Sebastian

Chapter 1

Maggie

“We need to get this taken care of right away. No one can ever know. We’ve already had a leak from someone in this building. Some reporter has been calling, trying to get information on budget spending.” 

That was the voice of Mayor Richard Johnson. I had a sneaking suspicion that our beloved Mayor was not quite as squeaky clean as his image would suggest.

“People always want to know about the budget. That’s nothing new, Richard. You need to relax.”

“Relax? Relax? Are you fucking kidding me?” Richard boomed. “If they keep digging, you know what they’ll eventually find. We need to make sure our bases are covered. Make sure it’s buried.”

I had no idea who Mayor Johnson was speaking to because I was hiding in the Mayor’s supply closet in his office. I had come in to snoop after hours and had been told that he would be gone by six. It was now seven and when I got here a half hour ago, he was gone. Five minutes into my snooping, footsteps echoed down the hallway and left me nowhere to go except in the closet. I’d been sitting in here for a good half hour while they talked about everything and anything, but never really giving away a whole lot of information. What little I had heard let me know that I was on the right track, but didn’t give me much to go on. I knew I needed to continue to look at the budget, but that didn’t tell me what aspects of the budget.

“I’ll make sure no one knows. I’ve been talking with someone that I think we can use. He’s got a lot of gambling debt that I think he’ll want taken care of.”

“Do it. I want this taken care of by the end of the week.”

There were a few more minutes of conversation about meetings that would be occurring over the next few days and then the footsteps clicked across the floor to the door. A soft snick let me know they had exited. I waited a few more minutes in the darkness of the closet before slowly opening the door and peeking out. The only light came from the soft glow of some lights they kept on at night in the cubicle area of the office.

Peeking towards the hallway, I saw that no one was around. I crept over to the desk and searched for anything that would hint at what the Mayor was trying to cover up. Obviously, he wouldn’t keep it laying around on the desk, but I searched anyway. The bottom drawer of his desk was locked and after searching the others, I pulled out my lock pick set and quickly opened the drawer. Dozens of files were stacked neatly, none of them labeled. 

About halfway through the drawer I found one file that had a list of properties and their market value. The list was odd because none of these properties were in a particularly good part of town. I couldn’t tell exactly what was at these locations, but I knew it wasn’t where any of the public offices or public services were located. I pulled out my phone and quickly snapped photos of everything that was in the folder. 

A noise from somewhere out in the main office drew my attention. Not seeing anything, I decided that maybe I had overstayed my welcome, or lack thereof. Sighing at not getting to go through the whole drawer, I quickly shut and locked the drawer back up. I pulled out a rag from my back pocket and quickly wiped down everywhere I had touched.

After assuring myself that I had left no trace behind, I walked to the door and peeked into the hallway. Seeing the coast clear, I softly shut the door and was turning to head down the hall when I heard the dreaded voice.

“Hey, what are you doing in my office? Stop right there!”

Yeah, I don’t think so. I took off at a dead run for the stairs. I had to get down five flights of stairs and across the lobby to reach freedom. Until then, someone could easily snatch me without anyone knowing. There were now two voices behind me yelling at me. They both belonged to the men that had been in the Mayor’s office earlier. 

A gun fired behind me and I was just opening the door when I felt pain slice through my arm. I fell through the stairwell door, landing hard against the cement floor. I quickly got to my feet, ignoring the pain for now. It wouldn’t do me any good to dwell on how bad it was. If I stopped, I would be caught and no doubt end up with my feet chained to a cement block at the bottom of the Delaware River. 

Pushing myself harder, I burst through the first floor door and bolted across the lobby. I had just made it to the front door when more bullets pinged around me. Luckily, none hit their target and I was able to escape into the night. The streets were still fairly busy, so I was able to blend in with the semi crowded sidewalk. I had parked about a block away, so I quickly made my way back, resisting the urge to look behind me. I didn’t want to draw anymore attention than necessary.

