Coldfall Page 3

  “Yes?”

  “There may be a problem,” he said into the phone.

  Chapter 5

  When she reached her desk, Ashley ripped a drawer open and snatched a tissue into her fist. She had been mortified when Hillman tore into her. Embarrassed. Diminished. But during the long walk of shame to her cubicle, during which she felt as if every eye in the newsroom was on her, those emotions coalesced into anger.

  How dare he! It’s one thing to tell someone that what they think is a million-dollar nugget is actually fool’s gold, but what he’d done was over the line. He had apparently felt it necessary to tear her down and treat her like a dim-witted child.

  She dabbed at the tears in the corners of her eyes, careful to not do any more damage to her makeup than had already occurred. Her face was hot with emotion and she briefly considered just taking her purse and leaving. Stopping by Hillman’s office and telling him to go fuck himself in a voice loud enough for the whole room to hear.

  The she reconsidered. She’d fought and clawed her way through school. Worked three jobs at times to support herself, all the while never losing sight of her goal of landing at the Trib. The largest paper in the country, with the widest circulation, by far. How could she walk away from something she’d worked so hard to achieve, all because a cranky old man had hurt her feelings?

  Taking a deep breath, she fished a cheap compact out of her purse to check her makeup. Making some minor touch ups, she glanced at her phone when it beeped softly, announcing an incoming text message. Expecting either a question or snarky comment from one of the handful of people in the newsroom that she’d struck up a friendship with, she almost ignored it. Would have if she wasn’t waiting to hear back from her roommate with an idea for how they were going to make the rent that was due at the end of the week.

  Picking up the phone, she opened the text and paused in surprise.

  BLOCKED

  You’re not wrong

  She frowned, looking around the surrounding area for a smirking co-worker. But the people she could see were all hard at work, secure in their own bubbles of headphones and computer screens. Turning her attention back to the phone, she was surprised to see that the message was gone. She scrolled through the app. Checked several places, but it wasn’t there. What the hell? Had she imagined it?

  The phone beeped again, startling her.

  BLOCKED

  I can tell you what you want to know

  This time she didn’t take her eyes off the screen. Quickly, she began tapping out a reply.

  ME

  Who is…

  Before she could finish the final word, the message she had received, along with her partial reply, disappeared. As hard as she searched the phone, she couldn’t find a trace of it or any indication it had ever existed. Beep-beep. Another text.

  BLOCKED

  7pm at O’Shaughnessy’s. This is a one time offer. Come alone if you want answers

  Ashley tried to reply, but as before, all trace of the communication simply vanished after five seconds. Staring at the phone in her hand, she was both frightened and exhilarated.

  She was aware of privacy apps that could erase text messages after a period of time, but as far as she knew they required both the sender and receiver to have the app installed on their phone. This wasn’t the case. The messages had come across as normal to her iPhone. An iPhone! That meant it should have passed through Apple’s iCloud, in which case there might be a copy.

  Dropping the phone, she unlocked her computer and quickly logged in to the service. Scrolled through thousands of archived messages, all nicely preserved on a server somewhere in the world. But not the three she had just received. Frowning in thought, she logged out and raised her head over the rail of her cube. She wanted to speak to Jason, a technology writer who focused on mobile devices. If anyone would know how to pull this off, he would.

  He wasn’t at his desk, but she did see a tall woman in a severe skirt suit marching along the same path she’d walked after being kicked out of Hillman’s office. A pair of uniformed security guards, male and female, followed in her wake. Ashley swallowed hard as she watched them approach.

  She’d been around long enough to witness the dismissal of a couple of her colleagues. The Trib didn’t mess around. There was no polite request to come to the boss’s office where the news was gently broken. Not even close. When the paper decided to part ways with an employee, a representative from HR would suddenly appear at their desk to ensure all company property was accounted for, then security would escort the former employee out of the building.

  The woman didn’t falter when she realized she had been seen. Instead, she increased her pace, moving as fast as allowed by the hem of her narrow skirt. Her eyes were locked onto Ashley.

  Thoughts raced through Ashley’s mind. How would she ever work as a reporter again after being canned by the Trib? How would she pay her rent? Then… why was she being fired? For simply asking a question about something she thought might be a story? That wasn’t what people got fired for, was it?

  She suddenly looked down at her phone. The mysterious text messages that had popped in immediately after her meeting with Hillman. Probably at the same time he was on the phone with HR, telling them she needed to go.

  Without a second’s thought, Ashley typed a series of commands into the computer. The cursor spun for a moment before displaying a message.

  Are you sure you want to format the hard drive?

  Y or N

  Not hesitating, she pressed the Y key as the termination party arrived. The woman looked at the screen and her stern expression deepened into a scowl.

  “Ms. Dumont. Your employment with the New York Tribune has been terminated. In accordance with the agreement you signed when hired, Officer Maldonado will search you and your belongings to ensure you are not in possession of any company property, physical or intellectual, then you will be escorted from the building and are barred from returning for any reason. Do you understand?”

  The woman didn’t wait for an answer, simply stepped back and waved the male guard forward. He stepped close and asked Ashley to move away from her desk. Slowly, in partial shock by the sudden turn of events, Ashley did as she was asked.

