by Gen LaGreca
"I'm . . . desperate," she whispered. She took her hand away from his to open her purse and pull out a document. "This is my latest commentary. It covers the shocking discoveries I made on my trip to Ireland to track down the elusive contractor that Elections is trying to hide from public scrutiny."
She unfolded the article and gave it to him.
As the waiter took their drink order and then served cocktails, Sean sipped his and read the material thoughtfully. Then he looked up at her.
"That's quite a report, Laura, but why are you bringing it to me?"
"Sean, as you may realize, the Martin administration has launched an all-out war against my family. The Bureau of Fair Trade's threats to break up Taninger News not only caused my own family to sever business ties with me, but it's caused other news outlets to want nothing whatever to do with me or my story."
"You're too good for them anyway," he said.
"Then you like the piece?" Laura asked hopefully.
"I didn't say that. I just meant that you, with your crazy, free spirit . . . There's something very much alive about you that makes everyone else seem like the living dead."
"I think I'm on to something very real and dangerous. I'll get right to the point, Sean. I'd like you to help me get this piece published."
"What?"
"The commentary I wrote is simple investigative journalism. It can be published as something from an 'anonymous source' and not be associated with me at all. Anyone could have done that research in Ireland. It didn't have to be me. I'd like you to pass the piece on to someone you know in the press to publish it. I'm looking for a wide reach with this story, and you know all the media players on the national scene. They'll take something from you without revealing—or even knowing—your source, while they won't even give me a hearing."
"That would violate everything my position requires of me. I'd be guilty of highly unethical conduct."
"More unethical than rigging an election?"
Sean shook his head, unwilling to believe that the administration would go that far. "Laura, come on. This company you're so worried about, Integrated Foxworth Technologies, could just be a new subsidiary of a well-known company in the election programming field. It could be that this IFT entity isn't on the radar screen yet. Companies set up new subsidiaries all the time. Maybe a known company set this one up and didn't have a chance yet to get moved in and running with its location—the vacant building you mention in your piece. There can be other reasons to explain what you've uncovered. You don't have to think the worst of everybody in the federal government, you know."
"Did you forget someone died with the word Fox on his lips? How could that not refer to Frank Foxworth, who's listed as the president of this totally bogus company?"
"That's pure supposition on your part, Laura."
"And the attacks on my family and on Taninger News? Is all of that supposition? Or can we finally say that someone is trying to intimidate me into dropping this issue?"
"The people I work for totally deny that they had a hand in any of that, and you can't prove they did. You don't even have a scintilla of evidence to implicate the People's Manor in your family's business challenges."
"And I suspect someone's following me. There was a parked car outside my house that pulled out just as you picked me up and we came here."
"Laura, honestly, I didn't notice any car following us. Are you suggesting the government is keeping tabs on you?"
"Are you suggesting all of these things are a coincidence?"
"Why don't you try to relax? Do you think we can spend this evening together without talking about politics? It might be good for you."
"And the so-called reports that I'm mentally unhinged—which the media are repeating like their newest blood sport—come from where?"
"I don't know. But what I do know is that you're incredibly passionate, and when you believe something, you'll go to the rack for it, even if your crusade is totally ill-advised." He gazed at her admiringly, as at the heroine of a fantasy story that could bear no relationship to real life.
"Sean, can't you infer anything? Don't you ever use critical thinking anymore? Or do you just inhale the talking points they give you like an anesthesia that makes your mind go numb?" Seeing the hurt look on his face, she regretted blurting out her thoughts. "I'm sorry, Sean, but you're working for liars whose lust for power makes them extremely dangerous."
"I don't think they're liars. Misguided sometimes, perhaps. But they're not lying to me—or to anyone."
Laura sighed in frustration. "I came to you because I'm at the end of my rope. You've always admired my idealism. I can't help but think that, deep inside, you want to be idealistic, too. To be different than you are. To stand up for what's right."
"But the way I am has skyrocketed my career, while the way you are has, well . . . tanked yours," he replied.
"Can't I reach you, Sean? Won't you join me to help save our country, instead of working for its destroyers?"
"That's so melodramatic! Give it up, Laura. You're at a dead end. You have no platform for disseminating your theories. And the election is just two weeks away."
"Sean, is there any way you can find to help me? Could you just give the article to someone who'd give it to someone else, and it'd never get traced back to you?"
"I can't!" He sighed, weary from their argument. He opened his menu, inviting no further discussion.
"I'm sorry, Sean. I lost my appetite." She looked at him disgustedly and pushed her chair away from the table, about to leave.
"Laura, don't go! Please! We've always argued, then we've had dinner."
"This is different, Sean. You're working for liars and crooks who are hell-bent on destroying me."
"If I believed that the administration were deliberately lying and trying to harm you, do you really think I could continue working for them?"
"I don't know, Sean," she said bluntly. "Do you think you could?"
He seemed taken aback, as if he were weighing the question himself, unsure of what he would do.
"I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt," he said. "In my mind, the corruption you're accusing them of is unproven. Please understand, Laura."
