The Red Files

by Lee Winter

  “Where were we? Ah yes. I want a show of hands of who voted yes, or I fire every last one of you. And I’m not bluffing.”

  “You can’t fire them all,” Frank intervened. “No one’d be left to run the paper if you do.”

  “That’s my concern isn’t it?” he said. He assessed Frank. “And which way did you vote?” he asked dangerously.

  “I didn’t. It wasn’t my role.”

  “Good answer.”

  “My role was to implement what the staff decided,” he added and stuck his chin out pugnaciously.

  Lauren’s eyes widened. Oh crap.

  “You…” Harrington glowered at him. “You’re fucking fired, too.”

  “Good,” Frank barked back. “Wouldn’t want to work for a corrupt publisher. We all know about your SmartPay shares.”

  “My investment portfolio is not your concern.”

  “Nah,” Frank shook his head. “Why would a massive conflict of interest concern a room full of fucking journalists?”

  Harrington deliberately turned his back to him and looked at the rest of the staff. “I won’t ask again—hands up if you voted yes.”

  His gaze shifted from face to face. No one seemed willing to even twitch.

  “Your father must be so proud,” Ayers said quietly, moving gracefully toward him. In the deathly quiet room, the words carried.

  “I couldn’t give a crap what Dad thinks. And you’re fired too, you insubordinate acidic ice bitch.” He gave her a smug look, and Daley snickered loudly.

  “You should care what your father thinks,” Ayers said calmly. “He still owns the shares in the Daily Sentinel. And you’re not fit to run it or any newspaper.”

  “What drugs are you on, Ayers? Dad’s retired. The paper’s mine now.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” a ragged voice said from the rear of the room. Out of the shadows stepped a thin man in his mid sixties dressed in jeans and a golfing shirt.

  Harrington paled. “Dad?”

  The older man moved toward the middle of the room and sized his son up.

  “I’d hoped your leadership and publishing abilities would improve if I got out of your way and you wouldn’t always have me looking over your shoulder,” he said. “But Catherine’s right. You’re not fit to run my paper.

  “She emailed me a copy of her story this morning and asked me to be in the vicinity today in case I was needed. She called me not ten minutes ago and asked me to come in. Didn’t expect to find you tossing out half your staff and trying to kill the story.”

  “It’s my call to spike any story I want.”

  “That story, son, was the greatest thing I’ve read in four decades of journalism. You should be on your knees with gratitude to have it sitting on your plate. Instead you’re more interested in—what? Making money on top of the millions I already gave you? You don’t need more money—you need loyalty. Firing two of the best news chiefs in the game and one of the most exceptional journalists I’ve ever worked with is a rookie error. I’m taking the paper off you, boy. You’re not cut out for it. You never were—and that is the sorry truth.”

  “You can’t!”

  “I just did.”

  “You’re taking her side?” he jabbed his finger at Ayers. “She’s nothing. I’m your son!”

  “And that’s why you’ll never be a good publisher. Because you undervalue everything you have. You overlook your most valuable assets and are more interested in your World Wide Web ventures than the talent that’s parked right under your nose.”

  “Internet news is the future! You think you know news? I know what’s trending. News as it happens. Live, all over the world in an instant.” He snapped his fingers. “What do you know? A dying industry that worships dead trees and ink. You’re a fossil. All of you are.”

  “You might know a lot of things, son, but you haven’t got a lick of sense with it. I’ve never been so disappointed.”

  “Dad…”

  “Go home. We’ll talk later. As for everyone else?” his eyes roamed the newsroom. “Your jobs are safe. Get back to work. And I expect to see a SmartPay spy scandal on every news feed in the nation tomorrow.”

  A small cheer went up, and Lauren’s face split into a huge grin. Relief coursed through her.

  “Will you resume as publisher?” Ayers asked as the room dispersed.

  “For now. But I’ll find someone qualified next time I hand over the reins.”

