On Her Trail

by Marcelle Dubé

  He swiveled on his stool and slid the drive into a USB port. He hit a key and the marching ants made way for a list of available programs. Laura hesitated a few moments, then decided her original reasoning was still sound. The only way to ensure Fay’s safety was to get the story out as soon as possible.

  She went to the darkroom, where the refrigerator was kept. The chemical smell grew stronger the closer she came. The curtains were swept away from the door, and she had just enough light to make her way cautiously toward the two refrigerators. The one on the left contained a familiar array of chemicals sealed in plastic bottles, but the right hand one held pop cans in the door. Mustard and ketchup bottles and a selection of small plastic salad dressing containers graced the middle shelf. A container of cream on the top shelf had gone bad, by the smell of it. She looked in the crisper and found gray plastic containers of film. No leftover lunches anywhere.

  While the door was open and the light on, she looked around the darkroom. Strings criss-crossed the air between the two farthest walls. A dozen clips hung on the strings, waiting to hold prints up for drying. A long narrow tub at the far end was filled with shallow trays. A table under a red light completed the furnishings. On the walls were pictures of young, semi-clad women.

  Ah, she thought. The paper still had a male photographer.

  What about the door? Was it still there? She and some of the younger reporters, including Jason, had used the hidden door to steal a smoke or get away from the office manager, a crab-faced woman who frowned every time someone laughed.

  She felt the wall next to the fridge where a ceiling-to-floor heavy black curtain covered the wall. At the edge of the curtain she found the doorknob. In spite of everything, she grinned. She slid back the bolt and cracked the door open. It opened onto empty air. The building next door was less than two feet away, and lower by a foot or so. That roof was ideal for getting fresh air or having a private conversation. She was willing to bet the young reporters still used it.

  With a sigh Laura closed and bolted the door. She picked a ginger ale and returned to Jason’s office to find him still engrossed. He looked up as she sat down.

  “By the way, I’d been meaning to get in touch with you. I found something when I was cleaning out Dad’s files a few weeks ago. It’s for you.” He pushed away from the computer, reached out a long arm and pulled open the third drawer of the nearest filing cabinet. He plucked an envelope from the front and handed it to her. “I guess your father left this in trust with Dad, to give to you in person.”

  Laura’s stomach did a slow loop. Her father had left something for her? Here?

  She stared at the brown manila envelope for a moment before accepting it with trembling fingers. The envelope was eight and a half by eleven inches and it was open. On the front, in her father’s untidy scrawl, was written “Seth”.

  “Why would he leave it with your father?” she asked. Her fingers caressed the edges of the envelope. “Why not with my mother?”

  Jason shrugged. “Dad didn’t know. Your father left it with mine almost ten years ago, with instructions to give it to you if he died. I think they both forgot about it. I know my dad did, until I found it.” He turned back to his computer screen, probably as much to give her privacy as to finish her story.

  Laura finally upended the envelope, only to find another, smaller manila envelope inside. This one had a note clipped to it that read, Seth—I’m using you as a safety deposit box. If I die before you, please give this to Laura. Wait until the worst of the grieving is over. Thanks, old friend. Her father had signed it.

  This envelope was sealed. Laura looked around and found a letter opener sticking out of a coffee cup on top of the filing cabinet. She slit the envelope open and pulled out the contents.

  Two photographs. She peered inside to see if there was a note, but there was nothing else. Puzzled, she looked at the photos. The first one was an old black and white print of a young woman, perhaps twenty-five years old. She wore a long skirt of some light-colored fabric, with a short jacket over a white, frilly blouse. The jacket was decorated with dark braiding. Her dark hair was swept up in a chignon, and perched on one side of her head was a small hat. The woman looked familiar. Laura flipped the photograph over and read, in a clear, neat print: Aunt Gertrude Thorsen, before leaving for the continent—1903.

  Another hand, her father’s, had written below it, Grandfather’s sister.