She sighed in resignation, pulled her chair back to the table, and opened her menu.
Chapter 22
The next day, the sky was a brilliant blue when Laura left her row house to hail a cab. As she waited on the sidewalk for one to come along, she checked the news on her phone. The media reports on her firing seemed gleeful.
Laura Taninger Thrown Out.
Just the Truth Gets the Boot.
Headstrong Laura Taninger Canned.
She thought of the blood sports of the ancients and wondered about the motives of those who reveled in someone else's destruction. Was it an outlet for venting their own perverted resentments and jealousies toward the world? For the modern-day media, spearing her was also a sure way to draw an audience.
Scrolling down the news feed, she saw that some stories mentioned her past scandal, as they called it, meaning her affair with Reed. Her eyes lingered on one report, which included a picture of her and Reed. The photo had been taken in an unguarded moment, when they were walking in a park, and Reed had stopped to buy a bouquet of balloons for her. The photo had captured one of her happiest moments, in which she looked at Reed with unqualified admiration. He was so boyishly handsome, so confident, so incredibly desirable. When he'd given her the balloons, her face had illustrated the whole of what she felt. Returning to the present, Laura read the headline, "From Tawdry Past to Stormy Present: The Fall of Laura Taninger." She glanced at the picture one more time. After their breakup, she had resolved never to look at Reed again as she had that day.
A taxi stopped for her. Upon entering, she turned to peer out the rear window. She saw a parked car pull out down the street. It was a black, ordinary looking sedan that had been parked in a driveway close enough to have a view of her residence yet far enough away to be i
nconspicuous. She momentarily caught a glimpse of the man behind the wheel before the car entered her lane of traffic with several cars in between them blocking her view. Is he following me? she wondered. She could not see the man's face or positively identify the car as the same one she had previously noticed parked on her block.
Then, she forgot about the possible tail, her attention focusing on an . . . unpleasant . . . task ahead.
The cab let her out in front of one of the city's most attractive modern office buildings. Its blue glass facade blended with the sky and looked like a part of it, a light structure floating in space rather than anchored to the ground. Thin steel beams completed the elegant, simple design, without even a name on the building to add ornamentation. As Laura looked up at the building from the curb, she couldn't help thinking of how it reflected the man inside—understated, unpretentious, and unmoored from the mundane.
She took the elevator to the executive floor where she could find that man, who owned the company headquartered in the building. She had not made an appointment. Would he be in? Would he see her? She entered an outer office, where an assistant looked up from her desk and smiled in recognition.
"Hi, Laura."
"Hi, Kelly," Laura said, returning the smile. "Is he in?"
"He is."
The assistant gestured to a half-opened door, inviting Laura to enter the inner office. Is it that easy? Laura wondered. Is Kelly not even going to announce me?
She walked into an office of cool neutral colors and closed the door behind her. Slanted, tinted glass panels separated by vertical steel beams formed a wall of windows. Lighted shelves with glass doors, holding books and other objects, formed another wall. The desk, a smooth slab of stone on a thick steel base, held a computer screen and a few papers. Light flooded in to give the room an immense clarity, a modern space uncluttered by past traditions, where new thoughts could form and innovations arise.
Despite her intention to remain stoic, she couldn't help but smile at the man she had not seen in a year, the man who had brought so much turmoil to her life but also so much unbridled joy.
"Hello, Reed."
"Laura." He pronounced her name as he always had—softness and affection in his tone.
As he gestured for her to take a seat, he smiled broadly, then seemed to check himself, as if he wanted to be cooler; however, a genuine pleasure in seeing her refused to remain hidden. He cocked his head, observing her fondly as she sat and faced him across the desk.
Laura assessed him as the sunlight from the windows sent blond sparkles into the light-brown curls of his hair. He looked fit and trim in a silk shirt that showed the contours of his arms and chest.
She sat in a dark leather chair that formed a backdrop for her slender body, clad in a white blouse and gray business suit. She intentionally did not dress provocatively, but now, under the scrutiny of a gaze he didn't try to hide, she felt keenly aware of her crossed legs and her high heels against his pale wood floor.
"Reed . . . " she began, her voice suddenly breaking.
She stopped, demanding that she not feel anything. Just get through the assignment, Laura, she told herself.
She tried again, "I'm coming to you because I have nowhere else to turn." She spoke just the truth, without self-pity or pleading.
"I know," he said softly. He leaned forward in his chair, his hands clasped, his elbows on the desk. "I know what you're going to say—and ask. But say it and ask it anyway, so you'll know you tried everything, even stooping so low as to come to me."
"How would you know why I came here?"
"Because I watch your show—at least, I did until Clark pulled the plug on it."
"Did you?"
"Every night."
"Don't you watch your own prime-time news?"
"You mean that cartoon show your silly friend Sean hosted? Why would I watch that clown when I could watch a real news show instead?"
Her eyes fell to the floor as she redirected her thoughts. She mustn't be distracted. Reed was confusing her, making her feel as though he . . . still . . . She would not think of that! She raised her eyes to meet his and to change the subject, but he wasn't through.
