Cross Hairs (12 page)

“You guys be careful tonight. The boss man says there were some reporters who broke into our facility today. Do you all remember The Golden Rule? Let’s play by it tonight. Got it?”

The remaining voices beyond the door muttered in agreement. They understood. Kelly thought she did too and gasped at the order before cupping her hand over her mouth. Cal scowled at her, something he knew Kelly could see even in the darkness of the closet.

“Peppy, you’re headed to Seattle tonight. Big John, you’re going to Portland. And Ringo, you’ve got the lucky all-nighter to San Francisco. As always, keep a low profile and travel the speed limit. We don’t want anyone getting too interested in our product that shouldn’t be …”

“Product?” Cal faintly whispered. “I thought these people made vitamins and household cleaning supplies.”

“… and remember, if you see those reporters, shoot to kill. We’ll have a team clean up the mess and provide a nice cover story.”

The footsteps sounded as if they headed out in different directions. Big overhead doors rolled up, breaking the still air. The hum of forklifts zipping about the warehouse overwhelmed the silence.

But it didn’t matter to Cal. He still held his breath, hoping Kelly was doing the same. Maybe he wasn’t that interested in writing this story after all. If the teens were dead, the teens were dead. No amount of sleuthing could bring them back. But Cal had already dug too far. Now all these Cloverdale Industries goons were concerned with was silencing him and Kelly – permanently. Yet the story was getting more intricate and dangerous to Cal. It appeared that Cloverdale Industries was involved in a different type of multi-level marketing company—and it wasn’t legal.

CHAPTER 35

GUY SLAMMED HIS PHONE
down and let out another string of expletives. Two hours until deadline and his two best newsroom personnel had vanished. Between Cal and Kelly’s phones, Guy had left six messages and didn’t get a single response. He even sent Mindy over to Cal’s apartment to look for them, and he hadn’t heard from her in nearly an hour. His newsroom was falling apart with two hours to go before deadline.

But Guy didn’t really care about their big story, although he was sure their pursuit of it had something to do with all of Cal’s recent questionable behavior. All he wanted were two warm bodies writing articles and editing photos. This legendary gunslinger in the newsroom was turning his back on his arch nemesis – hard news. He was too tired to fight political battles and public perception. He just hoped that if he turned his back, no shots would be fired. It was time to ride off into the sunset and be a good newspaper man for a small community paper, where scandals surface on the next-to-last page at the bottom in the briefs section—if at all.

The voices in his head fought courageously.

“What’s your gut telling you, Guy?”

“It’s telling me that I’m going to get another ulcer worrying about this story.”

“Don’t you want to know the truth.”

“Sure, but nobody else here does. Why make any waves?”

“What’s happened to you, man? You used to stand for something.”

“I am standing for something—my sanity … and my job. There’s no need to mess with a good thing.”

And Guy settled it—for now. Just get those trouble-making reporters back into the office and put this week’s paper to bed. That would make this all go away right now. If only he knew where Cal and Kelly were, he would go get them himself.

Guy sat down at his desk, burying his head in his hands. He let out a long sigh. The powder keg was set to blow.

***

Joseph Mendoza looked across the office into
The Register
’s newsroom from his publisher’s perch—the only walled office in the building. He used to care about the truth at one point too. But not anymore. It didn’t pay nearly as well as the lies.

His office phone buzzed. It was Gold.

“Hello, Mr. Mayor. Any news to report?”

“That’s why I called you. Don’t you run a little thing called the
news
paper? Besides, it’s your employees that are mucking everything up.”

“They won’t be employed here any longer. As soon as I find them, they’re gone.”

“Even your niece?”

“Especially her. She still thinks she’s going to get this paper—and there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that I would give it to her.”

“Well, I applaud your resolve to do whatever it takes …” Gold’s voice trailed off. He paused. Then he restarted his sentence, pushing the limits of acceptable decibel levels. “… BUT IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! FIND YOUR EMPLOYEES OR ELSE SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!”

