You know those people who go to work and they’re completely satisfied with their lives? The ones who feel a sense of personal satisfaction from walking through the doors in the morning because they know that they made the right decision?
I’m not one of those people.
The only thing that kept me functioning like a regular human being was a grim satisfaction that at least I didn’t work in customer service. The only thing I disliked more than tabloids were people. Somewhere along the line, I’d developed a deep, burning dislike for the human race. There seemed to be no cure.
“Good morning, Phaedra.”
I grunted in response and walked just a little faster. Obviously I didn’t look harried enough if my coworkers were still trying to engage in early morning small talk. Or at least, that’s what I liked to think. More than likely they were just all aware that I couldn’t look busy because I was never working on anything interesting.
In some respects that was all Dawson’s fault. I presented her with really good ideas when we had our meetings every other week, but she always shot them down. You see, tabloids were complex creatures.
They survived on a strange mixture of facts, gossip, and wild speculation.
The trick to being successful in them was to sniff out a story, no matter how faint the scent, and run with it. I had been working for Dawson for nearly a year and not once during that time had I been able to come up with anything that lived up to the woman’s standards. I was used to working for a more conservative paper. Writing articles about the AIDS epidemic in Africa and the declining morals of today’s youth.
The Oracle focused more on which famous actress was anorexic, what business mogul was suspected of doing cocaine, and whether or not some politician was sleeping with underage prostitutes. And let’s not forget the occasional conspiracy theory to lighten things up. For instance, I’d never forget the time I was sent out into the field to capture footage of Bigfoot. Not only did Bigfoot never show up, I couldn’t work for a while after I’d spent that night unwittingly huddled in a pile of poison ivy. Suffice it to say that we hadn’t had enough material to properly highlight Mr. Foot, but we did give it the good ol’ American try.
In addition to chasing urban legends, we also touched on scandal both inside and outside of the city limits. Yet, even though the possibilities seemed endless, I had yet to find a story good enough to make me stand out.
Hell, I couldn’t even come up with a piece interesting enough to be considered human interest and it had been months since Dawson had trusted me with anything more complicated than the obituaries. Wednesdays came and went, and time and time again my thought-provoking ideas were shoved beneath the bus of kinky sex tips and over-dramatized horoscopes.
In short, life was shit.
That more than anything brought my shoulders down the second I stopped in front of the meeting room door. I was late, but it didn’t really matter at this point. A fact that was proven rather quickly when I barged into the meeting and no one even bothered to look up.
“Sonya? Did you have something you wanted to add?”
Mentally sighing, I took my regular seat and pulled out my iPad. I liked to take notes, hoping to play around with story topics of my own in my free time, as well as to compare our final product with what the competition came up with. It was a process I started at my last job that helped determine whether we were rising or falling in popularity and to determine if that shift had anything to do with our ideas or the execution and timing of those ideas.
“Yes, actually.”
I glanced up from my IPad and had to fight down a scowl. Sonya Jackson had what I used to have. She had clout at the Oracle, which meant that any ideas that came out of her mouth were treated like gold. She was young, pretty, and full of potential, and I despised her with every fiber of my being. Or most of my fibers. Other than the fact that she was actually taken seriously, she seemed like a decent sort.
“Why hasn’t anyone done a story on Evans?” Sonya continued, eyebrows rising in challenge when the room fell collectively silent. “Just last week he was under investigation for embezzling and yet this week he’s having dinner with the chief of police and his family and buying another house.”
Dawson shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “That doesn’t mean—”
“Three months ago,” Sonya continued stubbornly, “three women were found stumbling down the Boulevard naked and covered in dirt—”
“There’s no proof that they actually worked for Evans,” Another reporter, Michael, spoke up quickly.
Sonya snorted. “Speculation is more than enough. Even without some wild conspiracy theory, his name comes up everywhere. Money laundering, human trafficking, kidnapping, murder. And please. Let’s not forget his infamous task force of muscle-bound idiots.” The room seemed to wince as one and Sonya threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “Holy hell. Is the man off limits or something? We’ve gone after the mayor on less.”
