Free Black Lightning by John Saul Page A

thoughts. With Blakemoor’s next question, though, Anne knew at once that his mullings hadn’t been terribly different from her own. “What do you think? Any chance at all that we were wrong?”
    “Who are you asking?” Anne countered, a thin smile curling the corners of her mouth. “Anne Jeffers, ace journalist, or Anne Jeffers, private citizen?”
    “How about we start with the private citizen?”
    “He’s guilty,” Anne stated with no hesitation at all. “Guilty, guilty, guilty, as charged. And guilty of all the others he was never charged with, too.”
    “Okay,” Blakemoor said. “Now, what about Anne Jeffers, ace reporter? What does she think?”
    Anne spread her fingers wide and wiggled them as if she were typing at an invisible keyboard. “Show me a reporter who wouldn’t like to rip the cover off a conspiracy that sent an innocent man to the electric chair. I mean, we’re talking Pulitzer Prize here, Mark.”
    The detective eyed her speculatively, trying to gauge how much of what she’d just said was meant seriously and how much was merely intended to rile him. “Does that mean you’re planning to keep chasing this one?” he asked.
    Anne opened her mouth to answer, then realized she didn’t know what she was going to do. Three hours earlier, before she’d heard from Rita Alvarez, it would have been an easy call: given what Kraven had said in their last conversation, she’d at least have to give it one more shot. Because if Kraven hadn’t been lying, and she could prove it, there undoubtedly would be a Pulitzer in it for her. Not to mention a huge book contract, probably a movie, and a new job with a salary that would make her current paycheck look like a kid’s allowance. Now, though, everything was different. In just those few minutes she’d talked to Rita, all her priorities had changed. “I don’t know if I’ll chase the story or not,” she finally replied to the detective’s question. “It’s all going to depend on Glen’s situation. It may be that I’ll take a leave of absence.”
    An incredulous grin spread over the detective’s face. “You? Give me a break, Anne—when it comes to working a story, you’re no different from me when I have a tough case. The hell with hours, the hell with food, the hell with sleep, and the hell with the family, too.”
    Anne’s first reaction to Blakemoor’s words was to mount an immediate and aggressive counterattack: “Maybe that’s why Patsy left you. At least my marriage is still very much intact, thank you.” Blakemoor winced, and Anne immediately regretted her words. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That really wasn’t fair.” As she thought about it, she realized just how unfair it truly was. After all, it wasn’t she who had to hold dinner for Glen every night. Often it was exactly the opposite, or even worse—sometimes during the last few months it was Heather and Kevin waiting for both their parents, or eating alone while both adult Jefferses grabbed a bite in their offices. If she wanted to be completely honest about it, Blakemoor hadn’t been far off the mark at all—she did tend to shut everything else out when she was working on a story. The one that had ended today had occupied nearly all her attention for most of the last five years.
    Suddenly she had a chilling thought: If she hadn’t been so consumed with the Kraven case, would she have seen Glen’s heart attack coming? But how could she have? It had simply come out of the blue!
    Or had it?
    She cast her mind back over the last few days, then the last few weeks and months. How long had it been since she and Glen had simply taken an evening off together, let alone a whole weekend? Usually one or the other—if not both of them—were working. His birthday had gone uncelebrated, as had their anniversary three months ago. If she’d become too engrossed in her work even to celebrate some of the most important landmarks in her life, how could she expect to be aware of