Yelling rarely rattled Mendoza. For someone coming from a lineage of impassioned Basque people, yelling merely revealed that one was unsatisfied with something. It didn’t usually convey the same urgency as someone outside his family might express. Gold was outside Mendoza’s family.

Mendoza shook as he hung up the phone, thoroughly frightened at the way Gold was growing more paranoid by the hour. It was traumatic enough that Gold had lost his son two days before, but to have his very way of life threatened? He wasn’t going to let this pass without doing some damage. Mendoza realized he wasn’t collateral either—he would be in the crosshairs if things didn’t go Gold’s way. His reporters’ whereabouts suddenly became his chief concern.

***

Still seething in his own right about the apparent abandonment of his two best news people, Guy might have accepted the order with welcome arms. Mendoza had just called him to say that Cal and Kelly were to be fired immediately—or whenever he saw them next.

Instead of gladly accepting this order to rid himself of the two biggest pains in his life over the past two days, Guy – the newspaper man gunslinger – stopped to think. Was his complicity in Statenville’s secret going to result in the death of both a reporter and photographer he had grown fond of? Was a sack full of money on his back porch every month worth having their blood on his hands? He was unsure of what his next step should be, even though he knew which one he preferred to take.

Guy also knew diplomacy was the key to surviving long enough to deliver the final editorial blow, if that’s the direction he decided to choose. In the meantime, he would have to seethe in private about granting permission to have his editorial power stripped.

CHAPTER 36

KELLY INCHED CLOSER TO
Cal, serving the two-fold purpose of calming her terror and putting pressure on his wound. Cal pulled her even closer.

“We’re going to be OK, Kelly, but you’ve got to hold it together. If these guys hear us, we’re done.”

Kelly quietly sniffled as she nodded. They both knew what was at stake—and it was far more than winning some writing award that seemed rather trivial considering the new ante.

For more than 30 minutes, Cal and Kelly sat motionless as the warehouse whirred with the sound of normal commerce. Every sound of approaching and fading footsteps created a series of emotional highs and lows for them. Would this be the moment someone would discover them before putting a few bullets in their defenseless bodies? Despite all the near misses, nobody seemed concerned with mopping the floor at the moment. What mattered was getting those mysterious deliveries out the door and onto their destinations.

Finally, the last audible footsteps faded and it was quiet again.

Cal was curious—and impatient. He pressed his face flat against the cold concrete floor and squinted one eye closed. With his other eye, he peered into the warehouse, looking for feet. He saw none. But he did see a stack of boxes just 10 feet outside the janitor’s closet.

Without a warning to Kelly, he jumped up and dashed out the door, grabbed a small box with a Cloverdale Industries logo imprinted on the side and ran back to the closet, re-securing the door.

“Are you nuts?!” Kelly shouted in a whisper.

“Yes, I am. But if these goons are gonna kill us, at least I want to know why.”

Cal took out his house keys and slid it across the tape that held the box together. Except for his moment of insanity, he had been careful to do everything as quietly as possible.

He opened the box and pulled out the packing material. Inside the box was a bottle of “Clean and Clear.” Instead of containing a cleaning liquid, it was filled with white crystals.

“That doesn’t look clean to me,” Cal whispered, shining the light of his cell phone on the foreign substance.

“It’s not,” Kelly said. “It looks like crystal meth.”

Cal attended plenty of wild college parties in his day, but he never stuck around long enough to see any drug usage beyond guys smoking weed. It was the first time he had seen it, much less held enough to guarantee him a 20-year prison sentence if a cop walked in on him now.

“What is this place, Kelly?”

“I’ve heard rumors but nobody ever told me anything for sure.”

“Rumors of what?”

“Oh, crazy stuff, like what you might hear at a sleepover party.”

“Like what?!” Cal was growing impatient and nearly let his voice rise above a whisper.

“OK, OK. I’ve heard a couple of times that Cloverdale Industries produces all these cleaning products and vitamins as a cover for its drug operation.”

“Drug operation?”

