Chapter 4 : A Newsworthy Find

The following morning at work, I couldn’t help but smile at the memory of the previous evening’s events. As I sat at my desk, I wondered when exactly would be the next time I saw Tahir. Then, my thoughts were interrupted by a knock on my cubicle partition.

“Thea, the boss wants to see you in their office,” Ruben said.

He was leaning heavily the wall, and it was clear from the bags under his bloodshot eyes that he was still a little hungover from whatever he did the night before.

Ruben Santiago Del Bosque was the staff photographer for The Bell City Journal. He was also Raine’s personal assistant by default, so it wasn’t unusual for him to be sent on all kinds of errands.

“Why?” I asked in irritation. “I sent the article they were waiting on yesterday morning.”

“You know they don’t tell me why,” Ruben said. “They just send me to bear the bad news.”

“Well,” I answered with a sigh. “I won’t shoot the messenger, but I will offer you an aspirin.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite.” He smiled gratefully. I handed him a bottle of pills and he shook two out into his hand.

“Don’t lie,” I said. “Ace is your favorite.”

“Ace is never nice to me,” he scoffed. “But she does keep me working. Better not keep Raine waiting. They’re in a Monday mood.”

I groaned and got to my feet. He was right, if I kept Raine waiting, they’d be mad by the time I got there. I took my coffee cup and headed for their office.

Raine Holmstrom had been editor of the paper since they were my age. They were willing to take a risk hiring young reporters, which is why I was able to land this job when I was fresh out of college. But they didn’t suffer fools. If you missed your deadlines or did lackluster work, Raine would send you packing.

For such a small town paper, The Bell City Journal could be a complex place to work. There were a lot of strong personalities to navigate. Ruben was a bit of a party boy, but he was an artist behind the camera. Working for the paper was just a way for him to pay the bills. It wasn’t his passion. Which was exactly the opposite for Legacy “Ace” Vidal.

It was weird to say that I had a professional rival, but it was true. Ace was ambitious and willing to go the extra mile to get a story. She would take any job that Raine handed her without question. The problem was, she wasn’t above lying to spice up the boring stories. She’d been forced to write two corrections last year and the negative attention had sent Raine through the roof.

Ace was on thin ice and she made it everyone else’s problem. She had become pushy and mean with everyone in the office. Especially Ruben and Annabelle Waters, our office secretary and my brother’s girlfriend.

Her treatment of Annabelle had escalated our rivalry. Raine had forced us to sit down with HR more than once in order to mediate our issues. Nothing changed, of course, but we were both careful to keep our issues under wraps to avoid annoying Raine.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Ace had something to do with this early morning summons.

Raine was alone in their office when I arrived. I walked in and shut the door behind me.

“I feel like I’m being sent to the principal's office every time you send Ruben to get me like that,” I said.

“Usually you are,” Raine responded.

Raine was about my height, 5’9”, and had shaggy brown hair. They were tall and slim, but somehow managed to fill a room with their presence anyway. It was weird how intimidating someone could be just with the force of their intellect and personality. Raine wasn’t someone to be underestimated.

“So am I getting detention?” I asked cheekily.

I was too tired for this. I hardly slept all weekend. I tried to push the reason for the lack of sleep out of my mind so that I wouldn’t blush in front of my boss. They did not need to know about my little dalliance with Tahir.

“No,” they said with a smile. “The opposite actually. You get a big, glittery gold sticker.”

“Ohhh,” I answered sarcastically. I walked in and sat in the chair in front of their desk. “What have I done to earn such an honor?”

“Passed a test you didn’t know you were taking,” they beamed. They passed a business card to me and I looked it over in confusion. “Is that name familiar at all?”

“Monday Okorie,” I read. “No, not at all. Who is that?” I flipped the card over in my hand and looked it over. It was embossed and the text shone in the light. This was obviously an expensive card.

“She’s a PR rep, and a damn good one. She represents Tahir Gujic and she’s done her level best to make sure that his name never appears in print.”

They were looking at me closely as they spoke, as if gauging my reaction.

“Isn’t that exactly the opposite of what a public relations representative is supposed to do?” I asked.

’d dealt with PR reps before. They usually negotiated interview terms and hovered nearby when their client was making remarks on the record. It seemed like an extremely annoying job, honestly.

“It’s certainly unusual, but her job is to do what her client wants and, for reasons we may never understand, Mr. Gujic wants to remain as anonymous as possible.”

I felt my face fall. If they knew that then why insist that I write about Tahir? I felt even worse about prying for information from him now.

“So why ask me to write about him?” I demanded.

“Partly because Monday and I have a long standing rivalry,” they admitted. “But mainly because I’m convinced that there’s something big going on in town and Gujic’s arrival is part of it.”

“Something big?” I repeated curiously. If they’d told me that on Friday, I would have believed it without question, but after meeting Tahir I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t sense anything negative from him, but I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly when I’d been with him either.

