by Diane Capri
“Actually, it’s possibly worse than a decapitated body. I mean, it’s not worse than that really. But to me it is. I mean, okay.” She looked down, steadied her nerves, and willed herself to confess. “I broke my smartphone. The station-issued smartphone.” She tensed, as if bracing herself for a punch.
“What do you mean you broke your phone? The one we gave you a few hours ago?” His brow furrowed and he sounded borderline angry. Finally, a hint of emotion she could read, but not what she’d hoped for.
Jordan sheepishly pulled the very expensive, very broken smartphone out of her bag. “It fell and someone stepped on it in the chaos.”
Richard raised his eyebrows and pressed two fingers to the crevice between them at the bridge of his nose as he squeezed the stick pen he’d been playing with so tightly the cap bent. “You dropped your phone in the exact moment you were supposed to be shooting video?” His voice had lost any teasing quality. The tone was hard. “What the hell, Jordan? You panicked at a shoot? Seriously?”
“The crowd got really tight when everyone was trying to escape and things got jostled around. I’m not trying to displace the blame but someone must have bumped into me.” She felt like she was about to get smacked across the face. She knew he wouldn’t actually hit her—for one thing, he couldn’t reach that far from behind the desk—but still.
Richard was silent for a moment. Then he laughed a brief, low humorless chuckle. “We trusted an intern with a camera.” Richard shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “We actually trusted an intern with a brand new, four-hundred dollar smartphone. On her first day!” Another burst of incredulous laugher.
Jordan sat, completely motionless, feeling outraged, holding onto her hot temper. She wasn’t reckless. What had happened to her could have happened to anyone. But she didn’t want to make Richard even madder, so she squeezed her limbs against her body, to take up less space, hoping she could completely disappear. She tried to apologize. “I won’t let it happen again.”
He sat up straight in the leather swivel chair and leaned over the desk toward her.
“Damn right you won’t. You won’t be going out on any more assignments alone, either. This is unprecedented, Jordan. We’ve never had an intern be so irresponsible. I don’t even know what the policy is on this. If we even have one.”
He swiped a hand over his head and sighed. Somehow, he’d run out of steam and seemed a bit calmer. “I’ll have to talk to the news director about how to proceed from here. We’re the only station in the southeast that corporate supplied these phones to as it is. And you’ve already destroyed one. Unbelievable.”
He took a deep breath and stood up. “For starters, you’ll pay for that phone. You know about our budget cuts. We won’t be able to replace the phone for you.”
She looked down at the floor, hoping a huge sinkhole would open up and swallow her before she said something she’d really regret. No such luck. “It was my mistake.”
“Even our news director doesn’t have that phone.” Richard’s tone had calmed, but that was worse, somehow.
“I’m sorry.” She could barely bring herself to meet Richard’s eyes, lest he see she was holding her anger in check. “I hope to have a chance to make it up to you.”
He looked at her steadily for what seemed like forever. “I’ve got work to do. You can spend the rest of the day helping at the assignment desk.”
Jordan swallowed hard, and without saying anything more, she walked through the door, closing it gently on her way out. Ten steps later, she remembered all the things she should have said. Damn!
She should have told Richard he was totally unfair. There was no way she could have predicted that a decapitated man would appear in an aquarium and the crowd would stampede. One minute she was at a tranquil award reception, and the next minute she was at a gruesome crime scene. Who would expect that? And what would he have had her do to safeguard the damn smartphone, anyway?
Should she go back in there and defend herself?
No. Richard was wrong, but she should probably wait until he calmed down to point that out.
Four hundred dollars. How the hell was she supposed to come up with that? She hadn’t even gotten her first paycheck yet. Maybe she could talk Richard into some kind of cost sharing…but she’d need to do something stellar to prove her worth first. If that didn’t happen, maybe she could borrow the cash from Claire or Sal.
She’d figure something out. She had to. For now, she’d work quietly the rest of the shift and try not to screw anything else up.
The Real World was turning out to be a real messed up place.
CHAPTER 4
Jordan trudged over to the assignment desk and took a seat next to grumpy-pants Patricia, who ignored her completely. Which was fine.
She signed on to an open computer and clicked onto Channel 12’s website. Right there on the front page was a huge headline: BREAKING NEWS: DECAPITATED MAN FOUND FLOATING NAKED IN CASINO AQUARIUM.
Jordan gasped. Her story, her laughable pitch, was now the station’s biggest, most important headline! And underneath the headline was one of her pictures from her crushed phone. A shot of the Aquarium Room, mid-party, pre-incident.
This was huge! Her story. On the front page. Wow!
She scanned the page, reviewing the couple paragraphs of information that had been pulled together so far, probably by phone conversations or emails between the assignment desk and Tampa Police.
And then, she saw it. Small print. Beneath the photo. Right freaking there!
Photo by JORDAN FOX.
Jordan beamed like she’d swallowed a spotlight, even as she felt foolishly giddy and tried to contain herself. Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen. She gave in and let foolish giddiness take over. On her first day! Photo by Jordan Fox! She took a quick screen shot. She could barely wait to show her dad. Hell yeah!
The Real World was looking a whole lot better.
