Read Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) for Free Online Page B

grabbed a copy of the morning paper from the box on the co rne r, climbed the stairs and made some coffee up in my of fice. I poured what amounted to barely half a cup then opened up the paper. There, in the b ottom corner of the front page, Local Man Assaults English Girl , story page 3. Wonderful.
    The article, written by a James Tarbox, was three paragraphs long. I couldn’t recall talking with this hack. It was accompanied by a photo of Felicity Bard ; AKA Emma Babe. In the photo she was bending down, resting her hands on the shoulders of three cherub-like children at a London Heart Hospital . In the photo Emma looked like an innocent fourteen-year— old with big boobs . The article gave all the pertinent details, she weighed one-hundred-and-seven pounds, stood five— feet-two-inches and was over here fundraising at her own expense so the hospital could purchase a CT scanner for children. She ’d been hospitalized over night for observation. Mercifully my name wasn’t mentioned. I was simply described as “a local man known to police”.
    My phone rang, dragging me out of the daydream where I was shoving Emma in her roller skates off a ramp and into the Grand Canyon .
    “Hello?”
    “I’m returning your call.”
    “Justine, thanks for calling.” I waited a very long moment for a response, there wasn’t one. “Hello?”
    “I’m returning your call.”
    “Thank you. L ook , I just wanted to explain. I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand last night. God, it seems like everyone has just jumped to a conclusion and…”
    “Jumped to a conclusion? For your information there are about a million witnesses. We were all hauled in to talk to the head of security at the Veteran’s Auditorium…”
    “That lard ass Wayne guy?”
    “ I don’t know, h e’ s the s ergeant in charge, to tell you the truth we were all just a little too shocked to get his name. ”
    “He’s not some s ergeant, that’s just the name of the security company that…”
    “I don’t know that any of that is really important right now, we’re looking at a potential lawsuit here . I’ve spent the better part of last night and all of this morning doing damage control with the media. ”
    “A lawsuit?”
    “We were stupid enough to hire you and put you in touch with the Hastings Hustlers. You said it wouldn’t be a problem, you’d just move us to the top of the list, thanks a bunch. You failed to mention it would be your shit list. I’ve been talking to lawyers all morning.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “I, in fact we , have been advised not to have any contact with you. So that’s the only reason I ’m calling, to tell you I’m not talking to you.”
    “Well, at least they’re in Chicago , so you can get back…”
    “Oh, haven’t you heard? They’re still here , the Hustler’s . Chicago cancelled. Seems what with the fin ger thing and now the assault f r om a local nut case up here , Chicago just doesn’t need the hassle. So t hey canceled. I’m sure the remaining cit i es on the tour will follow suit before the day is over. Nice job Dev, we’ve worked years to build up the image , do all sorts of good and you managed to destroy everything in about fifteen seconds.”
    “ Hey, how was I supposed to know… Hello. Hello? Justine?”
    There was probably nothing positive to be gained by calling back and suggesting we’d been cut off.

Chapter Thirteen
    I figured if I phoned Jimmy McNaughton he’d either refuse to see me or contact Justine and then refuse to see me, so instead I drove over to the Hustler ’ s hotel. Jimmy was in the dining room drinking a cup of tea, he is English after all . From what I could tell the Hustler ’s were grazing on double cheeseburgers, double orders of fries and washing it all down with diet cokes.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing here? I’m about to call your police,” he said the moment he saw me .
    “Jimmy, I want to explain. I didn’t do anything last