Free No Footprints by Susan Dunlap Page B

her. ‟You didn’t run the Ginger Rampono story,” she blurts out. She knows she sounds frantic, crazy. She throws herself back into who she was last week, telling a man no, she wouldn’t drop everything for his order, that he could take his business elsewhere. ‟It was scheduled to run just before the break during the last segment. I need to know why it didn’t and when it’s been rescheduled to. I need to know now.” The authority in her tone is absolute.
    â€ŸDo you have an update?” the receptionist asks her.
    Update? That makes no sense, but she’s not about to say no. ‟Right. Who’s doing the story? Is it”—frantically she tries to recall the reporters’ names—‟the dark-haired woman, the pretty one?”
    â€ŸAndrea? No.”
    â€ŸLet me speak to the station manager.”
    â€ŸI’ll see if she’s—”
    The phone clicks and for an instant she worries she’s been cut off. Then a voice, echoing her own authority, says briskly, ‟You have an update on the Rampono story?”
    â€ŸTell me what you’ve got so far.”
    â€ŸNothing. Canceled.”
    â€ŸCanceled? Why?”
    â€ŸThe young girl, Ginger, was in an accident this morning.”
    She goes stiff. She can barely get out words. ‟Accident? What? Is she okay?”
    â€ŸI thought you’d be telling us that. Your update—”
    â€ŸWhat kind of accident?”
    â€ŸA car clipped her in a crosswalk—”

    â€ŸWas she injured?”
    â€ŸOf course. When you get knocked down, of course there’s some injury. Look, either you know something about this or not, and if—”
    She does, she knows a lot. She clicks off and stands staring at the phone, as if it’s going to tell her more.
    It is. She sees the message again and this time checks it. She recognizes the number and the voice that says, ‟Tonight. Do it.”
    Tonight.
    She knows all too well who the hit-and-run driver was. And she’s clear that her freedom today is an illusion. Five hours from now, she’ll be on the bridge. There’s no escaping.

13
    The Hall of Justice was less than a mile away. I stopped outside and looked again at the card Kristi’d given me. My stomach clutched.
    The guy at the desk was a friend of my oldest brother, John. They’d been rookies together. Then Sam’d been a freckled kid with straight sandy hair he’d failed at greasing back. Even to me, barely a teenager, he’d looked not yet formed. Now he looked like he’d melted—hair gone, skin sagged, even those freckles faded. Despite infuriating an array of cops and city officials over the years, John had made detective ages ago. What had happened to Sam that he was riding the desk?
    When he smiled up at me there was a flicker of those days of hope and energy. ‟Hey, there, Darcy, how’s the movie business?”
    â€ŸI set up a car gag this morning. Had a street sign in fear of its life. How’re things with you?”
    â€ŸGood as they can be. Haven’t seen your brother in a while, though.” He didn’t add, ‟Not since John got all that publicity a while back, since he became a big hero.”
    â€ŸHe’ll be glad I ran into you.” I couldn’t help but linger a moment, remembering the days when coming to the Hall of Justice to see my big brother at work had been exciting and John and his buddies had formed
a blue wall of safety around me. But that was decades ago. Now I took a deep breath and said, ‟I need to see Declan Serrano.”
    Suddenly Sam wasn’t listening. He was staring as if a giant crater was opening in my forehead.
    â€ŸSam?”
    â€ŸDoes John know about this?”
    I shook my head.
    He shot a glance down the hall. ‟You sure you want to get involved with him?”
    â€ŸIt’s just a quick question. No biggie.”
    When he didn’t move, I said,