Jordan turned to Patricia. “I’ll type up my notes from the casino incident, okay? Then we can incorporate them into the article that’s already online.”
Patricia grunted. Jordan ignored grumpy’s lack of enthusiasm, and instead turned up her nose and started typing, that much more determined to impress.
While Jordan typed, she remained alert to the newsroom’s noisy soundtrack. Police scanners emitted streams of static and intermittent voices. Televisions tuned in to various stations underlined the competition and importance of the news. Workers on the main floor exchanged barked commands as they prepared for the eleven o’clock newscast. The assignment desk phone rang louder and shriller than all the other noise combined, simply to be heard.
Patricia picked up the call. “Channel 12.” Her voice strained, conveying the exhaustion of a hundred years. “That’s correct.” She paused. “Yes, we can confirm that.” Another pause. “Sure, we’ll send them over to ya. No problem.”
Patricia hung up and nodded in Jordan’s direction. “Our station affiliate in D.C. They called to confirm the Florida Casino story and asked to use our pictures and video.”
Her work went national! On the first day!
“Sweet!” Jordan responded, with as much cool as she could muster. “Did they need me to confirm anything?”
“I think we’ve got the facts,” Patricia said, dismissively.
Jordan was at the scene. Shouldn’t they be asking for her input? “But—”
“Did you shoot any video?” Deadpan.
Crap! “Well, my—my—”
“Your phone broke? I heard. So, no video?”
She shook her head, deflated.
Jordan was disappointed in herself, too. There she was, at a story that was now becoming national news, and she failed to get video. She should’ve put the smartphone in a more secure pocket of her bag. She would get a protective case for the phone next time. Next time she’d be more careful.
Assuming she’d have a next time.
Jordan felt a presence behind her and turned around. It was a
guy in khaki cargo shorts and a white Channel 12 polo—probably a photog—and he was grinning at the Channel 12 website’s photo on her monitor. The photo she took of the Aquarium Room, mid-party, pre-incident.
“Who’s that joker?” He chuckled, pointing at a creepy guy in the back corner of the picture staring directly at the camera. “He looks like he wandered into the wrong room from an all-nighter, doesn’t he?”
Jordan looked closer. She saw people wearing suits and dresses, mingling and sipping. But this guy was standing alone facing the room with his back to the Aquarium. Loose curls rested atop his head like a messy bird’s nest. He wore a faded, unbuttoned polo under his blazer. A hardened beer belly protruded above his tan slacks.
“Um, no clue. Definitely don’t remember seeing him,” Jordan said. “Then again, I was a little distracted by the headless body.”
Before he wandered away, the photog smiled. “You’ve got a good eye, though. Nice shot.”
It was the first nice thing anyone had said to her about her work since she’d arrived. “Thanks.”
For some reason, she felt tears spring to her eyes. She blinked furiously and turned her gaze back to her photo on the screen before anyone noticed. MMJs don’t cry. That much, she knew for sure.
Odd that the guy was staring at the camera like that, though. Why was he watching Jordan? She made a mental note to ask Salvador if he knew that guy.
CHAPTER 5
It was 8 p.m. and all of the dayside crew had left for the day. Jordan and a few nightside crew members roved the newsroom. Although it was much quieter now, the day’s electric energy still sparked the air. A light buzz seemed to punctuate everyone’s activity.
Jordan had been at work for less than six hours. Already she’d made her first pitch, been demoted, seen her first murder victim, witnessed a crime scene, and destroyed her equipment. That had to be some kind of record. Never in her wildest dreams—or nightmares—did she imagine her first day in the Real World would be so exciting. She smiled again just thinking about the good parts. But she was tired. She’d sleep well tonight, if she could keep the floating torso from invading her subconscious.
Calls from news sources around the country about the casino incident continued to flood the station. Media outlets wanted pictures, video, and fact confirmation. Channel 12 lacked video, but provided the rest.
So far, Tampa police hadn’t released any details other than those Jordan witnessed and reported. Investigators were probably in the process of sweeping the casino for evidence and rounding up security video. Maybe they were looking into any possible connections to Ted Garfield, too.
Jordan was stuck spending the rest of the evening at the assignment desk. She kept her head down and tried to stay out of trouble.
About eight o’clock, Patricia picked up a call. “Yeah. Okay. Good plan, Antonio. Nothing much new on Garfield anyway. Head over to the casino. We’ll have you live downtown. Drew’s with you, right? Great.”
Jordan’s temper flared and she clamped her jaw shut to avoid saying something she’d regret later. The clamped jaw didn’t keep her mind from fuming, though.
Drew. On her story. Totally unfair.
Banishing Jordan from the story was stupid, too. Restrain the one journalist in the world who was actually at the scene to a chair behind a desk? Real smart.
Patricia had already moved on to the next thing and Jordan could think of nothing to do about Drew or Antonio.
But she would. She’d think of something and she’d take this story back. It was hers. She’d prove she could do a better job than Drew or Antonio.
How, exactly, would she do that?
After twenty minutes, the answer finally hit her.
