her black glasses. “Prince is squeaky clean. I mean, he’s at the top of his game. I can’t imagine a story about him personally.”

“You used to write most of Jane’s stories, right?”

She nodded. “Used to. That’s not how it usually works-most newscasters write their own stories-but somehow we fell into this pattern where Jane did the interviews, but I wrote the pieces and put them together.”

“Were there any stories about Prince?”

She shook her head. “But I don’t know what she was working on recently.” C.J. flipped her glasses up on top of her short black hair. “Now that we’re on this topic, we should talk about you starting to work your own stories. Not that it’s absolutely required when you’re riding the anchor desk, but it would be good if you had experience pulling in your own stuff. Especially if you want to stay in this business.”

I thought about this for a second. This business was nothing I’d ever envisioned for myself, nothing I’d ever considered even for a second. But I liked it. More than liked it. The minute-to-minute nature of it thrilled me. I loved how working in the news put me so squarely in the present, unable to think, at least for a while, about Sam, or Theo, or Zac’s accusations, or even Jane.

I wondered if Jane could somehow see me now. I wanted her to be proud of me. “If Jane was working on a story about Prince, would she have taken notes?” I asked C.J.

“Sure.”

“Where would those be? I’d like to pick up the stories where Jane left off. Would that be okay?”

“That’s great. But we might have a problem with the notes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Follow me. I’ll show you her desk.” C.J. and I walked through the set. The afternoon people were scurrying around, their anticipation ramped up. We crossed through the newsroom, making our way through the obstacle course of reporter and producer desks.

Finally we came to Jane’s. As lead anchor she had been allotted one of the nicer desks-large and tucked slightly behind a curving wall.

And it was a mess.

“The cops went through it last night,” C.J. said. “I came here after the memorial, and they were here.”

“Was it Detective Vaughn?”

“That’s the guy. He’s a bundle of fun, huh?”

“Yeah.” I looked at Jane’s desk. “Did he find anything?”

“No idea. Took a few things, like notebooks and her computer. Made me sign some chain of custody sheet. Then he left.”

“Is it okay to go through it now?”

“I don’t see why not. We didn’t get any instructions not to touch it, and to be honest, I’d love to know if Jane had any good stories that we could finish up for her.” She exhaled. “Except…”

“What?” C.J. crossed her arms over her clipboard and glanced at the desk. “Maybe I should do it. Jane had some…well, some personal issues, and I just wouldn’t want them to come to light now. You know, now that she’s…”

She and I studied each other. I thought I knew what she was talking about-Jane’s affairs. And her issues with Zac. I knew C.J. and Jane had been close. She probably knew about these things, but I didn’t want to blow any confidences Jane had trusted me with.

“I mean…” C.J. shrugged. “I guess the cops might have taken anything like that, but in case there is something…”

“I’m just looking for stories on Prince,” I said, “or other good leads Jane had. If I find anything personal, I’ll…” I’ll what?

C.J. shook her head. “It should be fine. Jane didn’t keep diaries. She never wanted a record of her personal thoughts or actions.”

Again, C.J. and I studied each other, and again, I think we both knew that we were talking about, without mentioning, Jane’s affairs.

“But if you find anything,” C.J. continued, “let me know, okay?”

“I will.” We gazed at the handwritten notes, newspaper clippings and printouts of Web pages that littered the desk.

“Find a story if it’s there,” she said. “Do it for her legacy.”

I spent the next four hours at Jane’s desk. At first I read everything-magazine articles on a missing person’s case in Tahoe, lists of people to interview in a large product liability case. But even after the cops had picked through her research, there still wasn’t enough time to read it all in one sitting. Jane might not have been writing her own stories for years, but she had clearly put in a lot of work in the last few months.

I decided instead to organize piles based on topics-the Tahoe case, the product liability one, the trial of a celeb in L.A. for domestic assault. No mention of Jackson Prince.

Had the cops confiscated anything like that?

I managed to shape the desktop into a field of small piles based on general topics. As I did so, I unearthed a large number of pages printed from Web sites, all of them about class action cases and how plaintiffs opted into certain lawsuits, particularly medical cases. This was the same topic Jane had been questioning Jackson Prince about. I felt a flicker of excitement as I found more and more material on the topic, most of it about how advertisements would target potential plaintiffs. But then I got frustrated. There was nothing specific about the King Pharmaceuticals case or about Prince. Again, I wondered if the cops had taken that stuff. Or maybe Jane had kept such notes in her computer. The one the cops had.