Free Death by Surprise (Carolyn Hart Classics) by Carolyn Hart Page B

to talk.
    And I thought, oh wow, this is going to tear it for Kenneth.
    “. . . and I felt if we talked it over, among ourselves, we might come up with a solution. Kenneth, of course, can tell us what our rights are legally.”
    Coffee spilled over the brim of the cup, splashing onto the saucer Edmond held.
    “Hold up, K.C.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Here, Miss K.C. I’ll take that cup. Pour Mr. Edmond a fresh one.” As Amanda took the sloshing saucer, she bent near to me and said softly, “Don’t you pay her no never mind, Miss K.C. Your poppa he told me once, he said, ‘Miss K.C. will be the best lawyer of all, Amanda, you wait and see.’”
    “It doesn’t matter.” But I couldn’t resist the bitter comment, “It’s so damn typical.”
    Grace had called and asked me to come, even gone so far as to say I approached problems like my father, but when she needed legal advice, why, apparently only men counted as lawyers. Obviously, too, she hadn’t talked to Kenneth earlier. He looked stricken, then he rallied, “Aunt Grace, I’d be glad to help, but I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about.”
    Grace can be obtuse sometimes. She said impatiently, “Why, Kenneth, of course you know. It’s that Boutelle woman and that awful article she is writing about all of us. She told me she had talked to you.”
    For an instant, Kenneth looked grim and angry. Then he cleared his throat. “Oh. Of course. That reporter woman. I didn’t remember the name.”
    “But Kenneth . . .” Mother began.
    “As a matter of fact,” he interrupted hastily, “I talked to her very briefly. Very briefly. I declined to be interviewed. I could tell it was a scandal-mongering kind of thing and I told her I wasn’t interested.”
    A child of three could have seen that Kenneth was lying. Megan was no child. Her narrow face looked suddenly pinched and old.
    Grace continued to be dense. “But Kenneth, I thought . . .”
    “I warned her that the Carlisle family would not tolerate a libelous article.”
    Grace brightened. “So we can force her not to print it?”
    “No,” I said quietly, taking pity on Kenneth. “There’s no way, Grace. However, we can sue the socks off her if we don’t like it.”
    “K.C.,” Grace said sharply, “the point is, we don’t want it printed.”
    “I understand what you want, Grace. The point is, there isn’t a damned thing you can do to stop her.”
    “It’s blackmail,” Edmond said harshly.
    Everyone looked at him.
    “It’s blackmail, that’s all there is to it,” he said again.
    “We could buy the magazine,” Sue suggested.
    Edmond nodded. “It’s going to come down to that.”
    “What good will that do?” Travis asked. “She can just sell the damned article somewhere else.”
    Edmond shook his head. “Oh no, we will use a dummy company to buy the magazine, then instruct the editor to buy the article. When it is in his possession, we will destroy it. She cannot legally sell it elsewhere.”
    I poured myself a cup of coffee and thought what a wonderful thing wealth is. Edmond was so confident of what money could buy, but I had known a few people in journalism. The editor of Inside Out was probably not the most likable guy in the world or he wouldn’t work for such a destructive organ, but his hackles would flare at the idea of being bought off. One way or the other, the article would see print.
    “Fat chance,” I remarked.
    They all looked at me.
    “Sorry, friends, but I don’t think it will work to buy the magazine. Magazines aren’t hunks of cheese. You would never succeed in telling an editor what to print.”
    “If we own it, we can control it.”
    “If the editor is like some I’ve known, he will listen to you, mumble something in reply, print the damn article, and quit.”
    “But we can. . . .”
    I looked at Edmond with interest. “What can we do? Besides fire him and that will be too late.”
    “We have to do something,” Priscilla said throatily.
    “Pay