Figuring that it was best to just stay out of his way for the rest of the day, I headed into the living room when my stomach let out a loud growl of protest. I had been so caught up in the phone call and then Sebastian’s story that I had completely forgotten about breakfast. Not knowing if Sebastian had eaten yet, I made a huge plate of scrambled eggs and fried up all the bacon I could find. Then I popped some toast in the toaster and slathered on some butter. When I was done, I did up the dishes and covered the leftovers for Sebastian.
Sighing, I walked to the living room and snuggled up on the couch. I had really pissed him off and since he hadn’t come back inside since he walked out close to forty-five minutes ago, I’d say he was still pissed and trying to get out his frustrations so he didn’t kill me. After all, he wouldn’t get paid if I was dead.
✯✯✯✯✯
I had fallen asleep while I was thinking about how badly I had pissed of Sebastian and when I woke, it was one in the afternoon. It wasn’t surprising that I had slept again. I had barely slept the night before, and the night before that hadn’t been much better. This story was starting to wear on me and it had only been a few days. I needed to get to the bottom of this before I got myself killed or died of exhaustion. There was nothing to do until I could recover that text though.
A lot of people assumed that reporters found some incriminating piece of information and followed it to something else equally incriminating and voila, a story is born. So not true. It was a lot of work and usually took weeks to put together the whole story. Sure, if I wanted to get a few small runs on the story, I could break bits and pieces of the information I had gathered, but one of two things would happen. One, it wouldn’t be enough to catch any wind and the story would die. Or two, other reporters would start sniffing around and I would miss out on being the reporter to break the story. No, being the first to report was not the most important, that would be having all the correct facts. Still, it always looked better if you were the first.
As I was ruminating over how I was going to get everything I needed to finish this story, Sebastian walked into the living room with a tray of sandwiches and some bottles of water. I also spied a bag of baked potato chips, which happened to be my favorite.
“Peace offering?”
He held up the tray a little before stepping toward me and setting the tray on the table in front of us. I gave him a small smile before picking up the bag of chips and tearing it open. I dug into the chips and had devoured about half the bag before I realized that he was staring at me.
“What?” I said around a mouthful of chips.
He shook his head with wide eyes. “I’ve just never seen a woman put away so many chips in such a short amount of time. Well, if you don’t count eating contests.”
“I like my chips and these happen to be my favorite.”
“Well, you can thank Cal for them. He ran out this morning while you were sleeping and loaded up on food.”
“Ah. I was wondering about that. I didn’t think that you would store groceries here all the time. Unless, of course, you use this place on a regular basis?”
“Nice try.”
“What?”
“Fishing. You think I don’t know that you’re trying to get information out of me?”
“I don’t see what the big deal is. You already told me a bunch of stuff about you earlier.”
“That was about me and my time in the military. This is about this safe house and if I started telling you about how we use it and how we operate, it would compromise the safety of future clients.”
“Only if I were to tell someone about it, which I wouldn’t.”
“Can you be sure about that? What if you were being tortured?”
“Fine. I see your point. I don’t think I would stand up well under torture. I can’t stand to be tickled. I cave in less than five seconds.”
He stopped eating and looked at me. “Then how does that work for you to have sources? I looked into you. You’ve spent some time in jail protecting their identities.”
“Torture is not the same thing as jail, and I never did much time. My editor must have some pretty good friends because I’ve never spent more than a few days in jail.”
“That’s a little unheard of, isn’t it?”
I shrugged. “It depends on what kind of case is being presented. One of mine was a pretty high profile case and I was shocked that he was able to get me released so quickly, so he must have some friends in high places.”
“So, what inspired you to become a reporter?”
“My parents died in a car accident when I was a teenager. The cops said that it was reckless driving on their part, but they didn’t know my parents. My mom was driving my dad home from a doctor’s appointment and she was a really slow driver.”
“People drive faster than they mean to all the time and don’t realize it. It’s not impossible to consider.”
“Yes it is. My mother watched the speedometer like a hawk when she drove. She never went over the speed limit and actually usually drove a few miles under. People used to tell her she was going to cause an accident because she accelerated so slowly.”
“Okay, well I still think it’s a possibility.”
“I have proof for you.”
“Okay, let’s hear this so called proof.”
“This one time, she came home from the store and was in tears. She said a cop pulled her over for going seventy in a fifty-five. We all thought someone had died with how hard she was crying. Anyway, she told the cop that she never drove over the speed limit and the cop insisted she had. She started crying and the cop finally let her off with a warning. She cried the whole way home and then sobbed to us for a good ten minutes about how she wasn’t speeding and how dare they accuse her of doing so. I heard that story until the day she died. She couldn’t let it go that a cop would accuse her of something so horrible.”
Sebastian looked at me skeptically for a minute, sure that I was pulling his leg, but when I stared him down with a pointed look, he finally conceded that I was right.
