Misquoted & Demoted (An Avery Shaw Mystery Book 6) Read online

  Misquoted & Demoted

  An Avery Shaw Mystery

  Book Six

  By Amanda M. Lee

  Text copyright © 2015 Amanda M. Lee

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Author’s Note

  Books by Amanda M. Lee

  Prologue

  Run!

  Kelsey Cooper pumped her short legs as hard as she could, mentally urging herself on. The football field was dark and empty, the artificial turf slippery from the rain earlier in the evening. Her running shoes kept sliding and she knew that if she lost her balance and went down it would all be over.

  She willed herself, begging for more speed from her legs, more air in her burning lungs.

  Kelsey scanned the tree line in front of her. She knew what was on the other side: a fence. And on the other side of that fence was the highway. It was her only hope.

  It wasn’t that late. How could no one be outside? How could no one hear her scream? How could the school have been empty? How could she have gotten herself into this? She’d been warned, but she hadn’t believed the warnings. That was on her. She believed now. Of course, it was too late now. She knew that, and yet she still ran.

  She didn’t have hope, yet she couldn’t surrender. She knew what was coming if she fell or collapsed, out of energy.

  Kelsey risked a glance over her shoulder, the sweat dripping into her eyes and burning. She didn’t see anyone on the field, and risked slowing her pace to catch her breath.

  Kelsey knew she wasn’t alone, but had no idea where her pursuer was. He couldn’t give up either. If he did, she would tell. He knew that. If he wanted to survive he had to catch her. If she wanted to survive, she had to outrun him. His odds were much better.

  Still, the rules of survival were simple. So Kelsey began to run again.

  She was almost at the tree line when a dark figure came out of the dark, cutting off her one avenue of escape. Kelsey recognized his shape before his the bright moon revealed his features.

  “There’s nowhere else to go.”

  Kelsey heard footsteps behind her. She didn’t have to turn to know who was there. Of course he wasn’t alone. Why would he be? He wasn’t the only one in danger.

  “I won’t tell,” Kelsey said, her lie sounding hollow between her gasps for air, even to her own ears.

  “Of course you will,” the man said. “You all tell. You can’t help yourselves.”

  “I promise,” Kelsey said, desperate and pleading. “I’ll never tell anyone … just let me go. I swear to God I won’t tell.”

  The man advanced. “No, you won’t.”

  One

  “You have got to be kidding me!”

  Ever unflappable, my editor Fred Fish regarded me with somber eyes. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “You never look like you’re kidding,” I charged. “Even when you wear more jewelry than an eighties porn star, you still look deadly serious. I’m hoping this is just some elaborate ruse to mess with me.”

  “Because I often do that,” Fish said, his chest heaving as he braced himself for my verbal onslaught.

  “Well, I don’t believe you.” I crossed my arms over my new Jason Voorhees T-shirt, wishing I’d opted for something a little more dignified to wear on the day of my professional disgrace. I should have worn my new “That’s what she said” Darth Vader shirt. That would have made everything better. What? He’s pointing at Princess Leia. It’s hilarious. Star Wars makes everything better. I shot myself in the foot by wearing a serial killer shirt. I was just asking for it. Wait, what was I just talking about?

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Fish said. “You have a penchant for hearing only what you want to hear.”

  That’s completely untrue. Okay, it’s totally true. Still … . “Well, I need you to say it again. I’m not going to believe it unless you tell me again.”

  “You’re being transferred to sports,” Fish said, not missing a beat.

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” I said, my blonde hair brushing against my shoulders as I shook my head. “I’m the best reporter you have. You don’t bust your best reporter down to … sports.” I wrinkled my nose. “Only someone crazy would do that.”

  “I’ll relay your message to the publisher,” Fish said, making a show of focusing on his computer screen. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled with your … assessment … of the situation.”

  “I knew I was going to hate that guy,” I mumbled, rubbing my forehead to stave off the beginnings of what was sure to be a monster headache. “You can just tell by looking at him.”

  “You can tell what?” Fish asked.

  “He’s clearly deranged,” I replied. “Only a deranged individual would deprive you of the services of the best reporter in the county.”

  “So, you’ve elevated yourself from the best reporter at the newspaper to the best reporter in the county in less than five minutes? And all on your own?” Fish asked.

  “I didn’t elevate myself,” I shot back. “That’s just common knowledge.” Sheesh.

  “I love your sense of humility,” Fish said. “It really is your greatest virtue.”

  I know sarcasm when I hear it – mostly because it’s usually dripping from my own tongue. “My greatest virtue is my work ethic.”

  Fish sighed. “In the hope of saving time, and a little dignity for yourself, why don’t we take this conversation into the conference room?”

  “I don’t care who hears us,” I sniffed, shooting a challenging look across the row of desks.

