I know I have to figure this out. I have to solve this before everyone loses their minds.
And I might not have much time left.
Chapter 17: Bad Looks
As the Uber rolls into the parkway of the hotel, I don't like what I see. Normally the driveway is empty and void of cars. But this time, it's much different.
Four large SUVs fill up the entire drop-off point, sitting bumper-to-bumper like late traffic. A crowd of people exit the building. All of them remind me of reporters. What is going on here?
I stroll into the building, covering my body with my arms crossed. It's busier than normal. People are walking about the room. Some sit at the tables, chomping on their respective lunches. My stomach growls. I could eat so much right now. I don't even remember the last time I ate anything.
As I walk fully into the lobby, the desk clerk catches my attention with a wave. He waves me over to him. I walk that way. He offers his charming, charismatic smile.
"Hey there. You're Annette Gardner, right?"
"Yes."
"I recognize you from you clocked in."
"Well, I do have a memorable face."
"Sure thing," he says. "Look, I'm just going to feed this information to you on the low, okay? They're looking for you."
Fear tingles in my gut. A ball of lead drops down and splashes in the pit of my stomach and I lose all feelings in my leg.
"Who is?"
He gestures toward the group of people inside the room.
"These people are all looking for you."
"What?" I ask with wide eyes. "What do you mean these people? Who are they?"
"No clue. They wanted me to tell you that they need to speak with you once you got here."
"And what did you tell them?"
"They seem like government people. FBI if I were to guess. But then again, I don't know anything. What do you think?"
I turn back for a second to see everyone standing in the lobby. Now I notice that the majority of the men and women are wearing their own black suits. Sunglasses hang off their collars. They're in no business to mess around.
"Yeah, FBI sounds accurate."
"So you going to talk to them?"
I shrug. "I've faced worse."
"Just so you know, I don't like when the feds storm in here. They're always trying to take over things and they take away our authority, you know? So, tell me, if you want to avoid this, I can help."
"How?"
"Just say the word and I can sneak you out the back door. I have a friend who works undercover for the police. He can get you out of this. No charge, miss."
I look back at the crowd of suited men and women. I think about whether or not to join the desk clerk and head off into the unknown. Totally disappear from this side of things and avoid whatever doom awaits me in the lobby.
But I know that these people will continue to chase me. And I am done being chased. I don't like the feeling of someone breathing down your neck.
"I got this. But thank you."
"Anytime you need me, just come here and tell me. I can get you out."
I tap the desk. "Thank you, I appreciate it."
"You bet. And good luck."
"Good luck to you."
I walk the desk and into the storm of suited individuals. As I make it halfway into the lobby, a woman dressed in a suit with rolled sleeves come up to me. She wears thick and heavy sunglasses on her face. One of her eyebrows is cocked high. She grips her hips as she approaches me.
"You're Gardner?"
"My friends call me Annette, but yes."
"We're here to help bring you up to your room."
"I don't need an escort."
"You do, actually."
"Why's that?"
"Because there's someone who has come to see you and we want to make sure you and her are secure."
It doesn't take too long for me to figure out who they're talking about. Senator Simmons has been seeking me out again and she wants to have another conversation. I just wonder what she wants to talk about this time. Is she going to hand me more threats? Is she going to tell me that she's the reason Ben is in jail?
The woman nods toward the elevators which are just ahead of us. I roll my eyes and wish to god that I could just leave this all behind and head out the door. But I already had a chance to do that and I decided not to do it. I have to roll on, into this mess of a situation I've found myself in.
We wait by the elevators for a few minutes. All of them are at the top of the building and they're slowly tracking their way back down to our level.
"So you do this stuff often?" I ask the woman.
"Can't say."
"Who are all of you?"
"Security."
"Government?"
"No."
"Hmm. Curious."
"I bet you are."
"You can't give me anything. Off the record?"
"We manage security for Senator Simmons."
"So government?"
"Not exactly."
"I really wish you would do a better job of explaining things," I tell her. And it's true. She's not making any sense. Why does Senator Simmons have her own security detail that isn't hired by the federal government? That doesn't make sense to me at all. She's a public official. She shouldn't have her own private security.
Unless she's doing it illegally, which is fine. Or, is it even a crime? It's weird that she would have her own detail though when the government would provide their own for her.
I can't let this boggle my mind. I have to consider what the senator wants to talk to me about. Nothing has changed since the last time we spoke. I didn't tell anyone what I knew, and I didn't do anything to report on the senator and the New Surge hearings or even Kayleigh's death. Sure, I poked around here and there, but that doesn't warrant even more threats, does it?
The good news is that I have questions of my own. I need to ask her why they set up Ben for the fall. Why was he the one rotting in jail?