“Okay, so she never sped or drove recklessly. What happened after that?”
“I insisted that they look into other causes for their accident, but the police insisted that it was an open and shut case. I tried for a year to get someone on the police department to look into it, but I never had any luck. I didn’t even know where to start with an investigation, but I decided that I wouldn’t let that stop me. I went to school for journalism and took some criminal investigation classes, then started at the paper after I graduated. I never got the chance to look into my parents’ case, but I didn’t want that to happen to another family. So, I investigate stories that I think get overlooked. Not all of them are big conspiracies. Some are small and really only affect one or two people, but I feel better knowing that people got the answers they needed.”
“So, after your parents died, who did you live with?”
“I went to stay with my grandparents. They live back in Kansas, but I knew that Kansas wouldn’t give me what I wanted, so I moved here when I got the job offer.”
“And what do your grandparents think of your job? Do they know how much trouble you get into?”
“Trouble? I don’t get into trouble.”
He smirked at me and then finished eating his sandwich. After I polished off the bag of chips, I ate my own sandwich.
“Do you think I could borrow a laptop?”
“For what?”
“Something about the Mayor owning those properties isn’t sitting right with me. It doesn’t make sense that he would buy old, dilapidated properties and sit on them for years. I need to do some digging and find out why he bought them. There have to be some city records that would shed some light on why those properties are of importance.”
“If I let you have a computer, you don’t go on social media, e-mail, the paper’s website, anything that could potentially lead someone to you. Do you understand that? Nothing that’s connected to you.”
“I swear. I’m just going to search through city records and try to find anything I can on those properties.”
“Alright. Follow me and I’ll get you set up.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sebastian
MAGGIE HAD BEEN sitting in the other room for most of the afternoon working on the company laptop. I heard her sigh every once in a while and I knew we had to find something soon or she would go off and do something crazy again. I didn’t think I could take too much more of her brand of crazy, so we were going to have to wrap this case quickly.
Cal and I had been working in the kitchen for the last few hours. He was keeping an eye on the monitors and doing the perimeter checks, while I worked on stuff from the office. Luckily, this house was set up so that we had a direct link to the office and as long as Becky was there to patch me in, I could work from here. Some of the other safe houses were completely off the grid with no connection to Reed Security. Those were only used if we needed to be one hundred percent off the grid. Since I didn’t think anyone had linked me to Maggie yet, it was safe to say that we were well protected here.
“Sebastian, you’ve got to hear this!”
Maggie came running into the room with the laptop in hand, looking like she had just gotten her hands on the Hope diamond. She plopped the laptop down on the table in front of me and pointed at the screen. “Look at that!”
I scanned the screen, but I didn’t have the first clue what she was showing me. Show me military plans, weapons specs, security software, or any number of other things and I could tell you all about them, but this government mumbo jumbo? I had no clue.
“Freckles, you’re gonna have to tell me what I’m looking at here.”
“Ugh. You were supposed to look at it and then look up at me in surprise and say, ‘Wow, Maggie. You’re a genius. Great find.”
“Well, why don’t you just tell me and I’ll wow you when you’re done explaining it.”
“Fine. Take all the fun out of it. Okay, so I told you that I thought it was strange that he bought up those properties and then didn’t do anything with them for the past ten to twenty years.”
“Right.”
“Well, the city is required to disclose all developmental projects so that when the city needs to vote, the citizens are aware of how those projects affect them and make objections if they don’t approve.”
“Okay, I’m following you so far.”
“Well, it turns out that lately, Cassidy Redevelopment Agency has been sniffing around a few of the Mayor’s properties as well as some he doesn’t own. They’ve put forth plans to the city to take over some of those properties through eminent domain. Up until now, the Mayor has thwarted their attempts and held them off, but the city council likes the plans that Cassidy has put forth.”
“Has he given any reason for not approving the redevelopment? I mean, are the plans bad for the city?”
“No. In fact, Cassidy wants to turn the properties into community centers, soup kitchens, and job training centers. See all the buildings are in poorer communities. The community centers would help with families that can’t afford extra activities for kids and would help keep them off the streets. The soup kitchens are self explanatory. The job training centers wouldn’t just be for job training. They would also be used for GED classes and testing. It would really help these poorer communities out, yet the Mayor has found a way to keep them at bay for now. However, with eminent domain, Cassidy just needs the city’s approval that the redevelopment would help the community. The Mayor doesn’t really have a leg to stand on.”
“Doesn’t eminent domain require the redeveloper to pay the owner for the land they take over.”
“It does. So he would get most of his money and since he hasn’t done anything with the properties so far, he wouldn’t be losing out. Which begs the question, what is it about these properties that has the Mayor fighting this?”