Unlocking my car was a little tricky since my hands were shaking. Normally my job didn’t scare me, but then again, getting shot at wasn’t a daily occurrence either. When the lock finally turned, I slid into the seat of my twenty year old car and quickly pulled into traffic. I watched the rearview mirror, but when it didn’t appear that anyone was following me, I made my way back to the office. I worked at The Pittsburgh Press and my boss, Mr. Hughes, was usually at the office until well past ten. The paper was his life and he took everything about the entire operation very seriously. In fact, his wife had left him years ago because she knew she would always come in second. He had never remarried, deciding that no woman could ever come close to his baby.

My vision was getting a little blurry and I thanked my lucky stars when I pulled into the parking lot of the paper. More sluggish than before, I made my way into the building, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible. If the man that shot me looked for people that were brought in with gunshot wounds at the hospital, they would find out real fast who was in the office building. My only option was to attend to my wounds alone.

By the time I reached my boss’s office, I was sweating and stumbling everywhere. My legs barely held me up anymore and I faintly heard my boss asking if I was okay before passing out on the ground. I didn’t stay out for long though, as I felt a sharp slap across my face. I came back to reality grudgingly and lifted up as gently as I could on my good arm. Wincing as I stood, Darren Hughes helped me to my feet and over to a chair where I plopped down.

“You want to tell me what the hell happened? Is that blood on your arm?” He pulled my jacket sleeve down none too gently and examined the wound. “Jesus Christ, Maggie. You’re not supposed to get yourself shot! You’re a damn reporter, not an enforcer for the mafia.”

“This story is big, Darren. I’m onto something here.”

“First, we need to get you to the hospital and have you looked at.”

“No. Absolutely not. Anyone looking for GSW’s would find out it was me and I’d be as good as dead.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Only you, Maggie. Why is it that you’re my only reporter that’s always causing trouble?”

“Because I’m good at my job.”

“Yeah, well, one of these days, being good at your job is gonna get you dead.”

“Do you want to hear about the story or not?”

Sighing, he pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go to my bathroom and I’ll get that cleaned up while you tell me about this story that’s worth getting shot over.”

“You know it wouldn’t be that good if they weren’t shooting at me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.”

He started cleaning the wound with soap and water before finding some peroxide and gauze. Believe it or not, this was not my first injury on the job and not the first time Darren had done this. This was, however, my first gunshot wound. Not that I hadn’t been shot at before, this was just the only one that connected.

“So, tell me what you found.”

“Well, I broke into the Mayor’s office after a source told me that she found some documents that pointed to public funds being sent into offshore accounts. She said that there has been a bunch of strain on the city right now because emergency services keep having their budgets cut. The Mayor assigned a special budget oversight committee over a year ago, but so far, nothing has come from it.  

He put some gauze over the wound and taped it in place. “Sometimes politics gets in the way. It’s unfortunate, but it happens. I haven’t heard a smoking gun yet, and I’d love to hear the part where you broke laws by breaking and entering.”

I gave him a pointed look. This wasn’t the first time I had gone to extreme lengths to get my story. Unethical? Maybe, but the people I helped take down were corrupt. 

We walked back out to his desk where I sat in a chair and he leaned against the front of his desk.

“They were talking about the budget and if someone dug enough, they would find something. They also mentioned that a reporter was calling and digging around, so I’ll have to be a little more inventive about getting my information.”

Darren rubbed a hand over his face. “Maggie, you are by far the most challenging employee I have.”

“But I always bring you a good story.”

“Yeah, you do. Did you get anything else?”

“They talked about paying off someone with gambling debt to take care of their problem. Maybe an accountant? Anyway, after they left, I found some files that were locked away-“

“Of course they were.”

“-And one of the files had property listings and values, but none of those properties were anywhere near any public buildings. I snapped photos of everything in the file to look over later. I didn’t really get to go through all the files, but this is a start.”

Darren sighed heavily before getting up and walking back around his desk and sitting in his worn, leather chair. He leaned back and tapped his finger against his lips for a minute. I could see the wheels in his head turning. He was trying to decide if he wanted me to pursue this story or not. Whether he liked it or not, this story had the potential to be explosive. He wouldn’t be able to pass on it, which he confirmed a minute later.

