“Nope.” I had some research of my own I wanted to take care of.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” Outside the hearing room, he took off down the hallway, away from the front doors of the building.
As I turned to leave, a man with a mini digital camcorder tucked in his hand stepped into my path. I balked, startled
.
“You’re Kitty Norville,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
I wondered how he knew. I didn’t include my picture with any of the publicity for the show for exactly this reason. But he might have overheard Ben talking to me. He might have pulled my file off DMV records. It could have been anything.
He wasn’t tall for a guy, only a couple inches taller than my five feet six. His build was average and he dressed preppy, a brown leather coat over a sweater and khakis. But his eyes shone with a barely suppressed zeal that was unnerving, because it was focused on me.
“Who are you?”
“Roger Stockton, I’m a reporter for Uncharted World. Do you have a couple minutes to answer some questions?” Without waiting for an answer he hefted the camera and turned an eye to the little screen, which was no doubt showing me glaring at him.
I had to be calm. CNN was watching from down the hall. I didn’t want to do something that would get me a starring role on the six o’clock news.
“Wow. I didn’t think Uncharted World had reporters. Aren’t you guys more the urban legend and unverified amateur video footage kind of show?”
He didn’t react to that, but he was probably used to getting that kind of crap from people. “What was your reaction to being subpoenaed by the oversight committee?”
“I’m sorry, I really don’t have time for this.” I dodged him and continued down the hallway. The guy was persistent, though. He ran after me and planted himself in front of me again, cutting me off when I tried to go around him. The hall wasn’t wide enough to avoid him.
He spoke quickly. “What are your thoughts regarding the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology and Flemming’s work there?”
The shining little eye of the camera lens stayed trained on me. I had to get away from that thing. “No comment.”
“Come on, you’ve got more of a right to an opinion on this stuff than anyone else in that room, and you can’t take a minute to share your thoughts with the public? Are you going to leave it to other people to decide what tone this debate takes?”
I turned on him, my shoulders bunched, my jaw tight, my gaze burning. I only half raised my hands and took a step toward him, but his reaction was immediate and unambiguous. He stumbled back against the wall, pressing himself to it as if he could fall through it, and clutched the camera to his chest. His eyes went wide and the blood drained from his face.
He knew I was a werewolf. More importantly, he believed it, and everything it entailed. He thought I might actually maul him, right here and now. Idiot.
“I don’t want my picture on TV, especially not on Uncharted World. Get rid of the camera and I’ll think about talking to you. But right now I’m not inclined to be nice.”
I stalked away from him. And half a second later, I heard footsteps hurrying behind me.
He could not take a hint.
“Look, we’re both in the broadcast business. Why not do a colleague a favor? Just give me a couple of quotes and I’ll give your show a plug. We both win.”
It didn’t even help that his voice had a nervous waver to it now. I tried to ignore him, but he was right alongside me again, holding up that damned camera.
He was looking back and forth between me and the camera, so he didn’t see Bradley standing in front of us, blocking the corridor. But I did.
I stopped. Stockton didn’t, until Bradley grabbed his wrist and took the camera out of his hand.
“Hey!” Stockton struggled, until he looked at Bradley. First his chest, then up to his face. They couldn’t have played it better if they’d been making a movie. All I had to do was sit back and watch.
“This guy bothering you?” Bradley said.
Oh, how a girl loved to hear those words from someone with Bradley’s build. “I think he was just leaving. After he erases the last five minutes of footage off his camera.”
Bradley let go of him, then studied the camera’s controls. He started pushing buttons, and I had no doubt that in moments my face would be wiped clean from the camera’s memory.
Stockton pointed a finger at him. “This is harassment.”