The Last Journalist (An Alex Vane Media Thriller Book 5)

by A. C. Fuller

  I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye. Shannon.

  I leapt up as she stepped from behind the second dumpster. "Shannon, no!"

  The killer pivoted and brought his gun up, leveling it at her. At the same moment, the barrel of her revolver flashed.

  He rocked back, struck in the chest.

  She fired again and ran to take cover behind the KING-5 van, then looked around the corner toward the killer. She must not have liked what she saw, because she fired two more shots.

  I scurried around the car and stumbled toward him. He was definitely dead now, and I collapsed next to him as Shannon ran over.

  She still held her gun trained on his body, and I was scared of the tension I saw in her hand and the slight shake starting to develop in her fingers. I took her wrist, then lowered her arm slowly. "It's over, Shannon. He's gone."

  A group emerged from the studio and ran toward us.

  "I went home after I left the coffeeshop," Shannon said. She sounded dazed, like she was in a trance. "Picked up the gun on the way to the interview. Didn't think I'd ever need it."

  I looked from the dead man to Shannon, then back to the man. His gun was on the ground about a yard away. I couldn't think of anything to say. Cleo was on my mind.

  Shannon set her gun on the ground and took my hand. "It's over, right?"

  I squeezed her hand. "It's over."

  Chapter 30

  Two Weeks Later

  The sun streamed through the curtains, casting flower-shaped shadows across the bed. Greta and I had slept in.

  Rolling over, I saw it was already 7:30. My first instinct was to hop up and check my phone. Surely there was something I needed to do—check the homepage of The Barker, respond to an email from Bird, something.

  But there wasn't. For the first time in a long time, I had nothing to do.

  As it turned out, around the time Shannon was unloading her handgun into the killer's chest, police were breaking down his door in South Seattle. There were no fingerprints on the letter he sent to the Seattle Times, but investigators found a tiny piece of hair stuck on the seal of the envelope. An expedited DNA test matched the hair to a man in the criminal DNA database. The man was Martin McNally, a forty-five-year-old ticket taker for a Seattle underground tour company named Seattle at Night. He'd been arrested twice before and charged once for threatening to kill the mayor of Seattle for raising taxes. Police found Mikey Johnson of KING-5 news dead in his apartment, a boxy blue van parked out front.

  Greta rolled toward me and sat up. "Whoa, you're in bed. Weird."

  "I don't know what to do."

  "How about you get us some coffee?"

  I rolled out of bed and strolled into the kitchen. After putting on the coffee, I looked out the kitchen window over the sink. The gray skies were gone, replaced by a bright blue canopy over what looked like an unseasonably warm morning.

  After the shootout at the TV station, I'd taken three days off. I didn't write a word about the incident, and I turned down a few hundred interview requests. I gave quotes to only one journalist: Shannon. She was becoming a star, and traffic to her website was rising exponentially.

  I spent most of the time walking the streets of Seattle. It rained each day and I wore a raincoat and didn't carry an umbrella. I wanted to feel the rain. And I just walked. Walked and thought.

  Thought back on my journalism career with some regrets, but also some pride. I don't know if Burnside was right about me being his best and worst student, but I know I've let my best and worst qualities take the lead at different moments in my career.

  While I walked, I also made some decisions.

  The coffee machine beeped and I poured two cups, then splashed each with some probiotic coconut milk from the fridge—Greta's latest secret to glowing skin and a long life.

  Back in the bedroom, I handed her a cup and sat cross-legged on the bed. "I want to make some changes."

  "This sounds serious."

  "Not about you, honey, about me. About my work, my job."

  "Okay." She eyed me over the top of the coffee mug as she took a long, slow sip. "What kind of changes?"

  "I'm going to pull back from The Barker, get rid of half of my ownership stake. I'm going to offer a quarter ownership stake to Bird—he's earned it and then some. And I'm going to sell a quarter of my stake and invest in Shannon's website. I believe in her and I think, well, I think she's doing the work I could have done, might have done if things had gone differently."

  "Alex, you did—"

  "I'm not saying I didn't do any good work. I did. But I think she has the right vision for how the future of journalism should be. I'll still keep half my stake in The Barker—that's plenty—but I want to do something good with the money."

  Part of me was afraid she'd be pissed, but of course she wasn't. "I think that's great," was all she said.

  "We'll get Bird a couple more assistants, and he'll take over more of the day-to-day. I'll stay at The Barker, but I'm going to try to focus on bigger picture stuff. Partnerships with other media organizations, advocacy for public service journalism, that kind of thing. And I'm going to spend more time at home."

  "I like all of that." She set her coffee aside and laid her head on my leg. "But I meant what I said before. You need to do the work that makes you happy, makes you feel alive."

  I beamed at her. "I have. I really have. There have been some highs and lows, but I'm proud of what I've done. Not each and every story—there have been some real pieces of crap in there—but I've done some good work, too. I don't know. I feel like I'm ready for a new phase of my career, a new phase of life."

