Bad Publicity

Chapter 1

Isobel Spice stared at the handsome young man slumped over his coffee cup and thought desperately: not again.

She carefully set her tray of melon chunks and assorted pastries on the credenza at the side of the windowless conference room and tiptoed over to the solitary figure at the large oval table.

He'd probably just dozed off. Or maybe he'd passed out. There was no reason to think he was dead just because she'd stumbled across a dead body in an office once before.

But something about the angle of the young man's body was just plain wrong. Isobel gingerly pressed her fingers against the pale, slender wrist. She'd never been good at locating a pulse, even on herself - she'd lied to many an exercise instructor over the years - but somehow she knew that in this case, if there were a pulse to be found, she would be able to find it.

There was nothing. Not even the faintest throb.

Isobel let the man's hand drop back onto the table. His gold signet ring cracked loudly against the wood, startling her. She turned his hand over and was disproportionately relieved to find the ruby-colored stone still intact within its school crest. Isobel gently released his hand and slipped out into the hallway, her panic rising as she gathered steam and burst into Katrina Campbell's office.

"Your client is dead!"

But Katrina's office was empty.

There were several other employees on the lower floor of Dove & Flight Public Relations Isobel could run to, but for several reasons, Katrina was the person least likely to jump to the wrong conclusion. On the other hand, Isobel had to get help. Now.

She dashed back out into the hallway just as Aaron Grossman, a senior account executive, came into view at the far end of the floor.

"Help!" Isobel called, waving him down. "I have to find Katrina! It's an emergency!"

Aaron gave Isobel an odd look and pointed over her left shoulder. Isobel turned to see Katrina, a towering, freckled redhead, coming up behind her from the direction of the small company kitchen.

"Isobel!" Katrina said, drawing closer. "You look like you've just seen a ghost!"

"I have," Isobel croaked. "The body, not the spirit. Come on."

She seized Katrina's arm and pulled her back toward the conference room.

Katrina shook her off. "What is wrong with you?"

But Isobel, who came up roughly to Katrina's shoulder, grabbed her again and propelled her wordlessly down the hall.

At that moment, Aaron emerged from the conference room, his skin paler than usual under his heavy, dark beard.

"Help! HELP! Somebody call 911!"

"Isobel, call 911!" Katrina suddenly seemed to understand, and, breaking free, she ran toward Aaron.

Relieved to be believed, Isobel darted into the nearest office, surprising an eager young junior associate whose eyes grew wide as Isobel relayed to the dispatcher what she had seen.

By the time Isobel returned to the hallway, a small crowd had gathered around the door to the conference room. Katrina was leaning against the wall, visibly shaken. Angus Dove, a dapper, elderly gentleman wearing a tartan bow tie, was making his way slowly down the internal spiral staircase that connected the two floors of the public relations firm.

Time seemed to stop as Dove descended the steps. The crowd parted to let him pass into the conference room. He emerged a moment later.

"Will somebody please call emergency," Dove said, his lightly Scots-accented voice wavering. "And nobody touch him."

Before Isobel could volunteer the information that she'd called already, the hush was broken by another man galumphing down the stairs so heavily it seemed the wrought iron might give way at any moment.

"What the hell is going on?" he bellowed through lupine, nicotine-stained teeth.

"Barnaby," said Dove, "I fear we have a little situation."

"Don't be such a goddamn PR flack, and tell me what the hell is going on!"

"A client, here for a meeting. Seems to have...seems to have..."

"Seems to have what, Angus?"

"Died," Isobel blurted out, her voice projecting several notches higher than she'd intended in both pitch and volume. Angus Dove and Barnaby Flight, the two senior partners of the public relations firm, turned to look at her.

Isobel swallowed. "It's Jason Whiteley. He was here for a meeting with Katrina, Aaron and Liz, and I had just settled him in the conference room with some coffee. I left to get the snacks, and when I came back he was dead."

Behind Dove and Flight, she could see more employees lining the spiral staircase, conveying the news upward from rung to rung in muted whispers.

"Who the hell are you?" roared Barnaby Flight.

Isobel looked around at the sea of suspicious eyes and shrugged meekly.

"Nobody. I'm just the temp."