Chapter 11

I spent the first half hour at work on Monday dreading Rachel's arrival. I was going to have to explain to her that I didn't have a story for her.

But first I had to deal with Shawn. She came in after Allie and Dan, as usual. She always put in an appearance on Monday before she dashed off to the statehouse for the Monday morning briefing. She didn't say anything, also just like usual.

"G'morning, Shawn," I said.

The high heels stopped clicking.

"How do you always know it's me?" she asked.

I wheeled myself around. I would have been surprised to have Shawn speak to me in ordinary circumstances. Today was not ordinary. I had jobbed her out of the biggest story in Charleston since the Pinkertons had broken the mine unions. As Rachel had pointed out, that wasn't my fault but I honestly didn't expect Shawn to see it that way.

To my further surprise, however, she had a smile on her face. I had seen the gorgeous blonde hair, the bright blue eyes, and even the perfect tan before, after her vacation last year. But the smile nearly knocked me over.

"Tell me," she ordered.

"Three-inch heels sound different than one-inch heels." I nodded toward her shoes as I found my voice. "You're the only one who wears three-inch heels. I have extremely well-developed hearing."

"That's not the only thing I hear is well-developed," she said with a wiggle of her beautifully shaped eyebrows. "I read my e-mails over the weekend. Alison's sister's quite the lucky little hottie, isn't she?"

I was conscious that my mouth was hanging open and equally conscious that I was not going to be able to close it. Had Shawn Michaels just made a sexual reference about me? To my face? A favorable sexual reference? Was this another dream?

"And I read your story," she said, still smiling. "Nice job, Hando. How'd you dig that one up?"

My suspicions returned instantly.

"Source," I said in an off-hand way.

"Well, it was great," she said, shaking her head. "Wish I had a source like that. So how's the follow-up going?"

"Um, not so good," I said. "That Simpson asshole produced a set of those computer-imaged cancelled checks from the Governor's personal account on Friday. Reimbursing Amalgamated Coal for the use of its plane over the last four years. I spent the whole weekend studying them. I got shit. Leaving me with a story that the Governor's got friends in the coal industry. Big whoop."

"Wow," Shawn said with a laugh and a well-practiced toss of her long hair. "That was fast. When I ask my bank for a copy of a check they're like, 'I'm afraid it will take some time to access that information, Miss Michaels.' And it's never their fault either. It's always the computer."

"Really," I said. My eyes were still staring at Shawn but my mind was elsewhere.

"Are you okay, Hando? Rick?"

"Really," I repeated as a thought coalesced in my mind.

"What's wrong?"

I reached up and grabbed Shawn by the shoulders. Before she could react, I brought her down and kissed her squarely on the lips.

"You're beautiful!" I cried. "I love you!"

I wheeled around and picked up the phone.

"Hey, Melissa. It's Rick Handley. Don't you guys on the fourth floor ever go home? Yeah, I know. Always facts to check. Speaking of facts, do you happen to know the Governor's Social Security number? Great. And his date of birth? And his wife's? And the kids'? Wonderful. Thanks. I owe you one."

Shawn stared at the paper where I had written down the information.

"Why do you need all that?" she asked.

"Shot in the dark," I said. I had a wild, desperate smile on my face as I punched a button for a new line. "The governor's a bright guy, you know, but his wife isn't exactly the most seaworthy ship in the port, if you get my drift."

"So?"

"So what do you think the chances are that she used her birthday, or her husband's or one of her kids' birthdays for the password on their bank account? 'Cause if you know the Social and the password, getting into the account's no problem at all."

She opened her eyes wide as I dialed the automated system at the governor's bank, which was coincidentally the same one that I used. It took me two tries; it turned out to be the oldest kid's birthday.

"Fuckin' A!" I banged my fist on the desk.

"Fuckin A!" I yelled again.

"What?" Shawn asked again as I finally hung up.

"They're forgeries," I said. "See this one here? Check number two-six-three-zero? According to the bank, the check with that number was for forty-three dollars and twenty-six cents. And this one? Two hundred dollars. None of these are the real things. Son of a bitch."

"What's going on?"

Rachel had arrived and was standing next to Shawn. I could smell her perfume.

"Shawn just saved my ass," I said. "Can I co-credit her for this story?"

I heard no answer and wheeled around to find both women staring at me.

"If you're serious," Rachel finally said. "And Shawn doesn't have a problem with it."

We both looked at Shawn, who had the grace to look quite embarrassed.

"I didn't really do anything," she demurred.

"If it wasn't for you," I said, "I'd be dead in the water. Come on Shawn, waddya say?"

She thought for a moment longer.

"Okay," she finally said with a nod. "Let's do it."

"Wonderful," Rachel said.

"My name first," I pointed out. They both laughed.

We adjourned to Rachel's office, where Bill soon joined us. They soon left us alone to write.

An hour later, Shawn left for the statehouse, where she would say nothing at all about this new story. We had decided to use the same plan as last week. If we asked about the forgeries at the briefing, we wouldn't get an exclusive. We would wait until this afternoon. We would call my good friend Pete Simpson after the article was complete. Complete except for the governor's comments, of course.

Which turned out to be very similar to my comments earlier in the day.

"Fuckin' A!" Pete Simpson said.

He calmed down a minute later, though. His professional demeanor returned and he remembered the cardinal rule of politics: The buck never really stops at all.

"All right, folks. I'll tell you what went down. I called Cici Platte last week and had her call the bank. She called back and said that the bank told her that it would take at least a week to get those checks. Because some of 'em were like five years old."

Shawn and I exchanged smiles. Did we know our banks or what?

"So I called Amalgamated to see what they had," Simpson went on. "They shipped me these checks on Friday."

"So you're saying that Amalgamated forged the checks?" I asked.

"I'm saying that they shipped me these checks on Friday."

"And may I have the name of the person you spoke to at Amalgamated?"

There was a long pause.

"Why do you need that?" he asked.

"To give him or her a chance to comment on this allegation before we print it. Just as we're doing with your office."

There was another pause before he answered.

"I'm gonna have to call you back on that one," he said.

"Fifteen minutes, Pete," Shawn chimed in. "Otherwise we call their PR guy. He won't know anything about it, and the story might not be what you want."

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks a lot, Shawn."

He rang off and we all turned to Shawn.

"We'd end up with some low-level guy who won't be able to contact anyone at this hour," she explained. "And we'd end up with some half-assed denial."

"What'll we get now?" I asked.

"You'll see," Shawn said with another flash of her perfect teeth. "If that's all we get, the story will be about their failure to establish reimbursement. He wants it to focus on the allegation that Amalgamated forged the checks."

"Good luck to him," Bill said. "All that means is that the story will be twice as big now."

Gus stopped by a little later and was in the office when we were told that the president of Amalgamated was on the line asking for me.

"This is Rick Handley," I said. "Mr. Tucker, you're on speakerphone. I have with me Shawn Michaels, who covers the statehouse, along with Rachel Langhorn, Bill McIntyre, and Gus Barton, who are editors here at the paper."

"Hello, Gus," Tucker said.

"Hello, Tim," Gus answered him with a smile. "Tough day?"

"I just got back in myself today. And then this. Pete Simpson called here last week in a panic looking for some checks, and some little hothead in accounting flipped out and got our ad people to phony up those checks. Heads have already rolled, I can tell you that."

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