“Fine. Run with the story and see where it takes you, but watch your goddamned back.”

I stood a little too fast and the blood rushed to my head, but I recovered quickly. “I’ll probably work from home tomorrow while I do some research on the property listings.”

“That’s fine. Do you need an assistant on this?”

“Not yet. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for yet. Besides, you know I work better alone.”

I smiled at him as I walked out the door and headed for my car. In the six years since I had graduated with my degree in journalism, I had gone after every hard hitting story I could find. At first, I was just the newbie around the office and was given shitty assignments, but I quickly learned that researching other stories in my own time got me noticed a lot faster than just hanging around the office paying my dues.

I headed back to my house in a small subdivision that was probably better suited to grannies, but was exactly what I needed. I did a lot of research after work and didn’t want to be kept awake by loud neighbors that partied until all hours of the night. My neighbor to the left was an old woman that had lost her husband twenty years ago. She had stayed single and that was surprising to me. She was really feisty and was constantly giving me advice on my love life, and not the kind you want to hear from an older woman either. I’m talking really dirty advice. The kind I didn’t even talk about with my friends.

My neighbor to the right was an older man, Harry, that had been single his whole life. He had never wanted to be tied down to one woman, sure that the good life was sleeping with as many women as he could. When I first moved here, I doubted that he was still living that lifestyle, but then I met Aggie, my neighbor to the left. I saw the looks that Harry shot her and the way Aggie flirted with him. If you’ve never seen two people in their seventies flirting, it’s definitely something for your bucket list.

When I pulled into the driveway of my two bedroom, nine hundred square foot house, the neighborhood was already silent. It was September now and the leaves were starting to change color. Soon I would be raking leaves and getting ready to shovel snow. That thought depressed me. There was nothing I hated more than having to take care of snow first thing in the morning. I liked to grab my coffee and head out to the office right away.

My left arm throbbed as I shifted my bag from my right hand to my left so I could open my front door. I was definitely going to need some painkillers to take the edge off. Still, it wasn’t the worst I had ever been injured. Somehow, I always got lucky and escaped relatively unscathed. 

I pushed the door open and was just stepping inside when the front window broke and something fell to the floor in my living room. Time stood still as I stared at the object laying on my floor. I thought vaguely of running, but didn’t have time to fully process that thought before light exploded around the room accompanied by a loud bang that disoriented me.

I dropped to the floor, covering my head and praying that when they found my body, I wouldn’t be in little, bloody pieces. My grandparents didn’t deserve to bury me like that. The longer I laid there, the more I realized that I wasn’t actually going to die. I uncovered my head and looked around the room, my head still spinning from the loud sound that had occurred so close to my ears. I was still partially blinded from the bright light that had filled the room moments before.

“Maggie! You alright, girlie?”

Harry came ambling up the steps of my porch and barged into my house wielding a shotgun.

“Harry! Please, put some pants on! I don’t need to see that.”

Harry was standing in front of me in a pair of tighty whities and nothing else. I shielded my eyes from the view as he walked further into my house and checked it for anyone that might be lurking. Thank God I couldn’t see very well.

“Maggie, dear. Is everything okay? I heard a loud bang and thought I saw Harry run over…oh dear Lord. Would you look at that.” Her hand was laying against her chest and her mouth was hanging open. She started adjusting her old robe and fixing the tight curls on her head. It was then that I realized Harry had walked back into the room and Aggie was preening for him.

Harry stepped forward, still holding his shot gun at the ready, not at all ashamed of his rather exposed body. In fact, as Aggie checked him out, he stood up straighter and puffed out his chest. By the way these two were acting you would never guess that there had just been an explosion at my house. 

Sirens sounded in the distance and soon cops were pulling up to my driveway and running toward the door.

“What the fuck?” One officer asked as he walked into the house and saw me on the floor with an almost completely naked Harry and Aggie in her ratty bathrobe. “Sir, you need to put down your weapon now.” Harry did as the officer asked and another officer entered, going to retrieve the weapon that was now on the floor. “We got a call for shots fired. Who’s lives at this residence?”

