Free Treacherous by Barbara Taylor Bradford

rooms, and Mikey always needed a couple of bucks.”
    “A lot more
went on in those back rooms.”
    “We didn’t
know that, Luke. We were dumb, just out of college. We quit as soon as they
started threatening Mikey.”
    Luke studied
her. “I wish you'd told me this up front.”
    “I got a
little busy jumping off a train, and nearly drowning. Forgive me if I didn’t
think to give you my résumé.”
    Luke pulled
her to him. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m just a little nutty on the subject of Eddie
Rivers. It could have happened to anyone. I’m glad you told me about it.”
    Fiona didn’t
respond.
    “Sorry to be
such a jerk.”
    “I’m the one
who was a jerk. But I can’t go back and fix it. If this changes things for us—”
    He interrupted
her. “Nothing will change things for us! Whatever happened back then, between
you and Eddie Rivers, is the past, over and done with!” He held her to him tightly.
    Is the past
ever really over, Fiona wondered silently, clinging to this man she loved more
than her own life. She breathed a silent prayer that it could be.

TWENTY-FOUR
    It
was early on the day of the Edward R. Murrow Awards dinner. The morning had
dawned clear and sunny. A perfect beginning for an unforgettable occasion.
    Hayley was
curled up in her green chair, surrounded by the past. Her ever-present talisman,
the scrapbook she had carefully kept on Luke from the time they were kids, was
on the floor, open to the page showing him grinning at the camera from his
first anchor desk, somewhere in Iowa.
    Yearbooks from
Miss Porter’s were stacked on the table next to the chair. On her lap sat the
memento of her first year there. The year Fiona saved her. She looked at the
picture of the two of them, standing arm in arm in front of the gates to the
red-brick campus. Even in fifth grade, Fiona already had the look of a winner.
She would be the one to score the winning goal, to win the debate with her arch
rival, Ethel Smith, to get the lead in the play. To get the guy.
    Next to Fiona,
Hayley looked like the school mascot. Skinny, sallow from too many summers in
her only playground, the junk-strewn space underneath the Triborough Bridge. She
looked every bit like the scholarship student she was. Yet there she was,
basking in the radiance that surrounded Fiona, beaming like she’d just won an
Olympic medal.
    What a fool
she had been. Fiona hadn’t wanted a friend; she’d wanted a disciple. And Hayley
was only too happy to take the job. She couldn’t blame Luke, not really, for
falling under her spell. It happened to everyone. It had happened to her and
she hadn’t figured it out for twenty years.
    But she knew
where she stood now. No more second fiddle! No more! Soon everyone would know
who and what Fiona truly was.
    The door burst
open, but was kept in check by the chain lock. It was Mikey.
    “Hayley! Let
me in!”
    “Hold on for a
minute.” She quickly collected the yearbooks and scrapbooks and locked them
safely away in the desk, while Mikey continued to pound incessantly on her
door.
    “Open the
door. You’re going to get me killed.”
    Hayley took
her time getting to the door. Mikey dashed in, out of breath and looking afraid.
    “Jeez, Hayley,
I need a drink. Get me a drink.”
    “I have some
wine but it’s not cold.”
    “Don't you
have any booze? What’s the matter with you?”
    “What’s the
matter with you ! Do you want the wine or not?”
    Mikey grabbed it,
unscrewed the cap and chugged right from the bottle. “God, this is crap!”
    “You’re
welcome,” she said, taking the bottle from him, wiping the top and depositing
it in the refrigerator. “So did you get it?”
    “If Rivers ever
finds out about this, I’m a dead man.”
    “You're as
good as dead anyway, unless you’ve come up with another way to get the twenty grand
to pay off your loan. Give it to me.”
    His hands were
shaking as he pulled a DVD out of his jacket and handed it to her. “How did you
even know these things