Blackmail Earth Read Free

positioning Jenna in front of The Morning Show logo. Product placement. As she finished answering the correspondent’s question about heat and homicide, Jenna spotted Cassie Carter, the Weather Command Center’s frizzy-haired assistant, waving frantically for her attention. “It’s the White House,” Cassie said breathlessly.
    “The White House?” Jenna asked. Nicci looked up from her laptop. “Is this a joke?” Jenna asked her. “Did you put Cassie up to this?”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    And she hadn’t, Jenna learned an instant later when she heard “Please hold for Ralph Ebbing.” The White House chief of staff. In seconds he came on the line.
    “Good morning, Ms. Withers.”
    “Good morning.” Her voice sounded as bright as one of her weather maps. Still, she shot Nicci a final questioning look. Nicci gave an immediate shake of her head, but even without that, Jenna had heard Ebbing on the Sunday morning talk shows often enough to know that the voice on the phone really did belong to him.
    “I’m sure you’re busy,” he said, “so I’ll get right to the point: We’d like you to serve on the Presidential Task Force on Climate Change.”
    “I’m very honored. Very. But I’ll have to check to see whether that’s permitted. The network has rules about this. As you probably know,” she hurried to add. Her heart was pounding.
    “Absolutely. But I want you to know that we’d really like you to serve.”
    Serve? The word had such an honorable ring to it. Jenna thought about asking about per diem costs and transportation, but decided those pesky questions were best left to one of Ebbing’s underlings—and after she made sure that the network had no objections to her … serving. “I should be able to get back to you in a day or two,” she said.
    “We’d appreciate that greatly. We believe your expertise could be helpful to our nation,” Ebbing said. “The vice president will chair the task force, and if you could communicate with his chief of staff, that would be best.” Ebbing gave her a phone number for his counterpart. “On behalf of the president, I want to thank you for considering this appointment, Ms. Withers. I hope you’ll serve.”
    “Thank you. And I will if I may. I’ll let the vice president’s people know.”
    And then the conversation was over. Jenna kept the phone to her ear after Ebbing hung up, savoring the request in silence for a few seconds because she was all but certain that as a member of the news division, she would be barred from taking any appointment to a governmental body. Those were the network’s rules.
    After a breath, she cradled the receiver and passed the bulletin to Nicci and Cassie.
    “Wow,” Cassie said. “Big, big wow.”
    “The suits are never going to let me take it,” Jenna said to both women, shaking her head. “They don’t want us doing that kind of stuff.”
    “Maybe you’re right,” Nicci said, “but you’re a meteorologist, and that’s a little different.”
    “I doubt they’ll see it that way.” Jenna shrugged. But she could take solace, scant as it was, that someone had seen her as more than the morning weather bimbo. Not many years ago, the joke in male-dominated newsrooms was that a woman’s sole qualification for a weather job was whether her breasts reached from New York to Kansas when she stood next to the map.
    The phones started ringing and Nicci went to work. Cassie took a message, hung up, and handed it to Jenna. “Just a guy who wanted to talk to you—”
    Another one. It seemed to Jenna that half a dozen guys called after every show, most of them vowing to make her happy. Their means for accomplishing this were notably unmentionable.
    “He said you almost landed on him this morning,” Cassie finished.
    “Really?” A lilt colored her voice. “What did he want?”
    “He said just to talk.” Cassie rolled her eyes.
    Jenna stared at the name: Dafoe Tillian. Before she could do more than remember his rugged,