The Stranger In Room 205 (Hot off the Press! 1)

“That’s me,” he said with a smile. “Just a dull, safe-type guy.”

It was a good thing she wasn’t eating anything at that moment, Serena thought wryly. She very well might have choked.

Several picnic tables had been set up for customers, shaded with colorful umbrellas for daytime and decorated with strings of colored lights after dark. A teenage girl in the cramped metal trailer took their orders from a pass-through window at one end, then heaped finely shaved ice into cone-shaped paper cups and poured on syrup in the flavors they had requested. They carried the dripping treats to the only empty picnic table. The other tables were occupied by families, syrup-smeared children chattering and giggling and jostling each other, one boy complaining loudly that his sister’s cone had more syrup than his.

“Well, this is quite a contrast to our first stop of the evening,” Sam commented, eyeing his grape snow cone as if he wasn’t quite sure how to begin eating it.

“Hey, you wanted to experience Saturday night in Edstown.”

Sam took a tentative nibble of grape-flavored ice. “Not bad. Pretty sweet, though.”

“Extremely sweet,” Serena agreed, licking wild c

herry syrup off her lower lip. “Haven’t you ever had one of these?”

“Sure. I mean, I must have, right?”

She studied him for a moment over her dessert. “Sometimes you say the oddest things.”

His smile was lopsided. “You think so?”

“And then you do that.”

Imitating a boy at the next table, he drank syrup out of the rim of his snow cone cup. “Do what?”

“Deflect my questions with another question or a smart comment.”

“Do I?”

She sighed and took a crunching bite of ice.

“Serena, hi!” Holding a bright green snow cone, Lindsey Gray slid onto the bench beside Serena and nodded to her companion. “Mr. Wallace.”

“Ms. Gray,” he responded gravely. “A pleasure to see you again.”

“It’s a bit ridiculous to be so formal over snow cones,” Serena said with a roll of her eyes. “First names, okay? Sam, meet Lindsey.”

Sam’s lips twitched. “I believe Ms. Gray is still annoyed with me for turning down an interview.”

“I’m not annoyed, Sam,” she replied equably. “I still wish you’d agreed, of course, but I don’t hold grudges.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Serena looked at her employee. “How did things go at the paper today?”

“Well…”

“Never mind.” Wincing in response to the reporter’s tone, Serena shook her head. “Maybe I don’t want to know.”

“You really are going to have to do something about Marvin, you know. The paper can’t keep operating this way much longer.”

“I’ll do something soon. You and Riley just try to keep things going a little longer, okay?”

“I’m trying. And so is Riley, in his own way. But we really need an editor we can depend on.”

“I’ll talk to Marvin again.”

“Like that will do any good. Face it, Serena, it’s not going to get any better. Marvin needs treatment, not lectures.”