They glanced at the closed door and leaned their elbows on their desk. “I’m trusting you to keep this confidential,” they whispered.

“Okay,” I said uncertainly. “Just spit it out, Raine.” I really couldn’t deal with their drama today.

“Rumor has it that something odd was dug up in the mines,” they noted conspiratorially.

“Like what?” I asked with my brows raised.

They gave a noncommittal shrug. “My informant didn’t know. What they did tell me is that something was dug up, there was a huge commotion about it and the mine was shut down for the day. Then Douglas Ashworth showed up on site.”

“Mr. Ashworth would obviously show up if something strange happened in the mine,” I said dismissively.

“Right, that’s not odd in and of itself,” they agreed. “But something was loaded into his car and a few days later, I found out that Tahir Gujic was being flown in to consult.”

“So, you think some artifact was dug up and Mr. Ashworth is having it appraised?” I asked. That was a logical conclusion, given the situation. I still didn’t understand why they wanted a fluff piece about Tahir.

“Exactly,” they said excitedly. “But why keep it a secret? Ashworth has always been so transparent about everything. Why would he keep an archeological find a secret?”

“Maybe he just wanted to confirm what it was before making it public?” I suggested. It wouldn’t surprise me if some local teens had cobbled together some fake artifact as a prank. It would be embarrassing to announce a find and have to walk it back later.

They smiled a little. “I know that you like Ashworth and want to give him the benefit of the doubt,” they said. “But my intuition tells me that something weird is going on here.”

I wanted to argue, but Raine’s intuition was rarely wrong. “What does any of this have to do with the story you asked for about Tahir?”

“I’m hoping that the story will be enough to provoke a response from Monday. She’s refused to answer my calls or emails. I want some confirmation about what Tahir Gujic is doing here,” they answered, sounding frustrated.

I bit my lip and looked away. I hadn’t put anything in my article about Tahir being in town for work. It hadn’t seemed relevant at the time. Now I was glad that I hadn’t included it. I didn’t want him to feel like I’d betrayed his confidence. Then again, why would he tell me he was here for a job if it was supposed to be a secret?

“Pretty shitty to send me in blind if you think something clandestine is going on,” I said softly.

Raine sighed and stood from their desk chair. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. You know I wouldn’t have done it if I thought there was any chance of danger.”

I scoffed. “Please. You make it sound like there’s some secret mafia deal going on. Mr. Ashworth wouldn’t be involved in anything untoward.”

I knew Kim and her family too well to think anything illegal or immoral was going on. It was fun to speculate and it was our job to dig into newsworthy situations, but the insinuation that my friend’s father was up to something nefarious pissed me off.

“I didn’t say he was,” Raine continued. I could tell by their tone that they were only trying to appease me.

“Besides, Tahir was nice. He just wants his privacy. There’s nothing wrong with that,” I insisted.

Raine raised their eyebrows in surprise. “Tahir,” they said. “You’re on a first name basis?”

I froze. I’d shown my hand and I couldn’t take it back. “He was very nice to me,” I said tensely.

His eyes were haunting my dreams and the memory of his lips on mine was driving me insane, but Raine didn’t need to know that. I fully intended to see Tahir again for strictly personal reasons. I couldn’t do that if I was tasked with investigating his actions in town.

Raine scoffed. “I’m sure he was.”

“Look, I won’t be writing about him again,” I said suddenly. “I don’t feel right about harassing the man.”

That was only half true. I had to admit to myself that I was biased and I couldn’t write objectively about him. If Raine was right and there was some kind of a story here, they were going to have to ask Ace to cover it. As much as it pained me to hand a story over to her, I couldn’t investigate Tahir.

“It’s not harassment,” they said in irritation. “And I can’t trust anyone else on this one. You’re the best investigator I have and the only person at this paper with any sense of professional confidentiality.”

“Raine, I can’t,” I insisted. I could picture Tahir’s heated stare as he leaned in to kiss me and it made my heart skip. “I won’t write about him again.”

“Thea,” they said sternly. “This isn’t up for negotiation. If this story progresses the way I expect it to, you’re going to cover it or you’re off my team.”

I stared at them in shock. Did they just threaten to fire me?

“That was harsh,” they muttered upon realizing what they had just said.

“Yeah, it was,” I said angrily. “You tricked me into this and I’m telling you now that I’m not okay with it. I won’t use my relationship with the Ashworth’s to help you pry into their affairs and I honestly can’t believe that you would expect me to.”

A tense silence fell over the room as I stared at Raine and they stared back.

“Alright,” they finally conceded. “This is the last you’ll hear from me about Tahir Gujic.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Despite their words, somehow I knew that this wasn’t the end of the issue. As long as Tahir was in town, I would always wonder what he was really doing here.