  “You’d better,” she said.

  “Sassy,” he scolded her fondly. “And Cath? We’ll catch up for lunch soon. You can explain to me what the hell congress thinks it’s doing on that healthcare nonsense. Like old times.”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  He left her and headed over to Frank and Neil, slapped them both on the shoulder, and launched into an animated discussion about their exclusive story.

  Lauren sauntered over. “Some last ally. He’s only the boss of everything. Jesus.”

  “Not quite, but he is a friend, true,” Ayers admitted. “But it was always a hugely risky move pitting father against son. He didn’t intervene when I was demoted, choosing to let his son make his own decisions and mistakes. I thought there was a good chance he might yet again decide blood was thicker than ink.”

  They regarded each other for a moment, taking in the importance of what had just happened.

  “Holy crap,” Lauren said, grinning. “They’re running our freaking story.”

  “Yes,” Ayers smiled. “I do believe they are.”

  Lauren saw her own excitement mirrored back, and as their gazes locked, she forgot she was supposed to be mad as hell with her.

  CHAPTER 15

  Countdown

  Wednesday, May 29

  33 Days Remaining

  7:37 a.m.

  Lauren rolled over, coughed once, and buried her face in her pillow. Nothing like waking up after a night of celebrating the story to end all stories.

  Her cell phone gave a faint beep from the bedside table.

  It beeped again. And then again.

  She scowled. Only people with a death wish would harass a entertainment reporter before ten in the morning. Everyone knew it. It was the unwritten rule of journalism.

  With a sour grunt, she groped around for the beeping phone.

  Twenty-seven new messages?

  Her eyes focused on the first of her texts. A congratulations from her dad. She smiled and scrolled down. All of her brothers had sent her texts of various degrees of awe and mockery.

  Mariella had emailed to let her know her house guests had left, with Duppy cheerfully vowing to hack any website she wanted as a thanks for putting them up. She demurred. At Harold’s workplace, she added, State of California employees had staged an impromptu burning of their new SmartPay employee cards in the staff parking lot. Mariella admitted she possibly may have put them up to the idea. And she also may have called in a TV camera crew or six to witness the fiery carnage.

  Lauren laughed and flicked her phone browser over to the Daily Sentinel’s website.

  SHOCK ESPIONAGE SCANDAL

  Government agencies implicated in scheme to spy on the American people.

  EXCLUSIVE

  By Lauren King and Catherine Ayers.

  Read full story

  More: Nevada Government Bribes—Corruption at the top. Hundreds of thousands paid for top officials to endorse SmartPay USA to interstate government officials and corporations.

  Breaking news: Nevada’s governor, lieutenant-governor, and chief of staff resign. Carson City Sheriff’s Office raid their offices. Tax investigation announced. NV accountant insider who was forced to receive bribes helps officials.

  Business news: Paul Harrington Jr. steps down as publisher of Daily Sentinel. His father, Paul Harrington Sr. who came out of retirement to resume the top role, wished his son all the best on his “exciting new online projects.”

  Interstate roundup: A missing LA-based Nevada IT worker, who was the subject of a two-s
tate manhunt this week, has turned up alive at his Carson City, NV, family home just before six this morning. “I’d just gone fishing,” Jonathan Sands reportedly told shocked LAPD Adult Missing Persons Unit (AMPU) investigators.

  LAPD AMPU Detective Jay Rankin was quoted earlier in the week as saying Sands had “unfortunately most likely suffered a fatal outcome in Topaz Lake” where his vehicle was discovered, seemingly abandoned, on May 22nd. Wife Della Sands reports she’s “over the moon” to see him and “always knew” he wasn’t dead.

  Lauren grinned. Good for them.

  She flicked curiously through all the major news sites. The SmartPay scandal was headlining the news everywhere. Every expert was so shocked, and no one knew anything. The CIA and NSA predictably had nothing to say. The president was being briefed on the situation.

