The Red Files

by Lee Winter

  “Actually, no. I suppose you think you won though? You didn’t.”

  “SmartPay went under.”

  He smiled, teeth and eyes glittering in the low light. “And you truly think they were the only one? It’s everywhere, Ms. King. The spy virus software isn’t the only one of its kind. An idea that useful doesn’t get forgotten. There are many clones like it in the works. You can’t stop it.

  “SmartPay’s mistake was to get greedy, to try and expand faster than they should have and bribe their way forward. It was foolish, yes, but inconsequential to the bigger picture.

  “Our reach is immense. You got away with this story because we let you. Because by giving you this win, it looks like we’re stopping this. It makes the unwashed masses have confidence in the system. That their government genuinely cares about their freedom and privacy.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I told you at the start; I don’t work for my previous employers anymore.” He straightened. “And consider this some career advice—you’re not as good as you think you are.”

  “Who did you work for?” Lauren asked.

  He flicked her a curious glance and then returned his gaze to the view. “Does that really matter?”

  Lauren wondered if he didn’t have a good point.

  “Option D,” he finally said, straightened, and turned.

  “What?”

  He shook his head at her like she was a particularly dim-witted child, then studied every inch of her classic off-the-shoulder blue gown as if she was a bug under glass. He tilted his head, and she shivered at the violence she could see lurking just beyond those cold brown eyes.

  Gabbana said nothing as he walked off, opened the balcony’s French doors, and slipped back into the crowd.

  Option D?

  None of the Above?

  She followed him into the main ballroom just as the music started, and she heard “All rise for the President of the United States of America.”

  She watched in shock as Gabbana slid in an earpiece, then seamlessly joined the elite security posse flanking POTUS.

  Different job, indeed.

  * * *

  Lauren snuggled Ayers in their bed and stared at the rather prominent new award displayed on the dresser.

  “It’s really phallic, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Mmm,” Ayers agreed with hooded eyes. Eyes that were spending a lot of time mapping Lauren’s bare skin.

  “They let us get away with the story, Catherine,” she said. She’d already repeated every word of Gabbana’s conversation. It shocked her to the core.

  She felt Ayers’s arms tighten around her waist. “I figured. At the time.”

  “You did?”

  “A couple of anonymous agents visiting us, no raid, and a few scary tails? They did seem to let us have the story too easily.”

  “You never said.”

  “No. I like you not knowing all the disturbing things I do. It’s frustrating being paranoid and then realizing you’re actually right most of the time.” Ayers slid her fingers up Lauren’s ribs.

  “Then what’s the point in any of this?”

  Ayers considered that as she flattened her fingers and stroked her soothingly. “The point is whatever we make it. I like to think I’m doing my bit in my corner of the world.”

  “It’s a drop in the ocean, though! They’re huge, and we’re tiny. Our stories are like pointing out a missing bolt on the Titanic.”

  “And that was the point of your friend’s little pep talk tonight. He wanted to demoralize you. To make you feel defeated and small. They don’t like us getting away with anything, even if that’s how they ultimately decided to let it play out in the end.”

  “You don’t feel overwhelmed by the scale of all this cloak and dagger stuff?”

  “No. Or rather, I don’t dwell on it,” she said. “I’ve been to hell and back and lived to tell the tale.”

  “I haven’t,” Lauren countered. She frowned. “Think it’ll hurt getting the scales knocked from my eyes?”

  “Yes,” Ayers agreed, curling her arms all the way around her. “It always does the first time. And the second. And even the third. But we’re together. We have each other. I love you. It’s enough.”

  “Yeah, about that…”

  “Mmm?”

  “Next time, how about a little head’s up before you thank me in a speech in front of a room full of journalists as the ‘woman who gives form to your hope and dreams.’”

  “That doesn’t sound too revealing. Plenty of people have platonic muses who inspire them.”

  “Okay, but then you mentioned that I complete you.”

  “Too much?” Ayers said dryly.

  “And you invited them all to the wedding. The cheer was deafening! Even the president was on his feet, clapping. Oh my god, I just about died of embarrassment and shock.”

  Ayers smirked. “I know. I was there. Don’t worry, they’ll all decline. It is in Iowa, after all.”

  “Ha freaking ha. Although Cynthia came up later and asked what the dress code was in outer Hicksville. She said she’d look into designer galoshes. She added that she probably despises me right now, but she gives good wedding presents.”

  “That sounds like her.” Ayers chuckled. “It also sounds like she actually approves of you in her own twisted way.”

  “Uh huh. Mariella, meanwhile, texted to tell me we made all the news channels. She congratulated me on my dragon-whisperer skills, and she’s dying to book us on some chat shows.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “My response exactly. Josh texted as well. He says Tad got a call from your folks. They can’t work out which is worse—that you’re marrying a woman, a reporter, or doing it in Iowa.”

  Ayers pursed her lips. “I imagine their feigned heart palpitations will continue for weeks.”

  “But your sister said ‘congratulations, oh and don’t drink anything homebrewed in Iowa.’”

  Ayers smiled and rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask. She watches too much 60 Minutes.”

  “Josh is threatening to send us a toaster oven with Yep I’m officially gay! in glitter down one side.”

  “How utterly…” Ayers paused at Lauren’s arched eyebrow, “er, unique,” she amended.

  “But seriously, why did you do it? After all our hiding and pretending? Hugo got such a shock he spat a bread roll chunk at the editor’s head.”

  “It’s simple. I looked at you beside me at the podium just as I was about to tell the room that you were such a professional colleague and I valued your insights. And it felt like a ridiculous charade—especially in this day and age. The truth is I don’t ever want to have to pretend again that you don’t mean everything to me. And so I said what I said.”

  “God,” Lauren whispered. “You’re such a romantic under all those pretty spikes and prickles.”

  “No, no,” Ayers said sternly. “Never, ever spread that rumor.” She regarded her. “Now don’t you think the joint winners of one of the nation’s highest prizes for investigative journalism should be celebrating?”

  “Now that you mention it…” Lauren smiled.

  Ayers lowered her lips, hovering just above her. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “What for?”

  “Being you. Tractor caps and all.”

  Lauren smiled as those wicked lips landed on hers, and Catherine Ayers began to love her completely.

  ###

  About Lee Winter

  Lee Winter is an award-winning newspaper journalist and in her 25-year career has lived in virtually every state of Australia, covering courts, crime, entertainment, hard news, features and humor writing.

  These days she’s a sub-editor at a Sunday metro newspaper, lives with her girlfriend of 16 years and has a fascination for shiny new gadgets and trying to understand the bizarre world of US politics.

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  The Red Files

  © by Lee Winter

  ISBN (mobi): 978-3-95533-331-7

  ISBN (epub): 978-3-95533-332-4

  ISBN (pdf): 978-3-95533-333-1

  Also available as paperback.

  Published by Ylva Publishing, legal entity of Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.

  Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.

  Owner: Astrid Ohletz

  Am Kirschgarten 2

  65830 Kriftel

  Germany

  www.ylva-publishing.com/

  First edition: September 2015

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Credits

  Edited by Cheri Fuller & Sheri Milburn

  Proofread by Blythe Rippon

  Cover Design by Streetlight Graphic