  “Yes, but I do,” Fish said. “Give me five minutes. We have a few things to … discuss.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Fish cut me off with the shake of his snowy head. “Five minutes.”

  I swiveled, my mind busy as I tried to figure a way out of this. I couldn’t.

  Hello, my name is Avery Shaw, and five minutes ago I went from reporting genius to sports reporter. Look out world, because I’m pissed.

  “OKAY, here’s the situation,” Fish said, sitting in the chair next to me and patting me on the arm in a show of solace. “You’re in a lot of trouble.”

  I wanted to rip his hand off and slap him with it. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Well, Jim MacDonald doesn’t see it that way.”

  I made a face. Jim MacDonald was our new publisher at The Monitor, a mid-sized daily newspaper in Macomb County, Michigan. He was some bigwig from Chicago, and he was supposed to be able to broach the ever-tricky breech between digital and print media. He was introduced to us as our “saving grace.” I wanted hi
m to fall from his lofty perch and hit every tree branch (in his special place) on his way down. The good news is that anyone who is a publisher is in one of those high-turnover positions no one ever gets comfortable in for more than a year. The bad news is that a publisher can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. MacDonald was in damage mode.

  “What’s his problem?”

  Fish shrugged. “It seems that Commissioner Ludington stopped into his office for a special meeting.”

  I rolled my eyes. In addition to being a total douche, Tad Ludington was my former college boyfriend. He’d dumped me because I was volatile, a quality he felt less than desirable for a politician’s wife. He was right on both counts, and when I found he’d been elected to a position on Macomb County’s Board of Commissioners I’d made it my mission to help him at every turn. Okay, I’d really made it my mission to embarrass him at every turn, but those are basically the same goals. What? They are. “And what was Tad complaining about?”

  “He says that you were eavesdropping at a commission meeting last week and you printed an article that isn’t true,” Fish said.

  I wracked my brain and pasted my best “I’m innocent” look onto my face. “What story?”

  “Oh, don’t do that,” Fish chided. “You know exactly what story I’m talking about. You broke it, and every other news outlet in the area picked it up. He was under siege for days … until that cop accidentally discharged his gun while he was in the shower with his wife and his mistress at the same time.”

  I smirked. I’d broken that story, too. You have no idea how many premature ejaculation jokes can be generated from a simple sexual mishap involving a police officer, a gun and two hair-pulling women. I shook my head, forcing myself from my reverie. “You must be talking about how Tad wants to take all of the county funds from the black community centers and funnel them into the white community centers.”

  “He says that’s not true.”

  “I heard him,” I shot back. “He said those kids at the Mount Clemens center are nothing but thugs and drug dealers, while the kids out in Shelby Township are good souls who just need guidance. It’s not my fault that the kids losing the money happen to be black and the kids getting the money are white.”

  “Well, Tad says you made that part up.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I have the enrollment numbers for both centers. I checked every single kid.”

  “That doesn’t prove it was racist,” Fish said.

  “I didn’t say it was racist,” I said. “I just had our photographer take a shot of those sad little faces at the Mount Clemens center. It’s not my fault only black kids happened to be there that day.”

  “I don’t disagree with what you did,” Fish said.

  “Well, then why didn’t you argue against this?”

  “I did,” Fish said. “MacDonald has a file on you. It was hard to argue with everything in it. After the first thirty items, it started to feel fruitless.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Well, you’ve made a lot of enemies,” Fish hedged.

  “That’s because I’m good at my job.”

  “You also like pissing people off,” Fish said, holding up his hand to still me. “Don’t deny it. You like it. You enjoy getting under people’s skin. While I find it mildly entertaining, others don’t find it so … cute. MacDonald is one of those people. His file is extensive.”

  “You still haven’t told me what’s in the file,” I pressed.

  “In addition to about twenty complaints from Ludington, there are a handful of complaints from other politicians,” Fish said. “Most of those are just sour grapes. It’s the complaints from Brick and Duncan that MacDonald is fixated on.”

  I pressed my tongue into my cheek, considering. “Brick and Duncan are tools.”

  “They are,” Fish agreed. “They’re also tools who like to file complaints.”

  “It’s not my fault they’re so sensitive.”

  “You like to mess with them.”

  “They make it so easy, though,” I protested.

  “You posted outtakes from Duncan’s Civil War reenactment video on the NAACP’s website with the caption ‘war is great’ and then invited comments.”

  “There’s no proof that was me,” I said.

  “You signed Brick up for newsletters from the National Organization for Women and PETA.”

  “I thought he would be interested in the content.”

  “He hunts.”

  “Animals have feelings, too.”

  “He believes a woman’s place is in the home,” Fish said.

  “Enlightenment comes in many forms.”