  Greta smiled in a way she often did. Like she understood me completely, maybe better than I understood me. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

  Neither of us did.

  It was noon by the time I checked my email, the latest I'd checked it in I don't know how long. Of course, messages from work had piled up, but I had all my work emails automatically forwarded to Bird now and he handled everything urgent. My eyes landed on a message from Camila.

  Alex-

  From what I've seen in the news, it sounds like you found trouble again. Or it found you. I'm still not sure which it is. But I'm glad to see you're okay, and there's something I want to tell you.

  I took your advice. I sat down and read my book, the whole thing. I didn't leave the house for three days. I sat and read for twelve hours a day, to confront my own thinking, my own work.

  You know what?

  It wasn't half bad. It's a mess, of course. You'd be driven crazy by the lack of structure, the redundancy, and the sometimes poetic language. But it's not half bad.

  The department has been urging me to publish something and, well, enrollment was low for winter quarter so I put in for a sabbatical and I got it. After finals, I'll be off for nine months, and I'm going to finish the book. I already have an agent working on a book proposal and cleaning up a couple sample chapters for publishers.

  When I get it in shape, I'd love for you to take a red pen to it before it goes out.

  Send my love to Greta and Cleo. I can't wait to meet her. Speaking of that, maybe I'll visit Seattle during my time off. I've been hiding in Iowa for close to twenty years—ever since John was murdered and everything that happened around that.

  It's time to get back out there.

  You helped me see that.

  Love,

  Camila

  It made me happy to think of Camila publishing a book. Over the years, I'd wondered from time to time whether I'd had anything to do with her decision to stay in Iowa after her mother died. Not me, exactly, but the fact that I'd inadvertently dragged her into my world, a world that had almost gotten her killed. Twice.

  When I'd met her she was one of the younger professors at NYU, on the fast track to becoming a major national voice in media criticism. As the relationship between the press and the public devolved over the last fifteen years, I couldn't help but w
onder whether Camila's brilliant mind could have helped us avoid at least a small portion of the animosity. She existed not only beyond the petty day-to-day squabbles of journalism, but in another realm entirely. Her voice would be trusted, and I felt hopeful that she was once again entering the fray.

  I tapped out a brief reply, telling her I'd be honored to read it when the time came, and promising not to take a red pen to all of her poetic language. I told her she'd be welcome to stay in our guest room if she made it up to Seattle during her sabbatical.

  "I can't wait to read it. Love, Alex," I concluded.

  Later that day, I sat in the lobby of Puget Commercial Real Estate. When Shannon came in, she had a big smile on her face.

  "You look great," I said. "Don't think I've seen you smile that big."

  She took the empty seat next to me. "Police dropped the charges."

  "Great news. I knew they would."

  "Your lawyer helped. She was the difference. If I'd been on my own, they could have railroaded me if they'd wanted to."

  "You did take evidence from the scene of a…well, not the scene of a crime but…"

  "It was unethical," Shannon admitted. "It was. Even though a lot of good came out of it, I wouldn't do it again."

  "I have to think Burnside, were he able to think it through, would have wanted his story out there. If you hadn't taken the notebook, it might never have gotten out. Think about it, if the police found the notebook, they wouldn't have known what to make of it. They're scared of the CIA too, and they might have just ignored the content and then given it back to his wife with the rest of his personal effects. And what would she have done with it? She told me she had little or no involvement in his stories. She probably would have stuck it in a box. If we'd been lucky, in six months it would have made it to some library with the rest of his papers, and some researcher might have discovered it five years down the road."

  "Still," she said, "Public Occurrences is growing. For the first time I think it could really take off, and I need everything to be above board. Pristine. This is a messy business, and with half of the public turning against journalists, I want to be beyond reproach. That's why I said I wouldn't do it again."

  "I get that," I said. "Speaking of your site taking off, did you wonder why we're meeting in a commercial real estate office?"

  For the first time, she looked around the lobby. "I literally didn't know until right now. I came to the address you texted me and…wait, why are we here?"

  "I'm selling a quarter share of The Barker and investing it into Public Occurrences. I figured you'd want to use a chunk of the money to rent a proper office space. We'll go around together today. I'll introduce you to the agent who found us the space for The Barker, help you get going. Then Greta and I are taking off for a few weeks. Gonna drive an RV around the southwest."

  Shannon stared at me with a look I couldn't read. It wasn't surprise, which is what I expected. It wasn't even gratitude. The look told me somehow she'd expected this, but that was impossible. "Why do you look like that?" I asked. "Say something."

  "What do I look like?"

  "I'm going to give you a lot of money. We're about to meet a real estate agent who's gonna take you around to show you offices. You're all over the news. You're going to get a book deal offer soon. You—"

  "Thanks, Alex. Really, thank you. I will gladly accept the money." She thought for a moment. "It's weird. I've pictured this moment many times. A big donor coming in and staking me for a lot of money. Now that it's here, I don't feel surprised."

