Beneath Southern Skies. Terra Little

than the likes of Gary Price—a washed-up politician who, for a laughably brief period, had tried his hand at acting and failed dismally.

      Why was Saul so bent out of shape over this story? There was always an instant uproar when the Saturday edition of the Inquisitor hit the newsstands and her weekly column made its rounds, but it always died down in anticipation of her next column. It was a cycle, and Saul had never bothered to interfere with it before. So, why now?

      Sure, he’d threatened to suspend her once or twice over the years, and she vaguely recalled narrowly avoiding being demoted not so long ago—but fired? It was inconceivable. He needed her too much. If ever there was a cash cow, she was it.

      “A retraction is the least of my worries right now, Tressie.” Saul gestured to a stack of legal-looking papers on his desktop and blew out a strong breath. “We were served with notice of the lawsuit this morning, which means that we don’t have very much time to clean up this mess. Price is suing the Inquisitor for upward of ten million dollars, and we simply don’t have the firepower to strike back. To put it bluntly, we’re broke.” Her mouth dropped open as Saul went on. “The legal department is on it, but they’ve suggested that I make a few preemptive moves to pacify Price and his attorneys in the meantime.”

      “Such as?”

      His tone, when he spoke, was final. “Such as suspending you indefinitely.”

      “You can’t do that. You need me,” Tressie said before she could think better of it.

      “You’re impulsive,” he snapped. “You act without thinking. You go right for the throat, consequences be damned, and you never seem to think about how your actions affect everyone else.”

      “But that’s what makes me a good columnist, Saul,” Tressie sputtered helplessly. She sensed that she was losing ground, and the feeling was as unsettling as the determined set of Saul’s mouth. “Before I became Vanessa Valentino, the Inquisitor was the laughingstock of New York. You were printing stories about snakes with two heads, secret underground cities in third-world countries, and sending out interns to track Bigfoot through Central Park. No respectable newspaper, here or anywhere else, would even take your calls. I’m the reason you have that impressive trophy case over there.” She threw out a hand and pointed at the case in question. It was a glass-and-chrome monstrosity that took up most of the wall to the right of his equally monstrous desk, and, currently, it was nearly overflowing with awards and plaques that Vanessa Valentino had received over the years. “I’m the reason there’s even anything in it. My impulsiveness put those awards there. My go-for-the-throat philosophy put this paper on the map, and you know it. You fire me and you’ll lose it all.”

      “What I need,” Saul cut in tersely, “is a columnist who isn’t single-handedly the biggest threat to the very existence of this newspaper, Tressie. In the last five years alone you’ve managed to cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, bribes, payoffs and hush money.” He blew out a long, strong breath and gritted his teeth. “Hell, the cost of keeping your true identity secret is expensive enough as it is. The nonstop threat of being sued penniless has had me wondering for a while now if you’re more trouble than you’re worth and—” he ruffled the papers in front of him so roughly that they spread out like a fan across the desktop “—now I guess I don’t have to wonder anymore. I can’t let you cause the paper any more problems, Tressie. The lawsuits and bad publicity stop right here. Right now. Enough is enough.”

      It was impossible not to follow what he was saying. She understood him clearly and, as hurtful as his words were, she thought that he needed to understand something, too. “My readers are loyal. They’ll go where I go.”

      That, Tressie decided on a long sigh, was where she’d gone wrong. She’d never actually seen the top of a man’s head blow off, but Saul had come very close to making that impossible feat a reality. He was already tall and stocky, but when he’d shot up out of his chair and towered over his desk, she could’ve sworn that rage had caused him to grow another six inches in height and expand at least another foot in width. The bravado that she’d been holding on to by a thread had quickly vanished, along with any hope that she’d had of holding on to her job. Saul’s parting shot—“I’ll call you if anything changes”—had rung in her ears as she was escorted out of the building like some common criminal.

      Ten years, she couldn’t help thinking with every step she’d taken out the doors. Ten years of her life had gone up in smoke just like that. She’d scratched and scraped, begged and pleaded her way to the top of the Inquisitor’s food chain until she was comfortably settled in an office with a decent view, enjoying perks that she’d never dreamed of, and now she had nothing. Or next to nothing, anyway. Without a job, it wouldn’t be long before the life that she had carefully and painstakingly built for herself would come tumbling down. Along with Saul’s ominous voice, the sound of failure had rung so loudly in her ears that she’d almost broken down and cried like a baby.

      Now, thank God, something else was ringing in her ears—the sound of a blazing comeback and the financial backing that she needed to make it happen. Then, as if on cue, Norman Harper’s voice was in her ear.

      “Miss Valentine, I’ve been looking forward to your call....”

      * * *

      Hours later, Tressie’s mind was whirling, trying to mentally prioritize the thousand and one details she had to deal with. With an open and half-packed suitcase on her bed, a confirmed travel itinerary in her hand and a big smile on her face, she raced around her apartment, checking to make sure that she wasn’t forgetting anything important. By this time tomorrow she’d be a thousand miles away and, as far as she was concerned, in a whole other world. Nothing about where she was going was convenient or, for that matter, modern, so she wanted to make sure that she’d be able to exist with a modicum of comfort for the precious few days that she had to be there. She threw her makeup case into the suitcase and followed it up with as many pairs of Christian Louboutin pumps as it would take to see her through a week’s visit, her laptop, a compact portable printer and a global Wi-Fi modem the size of a lipstick tube.

      The essentials out of the way, she went in search of clothing.

      It’d been five years since she’d stepped foot in Mercy, Georgia, and just thinking about going back almost wiped the smile right off her face. Only the possibility of finally acquiring something worthwhile from the dreary little town that she’d come from kept her feet moving and her mind clicking. If she felt the least bit guilty about selling her grandmother’s house—the house that she had grown up in—well...she figured she’d get over it soon enough.

      Hopefully.

      Chapter 1

      Not even the throwback R & B blaring from the earbuds in Tressie Valentine’s ears could keep her energized long enough to get through the exhausting task of airing out and packing up Juanita Valentine’s entire house in one afternoon. Her grandmother, who’d affectionately been called Ma’Dear by everyone who knew her, had collected all sorts of decorative knickknacks during her lifetime, and now there had to be hundreds of the little things scattered around the house. Each and every one of them was a dust magnet, and, unfortunately, Tressie had inherited all of them along with the house itself. If she’d had the energy to lift her leg, she would’ve kicked herself for letting the house sit unattended for the past five years. Even with the preliminary packing and tidying that she and some of Ma’Dear’s lifelong friends had done after Ma’Dear’s funeral, there was still a month’s worth of work that had to be done in a fraction of that time.

      The plan had been to get the second floor done, break for lunch and order a pizza for delivery, sit down and recuperate long enough to devour it, and then tackle the first floor. But when the muscles in her arms and legs threatened to revolt, she knew it was time to give it a rest. With the kitchen, dining room and living room still left to get through, she switched off her iPod, fixed herself a tall glass of ice water and took it with her out onto the back sunporch.

      “God, even the porch furniture is dusty,” she whined as she dropped into an ancient rocking