  “You like to agitate them,” Fish said. “I get it. I can’t encourage it, because I’m your boss, but I get it.”

  “That still doesn’t mean I should be busted down to sports,” I argued. “This is totally unfair.”

  “Life isn’t fair, Avery.”

  “How long is this exile supposed to last?”

  “Until you’ve proved you can get along with others,” Fish said. “Or, until I’ve proved to MacDonald that we need you on news side. I’m fairly certain the former is impossible, so we’re going to have to rely on the latter.”

  I was pretty sure I’d just been insulted. “I can get along with others.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since … I get along fine with Marvin,” I said, reminding Fish that I was the only one who could rein in the other persnickety reporter at the newspaper. “I deserve an award for that.”

  “You told the pastor at St. Peter’s Catholic Church that the religion reporter thought abortion was the best method of population control,” Fish said.

  “That priest was making me nervous,” I said. “He kept trying to talk to me. He was rambling on and on about chastity.”

  “And you thought that was the best way to handle it?”

  “At the time? Yes.”

  Fish pursed his lips. “When the governor came in for a meeting, you told him that the political reporter had a sticker supporting his opponent on his car.”

  “That was true.”

  “You put the sticker there.”

  Oh, right, I had forgotten that little tidbit. “Those are isolated incidents.”

  “You told the page designer that your stories were to be given top priority when laying out the front page,” Fish said. “When he got in trouble, you denied saying it.”

  Hey, I’m not falling on a grenade for anyone. It was his fault for believing me in the first place. “That was a joke.”

  “Your joke just happened to push the article on Ludington giving gifts to the needy below the fold,” Fish said. “He thinks that was on purpose.”

  “And, we’re back to Tad,” I grumbled.

  “Tad is the one who brought your antics to MacDonald’s attention,” Fish said. “You have to remember, all this man knows about you is that the first day he came to work there was a contingent of sheriff’s deputies in our parking lot. The sheriff had been shot – trying to protect you – and the window to his office was broken. Marvin was hiding in the photography department, and we were the subject of news reports all across the state.”

  “Hey, that’s free publicity.”

  Fish ignored me. “Then, when he delved deeper, he found that you had managed to get yourself involved in no less than five big stories. You’ve been stalked. You’ve been shot at. You’ve been kidnapped … twice. You’ve been threatened with cars and knives. Heck, you’ve been physically threatened by nuns.”

  “That wasn’t my fault! I just told them that God wouldn’t have invented vibrators if they weren’t meant to be used.”

  “You’ve done this to yourself, Avery,” Fish said. “Now you have to make the best of it.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll just quit,” I threatened.

  “If you feel that’s necessary, then you have to do it,” Fish said. “Just be forewarned, I think that’s what MacDonald wants. You have to do what’s best for you
.”

  I knew what he was doing. He was trying to force my hand. He knew I didn’t like to lose. Ever. No, I’m not joking. When I played Twister as a child, I turned it into a blood sport. Fish didn’t want me to quit, and he was trying to get my hackles up. Well, that wasn’t going to work this time. I slammed my hands down on the table.

  “Over my dead body am I going to quit and let him win!”

  Fish smiled. “I think your career in sports is going to be … the stuff of legend.”

  He had no idea.

  Two

  “Hello, Trouble. How was your day today?”

  The sight of a hot man cooking dinner in my house should have filled me with joy. Given my day, it filled me with unexplained agitation. “It sucked balls. How was your day?”

  Eliot Kane had been my boyfriend for almost six months now. He was used to my moods … and whimsy. He raised an eyebrow as he regarded me, pausing to look me up and down while he clutched the spatula. “Do you want to expound on that?”

  I dropped my purse onto my small kitchen table and viciously kicked my new Vans Star Wars shoes into the corner of the kitchen. “Well, most men have balls. Two of them. Unless they’re newspaper publishers, that is. My day was the equivalent of sucking hundreds of them.”

  Eliot’s face was unreadable. “I understand about sucking balls – and you better not have been actually doing that. I was wondering if you wanted to explain what’s wrong. If you’re not there yet, continue with your ball-sucking rant. I enjoy listening to you exercise your vocabulary on vulgar topics. It’s a quirk of mine.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  “Wow,” Eliot said. “Someone is in a mood.”

  “That’s because I’ve been relegated to hell.”

  Eliot turned the flame down under the spaghetti sauce as he stirred. “I’m going to need more information.”

  Eliot Kane is many things. He’s hot. Okay, he’s unbelievably hot. His shoulder-length brown hair is sexy, without making him look like he should be collecting ride tickets at a carnival. His body looks as though it was chiseled by a Greek sculptor, and his patience is longer than the line at a Star Trek booth at a comic-book convention. He’s perfect. I still want to pop his head like a zit sometimes, though.