  He placed a cardboard box on the desk and began filling it with her notebook and the contents of the desk drawers while the female guard performed a quick and efficient frisk of her person. The contents of Ashley’s pockets were returned to her when it was over.

  “That’s my personal phone!” Ashley protested when the male guard scooped it off her desk and started to place it in the box.

  He paused, looking at the woman from HR. Held it up for her to see the lock screen.

  “Unlock it,” the woman said to Ashley.

  “No.”

  The woman turned on her and looked down her nose.

  “Ms. Dumont, you signed a waiver giving us permission to check for intellectual property. Either unlock your phone so it can be examined, or it will be confiscated.”

  Ashley stood her ground, looking back into the woman’s eyes.

  “If you take it, I will call the police! That’s called robbery. Armed robbery, in fact, since both guards are carrying guns. I’m feeling very intimidated at the moment, and am fearful they might use them if I resist. That’s a felony in New York, so go ahead. Drop it in the box and we’ll let the NYPD sort it out. I don’t think a couple of uniformed cops are going to care about what some waiver may or may not say. You might ultimately win in court, but do the three of you really want to be taken away in cuffs?”

  The male guard looked at the HR woman, suddenly unsure of the situation. She glared at Ashley for a long beat.

  “Give it to her and get her out of here,” she finally said without taking her eyes off Ashley.

  Chapter 6

  It was a soft, spring evening in New York City. Despite being a Tuesday, the beautiful weather had sent people pouring out of their homes. Ashley stood on Fifth Avenue, a few
blocks south of Central Park, as throngs of tourists and locals swirled around her.

  Ahead was O’Shaughnessy’s Pub, a surprisingly downscale establishment that rubbed shoulders with some of the most expensive real estate in the world. It was one of those places that everyone who had ever lived in New York had heard of, but few had been inside.

  Glancing at her phone’s clock, Ashley still didn’t move even though it was already ten minutes past the appointed hour for the meeting. Frankly, she was frightened.

  After being escorted out of the Trib, she had gone home to her cramped flat in Brooklyn and tossed back a stiff shot of peppered vodka. The fiery liquid had calmed her racing mind, so she’d had another. Feeling better, she’d indulged in a third, not remembering that she’d had nothing to eat since dinner the night before.

  Flopping onto a threadbare sofa, she had fallen asleep, only waking sometime later when a siren screamed down the street outside her window. Looking at her phone with bleary eyes, she jumped up when she saw the clock. She had just enough time to change clothes and make it into Manhattan.

  As she scrubbed her face clean of makeup, she began to worry about the meeting. Her emotions had been running high when the mystery man, she assumed it was a man, had texted her with an offer of information. Freshly dressed down by her editor, she had welcomed the contact as validation that she was a real reporter and had the beginnings of a headline story.

  But now, with time to settle down, the idea of a clandestine meeting in the middle of Manhattan wasn’t as exciting as a few hours ago. What if she had a stalker? She wasn’t vain, but was very aware of her looks. She knew she could draw the eye of every male in a room if she wanted. And New York was full of weirdos. What if she’d caught the attention of one of them?

  She faltered at that thought, pausing to stare at herself in a permanently fogged mirror. Seriously considered not showing up. But how would some creepy stalker know exactly what to text her? He’d said she was right! That meant he had to know what she’d just been talking to Hillman about. But how?

  Another reporter in the newsroom? Someone playing a game? She went back to washing her face as she considered that angle. Hillman hadn’t exactly been quiet. Could someone sitting close to his office have heard enough to put two and two together and use it to lure her to the bar? But why would they want to do that? She was a genuinely friendly and open person. If someone wanted to talk to her, all they had to do was walk up and say, “Hi.”

  Drying her face and whipping her long hair into a pony tail, she headed into her bedroom, shedding her professional clothes. Dressing quickly in jeans and a T-shirt, she sat down on the edge of her sagging mattress to tie a pair of running shoes. Not fashionable by any measure, but practical if she needed to get away from someone in a hurry. Leaving a note for her roommate, she headed out, taking the subway into Manhattan.

  Now her resolve to keep the meeting was wavering again. Who was waiting inside for her and what did they want?

  Finally, with a deep breath, she forced herself to take a step. Then another. She moved with the flow of humanity, letting it carry her along like a leaf on the surface of a stream. Reaching the entry to the pub, she stepped to the side and looked at the bright green door.

  The building that housed the bar was old, built in the late eighteen-hundreds. As the city had grown around it, streets had been raised for a variety of engineering reasons, but it had stayed exactly like it was the day it poured its first pint of Guinness.

  Now, slightly over half the height of the pub was below the grade of the sidewalk. A flight of concrete steps led down to a cramped courtyard that held half a dozen wrought iron tables. All of them were occupied by men in their twenties and thirties.

  Part of O’Shaughnessy’s reputation was that it was the best place in the city for men who enjoyed being able to look up the skirts of passing female pedestrians without violating the law. And there were women who liked parading past, some of them having left their underwear at home.