“Yeah, I haven’t heard much other than that. You know, kids talking in middle school. I never really believed it. I’ve got relatives who work here. They’re not those kind of people.”

“Well, I’ve got a bottle of crystal meth that says your middle school pajama parties revealed something more than who had a crush on Bobby Jackson.”

“Bobby Jackson?”

“Every school has a dreamy Bobby Jackson, right? Oh, forget it. The point is, I’ve got evidence in my hand that this is indeed
some
type of drug operation. Now, we need you to take a picture to give us some evidence to take back that isn’t going to get me thrown in jail for the most promising years of my career.”

“You want me to take a picture?”

“Yes. Just get out your camera. I’ll pour this on the floor and you can take a picture with the bottle.”

“Cal, that’s not going to prove anything.”

“Maybe not, but it might be enough to get the feds interested in investigating what’s going on here.”

Cal turned the light on and Kelly snapped a couple of pictures. Then back to darkness. Cal returned the contents to the bottle and was about to repackage the box when the sound of heavy footsteps began getting closer. This time, it didn’t sound like it was somebody who was going to pass by.

The footsteps stopped just short of the door. The clinging of what was undoubtedly a large keychain sounded like the chambering of a bullet to Cal and Kelly. They both held their breath. Cal didn’t think it mattered as he was convinced his heartbeat was audible.

A key slid into the lock. The doorknob turned.

CHAPTER 37

ONLY 90 MINUTES UNTIL
press time for
The Register
. Guy paced in his tight office space, trying to digest the news Mindy had just delivered.

She returned to the office 20 minutes before and gave Guy a full report. It was so thorough and marked with details that he wondered if she might be interested in being a reporter. After all, he was about to have an opening. Her work in gathering information at Cal’s apartment was a full three pay grades above making coffee.

When Mindy arrived at Cal’s apartment, she found Kelly’s car in the parking lot with two smashed in side windows. Broken glass littered the adjacent empty parking spaces.

Cal’s front door was wide open. The wood around the door handle splintered in several directions. Even the back door was open. And in between? Chaos.

Books, newspapers and magazines strewn across the floor. Chairs lying on their side. A smashed TV, likely as a parting gesture of good will. Cabinets were open. Smashed dishes covered the kitchen floor.

“Cal? Kelly? Are you guys here?” Mindy timidly called, hoping to not hear a sound as she maneuvered through the wreckage. She didn’t.

She ventured upstairs and saw more of the same. It was as if Cal’s bachelor pad had developed a stomach bug and vomited. At least she hoped the second floor was the work of intruders and not an indication of Cal’s sloppy housekeeping.

After Mindy swept through the house to ensure there wasn’t a clue for where Cal and Kelly might have gone, she found nothing that made much sense. Only an open shed door and what appeared to be fresh black motorcycle tracks on the neighboring patio. But there was nothing definitively linking the two.

Guy felt helpless. He wanted to help out his reporters but had no idea what to do. The sheriff’s deputies sure weren’t going to offer any help. And at this point, for all Guy knew, they were the ones who did this to Cal and Kelly. But he had no idea where to start to help. The best thing he could do was stay in his office and get out this week’s edition of
The Register
. If he lost his job, he might lose his credibility. He would likely be dismissed as a disgruntled employee trying to find a way to get back at his employer. That would all make finding an outlet to run Cal’s story all the more challenging.

So he sat at his desk and continued editing. And prayed.

CHAPTER 38

CAL FELT KELLY’S GRIP
tighten on his arms as they both cringed. This was it. No time for bravado. Only an immediate plea for mercy.

The door swung open and a hand groped the wall for the light switch.

Click!

“Cal? Kelly?” asked the whispering voice in bewilderment. “What are you doing in here?”

They both looked up to see a familiar friendly face: Buddy Walker, the Statenville High boys basketball coach.

“What are
you
doing here?” Cal whispered back as he inspected Walker’s blue jumpsuit with his name stitched into his left chest panel.

Walker stepped inside and shut the door. He hung his head.