"Under your control, Taninger News spoke truth to power. Under your father's control, it speaks weather to homebodies."
"Like Miller News does?" She instantly regretted what sounded like a rebuke, but he showed no sign of being offended.
"I provide the model," he admitted.
"Reed, I didn't come here to rehash the past—only to discuss the present. You see, I not only lost my job, but I'm being ostracized by the national news media. I'm sitting on a story of immense importance, and I need a news outlet to get it released. It has to come out. Certain people in the highest positions of power have to be stopped before they do irreparable harm! If you've been following my show, you already know the story I've been investigating, but there are shocking new developments. Will you hear me out?"
"I'm listening."
She told him about her trip to Ireland and the discovery that the contractor the Bureau of Elections was trying to conceal was a totally bogus company.
"At first, I thought Elections might be merely trying to cover up a waste of taxpayer money or a political friend of the administration getting a lucrative contract. Now, I think there's much more to it than that."
"Of course there's more," Reed replied.
"What makes you think so?"
"They are who they are."
"Do you know something I don't? Something that can help my investigation?"
"I don't have to be privy to any special information. Isn't it obvious to anyone who can still think?" His tone was a mixture of cynicism and sadness. "Ken Martin assumes power, and the first thing he does is create a major crisis around our voting system. Sure, there have always been cases of fraud, but the cure Martin proposed is worse than the disease. Suddenly, the country has to have an entirely new voting system—controlled, of course, by his administration. That was the first thing to raise eyebrows. Then, an insider at Elections, a high-level staffer, comes forward with problems he detects in the new voting system."
"James Spenser," Laura interjected.
He nodded. "Funny, isn't it? A whistleblower they fear is about to meet a journalist they hate, and just like that, he's murdered." Reed snapped his fingers. "Then, you uncover this phony company that's a front for whatever it is they're doing."
"So you get it, Reed. They're rigging a presidential election!"
He stared at her, the statement hanging heavy in the air.
"Except for my lawyer, Sam Quinn, and my sister, Kate, no one else I know believes that."
"I do."
"Reed, you're in a position to make the difference. It's down to you to expose them."
"Sure, I'll expose them," he said sarcastically. "I actually love being sued and having my company chopped up by the Feds. Is that what you want me to say?"
"This time it's different. If we can uncover their plan and foil it, Ken Martin will lose the election. Once he's out of power, no one will touch you, Reed."
"And all this is to happen with the election just two weeks away?"
"If you give me airtime to expose this, and we get to the bottom of it, we have a chance to stop it. If we do, we'll be national heroes. I know you don't care about that, but we will have done something incredibly . . . noble. That's something you once cared about."
"That was in another life."
"But it's a presidential election. That has to remain honest."
"Nothing in their hands remains honest."
"But we have to do something about it!"
"It's too dangerous."
"You'd give them . . . absolute power? I can't believe you're saying that."
"Why can't you believe it, Laura?" He smiled wistfully. "I've changed. Now it's your turn. I did what everyone said was the right thing to do. I reached out. I partnered with the people suing me—aren't those the words they use? I listened
to all the calls for me to be a responsible businessman, to recognize my duty to serve the public. So I gave the public what its self-proclaimed mouthpiece, the government, demanded of me—no red-hot news that would cause anyone heartburn. If I put you on the air, that would all change. The Feds would re-open the case against me tomorrow and Miller Communications would be back on their chopping block."
"But my investigation would crush Martin. I won't stop till I find out what he's doing."
"If you find out after the election, it'll be too late. If you find out before the election, you could wind up dead."
"Whether it's now, after the election, or into the future, I will not quit until I find out. And when I do, it will be the end for Ken Martin! Besides, if I raise enough questions before the election, the rest of the president's party can be defeated at the ballot box. The other elections aren't yet part of SafeVote, so even if Martin wins a rigged election, he would be impotent if the opposing party gains a majority in Congress. My investigation can do a great deal of harm to Ken Martin."
"If he doesn't destroy you first," he said. His words sounded low and ominous, like a death sentence.
Fortified with her own plan for winning, she didn't seem to hear his admonition. "So that's why I came here. To apply for Sean's job. You haven't filled it yet, have you? You've had several guest hosts, but no permanent new host has yet been assigned. You wanted me to join Miller News once, before . . . "
"Before I sold out."
"I didn't come here to throw that in your face."
"What choice did I have? I was declared a threat to the public and ordered by our great leaders to divest myself of my most prized values. With the restructuring of Miller Communications came the restructuring of Reed Miller's Life. You were part of that."
Laura looked confused. If she were important to him, then why would he . . . She quickly refocused.
"Reed . . . about my investigation?"
"Investigative journalism is dead."
"Then we have to resuscitate it."
"Why?"
"What else is there that stands between us and—"
"No one cares about things like that anymore. Give it up, Laura. Martin and his people can play hardball, I tell you. Don't be a fool! You're acting like James Spenser didn't die right before your eyes."