  Ashley, glad she’d decided to wear jeans, took another breath for courage, walked down the stairs and pulled the door open. The pub was full to nearly overflowing and the raucous sounds of a boisterous crowd hit her like a slap in the face.

  She pushed in and came to a stop, giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the dimly lit room. No one looked in her direction. A harried waitress with a serving tray held high in the air hustled by, shooting her a glance.

  “Wherever youse can find a seat, hon. Full ‘ouse t’night!”

  She disappeared into the crowd, leaving Ashley to fend for herself. The door opened behind her and a large group entered, pushing her deeper into the throng. People were shoulder to shoulder, shouting to be heard over a pounding sound system and a hundred other conversations. A hand grabbed her ass and squeezed hard, but when she spun to confront the groper there was nothing but a solid wall of bodies. No one was paying her the slightest bit of attention.

  “Fuck this!” she said aloud, but couldn’t hear her own voice over the crowd.

  Elbows out, she forced her way to the door. It opened as she reached for it, another group coming in, but she didn’t wait. Hurrying forward, she pushed through, earning a string of curses for her rudeness. She didn’t care. She was simply glad to bound up the stairs and take a breath of air. Upset for having gone along with what she now firmly believed was a hoax, she set off for the subway station at a brisk walk.

  The subway car on the ride home was nearly as crowded as O’Shaughnessy’s, but at least no one tried to feel her up. She stared into space, replaying the texts she’d received in her head. Couldn’t understand the location picked for the meet, assuming the messages had been on the up and up. There was no way she could have had a conversation with a source in that place. It had been a madhouse.

  Shaking her head, she stepped off at her stop. Bypassing the escalator, she bounded up the steps to street level and emerged in darkness. The sun had set while she was below ground and the streets had quickly emptied. Tomorrow was a work day. People had to get up early so, despite the wonderful weather, they had gone inside to do whatever needed doing before they could go to bed.

  Striding along the sidewalk, she kept her head constantly moving, watching for danger. Her neighborhood wasn’t a particularly bad one, but crime in New York City was on the upswing. Not that the politicians would admit, but she saw the stories that came over the wire.

  Ahead was the mouth of an alley that was like the yawning entrance to a dark cave. Ashley sidestepped as she approached, moving so far onto the curb her hip occasionally brushed the cars that were parked on the street. Her full attention was on the alley when she heard a dull, mechanical thump from behind, then the sound of someone falling to the sidewalk.

  Whirling, ready to scream and run, the breath caught in her throat. A man’s body lay on the concrete, only ten feet away. A dim streetlight glinted dully off the shaft of a six-inch icepick in his hand. She hadn’t known anyone was that close.

  Beyond, she caught a glimpse of a gun with a long tube sticking out from the barrel as a man slipped it out of sight beneath his jacket. She was frozen in place, her body refusing to respond to her brain’s commands to flee as he hurried toward her.

  “There’s another one around the block!” he hissed, reaching for her arm.

  The impending contact with the stranger broke the log jam in her nervous system. Backpedaling, she started to turn, but he surged forward and locked on to her arm with a frighteningly powerful grip.

  “Let me go!” she screamed, trying to tear away as she launched a kick at her assailant’s groin.

  He deftly deflected her foot with the side of his hip before pulling her close and clamping a hand over her mouth. She futilely struggled with all her might, but he held her in a way that prevented her from fighting and pulled her into the dark alley.

  Chapter 7

  “Look at what they did!” Mom cried as we pulled to a stop in front of our house.

  It had b
een five days since my dad had been killed by the BLM agents. At least, I think it had been five days. I wasn’t at all sure what day it was.

  “Why’d they do that?” I asked.

  Renewed anger churned in my gut. The front door to our house had been torn from its hinges and left lying in the dirt. A black Suburban with government plates was parked to the side, two men wearing dark suits standing on the front porch, watching us.

  This was the first time we’d been home since Mom picked me up from school. The day my dad… well… that day.

  The FBI had arrived at our ranch before we could make it home. They’d sent all the workers away and locked the place down. We were told we couldn’t come in until they were through processing the residence, whatever the hell that meant.

  So, we’d gone to a friend of my mother who lived in town. She’d welcomed us, and Tanya, into her home. Her husband had died on a crab boat in the Bering Sea a few years ago, so she had plenty of room and seemed happy to have the company.

  We were all in shock, Mary perhaps the worst. Mom had pulled into a small city park after we left the high school. She’d held my little sister in her arms, tears streaming down her face as she talked and hadn’t seen what I had. Something in Mary had shut down. Closed itself off to the world. She had completely retreated into herself and never shed a tear. She hadn’t spoken a single word since receiving the news.

  I’d cried, unable to comprehend that someone like my father could actually be dead. He’d always seemed so large, so… singularly indestructible. Like he was a mountain of granite and the rest of the world was unable to touch him.

  Tanya had taken the news that she was an orphan with silent stoicism. She even thanked my mom for telling her. But as collected as she appeared, I’ll never forget the look in her eyes when she turned toward me. Unspeakable rage. It was there for a moment, then she blinked and it was gone. If I hadn’t been so struck by what I’d seen, I might have doubted that it was real.