Alien Abduction

by Irving Belateche

  A few minutes later the Kalera took hold.

  There’s no place like home, I thought.

  EDDIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I’d been home from San Diego for a couple days, and during those days I’d thought about driving up to Abel’s house to let him know how I’d disposed of Rose. But thinking about it was as far as I’d gone. That was because I hadn’t read anything about Rose’s disappearance on the San Diego police blotters. I knew the story would eventually make it to the blotters, and then into the news, but the fact that it hadn’t yet gave me hope. Why? Because the longer it took to investigate the crime, the higher the likelihood that whatever evidence I’d accidentally left behind would fade.

  Still, I was getting antsy. I desperately wanted to know what Abel was up to. Was he waiting it out? Was he waiting to see if I’d executed the assignment “properly”?

  I also wanted Abel to give me the next target. That would get my mind off of Rose. It would also mean that I was still employed by the alien—that he wasn’t planning to liquefy me.

  On the morning of my third day back from San Diego, Larry called. He was following up on that job he’d told me about a while ago. He wanted to know if the prospect of a return to journalism had grown on me. After the nightmare in Del Mar, I had to admit to myself that segueing back into journalism sounded appealing. Not that that mattered. Regardless of the appeal, I knew there was no going back. There was no way to quit the job with Abel. It was lifetime employment.

  In the end, the only reason I agreed to head over to Larry’s to talk about the job was to put a temporary stop to obsessing over Rose. And as it turned out, the visit to Larry’s didn’t deliver on that.

  By the time I left his place, I would be in an absolute panic over Rose.

  *

  Larry led me into his office, which had sprouted a second desk. And sitting at that desk, in front of two computer monitors—which brought the total for the office up to five—was a sharp-looking kid in his mid-twenties.

  “Eddie,” Larry said, “meet Josh. A proud graduate of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism—with a joint degree in Computer Science.”

  “A degree of the future,” I said.

  Larry smiled. “A degree of the present.”

  “I’m just happy it was a degree that led to a job,” Josh said.

  Larry leaned over the kid’s shoulder and stared at the two computer monitors for a couple of seconds. Then he said, “Go back even further and see if you can confirm the pattern for another decade.”

  “Sure,” Josh said, and started typing.

  Larry then walked over to his own desk and checked his own computer monitors. I was sure he was checking for news updates. If his news site was one of the first with a story, he’d get more clicks, and that meant more advertising dollars.

  After a minute of perusing his monitors, Larry grabbed an iPad from his desk—so he’d stay connected and wouldn’t miss anything—and turned to me. “Let’s go talk on the patio,” he said.

  Outside, we both sat down and Larry plopped the iPad on the table between us. “So, how do you feel about being an editor in chief?”

  “You’re kidding.” He hadn’t told me what the job was over the phone, and this wasn’t what I’d expected.

  “Nope,” he said.

  “What paper needs an editor in chief?”

  “It’s a website.”

  “That explains it.” I shook my head.

  “Don’t scoff,” he said. “It’s a great job, and you’d be a great fit.”

  Even though I knew another career change wasn’t in the cards for me, it seemed rude not to hear him out. Especially because he thought that’s why I had come over.

  “Okay, you’ve piqued my curiosity,” I said.

  “Great. So here’s the scoop: a bunch of news sites, similar to mine, want to band together to produce more in-depth pieces. We’d all run the pieces—like running a syndicated column.”

  “Can’t you pick up syndicated columns now?”

  “We can—but the idea is that we want to create our own content with our sensibilities.”

  “You mean you want to bypass the middleman,” I said.

  He laughed. “That’s part of it.”

  “So where do I fit in?” I asked.

  “You’d be the editor for the syndicate.”

  I didn’t respond. Larry was coming through for me. And I knew the job was legitimate. He wasn’t the type of friend who’d present me with a half-baked idea. This was a real editor in chief job, in the landscape of new media.

  He waited for my response, raising his eyebrows, as if to say, So, what do you think?

  “It sounds intriguing,” I said, “but I have to tell you, I’m kind of liking my new job.”

  “Maybe I can sweeten the deal if you tell me more about the competition.”

  When he’d originally asked me about the job, I had told him what I’d told Jenny—that I was researching potential acquisition targets for ADM. And I wasn’t inclined to add anything more now. So I told him what I’d told Jenny when she’d asked for more details.

  “I can’t really get into specifics because I’m not supposed to talk about ADM’s acquisition targets,” I said. And then I came up with a great additional line on the fly. “And I’m guessing that talking to a reporter about those targets would be the worst kind of violation.”

  He grinned. “So now I’m the enemy?”

  I smiled. “Yep. Sorry.”

  “How about the money? Is the pay good?”

  I thought I could cop to that without giving too much away. “Yep. It’s actually kind of nice to see how the other half lives.”

  “The money’s that good?”

  I decided to play it down. “Let’s just say it’s good enough.”

  He leaned back in his chair, cocked his head, and narrowed his eyes.

  I recognized that look. Hell, I’d spent more than a decade in the same newsroom with the guy. He was curious, bordering on suspicious.

