by Brandy Ayers
Charlotte groaned, already dreading the interrogation Mira and Bekah would be giving her during their self-declared girls’ night.
Chapter Seven
“Mira, what does the scene look like down there?” Michelle sat back in her chair, her office silent despite two producers and Charlotte all huddling around the phone.
“It is chaos.” Mira’s voice was muffled by the crackle of her heavy breathing from rushing to the scene. “There are fire crews from all over the city, but they are so busy trying to put down the fires, they haven’t set up a really effective perimeter, so people are kind of just milling about watching.” Mira paused, mumbled to someone on her end of the line, then the click of her heels alerted them to her moving, and fast. “The fire chief is going to brief us in about five minutes. I’ll have more information then. But this looks bad guys. I haven’t heard about injuries or anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised given the size of this thing.”
Activity in the background had everyone in Michelle’s small office looking at each other with worry in their eyes. Several people shouted over each other near Mira, all talking at once so no one could really be heard. Finally, it became clear the police had arrived and were trying to push everyone back from getting too close to the burning buildings.
“Mira, this is Charlotte. Which end of the block are you on? The trash fire that had been called in earlier, and appeared to be nothing was on the 500 block of Murray Street.” Everyone in the room held their breaths waiting for a response.
“The press briefing is being held at the opposite end of the activity, almost three blocks away.” The noise died down slightly on her end as Mira made her way to where the fire chief would be giving his statement.
“He’s trying to make sure the reporters are far away from where this all started. From where the heaviest investigation will be.” Charlotte’s hunch was confirmed by Michelle nodding her head on the other side of the desk.
Mira huffed a laugh on the other side of the phone. “That might be true, but it will work because we can’t miss getting whatever it is he is going to say. Even if it is only the stock we don’t know anything yet answer.”
Everyone looked to Charlotte, she was the one with the hunch about an arsonist. She had been the one to be manning the desk each time one of the fires got called in. She quickly realized that they were looking to her for answers. That this is what it would be like if she accepted the promotion to Assignment Desk Manager. Instead of hunching her shoulders and retreating back into herself as she desperately wanted to do, Charlotte took a deep breath and faked it like her life depended on it.
“I already have another photographer en route. I’ll text him and tell him go to the opposite end of the scene, to the address where the trash fire had been last night.” Charlotte forced herself to stop from wrapping a string hanging from the last button on her shirt around her finger. Instead, she placed her palms firmly on her knees, which also helped to stop the shaking in her limbs from becoming obvious to those around her. “Mira, you and Rufus go to the briefing. Don’t ask anything that is going to give away our arsonist hunch unless you see other reporters leaning that direction. I think I might be able to get you a one-on-one.”
“You got it boss.” Mira ended the call on her end, and the silence in the office became almost suffocating.
Had Charlotte made the right call? The other stations would be focusing their efforts where the Chief was. If he planned to give them something big, like a look at one of the houses or even a homeowner, Mira and Rufus would be on their own, while all the other stations probably already had a second photographer on the standby.
“Okay, we’ve got a plan. Charlotte, I want you to fill in Annabelle on everything you know about this suspected arsonist so far, no matter how small the details. Then you get home and get some sleep. You’ve been here all night.” Michelle turned to the other producers, discussing where in their shows to stack the rest of the stories and whether they should dip back into the fire coverage later in their half hour blocks.
Once the plan was in place, Michelle dismissed everyone, but Charlotte held back. Her hands clasped behind her back still shook with the draining adrenaline speaking up in the meeting had produced. “I know you said I should go home, but I’d like to stay.”
“Charlotte, you need your sleep. The last thing I need is for you to be coming down with the same bug everyone else has got.” Michelle picked up a folder from her desk and stood, ready to head to a budget meeting with the station manager and sales manager.
“I know, but this is my story. It is the one I’ve been working on for a few weeks. I have a friend in the fire department that I think might be willing to help us out. Please, just let me stay until Mira and Rufus start editing. Then I’ll go home and watch the news from there.”
Michelle tapped the folder on her desk, biting one side of her mouth and staring Charlotte down. “Okay, but you take a nap in the back if you need to, and call in an order for lunch on my station card. You’re the lead on this while I’m in these stupid fucking meetings this morning. If I hadn’t already rescheduled with the bigwigs once, I would cancel it.”
“Got it. No problem.” Charlotte said the words with such conviction, she almost believed that she really had everything under control. Almost. But not really. Because inside, her head and stomach and heart seemed to all be at war with each other. Her head was going a mile a minute about everything she had to do to make sure they kicked the competition’s ass, and throwing up obstacles about why she would never be able to pull this off. Her stomach churned, and Charlotte prayed Michelle couldn’t hear it from across the room. Her heart pounded inside her chest so hard, she was a little afraid it could cause real damage to the vital organ. She didn’t know which area to focus on calming down first.
Michele turned to the door, but stopped before leaving the office. “You made the right call sending the backup photog to the other side of the scene. At worst Mira, and Rufus will have to scramble to get everything, and Jason doesn’t get more than a few minutes of b-roll. But if we are lucky, he’ll get something that everyone else will miss. Good job.”