Dawson regarded the other woman silently while murmurs broke out around the room. We all knew she was right, but none of us wanted to be the one to agree with her aloud. I drummed my fingers on the table and considered the young woman seriously. No one wanted to take on a story about Gabriel Evans. Most of us knew the rumors of what he was capable of, which was the precise reason why none of us wanted anything to do with it. Personally, I didn’t have a death wish, but as I watched Sonya glare around at each of us in turn, and noted Dawson’s mien of displeasure, my brain did that thing that usually meant I was about to make a decision I would immediately regret.
“Why the hell not?”
Everyone turned to stare at me.
Yup. Immediate regret.
Too late to back down now.
“I think someone should do a story on Evans,” I said, leaning back in my seat. “What do we have to lose? If he’s legit, there’s nothing to worry about, and if he isn’t—”
I shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Georgette, an older woman sitting across from me frowned. “If he is hiding something he’s not going to appreciate being under a spotlight.”
Mark nodded, his voice turned musing. “True, but if we play our cards right, by the time he figures out what was going on it’ll already be front-page news.”
“And any retaliation will just make him look bad.” This from David, a rookie in comparison to everyone else in the room, but a kid with a lot of potential.
I looked up in time to catch Sonya’s eye and was surprised to see the glint of approval there as the conversation picked up. I turned away and picked up my iPad again, listening with only half an ear as everyone began bouncing ideas off of one another. Many were conflicted about the best way to go about interviewing Evans. In the twelve years he’d been unofficially running the city, not once had he ever agreed to speak to the press.
His peons always passed on any public comments he wished to make and he never went to any of the fancy social gatherings that were the bread and butter of socialites: judges, lawyers, moguls, and aspiring politicians. In addition to that, no photos of him had ever been released, and to my knowledge he’d never appeared on either television or radio. He was a ghost. A phantom. Yet, for all of that, he cast a very long shadow and his reach seemed immeasurable.
So, we spoke as children planning mischief might. Low voiced, but breathless with the thrill of it. Drunk off our own daring. That is, until Dawson voiced the question we’d all been avoiding.
“So, who’s going to volunteer to cover the story?”
We could practically hear Sonya’s hackles go up.
“It was my idea. My idea, my story.”
Dawson waved her declaration away as if swatting away a fly. “Too inexperienced. Evans would eat you alive.”
Sonya’s jaw tightened. “You’re not giving my story to someone else. Not a single one of you thought to go after Evans until I suggested it.”
Point. We all swiveled to look at Dawson for a return strike.
“
True. But Evans is shark, and if you go in there hungry for a story, he’s going to smell blood in the water.”
“I can get him to talk to me,” Sonya continued stubbornly, only to flinch when Dawson snorted and said:
“Men like Evans don’t confide in girls like you. They help you find your panties the morning after and then call you a cab so they don’t have to talk to you over breakfast.”
Ouch.
Unfortunately, I could see Dawson’s point. Sonya may be one hell of a reporter, but she was all blond hair and dark blue eyes. Not to say that her looks were a definition of her skill, but when it came to powerful men, shady men, they often found it impossible to trust a beautiful woman. They could lust after beauty, but lust didn’t necessarily equate to lowered defenses. I had a feeling that women were not a weak spot for Evans, and looking at the fire in Sonya’s eyes, I knew that he’d be able to peg her from a mile off. Something about her just screamed “journalist.” It was sort of like how some people just looked like cops or military, even when they weren’t in uniform. No, if we were going after Evans, then we had to hit him and hit him hard.
Go big or go home.
Anything less would only come back and kick us in the teeth, assuming we had any left after Evans’s goons were done with us. In order for Sonya to get anywhere with Evans she’d have to work on him long term, and the idea of pimping her out for a story didn’t sit well with me no matter how much I disliked her. No, if we were going to get some dirt on the guy, we had to go in and dig it up ourselves. He wouldn’t be handing us the noose that would be used to hang him.
Dawson wasn’t done talking, but I sort of drifted out of the conversation. After all, I already knew where all of this was going. I’d reached the conclusion about five minutes beforehand.