  Laura studied the photograph. It finally registered that Aunt Gertrude looked familiar because she looked like Laura—or Laura looked like her. It was almost like looking in a mirror, even down to the faint scowl on the woman’s face. Laura immediately stopped frowning.

  If she was Dad’s great aunt, that would make her Laura’s great-great aunt. Why would her father leave her this picture in such a roundabout way?

  She looked at the other one. It was an old snapshot, in glossy color, and the date stamped in small numbers in the bottom of the photo said 1976. Three people sat on the front porch of a cabin, in bright sunlight.

  With a shock, Laura recognized her mother. She was smiling at the photographer. Her hair was straight, long and blond, held back by a colorful sweatband across her forehead. She wore a tie-dyed loose shirt and patched jeans. She was gorgeous and looked happy. Sitting beside her on the stairs was Laura’s father. He had his arm around Fay and was wearing jeans and sandals, and a psychedelic T-shirt. His hair was down to his collar, a fine, pale brown that looked better shorter. He, too, was looking at the photographer, but his whole body seemed to curve toward Fay—protecting her or guarding her?

  The other man sat one step up from them. His elbows rested on his knees, his hands relaxed between them. They were big hands. He, too, wore jeans, but on his feet were solid work boots. He wore a denim shirt open at the collar, and by the looks of it, it had seen better days. Around his neck was a leather thong and a pendant. His hair was light and curly. He was looking at Fay, his pleasant, open face grave.

  Laura stared at the man’s face for a long, long time. It was the man she had seen in the woods near her mother’s house.

  Unsettled, she flipped over the snapshot. On the back, someone had written in bold pen: Fay, James and Sawyer—August 1976.

  “Jesus,” said Jason, sitting back. He turned around, a gleam in his eye. “This is a hell of a story, Laura. Do you have proof?”

  Laura slipped the two photographs into their envelope. “Pictures, names and addresses, times and locations on a separate file on the same flash drive. It’s all there, Jason.”

  “No wonder Tucker’s after you. What a scoop!”

  I used to feel that way too, thought Laura.

  “You realize you’ll probably get fired for coming to me with it.”

  She cocked her head at him. “Right now that’s the least of my worries.”

  He grinned. “Good point. It’ll be on tomorrow’s front page, but I don’t think we should wait that long. Can we send it to the news service now?”

  “Yes, please.” Could it really be this simple?

  “All right. But there’s no guarantee the news service will pick it up.”

  Laura raised an eyebrow at him. There was never any guarantee, but she wasn’t worried. It was the story of the decade. The service would pick it up. Then the cold spotlight of publicity would be on Johnny Tucker and she and Fay would be safe.

  “In fact,” added Jason, “I think I’ll stack the deck in our favor and send it directly to a few other editors I know.”

  Turning back to the computer, he called up his e-mail program and began feeding it addresses. He drafted a quick paragraph giving the gist of the story and attached Laura’s file to the message.

  Laura sat and watched his quick fingers, too emotionally exhausted to register anything but relief. Jason hit the send button and grinned up at her.

  Then the screen winked out. A split second later the building plunged into darkness.

  Laura’s eyes adjusted within seconds. She made out Jas
on’s figure against the incidental light from the window.

  “Coincidence?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Not likely,” she whispered back. “Did the article get out?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. His figure craned toward the window. “Looks like the rest of the street has electricity. That means someone got to the fuse box in the press room. I vote we get out of here.”

  “Right behind you, Jase.”

  She heard the sound of the flash drive being released from the computer and grabbed the envelope with the pictures. Then he was by her side and dragging her through the layout area back to the darkroom. He flicked the curtains closed behind them, cutting off any possible source of light.

  Laura’s shoulder collided with the refrigerator and Jason lost his grip on her hand. She stepped forward just as he turned around and they bumped into each other.