  “How’d you land the job?” he said. “You never told me.”

  “It was a fluke. Someone told me about the opening, and somehow I was able to finagle ADM’s HR to give me an interview. They weren’t so sure about me, but I convinced them to let me interview with the actual department I’d be working for. Once I got that interview, I went for broke.”

  “You mean you begged them?”

  “Not quite. But close. I was desperate. But I also knew I could do the job.”

  Larry wasn’t quite buying my story; his eyes were still bright with suspicion. He leaned forward and I braced myself for another question—but his iPad suddenly got his attention. His eyes scanned the screen, and he quickly stood up, ready to jump into action.

  “Can you excuse me for a minute?” he said. “I want to get something up on the website.”

  “Sure—what’s up?”

  “I can’t get into specifics about my work,” he said with a straight face, and then grinned. “I’m kidding. Walk me back to the office and I’ll fill you in.”

  He didn’t walk back to his office—he hurried, with me at his heels.

  “It’s a crime story,” he said, “with a human interest element. And with those stories, if you’re in the first wave, you get great traffic. Especially with Josh on board now.”

  “How does he figure into it?”

  “I’ll write a two-paragraph story and an irresistible headline. Then he’ll take over and do the SEO. Before, I had to do both, so it took me twice as long to get something up on the site.”

  We stepped into his office, and as Larry rushed toward his chair, he barked out instructions. “Josh, bring up the San Diego Union-Tribune. Pat’s blog has a crime story we’re going to run with.”

  Hearing “San Diego’” immediately put me on high alert. But before I could check to see whether it was a false alarm—and less than three seconds after Larry had told Josh to bring up the story—Josh said, “I got it,”
and both of them began to bang away at their keyboards.

  From where I stood, I could see Larry’s monitors. On one, his story was unfurling as he typed madly. On another, the San Diego Union-Tribune banner topped the screen—but I couldn’t make out the headline underneath the banner.

  I also noticed that as Larry pounded out the copy for his story, it was also unfurling simultaneously on one of Josh’s monitors. And Josh was already changing the copy—optimizing the story for search engines.

  But I couldn’t see the actual text of story.

  So to find out if there was reason for alarm, I moved a little closer to Larry’s desk and focused in on the original story in the San Diego Union-Tribune. The headline left no doubt that my nightmare was just about to get bigger—

  “Woman Found Buried In Yard,” it said.

  Amid Larry and Josh’s intense race to get the story out, I was invisible. So I moved even closer to Larry’s desk and began to read the Union-Tribune story. My heart was pounding, and my breathing was halting. I was already in a panic. Why hadn’t I seen the crime on the San Diego police blotter earlier? Were the police already closing in on me?

  My first question was answered in the story. In the age of Internet journalism, the speed at which news traveled was almost instantaneous. It turned out that the police had discovered the body less than an hour ago, so the crime report must have hit the police blotter while I was on my way over here. And the reporter for the Union-Tribune had undoubtedly put the news up on his blog immediately, without going through the paper’s editorial staff.

  But I could see why the reporter wanted to get it up there fast. It was an intriguing mystery—and that’s how he’d painted it—and it would draw eyeballs to his blog and to the paper. The story had all the right phrases: “shallow backyard grave,” “kindly widow,” “wealthy neighborhood,” “possible homicide,” and “many unanswered questions.”

  I hoped those questions would remain unanswered.

  I looked over to check on Larry’s story and saw his headline: “Trouble in Paradise: Del Mar Woman Found Buried In Her Own Yard.”

  Then I read his version of the story. It added a dash of gruesomeness—“no report yet on how long the body had been buried”—and a dash of character: “Rose David was a long-time resident of Del Mar” and “a well-known member of Del Mar’s preservation society.” That information hadn’t been in the Union-Tribune story, so where had it come from?

  I found the answer on Larry’s third computer monitor. That monitor showed the results of a search on Rose, which must have been initiated by Josh—the reason for his furious typing at the start of this sprint. Josh and Larry were already a well-oiled machine.

  “What do you think?” Larry said, his first words since the sprint had begun.

  I thought he was talking to me, but Josh answered him immediately. “I’m ready to go,” he said.

  “Okay,” Larry responded. “Let’s give it the once-over.”

  Then they both stopped typing and read the story.

  A minute later, Larry said, “I’m good.”

  “Me too,” Josh concurred, then followed this up with, “Posted.”

  I felt the frantic energy in the room dissipate. Josh was back to typing, but at a normal pace. I looked back at Larry’s monitors, and this time one of them featured his news site. The headline for the new story was on it, accompanied by a small photo underneath—a view of the Del Mar hillside I knew so well.

  Larry stood up, his face flush from the burst of adrenaline. “Sorry for the interruption,” he said.

  “No problem,” I said.

  “You ready to let me sell you on the editor job?”

  I glanced at Larry’s website again. “Trouble in Paradise” screamed out at me.

  “I think I want to stick with ADM. At least for now,” I answered.

  “Okay—then let’s just catch up,” Larry said.

  “I’ve gotta take off. Maybe we can grab lunch this weekend.”

  “Sounds good. And I might hold you to it.”