“Our best bet is to send someone in undercover. Sonya, you can work on the story, but I want you behind the scenes on this thing. If it blows up in our faces, I don’t want it to be because you were so green that Evans was able to sniff you out. We’ll pair you with someone with some experience, someone who can work under Evans’s nose and gather information. We may even be able to get some video or photos out of it. If nothing else, an eyewitness account will make whatever we found all the more enticing.”
“Fine,” Sonya snapped, her voice stiff with anger. “I’ll do it. But on one condition.”
“Honey, you’re not exactly in a position to make demands. I’m only letting you stay on the story out of professional courtesy. You and I both know it would be out of your league otherwise.”
Sonya shrugged, “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I should just pay the Daily a visit and see if they wouldn’t be more…appreciative.”
The room practically froze over. The Daily was a competing paper and it had been hell keeping up with them the last few weeks. Before we used to be two steps ahead, but now we were struggling to not to cover material the Daily had already headlined. If our sales dropped any lower there would need to be cutbacks, and let’s just say that I knew where I stood in the hierarchy.
Dawson’s face was set in such hard lines it was almost as if she were carved from marble, and when she spoke her voice was trembling with outrage.
“Diane wouldn’t let you touch something like this with a ten foot pole and you know it. You’d be in the exact same boat.” Diane was the Daily’s equivalent of Dawson.
Only meaner.
Sonya seemed unconcerned.
“Probably. But I bet they’d get to it before you did. So it’s pretty much a win, win.”
“Fine.” Slamming her coffee cup down on the conference table, Dawson crossed her legs and glared across the room at the younger woman. “What do you want?”
“I want to choose my partner and have full control over the investigation.”
“You can choose your partner and write the article.”
“The partner, the article, and a two page spread.”
Dawson sucked in a sharp breath, but her smile was indulgent.
“Headline story, one page, and you can design the layout.” She took a sip of her coffee. “You can even have your name come first in the byline.”
“Deal.”
I had to restrain myself from clapping, but mentally I congratulated the girl. A front page spread was impressive from a resume standpoint. It was like being the quarterback of writers. Even if the story itself bombed and wasn’t nearly as juicy as we all hoped it would be, Sonya had pretty much guaranteed that both she and whomever she worked with would be the ones receiving the accolades. And if the story did blow up…
It was career making stuff.
I found myself liking her, if only a little bit.
“So, who’s it going to be?”
Sonya smiled and, to my alarm, her gaze fell unerringly on me.
“I’d like to work with Phaedra.”
“What?” I couldn’t hold the exclamation back even if I had wanted to.
Dawson was more reasonable. “Why?”
Sonya shrugged. “She has the experience and talent for it. Plus, she hasn’t worked on anything but the obituaries and the crossword since she got here, so it’s not like I’ll be taking her away from anything important. So she won’t be too inconvenienced if it all turns out to be a waste of time.”
Sonya slapped the table like a contestant on a game show striking a buzzer.
“Done,” she exclaimed, beaming when the rest of the staff writers broke out into messy applause.
My lips tightened in growing irritation. “Sorry to break this to all of you, but you seem to be forgetting something.”
Blank expressions all the way around. I rolled my eyes and indicated my own face with flair.
“Fiery Phaedra? My face was plastered all over the place for weeks until that cult story shoved me off the front page. Some intrepid YouTubers even got the surveillance footage of me shoving the car off the roof and made a music video montage out of it.”
“Where are you going with this?” Georgette asked, frowning.
“Yeah, I don’t see the point.” This from Avery, a reporter who’d been here longest and who was the current record-holder for front page stories.
“My point,” I began slowly, “is that I’m no good for undercover work. Everyone already knows I’m a reporter, and after I got arrested for trespassing after the Bigfoot debacle and Dawson bailed me out, I’m pretty sure the fact that I work here is also on record somewhere.”
Dawson shrugged and began rocking her swivel chair.
“Well, we can fix that easily enough.”
“Oh really?” This should be good. “How?”
She grinned at me. “Simple. You’re fired.”