Best Laid Plans(131)

Don’t miss Allison Brennan’s national bestselling Max Revere series



NOTORIOUS

COMPULSION



And read on for a Max Revere story, for the first time in print



MAXIMUM EXPOSURE





Dear Reader:



Characters usually come to writers as either fully formed individuals or works in progress. Maxine Revere came to me almost fully formed.



It’s sort of a funny story how Max came about. In 2010 I was interviewing literary agents. I shared this idea I had, a series focusing on an investigative reporter named Max Revere who traveled the country solving cold cases. The first book would solve a murder from his past, the crime that had set him on his journalistic path. Dan Conaway at Writers House was enthusiastic about the concept and the character, but asked, “What if Max was Maxine?”



As soon as he said that, not only did I realize Dan was going to be my new agent, but Max also blossomed to life. I’d had this idea for two years, but it wasn’t until I got over the idea that Max was a guy that her character evolved. And Maxine Revere was born.



Notorious begins the series with Max going back—to her hometown, to her roots, to ultimately face the tragedy of her best friend’s murder thirteen years ago, which paved the road she’s since traveled. Home is the beginning for all of us; for Max it was also an ending.



A few months ago, my editor asked me to write a prequel to Notorious, a short story that gives a snapshot of who Max is and why she does what she does. Why does she care about cold cases? Why did she agree to host a cable crime show when she doesn’t like working for anyone but herself? Why would she drop everything to look for a missing college student, when she has no ties to the community he disappeared from and no relationship with his family?



While I love writing short stories, my idea of “short” usually falls in the novella range, and this story is no exception. I’m grateful that my editor told me I could tell the story any way I wanted, and I hope you enjoy reading Maximum Exposure as much as I enjoyed writing it. And, mostly, I hope you like Maxine Revere as much as I do.





Happy reading,



Allison Brennan





CHAPTER ONE



Investigative reporter Maxine Revere couldn’t explain what drew her toward a particular investigation. She couldn’t articulate why she wasn’t interested in a cold case across the city, but would jump on a cross-country flight to pursue an even colder case.

She appreciated the fact that she didn’t have to explain herself to anyone.

Independently wealthy, she could pursue any lead that caught her attention. For her news articles, she’d conduct a preliminary investigation to decide if she wanted to spend the time solving the case, then write a proposal and send it to one of three editors she liked to work with. They’d give her the flexibility and the credentials to follow through, and she’d submit her report when she was done. Sometimes—most of the time—she went ahead with the full investigation even before anyone wanted the story. For her books, she immersed herself in the community with the people who were affected, hoping not only to tell the story of the crime—victims, survivors, perpetrators—but also to understand everyone involved.

She couldn’t imagine doing anything else with her life.

Because of the success of her true crime books and the popularity of her in-depth reports, she received hundreds of letters every month from families and friends of victims who wanted her to look into a violent crime, most often a disappearance or a homicide. Letters from killers claiming they were innocent rarely appealed to her, nor did the claims of innocence by loved ones who believed—or wanted to believe—that their mother/husband/boyfriend/daughter/friend was railroaded by the system.

Though she couldn’t explain to anyone else why she was going to Colorado to investigate the disappearance of Scott Sheldon from his college campus, as soon as she read the letter from his mother, she knew she was going.

First, she called Scott’s mother, Adele Sheldon. She rarely pursued an investigation without the blessing of one of the family members. In this case, Adele was both surprised and relieved that Max had called her. Max listened to the mother talk about her son and his disappearance, repeating most of the information from the letter, but adding an important detail: search and rescue had only last week actively started to look for his body. Adele gave her the contact information of a detective in Colorado Springs, someone at the park service, the head of campus police, and Scott’s former college roommate. It was a good start.

Max made contact with the detective, who wasn’t helpful, because both the college and the campground Scott went missing from were out of her jurisdiction. The campus security chief didn’t take her call—supposedly out of the office—but Max left her contact information. She briefly spoke to the head of the park service search team, Chuck Pence, who confirmed the pertinent details. She wanted to talk to him further when she arrived in Colorado Springs. Max read all newspaper and online reports on Scott’s disappearance, but there wasn’t much written.

After the preliminary research, Max called Adele again to confirm that Scott’s mother still wanted her help. The woman sobbed.