  She resumed her trawl through her text messages. A few of them made her laugh.

  Her old boss at the Des Moines Standard had written in.

  Hell, King if we’d known you were this good, we’d have put you on politics. You should have said.

  She rolled her eyes. She’d only pitched her case what, eight or ten times?

  CNN wanted an exclusive interview. So did all the other networks. She’d have to check with Frank about how he wanted her to handle it. She scrolled to the next message and then stopped cold.

  “Spies, King? Oh and thanks for the scoop. Whatever do you do for an encore?

  She wrote back.

  Hilarious. And yay us. We’re the toast of town. What a rollercoaster ride!

  The reply landed seconds later. Indeed.

  Lauren stared at her phone. They’d been through hell and back, been chased and terrorized, and shared one night of smoking hot sex, and Ayers had distilled it all down to the word indeed.

  She peered at the text, waiting for a follow-up. Five minutes went by, then ten. At twenty minutes, and with her buoyant mood starting to flag, she gave up and called Josh to dissect their previous evening’s celebrations. And to find out how she wound up with glitter and confetti in her shoes.

  Her phone never did beep again from Ayers.

  * * *

  Frank told Lauren to spend the day doing interviews, promoting the Daily Sentinel, and generally getting the most buzz out of their scoop. She saw nothing of Ayers, but when she turned on the news that night and saw her giving her own interviews on a few other networks, she realized he’d given her the same instructions.

  She studied her, watching the way she held herself. She wore a smart charcoal skirt suit, her hair was swept elegantly behind her ear to reveal drop pearl earrings.

  So dignified.

  Well that was one word for her. Hot mess were two more, as Lauren recalled her writhing against her, fingernails biting into her shoulders as Ayers gasped for her release while rolling her slippery center against Lauren’s thigh. She remembered that heated gaze devouring her, lips parted a little, sipping on air, as watery rivulets curled a path down her breasts. She could still hear the soft, shuddering moans of Ayers coming apart against her.

  Lauren crossed her legs and stared at the cool face. She seemed tired, and she was toying with the ring on her right hand—something she did whenever she was uncomfortable or bored.

  She decided to agree to Max’s suggestion for a night out, given the security guard had promised to show her a celebration to remember for crushing the Douche King. That Ayers had been the one to pull the trigger on Harrington Jr. had seemed to matter little to Max, who declared Lauren the “Badass of the Century.”

  Thursday, May 30

  32 Days Remaining

  9:03 a.m.

  Lauren shuffled into work the next day with a hangover so vicious it made a mockery of her supposed badass status. Frank, as if somehow sensing her moment of greatest pitifulness, summoned her to his office.

  She sat gingerly so as not to jar her head as he shoved a fat, ugly plaque across the desk at her.

  “Here,” he said. “Consider it yours. Arrived today.”

  Lauren picked it up and read the engraved words. Best Investigative Journalism, California Journalism Awards.

  “How could we have won anything so fast?” she asked.

  The news editor twirled his finger, indicating the back.

  She turned it around and read the inscription and snapped her head up. “Frank! This has Doug Daley’s name on it!”

  “Yeah, it does. Look, I know that Doug won it under false pretences for your parking tickets story, claiming it was all his work. So, technically, I s’pose it’s yours.”

  “Did you have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands?”

  Frank actually cracked a smile at that. “Nah. Never gave it to him.” He shot her a sheepish look that probably passed as an apology in Frank’s world.

  Lauren pushed it back across the desk. “No thanks. Shockingly, I don’t want some secondhand trinket. Use it as a doorstop or something.”

  Frank shrugged. “Suit yourself. Besides, you’ll probably get a wall full of these before the year’s out.”

  “I didn’t do the story for that,” Lauren grimaced.

  “Yeah, I know, kid. But do yourself a favor and remember that some kind of healthy ego will help you a lot in this game. You’ll understand that once you do a year or two on Doug’s beat.”