“You said that the city likes the plans, though. Is he starting to lose favor because he’s against this?”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “The Mayor hasn’t been in favor for a while now, but he keeps getting voted in because he has a long reach. I think that this may be the tipping point, though. By blocking this from happening, he’s hurting the city. Cassidy isn’t talking about displacing families or closing down businesses. They’re only planning on using dilapidated properties, tearing them down and rebuilding, and providing for the community.”
“How does this affect the city financially? Could he be blocking it because the costs are too high?”
“The city doesn’t have the funds for a project like this. Remember I told you that there’s a budget oversight committee? This is part of what they’re supposed to be looking into. There’s not enough funding for emergency services to expand, let alone fixing up the community. From what I can see, Cassidy got several wealthy Pittsburgh business owners to donate to the project. It’s a huge tax write off and they get a lot of free press.”
“Okay, so what do you want to do from here?”
“I want to get back on those properties and check them out. There has to be something about them that makes the Mayor not want to let them go.”
“I really hate that idea. You do remember what happened when we went to the property in Wilkinsburg, right?”
“You remember what we found, right?” she countered. There was no denying that there was something hidden at that first property, and if I was a betting man, I would guess it was a body. Whether it was there when the Mayor bought the property or appeared after was unknown and would remain that way until we could prove there actually was one. Still, if there was a body there, there was no guarantee that the Mayor put it there, but if he did, that made this case all the more dangerous.
Cal who had been quietly taking it all in finally spoke up. “If you take her to one of these properties, you’re gonna want to go at night. Hopefully no one will notice our vehicle at night. We could park down the road and walk the rest of the way.”
“First of all, parking down the road isn’t any safer than parking in front. In these areas, the SUV would get stolen faster on the side of the road than in front of an abandoned building. Second, I never said you were coming with us.”
As much as having backup would be nice, I still didn’t trust him to watch my back. God, I was torn. I wanted so badly to trust him again. I knew he was a good man and I wanted to believe that what he did was a one time thing, but my gut was still churning over what happened.
“He’s coming with.” Maggie spoke up so fast that my head whipped in her direction.
“I don’t believe I asked for your input.”
“You may not have, but I trust him and let’s face it, we could have used the help last time. Well, the last few times. I say that he comes with.”
Fuck, she was right. I needed him there as backup. “Fine. He comes with. Freckles, go get some sleep. We’ll leave at twenty-three hundred. I need to work out some details with Cal.”
Thankfully, Maggie didn’t argue. She must have sensed that she got her victory and should leave it at that. After she headed upstairs, I turned to Cal and glared hard.
“I swear to God, you fuck me over on this and no one will find your body.” He gave a curt nod, knowing that I would make good on my threat if he double crossed me.
“I need to try and retrieve some data from Maggie’s phone before we leave. She said that it was something about a bar. Maybe we can find the bar and figure out if her source sent the text.”
“I sent Becky all the information on her source. Maybe something will ping and we’ll find her.”
“You really believe she’s still alive?”
“No, but for Maggie’s sake, I hope she is.”
Cal and I set about loading up all the gear in the SUV for tonight. We had to be prepared for anything and right now, we had an arsenal in the back of the SUV. We also loaded up with some shovels, flashlights, and some cameras. We were going to need eviden
ce of what was there, especially considering that the Mayor had some nasty people working for him. Any evidence we found tonight could very well be gone in the morning, along with us if we weren’t careful.
I had just come in from loading the last of the equipment when I saw Maggie in the kitchen with Cal. She was laughing with him about something and I felt anger build in my chest. The way she lightly touched his shoulder and threw that strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder brought the green eyed monster out to fight.
“Freckles.” I didn’t shout, but the bite I inflected in my tone caused her head to whip around. She looked confused by my tone, as if she didn’t realize that I might be pissed at her flirting with my employee hours after I had my hand buried in her pussy. I motioned her over to me with a finger and then grabbed on to her bicep, leading her into the other room.
“Ouch. Do you want to tell me why you’re dragging me around like I was naughty? I literally just came downstairs. I’ve been in the kitchen for all of two minutes. There’s nothing I could have done to piss you off in that time.”
After we were far enough away from Cal’s ears, I shoved her up against the wall and caged her in with my hands on either side of her head.
“Were my fingers not enough for you last night?” I said as I leaned in close to whisper in her ear.
“What are you talking about?” She tried to push against my chest, but it was useless. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“I mean that less than twenty-four hours ago, I had my fingers all over your pussy and now you’re in there flirting and touching Cal. Do I need to give you a reminder?” I whispered as I lightly trailed my fingers down the front of her shirt and down over her crotch. I could feel her heat through her jeans and I latched on to her, causing her to moan.
“I..I don’t..why would you think I.. have a thing for Cal?”
I massaged my fingers around her pussy, holding back a groan as she twitched beneath my hand. “You were touching him and flicking your hair around. You were flirting with him.”
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