"Yeah, me, too." For about half a second, Jayden wondered if he should have kept his mouth shut, but he quickly dismissed that idea.
"Why'd you do it?" Joey asked.
"Well, I could have kept my mouth shut and just let Wilson walk into this shitstorm blind, but then I couldn't live with myself. Ricky and Marv are going to do everything within their power to ruin the senator. I've got to let him know so he can get ahead of this."
And Wilson was going to hate him for the rest of his life after that. It was a sobering thought. He didn't think he'd ever had anyone hate him as much as Wilson was going to. It wasn't something to be proud of.
"I can tell Harvey to keep an eye out for Ricky and ban him from the place. Would that help?"
"Probably not, but I thank you for the thought. The cat is kind of out of the bag already. I'd bet anything Ricky is racing back to the city to tell Marv what he knows."
"Uh, wouldn't it make sense to just call?"
"For anyone else, yes, but Ricky wants to be there in person to get his pat on the back while he watches Marv salivate over what he thinks will be front page news."
"If this guy is such an ass, why were you working for him?"
Good question.
Jayden drew in a shaky breath. His chest felt heavy. "Most of the stuff I worked on was B-line stuff."
"B-line?"
"A-line is front page. Most of my stuff appeared on the third or fourth page. It wasn't front page news."
"I'm not sure I understand the difference."
Jayden snickered. "Most people don't. A good example is the diamond story I was doing. That's why I was here in Cade Creek."
"Oh, you're talking about Happy's diamonds."
"Yes."
Joey squinted at Jayden. "So, that isn't front page news?"
"It might be in Cade Creek but not in the city. Front page news has to be something that has the potential to go national. National means more readers, and more readers means more ratings. Ratings mean advertisers and advertisers pay the bills."
"Ah." Joey nodded, but he still looked confused.
"A recently divorced United States senator suddenly having a son who no one knew about is front page news."
Joey grimaced. "Oh."
Yeah.
"So, why aren't you trying to break the story?" Joey asked. "Seems to be it would take you from the B-line to the A-line if you did."
"Because I like Wilson, and he doesn't deserve that."
"Deserve what?" asked a very distinctive voice behind them.
Crap!
Jayden slowly turned. "Wilson."
Wilson's eyes were narrow little slits. "What don't I deserve, Jayden?"
Double crap!
