Exponential
Page 74
Chapter 30
Mara felt she was finally ready. The anticipation was making her extremely anxious. The excess coffee didn’t help either. For a moment, she wished that she smoked. It would give her something to do. How lamentable that she had been pushed this far. She had a good hearty meal at a local diner that she walked to and used some of her precious cash to finally buy a better coat. Not one that was particularly her style of fashion, but it would keep her warm and even had a hood. The change in the weather looked like she might need one.
It was about 5:30 when she finally arrived through the dark, blustering wind to the small office of the Advertiser. Rae was still there, working on the story.
“I thought I would have it done by now, but there are a lot of other things I have to do to keep the place running as well,” Rae said. “I was also thinking that it might not be a good idea to come here. If these people who are after you know about this meeting as you suspect, they might already be in town and might have seen you. If they knew you were here, it might be a compromise.”
“I’m so paranoid at this point, I agree.”
“Well, you’re here and we can leave by the back way. I have a nephew that’s supposed to give you a ride. I still don’t like the idea of you going alone!”
“I know, but it’s like I said, by tomorrow, one way or another, you can go public with the story.” She didn’t add ‘whether I make it or not’.
“Before you go, let me show you what I’m working on.” As Rae spoke, she carefully closed the blinds on the front windows. Then she returned to her work area which included a pretty recent looking laptop computer and high quality color printer.
She reviewed the rough draft so far. It was hard boiling the exposé down to something appropriately sized for a newspaper. But, in the end, Mara thought it was a pretty good piece. A nice little bombshell to get the ball rolling. And if it appeared in a major newspaper, there would be no stopping it.
By the time they finished, it was after six. Mara kept checking the time. She wanted to be early so she could be there first. Rae noticed her nervous habit and assured her that her nephew, Ross, would be there any minute to give her a lift. Almost on cue, a youngish looking man came slamming through the front door.
“Ross, this is Mara. You know where she needs to go right?”
“Yeah, sure, up by that new transmitting tower right?”
“Just take her there and drop her off. Make sure no one follows you.”
“OK.”
Rae rummaged through her purse and extracted a mobile phone. “I want you to take this with you Mara. It can’t hurt to have a little added security and besides, you will eventually be needing someone to pick you up.” She handed the phone over to Mara. “Let me give you the number here and at my house. I should be at one or the other. And if you need to call, don’t worry about what time it is.”
“I don’t know…” began Mara. She hesitated out of a natural sense of politeness not to borrow things from people you don’t know not knowing if you will ever really return it.
“Just take it and go! I insist…”
Mara gave her thanks and put the phone into one of the large pockets of her new coat.
“Ross, I’m going to send Mara out the back door. Could you drive around the block and come up to the back door? Make sure no one follows.” He thought that was an odd request, but Aunt Rae was a bit of an eccentric anyway. He wasn’t sure just what this was all about, but Aunt Rae said it was very important. He shrugged, turned and slammed out into the blustery night.
“Ross’s dad was my husband’s brother, he owns the hardware store up the street.”
“Was?”
“Well, yes, I separated from my husband some time ago, but I always got along good with the rest of the family and Ross will probably end up owning the hardware store someday. Having some family here is one of the things that brought me here. Funny how I always got along with his family better than my husband ever did.”
Mara gathered her purse, checked again that the phone was in her pocket and headed out the back door as Ross pulled up. She paused for a moment and Rae gave her a long look before saying good-bye.
Then she stepped into the gloom of the increasingly turbulent night.