In her pitch at today’s afternoon meeting, Jordan hadn’t revealed that she knew the aquarium event’s honoree. She hadn’t wanted to come off as biased toward the pitch or like she was bragging or like she only knew how to find stories that were personally interesting to her.
That was then.
Now she was more desperate to make herself valuable. And she wanted her story back. Time to play the connections card. It’s always who you know. Well, fine. Drew was certainly making the most of his connections and everybody thought that was great.
She called Antonio. He picked up. Eventually.
“Hey it’s Jordan, just checking in from the desk. I wasn’t sure if you needed any details about what happened this afternoon.”
“I think we’re good,” Antonio replied using the annoying smug tone she remembered. “We have the names of a few witnesses we can call up if we need more.”
“Oh. ’Cause, I actually know the guy who was being honored if you wanted me to try to get ahold of him or anything….” Jordan’s voice trailed off, expecting Antonio to jump at the opportunity.
“Nah, we’ve got it under control.” He sounded preoccupied, like he wasn’t even listening.
Jordan pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. Had she heard him correctly?
She felt stunned. Crushed, even. Were her observations and connections worth nothing? “Are you sure you don’t need me to describe what happened or anything? I took pictures if you want them, too. They’re uploaded into SkySpace.”
“We’re all set.” Now he sounded condescending, too.
Great.
Richard probably told everyone about the destroyed camera and lack of video. No one seemed to trust her and that was stupid, too. If it wasn’t for her, Channel 12 wouldn’t even have photos of the scene without the body. Shouldn’t they be a little bit grateful about that?
Clearly, if she wanted to impress and beat Drew, she needed something newsworthy. But what?
Maybe Antonio wasn’t interested in her connections, but he should be. Claire and Salvador surely would have something important to add. Last she’d heard was a text from Claire saying she and Sal were going home and they’d catch up later. Now was a good time to call.
If Jordan could take a new, undiscovered nugget of the story to tomorrow’s afternoon meeting, maybe she could start to make up for the damage she’d done today.
Would it be callous to ask Sal about the murder? She didn’t want to abuse her relationship, or, even worse, scare off the man her best friend seemed to be in love with.
But this was a huge story. And Jordan needed a huge break. And after all, Sal didn’t kill the guy. Probably didn’t even know the man. Sal couldn’t feel any worse about seeing the body than Jordan did, and except for a few shaky moments, she was compartmentalizing fairly well.
Jordan found a moment before the 11 p.m. news to step outside and call Claire. Claire had been staying at Sal’s waterfront estate for the past couple weeks now. She and Claire had argued about that because Jordan felt both she and Claire were too young to be living with any guy. They should be having fun, not playing house. They needed space. Had Jordan’s experience with her ex taught Claire nothing? At the moment, though, Jordan was glad she’d find them both with one call.
“Hey, Jordan.” Claire answered with less energy than normal. “What’s up?”
Jordan spoke quietly because she didn’t want to be overheard by the few people who were still wandering around. “I’ve only got a second. Do you think Sal would mind if I asked him a couple questions?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, on the phone.”
“Normally he wouldn’t mind, but….” Claire sounded especially tired, and maybe a little worried, too.
“What’s wrong?” Jordan asked.
“He’s pretty upset.”
Jordan’s eyebrows squeezed together. She tilted her head a bit, as if the words would make more sense if she moved them around in her brain.
Nope.
Salvador wasn’t the squeamish type. He was a lot stronger than she was. According to Claire, he’d recovered quickly from the sudden death of his father and took over a major company right away. Why would he be any more upset about what they’d witnessed than anybody else was?
Not only that, but Claire had boasted about Sal’s teenage heroism. She said he’d rescued more than one boating accident victim and fished a couple of bodies out of the Gulf when he’d worked on the docks in the summer.
“He’s seen worse, right?” Jordan said.
“Yeah. But this one’s different.” Claire sounded sad now as well as tired.
“Because he feels responsible or something?”
“Maybe.”
“He can’t think that if his award event hadn’t happened, the murder wouldn’t have happened. That’s crazy.”
“I dunno,” Claire’s voice quieted to a whisper. “I’ve never seen him like this. It’s freakin’ weird. He won’t explain. He won’t look at the story on your website. He won’t even let me read it to him.”
“Lemme talk to him. This whole thing has nothing to do with him.” Jordan realized Sal felt responsible for some crazy reason, but he wasn’t. She could help him see that and make Claire feel less worried about him. “Look, we’re putting the story on the air in a few minutes. We’ve been talking to cops and experts all night. The decapitation happened way before the body came floating in to his event. The guy wasn’t even bleeding anymore by the time he hit the water. Get it? That means the whole thing was a premeditated plan. They killed the guy somewhere else and dumped the body in the Aquarium. It was just bad luck that Sal’s event was going on at the time.”
Claire let Jordan’s plea hang in the air a few moments, like maybe she was thinking about it. “I’m sorry, Jordan. He’s too upset.”
No harm in pushing a little to see if Claire would budge, right? “Is he already asleep?”
“I think so. He’s on the couch. He’s done for the night.”
“Why don’t you just check? I want to find out if he recognizes this weird guy in my picture on the website. Just two minutes, I promise.”
