Max called Ben first thing Tuesday morning.
“I’ll be back in New York next week. I sent you changes to your proposal.”
“You’ll do the show?”
“If you agree to my changes.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know what they are.”
“I don’t care.”
She smiled, genuinely smiled, for the first time in days. “Yes, you will.”
“Okay, give me the basics.”
“I want creative control. I want to decide what cases I investigate and air. I liked your Web site idea, the short articles, the snippets around the country—we need to expand that.”
“Did something happen in Colorado?”
For someone so self-absorbed, Ben had a knack for getting to the truth. She had to admire the trait.
“This case—a group of college kids left another student in the middle of nowhere as a prank. He died, they got off with probation. As if Scott Sheldon’s life isn’t worth the cost of a minimal sentence.”
“What do you hope to accomplish, Max?”
“Shine a light on the cruelty of human nature, how the selfish choices of a group of kids resulted in the accidental death of another, how their lies and misdirection resulted in a mother not knowing what happened to her son for six months. Six months of the unknown. Of fear and worry. The emotional turmoil the callous actions of youth created in a family.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” She expected him to argue with her, that the story wouldn’t be “sexy” enough or big enough for a cable news show.
“I trust you, Max. I know you’ll put the right angle, the right spin on it. But it won’t fill up the forty-four minutes we need for the show.”
“I can—”
“Hold it. This is my job, making this work. A theme—those left behind. Friends and families of missing persons. I’ll find three other cases you can interview, and we’ll use your Colorado case as the positive, of persistence in finding the truth.” He paused. “You’ll have to talk about Karen.”
“No.”
“You wrote a book about it, it’s a perfect lead-in for the show. You’re the best person to understand how these families feel. Max, trust me on this—I’m not going to sensationalize Karen’s disappearance. It’s a hook. You know it. And I’ve read your book a half dozen times. You had a call to action—if anyone knows anything, they need to come forward. We can do the same call to action on this show. We’ll find cases like Scott Sheldon, and call people to come forward.”
She liked the idea. She really liked it. If she worked on cold cases, the chances were that most of these people were dead. But closure—that would help the survivors.
“Find a runaway,” she said. “Someone who might come home if they knew their family ached for them.”
“I knew you had a knack for this.”
“I’m not doing a weekly show. I wouldn’t be able to do these cases justice.”
“Semimonthly.”
“Monthly.”
“Max—”
“But I liked your proposal about integrating with a Web page and current cases. We can do more of that if I’m not investigating a cold case every week, which takes time.”
“You’ll have a staff.”
“Monthly.”
“Fine.”
“You gave in too easily.”
“I actually pitched the show as a monthly program. I tweaked the proposal to give you something to negotiate away.”
She laughed. Maybe Ben did know her better than she thought.
“Send me the contract when you have it drafted.”
“It’s already drafted. I’m sure you’ll have changes.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I’ll read it on the plane. I’m going to a wedding this weekend.”
“You’re not going to regret this, Max. This show is going to be huge. I promise.”
But Max wasn’t sure. If it wasn’t successful, all that would be hurt was her own ego. But what would happen to her life if she and Ben made Maximum Exposure a success? Would she ever have time to work the cold cases she wanted? Would she regret giving up some of the control over her stories? Would people recognize her? One of the benefits of being an investigative journalist was that she was, basically, anonymous. People might look at her because she was tall or attractive or well dressed, but she wasn’t famous.
This was cable, she reminded herself. Small beans. Maybe no one would watch it.
She said to Ben, “I’ll see you in New York.”
Six Weeks Later
Max stood in the doorway of her new corner office on the eighteenth floor of a state-of-the-art building on the Avenue of the Americas.
“It’s small,” Ben said, “but the view is great.”
It was, and Max certainly couldn’t complain. She would have preferred an older building with character, but the television studio needed technology and amenities that the larger buildings provided—including dishes on the roof to send and receive satellite transmissions.