  “Uh, what?”

  “Ayers didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “It’s been decided Doug’s getting reassigned to special projects.”

  Lauren tried not to show her shock. It was career suicide. Special projects was the only section lower than her own. No one sent to write advertorial crap about boating and RV shows or trade conventions ever recovered their standing.

  “Why?” Lauren asked.

  “The old man has certain views about people who steal other people’s work without giving credit where it’s due.”

  Old man? Oh, right. Their returning esteemed publisher.

  “Why would Catherine know anything about this?” she asked.

  Frank leaned back and laced his fingers over his ample gut. “It was her idea. She nominated you as Doug’s replacement.”

  “She what? When?”

  “Yesterday morning. Old man did a phone hook-up at crack of dawn. Damn I wish he’d keep regular hours. I mean six is barbaric. He asked Ayers to take part because he wanted to offer her old job back. He’s reopening our DC Bureau. Needs her to be our chief there again.”

  Lauren digested his words. So Ayers had recommended Lauren for a job knowing full well it would keep her in LA. The message was clear. She didn’t want Lauren trailing after her like some over-eager puppy.

  She tried to smile. She suspected she looked constipated. “Okay,” she said tightly. “When do I start?”

  “We’re doing a shakeup of a few positions, what with Ayers leaving in…” he frowned and looked at his calendar “…thirty-something days. So when she goes, we’ll move you off entertainment, too. Fresh blood across the board. Right?” He waved his hand toward the door.

  Dismissed, Lauren rose. “Thanks Frank,” she said.

  “You earned it.” He squinted at her. “I’d have expected a few more cartwheels from you.”

  Lauren forced a grin. “Oh I’m excited,” she said. “Just surprised you’d pick me.”

  “Well it wasn’t just up to me,” Frank said dryly. “Anyway, Ayers made a compelling case.”

  Lauren’s mood sank further. I’ll bet.

  “She did?” she asked neutrally.

  Frank studied her. “She really didn’t tell you? Called us all a bunch of blind asses if we didn’t see how much raw talent you had. Okay. That’s it. Go write us up more froth and nonsense, and I’ll see you back here for the real news at the end of the month. Close the door on the way out.”

  * * *

  Saturday, June 1

  30 Days Remaining

  9:48 p.m.

  Lauren looked around the Dynasty Ballroom in annoyance, half wishing it would
burst into flames and spare her having to stay for the speeches. It wouldn’t be hard to ignite with so many rustic naked torches around. Mariella had indeed outdone herself for Fire Swarm’s blockbuster launch. She returned to shooting daggers at a clutch of elegant women arranged artfully by the drinks table. Two women in particular.

  Her long-suffering date rolled his eyes.

  “Honestly, hon, you are no fun tonight.” Joshua pouted. “And if I’d known your girlfriend wasn’t going to bring my boyfriend, I wouldn’t have bothered dry cleaning my good tux.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Lauren objected, staring at Ayers in her stunning black dress with a scandalously plunging neckline. It boasted a glittering necklace designed to draw gazes to her cleavage. And one of the gazes she was drawing was her plus one for the evening, a bigwig cable TV executive from Washington. Cynthia something.

  Cynthia Something was fucking gorgeous, and Lauren hated her with a loathing she usually reserved for dictators and telemarketers. And right now Cynthia was wooing Ayers with all the fervor of a rottweiler going after a tennis ball.

  Speaking of rottweilers…

  Cynthia touched Ayers’s silk clad arm and parted her lips prettily as Ayers talked to her. “I think she’s actually panting,” Lauren muttered. The brushing fingers appeared accidental, but Lauren knew better. “It’s obscene.”

  “Obscene is the shade of green you are this evening,” Josh observed. “Was she really that good in bed?”

  “Stop fishing,” Lauren said still staring at the pair. “You don’t see me asking you about your bedroom antics with Tad.”