  For a moment, I wondered whether I ought to be offended she didn't seem more grateful, but that was nonsense. Shannon didn't act as though the world owed her anything. She'd paid her dues. She was confident someone would eventually fund her work because she was one of the best reporters out there, and she knew it.

  I offered a broad grin. "Maybe that's because you pictured it so many times and worked your butt off to make it happen."

  The secretary stood and said, "Shannon Brass and Alex Vane. Mr. Graziano can see you now. Right this way."

  Shannon stood. She would lead the way.

  I touched her hand. "Hey Shannon, promise me one thing, okay?"

  She stopped, but didn't say anything. Shannon wasn't the kind of person to promise something before knowing what it was.

  "If my daughter Cleo comes looking for an internship in eighteen or twenty years, give her a shot, okay? I doubt she'll follow me into this profession, but if she does, well…just promise me you'll do your best to bring along the next generation when the time comes. When Burnside died, I wondered whether he'd been the last of the old school journalists. The last real journalist. Then I met you and, well, you've restored my faith."

  "Okay, Alex." She smiled, then strode into the office.

  As I followed her, an image floated through my head of a twenty-year-old Cleo sitting across from Shannon in a job interview. I had no idea what the profession would look like in twenty years. I didn't even know whether I wanted Cleo to grow up to be a journalist.

  But if she did, I'd want her working for someone like Shannon.

  —The End—

  Author Notes, October 2018

  Thanks for reading!

  You just finished the final book in the Alex Vane Media Thriller series. I appreciate you taking this ride with me.

  When I started The Anonymous Source back in 2012, I figured that the relationship between the press and the public was about to get more complicated. At the time, I was thinking about the way social media had upended everything and would continue to do so.

  I had no idea how bad things would get.

  As you likely noticed, some of the events in The Last Journalist seem, quite literally, ripped from the headlines. I knew this book would be timely, but I had no idea how closely it would mirror reality.

  I wish the problem was simple, that one person could be blamed. But that’s not the case. My thoughts about the media are complicated, and the best way to understand them is to read the Alex Vane series from the beginning.

  Now, some thanks…

  I worked closely on this book with my brother, Noah Brand, and my wife, Amanda Allen. I thank them in every book, and they deserve much more than that. I can’t wait to get them in a room to brainstorm our next project.

  Special thanks to my Street Team and ARC Team, who offer invaluable support all year round.

  Thanks to Victoria Cooper, who designed the cover for The Last Journalist, as well as the covers of all the Alex Vane books.

  Thanks to Chet Sandberg, who edited this book. If you think the writing flowed well, it’s largely because Chet made 1,730 unique edits, trimming over 2,000 unnecessary words in the process.

  And to the readers who enjoy my books, thank you so much!

  Now, back to the writing cave,

  A.C. Fuller

  Series List: The Alex Vane Media Thrillers

  The Anonymous Source

  (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 1)

  The Inverted Pyramid

  (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 2)

  The Mockingbird Drive

  (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 3)

  The Shadow File

  (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 4)

  The Last Journalist

  (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 5)

  ***

  You can also get books 1-3 together in the boxed set

  The Alex Vane Media Thrillers: 1-3

  Introducing The Crime Beat

  A brilliant reporter, haunted by her husband's death...

  A disgraced cop, tangled in a web of lies...

  Two unlikely heroes. One unthinkable crime.

  Perched on the soft tar of a New York City rooftop, a mysterious sniper fires a single round from a fifty caliber rifle. Five stories below, his target collapses on the marble steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dead.

  Crime reporter Jane Cole needs this story badly. Suspended NYPD cop Robert Warr
en is desperate to clear his name. They don't trust each other, but they make the perfect team. And as Cole and Warren track the killer, they uncover a plot so ruthless it shocks the conscience, a crime so expansive it will rock the world.

  Perfect for readers of Michael Connelly and fans of True Detective or Jack Ryan, The Crime Beat is your next bingeable series from bestselling author A.C. Fuller.

  Flip the page to start The Crime Beat, my latest bestselling series. Or get the whole book free on my website: www.acfuller.com.

  Free Preview of The Crime Beat, Episode 1: New York

  Chapter 1

  Sunday

  The old man’s life flashed through his mind as he methodically unpacked the rifle. His calloused hands had aged, but the muscle memory created by hundreds of repetitions still lived in his fingers. Laying the base of the weapon on his lap, he attached the barrel, locked the takedown pins into place, and affixed the scope. Finally, he rested the spiked feet on the soft tar at the edge of the townhouse roof.

  His back ached. Sharp pulses of pain coursed through his right knee. But the pain was worth it. His shot would change the world.

  Gritting his teeth, he dropped to his stomach and took in the crowd. Six stories down and across Fifth Avenue, a couple hundred people had gathered on the wide marble steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to greet the arrivals of celebrities and billionaires with ooohs, aaahs, and countless photos. This is what America has become, he thought. A handful of elites hoard the wealth and the sheeple snap pictures and praise them for it.