  Was he still suspicious about my job? It didn’t really matter. It was time to hit the road.

  Two minutes later, after Larry had asked me again if I’d consider the editor job, I was on my way home. But the closer I got to home, the more I wanted to drive past it, then on to Coldwater and up to Abel’s.

  By now Abel knew that the business of disposing of Rose’s body had gone badly. It’s all over the Internet, I thought, and that’s when it dawned on me: Abel probably hadn’t been waiting to find out if I had botched implementing his order. He’d probably known that I had. That explained why he hadn’t contacted me with the next assignment.

  He’d already decided to dispose of me.

  JENNY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Working on the pilot already seemed like a distant memory, even though it hadn’t really been that long. And I missed it, even though the job had been hectic, the workload heavy, and I’d been on call 24/7. Mimi had turned out to be a perfectionist, more so than any other production designer I’d worked for, so our entire department had been kept busy.

  After the gig had ended, it had felt good to have a break, but now I was yearning to get back into action. I’d recovered, and I had time before my next round of treatments. I was restless to work again, and it was that restlessness that allowed my suspicions about Eddie to rise to the surface. If I had been working, I might’ve been able to keep from acting on my suspicions. But as it stood, I was fixated on the idea that Eddie’s job was commission-based.

  The day had started out well. It was a Sunday, so Hannah had an eight-hour shift at Gregory Brothers. She’d gotten up early and joined me for breakfast. We’d been getting along better, and the reason for that was ironic. Her job—the very thing I’d been against—had made her more responsible. It had driven her to manage her time more effectively, more so than being on the swim team had. When she had schoolwork to do, she focused on it, with no interruptions for social media or chats with friends. And she didn’t waste time arguing with Jake or me.

  “I’m really proud of how you’re handling the job,” I told her at breakfast.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  I went on to let her know how wrong I’d been, ending with: “Do you want to tell me ‘I told you so’? You’ve earned it.”

  “Nah. I’d rather use the goodwill for something more useful.”

  I laughed. “Uh-oh.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m talking about material goods. Not permission to do something outlandish.”

  “Whew.” I mock-wiped my brow.

  She looked over at the clock. “I’d better head out,” she said.

  Then she picked up her dishes, carried them over to the sink, and rinsed them. In the past, she wouldn’t have voluntarily done that. I would’ve had to ask her to.

  “Do you want a ride?” I said.

  “I’m fine.” She headed to the door. “I’ll see you this evening.”

  I cleared the rest of the dishes, then headed to the bedroom to see if Eddie was still in bed. If he was already up, I hoped he might want to go with me to the farmer’s market. I thought it might be relaxing for him. When he’d come home from San Diego a few days ago, he’d been tired and anxious, more anxious than he’d been in weeks. And when I had asked him how the assignment had gone, he’d said it had gone well, but not as well as it could have.

  I got the impression he was sugarcoating it, as in it hadn’t gone well at all. And that impression was reinforced by the poor way he’d slept. He was usually a sound sleeper—except when under extreme pressure. He had tossed and turned after that first massive pay cut at the Times, and again after he’d found out about my cancer diagnosis. And ever since San Diego, he’d been doing it yet again.

  As I walked down the hallway, I heard the shower going, and what I should have done was continue forward, pop my head into the bathroom, and ask my husband if he wanted to go to the farmer’s market to rela
x a little. But instead I stopped when I spotted his laptop on the coffee table in the den. He never left it out in the open anymore. When he wasn’t using it—and he’d been on it pretty much non-stop since returning from San Diego—he’d taken to putting it in his desk drawer. The desk he never used because he preferred to work on the couch.

  It was seeing the laptop out there in plain sight that made me wonder what had been disappointing about his trip to San Diego. What if his job was based on straight commission and he’d lost out on the commission for the San Diego assignment? That would explain his anxiety—he was behind the eight ball when it came to his next paycheck.

  So I marched into the den and opened the laptop, thinking I might find out something that would reveal whether Eddie worked for straight commission. But the screen didn’t show a desktop packed with files; the screen was black except for a prompt asking for a password.

  Eddie had never before used a password to log on to his computer. I guess it made sense that he might do so now, because he’d told me that his job required secrecy. Still, it bothered me.

  I quickly moved to the doorway and listened to see if the shower was still running. It was. I hurried back to the laptop, feeling like an underhanded snoop, but I couldn’t help myself. My instincts told me something was up.

  I tried a few different passwords—the ones we used for our various other accounts. Citibank, Netflix, Amazon, et cetera.

  None of them worked.

  I tried other passwords based on significant dates in Eddie’s life, then significant places.

  Finally, after checking the shower again and hearing that it was no longer running, I gave up and closed the computer, ready to scoot out of the den before Eddie caught me. But right then, I noticed something odd. Something about Eddie’s computer—something about seeing it closed—but I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what was odd about it.

  In the kitchen, I poured myself a second cup of coffee. I never drank a second cup of coffee unless I had a lot of work to do, but right now I felt I needed it. And as I sipped it, I decided that if Eddie was hiding something, it would be better to press him for answers, rather than to snoop.