The validation quieted everything inside Charlotte for a moment, before bringing it all roaring back. Because now the possibility of letting Michelle down loomed even greater in her mind. The possibility of failure of any sort made Charlotte break out in a cold sweat, but failing Michelle was just about the worst thing she could conceive of doing at work.
Once Michelle left the newsroom, Charlotte slowly closed the door so she was alone in the news director’s office. She sat with her elbows braced on her knees, her head hanging between her hands, and swallowed great lungs full of air to slow her panicking body. When her fingers and hands stopped shaking, Charlotte took out her phone and navigated to the text conversation she and Trey had been bouncing back and forth on.
Charlotte: Let me know if you are safe please. Not sure if you are down at the fire or not.
A minute passed before Charlotte got up from her seat and made her way back out to the newsroom. The room buzzed in a way it never did during her night shift. Reporters raced in and out of the doors on their ways to and from stories. Producers called out to each other for information or help filing graphics. The entire scene was almost foreign to Charlotte. Her world of journalism was usually much quieter. The hum of police scanners and click of her own fingers on the keyboard of her computer were normally the only sounds in her little world.
But an unexpected thrill at this new shift in her routine rolled through her. This is what she worked for all night. To make sure these people had news to cover and shows to put on the air.
“Hey, Charlotte. Ready to give me the lowdown?” Annabelle leaned over the side of the round platform where the assignment desk sat, a small friendly smile playing on her lips.
With a small nod, Charlotte made her way up next to the coworker she rarely ever saw thanks to their opposing shifts and began filling her in on everything
having to do with the fire and her theory and the city having a budding firebug on their hands.
Just as they both turned back to their monitors to get to work on tracking down interviews for some of the other reporters working that day, Charlotte’s phone buzzed inside her pocket.
Trey: I’m at the fire, but I’m fine. One of the first to get here actually. It was bad when we first arrived.
Charlotte let out a sigh, acknowledging that at least some of her nervousness had been fear that Trey would get hurt in the line of his job. Knowing that he was okay, and the scene had died down enough for him to text her, helped immensely to ease some of her anxiety.
Charlotte: Good. I was worried.
Trey: Knowing you worry about me makes me just about the happiest guy covered in soot and sweat possible.
Not knowing what to say in response, Charlotte simply sent him a winky face emoji. She somehow even managed to make emojis seem awkward. How was that possible? Staring at the phone screen, Charlotte contemplated what the best was to go about asking the guy you were talking to, had never met, but are wildly attracted to, to give her information that he most likely was not allowed to give. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She knew she had to ask if she wanted to do her own job, but she also didn’t want to upset Trey. She loved their conversations everyday and didn’t know to navigate this minefield.
Before she could type out another word, her phone lit up with Trey’s name and a selfie he had sent to her a few days before. Charlotte stood from her chair, holding up one finger to Annabelle, signaling she’d be back in just a minute.
“Hello?”
“Go ahead and ask me all the questions you want, babe. Can't promise I’ll answer all of them, but I could hear you wanting to ask even over all the sirens and hoses.” The humor in Trey’s voice instantly put Charlotte at ease. She didn’t know how he did it, but he somehow managed to find the one soft spot to crawl past the panic and anxiety that always hovered just under the surface of Charlotte’s skin.
“Are you sure? I don’t want you to get in trouble.” Charlotte paced back and forth in front of the photogs’ equipment room, praying no one would interrupt her conversation.
“I’m sure. I know how much you love your job. We’ve talked about this arsonist before. It is fine. I won’t tell you anything that could get me fired.” Trey fell silent on the other side of the line once again, and Charlotte could almost hear him tapping his foot, waiting for her to start.
“So, you do think this is the work of the arsonist then, right?” Her voice shook slightly with the nerves of questioning not only a person she knew, but a person she was beginning to care deeply about, even though they had yet to meet.
“Yes, that is the suspicion. It will take a while to confirm that officially.” Trey took in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then blew it out in an obvious sign of frustration. “The closest arson K-9 is about an hour away, and since this wasn’t a fatality, he probably won’t arrive to investigate until tomorrow at the earliest. Then samples must be sent to labs, so the official arson ruling will take at least a week or two, and it will have to come from the proper channels. But the pieces add up to our arsonist taking the next step in his growth.”
“This fire is significantly bigger than what we’ve seen to this point. Why such a big jump?” Charlotte jotted down some notes on the pad always in her pocket as she listened to Trey’s deep and authoritative voice. She really shouldn’t be turned on right now, but hearing him in his element, talking about something he knew so much about, yeah, her panties were getting soaked.
“There is no real way to tell. Something could have happened in the arsonists life that would spark this big of a jump. He could’ve seen the news coverage on the last fire and been excited by it, wanted to outdo himself. You’re guess is as good as mine on that one.”
“Can you tell me why the fire was able to spread so quickly through the neighborhood?” Charlotte had a feeling she knew the answer, but she had to ask anyway.