  A sound penetrated the muffling barrier of the darkroom curtains and they grew still, waiting for it to repeat. After a few seconds she heard the swish of the wall curtain being pushed back against the fridge, then the soft snick of the bolt being drawn.

  A gray crack appeared along the wall as the door opened and she saw Jason silhouetted against the night sky.

  Then his hand was on her arm and he pulled her through the doorway. Without giving herself a chance to think, she jumped down onto the graveled roof of the building next door, still clutching her envelope. She lost her balance and put out her hands to steady herself, scraping them on the gravel. Scrambling to her feet, she moved out of the way and rubbed her hands against her jeans to take some of the sting out.

  The wind found her immediately, knifing through her clothes. She stuck the envelope inside her sweatshirt to keep from losing it and to cut down on the wind. From the roof she could see part of the alley on one side of the building and a brightly lit, empty street on the other side. Whoever had switched off the breaker was alone, or they were all in the building.

  Jason closed the curtain, then jumped down, too. He turned around and, leaning out precariously, gently closed the door. He stayed there, hands splayed against the closed door, until Laura grabbed him by the belt of his jeans and hauled.

  “Thanks,” he whispered when he was safely on the roof. “I can’t believe we used to do that for fun.”

  Laura grinned at him. In spite of his short haircut and expensive sweater, he was still Jason, who could always turn calamity into adventure.

  “Come on,” she whispered. “We can take the truck.”

  “Whose truck is it?”

  “Later,” she replied. “It’s a long story.”

  They walked in a crouch to the alley side of the building, then lay down flat to peer over the edge of the roof. From that vantage point they could clearly see the length of the alley between Tutshi Street and Duke. Laura noted the red dumpster with its open lid, the back of the white brick building on the other side of the alley, even the potholes that could swallow a small car. What she didn’t see was the truck. She stuck a hand in her pocket and felt the hard outline of the truck keys.

  “Where is it?” asked Jason.

  Laura scooted back from the edge and sat up. Sharp stones dug through the tough fabric of her jeans to bite her tender flesh. She shivered as the wind found the gap between sweatshirt and jeans.

  “It’s gone,” she replied. “Jason, I’m so sorry I got you into this!”

  He inched his way back and sat up, too. Then he slapped her shoulder playfully. “Don’t start with me, Thorsen. You couldn’t keep me away from a story this good. Come on, we have to get off this roof.”

  The neighboring building was three feet higher than the roof on which they stood, but since it abutted theirs, they were able to scramble onto it easily. There was still no sign of life from the newspaper office. The door to the darkroom stayed shut, and as there were no windows on that side of the building, they couldn’t even tell if someone was wandering around with a flashlight.

  It occurred to Laura that a short circuit might have caused the power outage. What if they were skulking around the roofs of Whitehorse because a mouse had nibbled through the wrong wire?

  A car drove by.

  “Now what?” said Laura, having inched her way to the far side of the building.

  The next building over was too far and too low for them to jump. Besides, they would soon run out of buildings. If someone was looking for them in the newspaper office, it was only a matter of time before they found the darkroom door. She wanted to get down.

  Jason had been examining the roof’s edge. “Over here,” he called softly. Laura ran over, shivering. A narrow metal ladder was latched to the brick wall on the alley side, leading to within six feet of the ground.

  She closed her eyes, trying to decide if she could jump six feet without breaking a bone.

  “Come on,” said Jason, nudging her. “You go first.”

  With a muffled curse, she turned around and set foot gingerly on the first rung. When it didn’t collapse, she tried the second one. By the time she was midway, Jason had stepped on the first rung. As he swung his foot down again, something pinged on the cement ledge next to the ladder. Jason started and looked around the roof.

  “Get down, you idiot!” shouted Laura when she realized what was happening. Jason ducked below the roofline just as another bullet pinged past where he’d been standing.

  “Jesus!” he cried, practically sliding down the ladder, “they’re shooting at us!”

