Yellow: Fake News is the most dangerous threat to the Free Press and the First Amendment.

Yellow: Thriller/Suspense

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BLURB: Yellow

The Eighties…that time of glittery greed, unbound sexuality and political degeneracy when all that stood between Americans and fake news was a free press…and one strong woman.

EXCERPT: Yellow

The stewardess removed her glass and Sylvia declined a second drink. She took a compact from her purse and snapped it open.

The mirror reflected the eyes of her father, the legendary Michael Reynolds. Like Sylvia’s, his eyes were green—the color of money—and they could calculate a return on investment quicker than anyone in the business. He had headed up Reynolds, Simpson and Schwartzman for twenty-five years, the top advertising agency in Manhattan. Everyone said her daddy was a shark. She smiled. Wonder who’d win in the fight between a shark and a barracuda?

No one, including her father, knew of the dark, mysterious men in airport cocktail lounges across the country. Men whose pasts or futures were of no concern. She used aliases, Miriam or Anne or Avery, with surnames picked from phonebooks. It was a fun game. She even had business cards printed with her fake identities.

Her eyes would connect with the man over the rim of her cocktail glass then lower with feigned shyness. That was usually enough.

“Excuse me, miss. Do we know each other?”

She’d investigate his features. “I’m not sure. I’m Miriam (or Anne or Avery).” He’d respond with a name and a card and the cat-and-mouse game would begin. If they were flying to the same town, they would have another drink upon arrival and she’d make her decision. She could change reservations to wherever he was staying, if he was worth it.

She never knew if any of them tried to contact the woman whose name was on the business card. She smiled, visualizing their faces as they learned that no such phone number, company or person existed.

Sylvia only remembered one of them with any clarity. It was at O’Hare in February, and the airport had closed during one of those blizzards that often cripple the Midwest. After two hours of canceled flights, she resigned herself that she wouldn’t be getting out that night. Frustrated, she booked a room at the airport Marriott and arrived there around ten. A bellman took her luggage and coat to her room and Sylvia headed for the hotel bar. It was packed with travelers drowning their grumbles. She spied an available seat and grabbed it, nearly knocking an elderly man over in her haste. The harried woman behind the bar didn’t see her immediately.

Finally, the bartender stopped in front of her. “Would you like a drink, miss?”

“My God, yes, I’d like a drink. I thought I was invisible.”

“Sorry…we’re so busy.”

“Johnnie Walker, blue, and hurry.”

As the bartender turned to pour Sylvia’s drink, a deep voice beside her said, “You know, sugar, you’d catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

She swiveled her stool in his direction, poised for a fight. Then she saw his face, a handsome face, the face of a shark. The corners of his dark eyes creased. He was laughing. Sylvia started to tell him she had no interest in catching flies, but then he touched her hand.

“Soft,” he said. She saw the white ring mark on the tanned left hand but ignored it. That’s his wife’s problem—not mine.

He told Sylvia he had been heading home from a conference in New York, before this God-awful blizzard trapped him in Chicago. He gave her a card that identified him as Daniel Brower of Coswell, Brower and Mittner, a law firm in Denver. By the time they started a second drink, she knew. He would come to her room, and she’d invite him in.

This man, this night, was different. Daniel Brower seemed to have all the time in the world and nothing on his mind but Sylvia. His hands were slow as they unbuttoned, unhooked and slid clothes from her body so gradually she scarcely noticed them falling away. All she could do was feel—feel her nipples pucker as they lifted to him, hungry for his mouth—feel her groin pushing urgently against his hardness. When his hands lowered and found her wet, she was suddenly embarrassed. How could she open herself so eagerly to a total stranger? Her need for him frightened her. Sylvia, always in charge, was losing control to a man she’d met only an hour earlier.

But all fear disappeared when he groaned appreciatively and lifted himself to his elbows. “Ooohhh,” he said. “So soft, so wet.” He slipped on a condom without Sylvia knowing where he’d gotten it and entered her deeper than she’d ever been penetrated before.

He slowed, rising above her and staring into her eyes. He lifted her hands and placed them on her breasts. “Pinch your nipples, baby. It’ll feel good.” His hand rose to his mouth and he moistened his fingers, then lowered them to just above where he was thrusting. The fingers started to squeeze and pulsate. At first, Sylvia tried to stop him, fearing she would lose her mind. Then she stopped caring if she did. Her mind didn’t matter—nothing mattered but the torrent of ecstasy sweeping through her. Whatever she lost, whatever she never regained was worth it.

When the kaleidoscope of stars faded from behind her clamped eyes, she opened them to see him propped on one elbow, grinning down at her. “My turn,” he said.

She awoke the next morning to a note. “Had to run back to the airport. Thanks for a magical night. D.”

With Daniel Brower, for perhaps the first time in her life, Sylvia imagined herself cherished. Tried the feeling on for size and found it to her liking. She wrote Sylvia Brower on her notepad to see how it looked, then scratched through it, embarrassed at her silliness.

Two days later, she tried the number on his card.

“The number you have called has been disconnected,” the recorded voice droned in her ear. “We have no further information on this number.”

She called the Bar Association and was told that no Daniel Brower practiced in the state of Colorado. Slowly, a painful realization dawned on her. He had played her game better than she. She wondered if he ever tried to contact Avery Nordstrom at the number on the card she’d given him and sadly realized he probably had not. Sylvia’d been beaten at her own sport, and it hurt like hell.

Website URL: jeannecharters.com

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LINKS

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VNZ6VWK

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