“That would be me,” I said as I stood. The officer came toward me, his gaze assessing. “I’m Officer Redding.” He turned to Harry and eyed Harry who didn’t seem at all ashamed at his almost naked state of undress. “Was this man threatening you in any way?”

“You mean other than threatening to blind me further?” I asked sarcastically. Harry obviously wasn’t a threat to anyone at this moment. He could look pretty mean when he was fully clothed, but right now all I wanted to do was run from the underwear that were slipping from his wrinkly body.

“Can you tell me what happened here?”

“I just got home and I walked in, the window broke, and something landed in the room. Then this bright flash and explosion happened. I thought it was a grenade or something, but then nothing happened.”

Officer Redding walked over to the burnt mark on my carpet and examined the spot. “Flash bang.” He stood and looked at me questioningly. “Do you have any idea who would do this? Make any enemies lately?”

“I’m a journalist for The Pittsburgh Press. There’s rarely a day when I don’t piss someone off.”

There was no way I was going to tell the officer what had happened tonight. I was definitely onto something if someone tried to kill me twice in one day.

“So, why didn’t it go off? I mean, I was expecting the house to explode or something.”

“Flash bangs are used to disorient. Most likely, it was to scare you, make you think that you were about to die. So, I’m gonna need a list of names from you. Anyone that you feel would come after you.”

“Most of the people that would come after me are already in jail. The list is long and I’m guessing they have bigger problems than coming after a reporter.”

“Revenge is an awfully good motivator.”

I pursed my lips. There was no way he was going to get me to talk. Time to put my theater skills to work. I stumbled slightly and sank down into the chair I had been standing next to. 

“Are you alright, miss?”

“Yes, I think…I think it’s just a little too much right now. I think I just need to rest for a little bit.”

The officer eyed me skeptically, but relented. “Alright, well I’m going to need your name and contact information. I’ll talk to the officer outside and we’ll get a crime scene unit in here right away to find out what we can. In the meantime, you need someplace safe to stay for the night. Are you alright to go on your own, or would you like an escort?”

“I’ll be fine on my own. I think I just need to sleep.”

“Right.” He didn’t sound too convinced, but he let it go. “We’ll just get your information and you can be on your way. I’ll expect you down at the station tomorrow to give a statement.”

“Of course.”

He walked closer to me and leaned down, his mouth next to my ear. “Next time, try acting a little more shaken up earlier. No officer would buy the bull you just pulled.”

He pulled back and gave me a smile. I gave the officer my information, then grabbed my bag from the floor. While the officers were outside talking, I quickly grabbed my pertinent files and laptop, shoving them into my purse and heading back out to my car.

With a quick wave, I headed to the office, figuring that might be the safest place to stay tonight. Darren was still at the office, big surprise, so I headed over to fill him in on the latest.

His eyes went big when I walked through his door for the second time in just a few hours. “Maggie, what are you doing back here? Don’t tell me that you broke into someone else’s office tonight.”

“No, but someone knows that I’m investigating the Mayor.”

“Oh, shit. Alright, lay it on me.”

“I got home and someone threw a flash bang threw my front window. The crime scene unit is working there now, so I can’t stay there. I thought I’d just hang out here tonight. I can sleep on the couch out there.”

“You can stay on my couch in here. It’s more comfortable.” I nodded. “Other than that, you’re okay?”

“Yeah, it just threw me off balance for a little bit. I think I’m just going to look over some documents for a while. Don’t mind me.”

I walked over to his couch and pulled out the information I had been going over earlier in the day. As much as I wanted to start researching the new documents I found at the Mayor’s office, I needed to finish what I had already started.

Before I knew it, hours had passed and at some point Darren had gone home. Looking at my watch, I saw it was well past midnight, so I turned out the light and spread out on the couch. It was comfortable, but I rarely slept well anyplace other than my own bed. I used my sweatshirt as a blanket and finally dozed off after closer to sunrise than I would have liked.