  Laura reached the final rung and flung herself into empty air. She landed in a crouch with a jarring thud, lost her balance and rocked onto her hams just as Jason landed next to her. He lost his balance, too, and fell on top of her. After a mad scramble of limbs, they disentangled themselves and rose to their feet.

  “Let’s go!” cried Jason. They ran down the alley, heading for Tutshi Street as fast as they could.

  A shout behind them warned them they’d been seen. Something kicked up asphalt at their feet. The gunman was using a silencer.

  “Don’t stop!” called Laura. They emerged onto the street and turned right, toward the more populated restaurant and movie district. The sound of feet pounding in the alley behind them spurred them on.

  The envelope in her waistband worked its way free and Laura clutched it against her body as she ran. Her feet hit the asphalt like a hand slapping a cheek. Jason kept pace with her, although he was breathing hard. Something whizzed above her head and she automatically hunched her shoulders, expecting a bullet in her back.

  “We have to split up,” she gasped as they turned yet another corner in an effort to elude their pursuers.

  “Go…police!” Jason’s words came out staccato.

  “No!” She grabbed his hand, ducked into an alley and pulled him into a recessed doorway about halfway down. “No police,” she whispered, trying to get her breathing under control. Next to her, Jason breathed like a bellows, and she wished he could be quieter.

  Then she placed her hand over his mouth and he nodded. Running footsteps came nearer as their pursuer approached the alley. He paused at the mouth of the alley, and Laura controlled an impulse to peek and see who it was. Apparently satisfied that the alley was empty, the pursuer began running again.

  Jason relaxed and would have spoken, but Laura kept her hand on his mouth. A soft scrape at the other end of the alley told them someone else was listening. After a long time they heard the regular thud of someone in soft shoes running away from them.

  Only then did Laura remove her hand.

  “Why not the cops?” demanded Jason in a barely audible whisper.

  “Could be on the take.” At his skeptical snort she elaborated. “Tucker’s got informants everywhere.”

  It was dark in the alley. The light from street lamps on the streets at either end didn’t reach this far in. Laura couldn’t see his face, but she could well imagine it. “I’m so sorry, Jase.”

  After a moment he shook his head. “Don’t sweat it, Laura. But you
’re right—we have to split up. I don’t think we should meet again until we’re sure the story is out. Can I keep the flash drive?”

  “Why?”

  “Internet.”

  “How? You can’t just walk into an internet café…”

  “If you don’t know where I’m going, you can’t tell anyone else.”

  Laura shut her mouth and nodded. She had a hard copy of the article hidden in Fay’s house. “Go for it, tiger.”

  “Where are you going to go?” he asked.

  “If you don’t know…” she began, and grinned when he poked her in the ribs.

  “Okay, smart ass. You ready?”

  She wasn’t. The last thing she wanted to do was step out of the alley and expose herself to two hired killers. But Jason seemed to think she was braver than she actually was, and she’d be damned if she’d disappoint him. Especially now that she’d dragged him into this mess.

  “Let’s go,” she whispered.

  They left the protection of the doorway and stepped into the alley. Without a word, Jason turned left and walked away. She watched him for a moment, wishing safety on him. Then she turned right and headed for the street.

  She was only a few blocks from the movie theater. Even on a Thursday night there’d be people on Main Street, going in and out of bars and restaurants, heading for the bookstore, coming out of the movies. She’d be safer there.

  Where the hell was Mack’s truck?

  As she approached the well-lit street, her steps became more hesitant. She didn’t want to leave the alley. But she couldn’t stay here all night—she had to get home to Fay. Besides, the alley wasn’t safe. When they didn’t find her and Jason, the killers would double back.

  Flattening herself against the wall of the building, Laura listened. All she could hear was the distant sound of a truck a couple of streets over. Taking a deep breath, she stepped onto the sidewalk.

  “Got you!” growled a man, and a heavy hand grabbed her arm.