We ride the elevator up to the floor where my room is and then we step out into the lobby. A hint of smoke rises up into my nostrils. Not just fire smoke, but cigarette smoke. It's engrained into the carpet. We pass the ice machine and vending machine. A man is pouring ice into his bucket. The ice falls at a snail's pace.
We walk all the way down to the hall until we reach my room. The woman who brought me here knocks twice. Then, someone answers the door. It's a man in a suit. He gives us both the nod and then opens the door completely.
The scene is all too familiar. Senator Simmons sits in a chair at the back end of the room just like she was sitting in her own room not three days ago. Her right leg is crossed over her left leg. She has a stern look on her face. She squints at me as I enter. The security closes the door behind her. I hear it click.
"Leave us," she says.
And so security does. They step out of the room and out into the hall, leaving us alone yet again.
I stand there in the room across from her. Before she can say anything, I walk over to the corner of my bed and sit down so I can face her and still feel a little bit of comfort.
We sit in silence for a few minutes. The clocks ticks away. The sounds of cars driving by the hotel fill the void. The sunlight barely peaks through onto the furniture inside the room. Someone in the room above us slams their feet against the ground. All the normal sounds of a hotel room when you're not doing anything else.
"It seems like we just talked the other day," the senator says.
"We did."
"Oh, you're right," she says. "And look how much has changed. Sometimes these days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days, you know?"
"Why is Ben in jail?"
"Sorry?"
"Ben. Why is he in jail?"
"He murdered Kayleigh. It's all in the papers and online. You know, for someone who is working on the Scribe and involved with journalism, you really ought to keep up on the news."
"You know that all of that is BS."
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She shrugs. "I don't know anything."
"Off the record then."
"I don't know anything."
"So wait, last time we met you told me you did it. You told me you were the one who killed her. And now you're not even talking about it?"
"Annette, I came here tonight for a very specific reason and I hope that you'll hear me out."
"Shoot."
"I want you to stop."
"Stop?"
"Stop poking around. Stop looking into everything you're looking into. I saw you went to Kayleigh's sister's house? And then you went to the station to talk to Ben? I just think you're getting involved int things that aren't your business."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, I don't?" And now she wears an evil, wicked smile. "I know where you're going, what you're saying, what you're doing. And I am telling you -- stop."
"You know it's funny. Whenever a source doesn't want to tell you something or they ask you to stop looking into something, that's usually when they, you know, realize you're onto something. I think I'm following the right path and you're scared about what I'm finding."
"Annette, I don't care what you find on me because there's nothing for you to find. Sure, you might find a little thing here or a little thing there. But you don't want to know the big picture here. I am saying this for your own safety and your own sense of peace, okay? The second you find out what's really going on, you're going to wish you hadn't."
I know what she's doing. She's trying to push me off the trail so that I don't find out what's really going on with her and New Surge and everything else. She just wants me to avoid finding out the truth about her past and how she connects to these tech startups.
It's useless to defend myself. She doesn't care what happens to me with this stuff.
"Look," I say, "can you explain to me what happened with Ben? Seriously. Why is he in jail?"
"I already told you."
"Come on. You know you're lying."
"I told you twice," she says. "He's in there because he killed Kayleigh. At least that's what the police think. It's possible a true killer could come out of the shadows, if you stop looking for one."
"Ah, I see what this is. You don't like what I've been up to so you sent Ben to prison."
"I didn't say that."
"Does it get tiring, messing with people's lives like this? I swear. Sometimes I just can't believe you spend so much time trying to manipulate people's lives."
"I told you. The game here is cutthroat. Don't make me go any farther than I've already gone."
"I won't."
"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to attack you. But I want you to see what happens when you look to close. And when you look even closer, when you really see the bigger picture here, everything you know will change. And you know, as someone who has been there before, I wish someone had told me to stay away before I learned the truth. So I really recommend that you do the same."
I tap my fingers against the bed, sitting there and staring at her from across the room. And for the first time since we ever interacted, I notice that she is indeed telling me the truth. Or at least it seems that way.
And that's what terrifies me most of all.
"So where does this leave us?" I ask. "Do you want me to just walk away then? Is it that simple?"
"It really is," she says. "I want you to go home. I want you to read whatever you're going read, watch whatever news you're going to watch, and just stay away. Let this all play out the way it should."
"You know, you threatened me that something would happen to Ben if I didn't stop working on all of this. Do you remember that?"
"Yeah, I do," she says.
"Well, now you've sent my boyfriend to jail. So what do you even expect me to do?"
"If you stay away, maybe he comes out. Maybe I find a way to make sure he's not behind bars anymore."
It shouldn't surprise me that a politician is trying to manipulate me by using my feelings and my love for someone else. Politicians will use anything to control you. They will exploit your weakness. They will expose the wound and use it to their advantage. And that means nothing good for me.
"You're a horrible person," I say.
