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“No shit, Sherlock,” said her cameraman. They’d been out there for too long, and Zak was getting a little antsy. He was also hungry for some real food, and not the pizzas they’d had delivered about an hour before.

“I say we move in for a closer look,” Lauren suggested. She tapped her nose. “I have a nose for these things, Zak.”

“Yeah, like you had a nose for barging into the police station this afternoon and getting kicked out?”

“I may have reacted a little hastily that time.”

But she was so sure that they would find a great little scoop there that she’d decided to go for broke and barge into the place. It hadn’t worked out so well, and their exclusive interview with Gabriel Crier or Chief Alec or both had been a bust. And now they were forbidden from ever setting foot inside the police station ever again. And after Chief Alec had called Lauren and Zak’s boss at WLBC-9, he’d chewed her out and told her in no uncertain terms he was unhappy with her behavior. And if she ever pulled a stunt like that again, she was off the story and off the air. And when she told him she had another scoop, and that Odelia Poole could talk to cats and she could prove it, he’d called her a long list of opprobrious names and slammed down the phone.

Looked like the world wasn’t ready to learn Miss Poole’s secret yet…

“Let’s get the inside scoop,” she said. “Something is going on in there and we need to know what it is.”

Zak groaned, but he wasn’t saying no. A scoop would put food on the table, and maybe even propel him to the next level: a fixed contract. Anything was better than the piecemeal stuff he did now—being paid as a freelancer.

“Let’s go for it, Zak,” she said. “And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll tell them it was my fault. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Like you will take all the credit if we hit the jackpot, huh? No way, Lauren. We share the credit this time. And no buts.”

“Sure. Fine,” she said, glad he was willing to follow her into the lion’s den. She eyed the fence with a keen eye. “So how high do you think that thing is?”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_1]

Leonora Flake was staring out across the grounds that backed the estate. It was dark out, so there wasn’t a lot to see. She didn’t mind. She needed to put all of her ducks in a row. The words of that horrible old woman kept ringing in her ears: you’re going to destroy this company with your stupid ideas.

Could she be onto something? Was the reason Leonidas Flake had been as successful as it was, the wedding of two minds: her son and his boyfriend’s?

She’d always thought the company was going down the drain, and had tried to save it from Leo’s incompetence many times, even if it turned him against her. She’d always justified her actions by arguing she was doing Leo a favor. And now this woman had offered her a completely different view.

She decided to take a little ride through the grounds. It always gave her a fresh perspective to go for an evening stroll, even if stroll wasn’t exactly the word that applied to the wheelchair-bound sojourn she liked to undertake.

She lived in her own villa, not far from her son’s estate, and also had an apartment in Paris, from where she’d launched her campaign to convince the board that she was the better choice to run the company. It hadn’t worked that time, but now it finally had, even if the price was high: the death of her son. It was something that weighed heavily on her mind. She knew she’d miss him, that stubborn mulish man. But she also knew it was all for the best.

At least that’s what she’d always thought. She wasn’t so sure now.

The numbers didn’t lie: Leonidas Flake was in a bad way. But was it in a bad way because of her son’s mismanagement, or because of her actions?

She took off along the little dirt path that wound its way through the rolling parkland that stretched out for half a mile in every direction. She soon arrived at what she considered emblematic of her son’s silliness: the petting zoo. And as she pushed the wheelchair along the path, she found herself listening to the sounds of the animals. They were soothing sounds, and she had to admit that perhaps there was something to be said for the zoo.

Leo had always told her it calmed his frayed nerves after a long day when surrounded by his little flock, and maybe he had a point. She heard the soft snorts of a horse, the quiet braying of a donkey, and the rustling of straw as the hog dug its snout into its trough. She even heard the grunting of rabbits.