“A number of things. The suspect is probably using an accelerant to speed things up, but he would have stuck to the exterior of the house for that.” The timbre of his voice deepened, with an almost growly undertone as his explanation went on. His anger and frustration were palpable, even through the phone line. “But this is also a low-income neighborhood filled with old, poorly constructed row homes. They don’t have firewalls that extend up to the roof, so the fire spreads up to the shared crawl spaces and just consumes everything in its path.”
After a few more questions, Charlotte had all the information she needed. But she knew how Mira worked, and knew that she would want to find an interview no one else would have. If she could get Trey to agree to go on camera, it would be a major victory for the little station that could, but could also be potentially detrimental to his career.
“Is there anyway you might consider going on camera, just repeating the things you just told me?” Charlotte’s skin tightened around her body, making her feel claustrophobic despite being in the cavernous equipment room. She shouldn’t have asked. It was too much too soon. The one man to show interest in her despite her obvious problems and this is how she messes it up, by pushing too hard in the name of her career. “Never mind. I’m sorry I asked.”
“No, I want to. I do. Not only because I want to do anything that would help you or make you happy, but because I really think the public needs to be aware this guy is out there and that they need to be paying attention to things like people loitering around abandoned houses.” Trey truly did sound like he regretted having to say no to her, and that helped to loosen the rising panic inside her chest. “Listen, if your photographer can figure out a way to shoot me and alter my voice so there is no way I can be identified, I’ll do it. On one condition.”
Hope rushed through Charlotte in a burst, an emotion she would normally suppress. But for once, she let it fill her, reveling in the bright glow for once. This would be a huge get for her, especially with the prospect of this new promotion on the horizon. “Anything, I’ll do anything you want.”
“Fuck, I love hearing you say that.” Trey’s breaths turned ragged and strained. In response, Charlotte’s nipples contracted to sharp little points which poked through her thin blouse. “My condition is I want a date. In person. Wherever you decide makes you feel the most comfortable. And at the end of the date, I want a kiss. A real kiss. I want to taste you.”
Holy shit.
“That sounds like two demands.” Her own voice was high and betrayed her level of nervousness.
“Maybe it is. What do you say? I’m not above using every weapon in my arsenal to get you in my arms, sugar.”
Indecision clouded her mind. She wanted to say yes. God did she ever. She wanted to taste Trey too. Wanted to feel what a man that held nothing back felt like when he kissed. Her one sad attempt at getting physical with a man weighed on her though. Would it be the same with Trey? Would he see her in person, touch her in real life, and not be able to follow through? That might kill her a little bit.
But something about Trey and his sweetly domineering way of talking to her told her that wouldn’t be the case. No, she suspected if anything were to happen, it would be the opposite. He would get one taste and wouldn’t want to stop. An equally terrifying prospect.
But something in the past few days had made some secret reserve of bravery reveal itself.
“Okay. I’ll go on a date with you. Whether you do the interview or not. I just.” Charlotte bit her lip, leaning back on the carpet covered wall in the old studio from the seventies. Why the hell was this old carpet still up anyway? The thought distracted her for a brief moment, long enough to let her true feelings pop out without having to think too hard about them. “I want to taste you too.”
The words came out nothing more than a breathy whisper. But Trey’s responding groan let her know he’d heard her loud and clear.
“Get your photographer over here. I’ll text you where I�
��ll meet him. Then get ready, because when we meet, nothing will be the same again.”
Chapter Eight
Silence filled the office as Mira signed off from the story on the fire. By far, their coverage had been superior to every other station in the area. Everyone else focused on the technical details of the fire, with only sound bites from the chief. But Mira had the chief, neighbors, and the kicker, the mysterious fireman who wanted the public to know to be on the lookout.
It had everything. Emotions. Facts. And the thing people loved more than anything, intrigue. Without a doubt, the rest of the reporters on scene would be scrambling to catch up to them for the next several days.
Michelle clicked the bank of TVs off in her office, quiet for so long that Charlotte began to get nervous. Had she misjudged the situation? Should they have held off on talking to Trey? The one time she had stepped outside of her comfort zone and not only arranged for something unexpected for her reporter, but put someone she was beginning to care a great deal for on the line, and of course it would all come back to bite her in the ass.
Her lungs tightened, head spinning with the knowledge that she had failed not only herself but also Trey and Mira. Heck, the community. She needed to put her head between her knees, practice her deep breathing exercises. Get out of the small office. She’d been at the station for almost twenty-four hours, not wanting to leave before the story aired, but now the exhaustion bore down on her like an avalanche of emotions.
“Fuck yes!” Michelle’s exuberant voice echoed in her tiny office. She rounded the desk making it to the door in two giant steps and burst out into the newsroom. Producers, reporters, interns all froze to look up at their leader. “That is how it is fucking done people! Not only did we have more information, we had more real people. We told their stories. Not just repeated what the authorities told us. We took risks. And they are going to pay off not only in ratings and page reads, but at Emmy time as well.”