She shrugs. "I'm just being helpful. I wouldn't want something bad to happen to you."
"Like you can't control that. I know you could have something bad happen to me at anytime."
"Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. But I don't have time to talk you through all of this with you. So what's it going to be? Are you going to leave all of this alone?"
I want to tell her off. I can't leave all of this behind. I can't stop my reporting just because she's threatened me and Ben. I have to keep going.
But I can't. It's not going to help Ben if I keep reporting. He's going to rot in jail. He's going to die there and be accused of something that he never did. That's what the future holds for him. He's just die away in a cell.
So I have to take a break from everything. I have to stop doing all of this work. I have to stop digging. If I don't, then it's all going to fall apart.
"Sure," I say. "I'll take a break."
She claps her hands together. She stands up and extends her hand outward. I shake it right back.
"I'm glad we could strike a deal."
"A deal. Huh. That's a funny way to say it."
"It is what it is," she says. "And I suspect we won't have to meet again?"
"I hope not."
"Good," she says.
I'm staring up at her since I'm still in the seat. I stand up from the chair and walk toward the door. She remains on the far side of the room, crossing her arms against her chest. She stares at me and I stare at her as I turn around. We exchange a final glance.
I grab the door handle and open it. The security detail head back into the room. The woman who guided me to the room comes to meet us. I keep the door open as the senator and her security exit through the front door and head out into the hall. And once they're gone, I slam the door shut behind. I pull the lock over to silence them from coming back in.
And as the senator leaves my room, my mind runs rampant with possibilities. Is tart w tow order how I could do all of the reporting I had wanted to do. I have a plan going forward. And even though I told the senator that I would end my search and reporting and diggingI had to keep going. The end was just around the corner.
Chapter 18: Lazy Day
Once they're gone, I pace around the room for twenty minutes or so thinking through everything that happened to me tonight. I hate knowing that the senator was waiting for me inside the room. She had been in here for minutes before I got here. Maybe even hours. She had wanted to speak with me all night. I hated the idea that they were in my room. I feel so vulnerable.
My wiry mind drills on and on, again and again. My mind spins with thoughts about what's to come my way, and how I'm going to tackle this immense problem I face now.
But my mind tires out and soon I find the edge of my bed again. I collapse on the edge of it and lay back, still dressed in my clothes from earlier in the day. I fall asleep mid-thought.
A dreamless sleep happens next. Soon I wake up and get dressed for bed and then head back into bed. I snuggle up against my pillows and pull blankets tight around my body. The warmth coaxes my body into a beautiful sleep.
I wake up the next morning with fresh sunlight plastered against the wall of the room. I drag myself out of my bed. My eyes are still heavy. Crust hangs around the edges of my eyes. Thankfully I can drag myself around the room this morning. There's no reason to be overly active. I need to take a break from what I'm working on, at least in the eyes of the senator.
I walk over to the window at the back end of the room and pull the curtains to the right side. An image unfolds on the other side of the window. Little white dots of snow drift from the ceiling at a furious pace with rapid windows carrying them around. It's winter wonderland out there. Piles of snack pack against the c
orners. Few people can be seen outside. The only two or three people I see are wearing thick, heavy jackets.
Now I have another reason to sit in this room for the day. It's wintry weather outside. The senator doesn't want me doing anything major out there in the world when it comes to the New Surge case. There's a lot of reasons to stay inside, and so I have to stick by that. This has given me the perfect opportunity to stay inside and avoid all of the spotlight surrounding me and my story.
When I'm finally awake, I open up my laptop again and begin writing an email to my editor. I tell her that I have enough reporting to start crafting a drift with everything going on. And unless anything changes -- like the government opening again -- this will be the story we can run with it. My stomach churns with nerves with each second it takes me to write the email. I hate thinking that she might read this tonight and want to fire me immediately. Wouldn't that be a crazy moment for us?
Once I'm done sending the email, I start my new Google search method that I planned to use when searching for more about Heath. There are ways to continue reporting on this story -- or at least looking into this New Surge business, Kayleigh's death, and the connection to the senator -- without going out and doing anything major that would raise any wild flags.
The first stories I see when I search HEATH MINNY SCRIBE. Stories flood the first page of results. Some are them from Minny herself. Others come from Heath. The deeper I dig, the more I see that both of them spent their time at the Scribe reporting on politics. They had a few shared bylines throughout the years too.
One of the last stories from Minny is about soccer match fixing around the world. I recognize the story. It won a Pulitzer Prize the year after it dropped. I wish I had paid attention when the awards were announced because I would know a little bit more about what happened when they gave it to Minny.
I go back to the search results and see that Heath's article for the Scribe ended sooner than Minny. She had a handful more bylines after that match-fixing story.
The more I look, the more I see that Heath never really had any articles after the match-fixing one. What could have caused that? Why did he suddenly disappear?
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