Chapter 8 : A New Target
Chapter 8: A new Target
Keava POV
It was a cold and crisp morning when I received a message from Roman to meet up. I had nothing to do that day so I accepted gladly. his invitation gladly.
When I arrived at the cafe he had chosen, he was already there. I admired that he was never late and always appeared to be ahead of time.
“Roman,” I greeted with a smile.
“Keava,” he smiled back and felt a butterfly do a tiny backflip in my belly.
Roman slid an envelope across the table. Inside was a tablet displaying a picture of a woman in an elegant red dress.
“Carmen Vendal,” I said, recognising her from the news and other sources. “She’s quite infamous.”
“Yes, even in my circles,” Roman said as he looked around the little seaside café. “Her…’quirks’…have gained her a bit of a reputation. Her oil sites have caused a disaster or two in a few countries, though she has managed to avoid jail time and deflate accusations of malpractice.”
“So why her in particular, not that I’m not anxious to find some concrete dirt on her.”
“Because she’s one of Salazar’s main backers,” Roman said bluntly. “If she takes a hit then so will he.”
“I thought the whole point of this was to avoid putting a bigger target on my back,” I said while swiping through the different files on the tab. “Surely going after his main backer is a bit like waving a red flag in front of a bull?”
“Carmen is dangerous on her own,” Roman said sternly, staring deeply into his cup of coffee. “Exposing her with real concrete evidence would do the world a lot of good.
“And I’m just supposed to believe that you’re doing all of this from the goodness of your heart?” I raised an eyebrow.
Honestly I wanted to believe that. I wanted him so badly to be the good guy so that I could rest easy knowing that my taste in men was not geared only towards douches and psychos.
“I don’t care what you believe, Keava,” he muttered, raising the cup to his lips, “As long as I can trust you, that’s what matters.”
The waiter brought the bill. Both he and I reached for it, our hands meeting above it. To pull away and apologise was the easiest recourse to take, for both of us. But, and perhaps it was my imagination, we seemed to let the touch linger for longer than was necessary.
His skin was pleasantly warm, not clammy or sweaty, just warm.
“Sorry,” he said.
He pulled his hand away, albeit slowly.
“I’ll take care of this,” he pointed to the bill.
“No, let me pay for my coffee,” I insisted, “You don’t need to flex your wallet, I know your net worth.”
Roman laughed. It was the first time I heard him really laugh and it made my stomach twist pleasantly.
“I assure you, I’m not flexing,” he smiled, “My uncle was incredibly old-fashioned and made me promise that I wouldn’t let a woman pay for any part of her meal, not because she couldn’t, but because it was an honour for me to do so. I hope that doesn’t offend you.”
“Did he make you promise to do that even when the situation was entirely professional?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m not sure…he never did specify.”
“I’ll take care of the tip then, seeing as I’m actually paying for anything edible,” I said, “Surely your uncle would be okay with that much.”
Roman grinned again. He placed a twenty dollar bill on the table and allowed me to add my own.
A silence followed where we just sat there finishing our drinks. Every once in a while our eyes met but we continued to pretend that it was not the other upon whom we were looking.
“I should get going,” I said. I could feel my face turning a bit pink without a social buffer, “I have work to do as I’m sure you do as well.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said quickly, “I didn’t mean to keep you. Perhaps we could meet up in a few days to discuss progress.”
I nodded with a smile and wondered whether ‘Progress’ was meant entirely in business terms.
As I walked away my phone buzzed. It was a text from Helen with a link to a Porter Times article, our competitors. Usually I would ignore these texts from Helen as it was mainly her way of wanting to rant about our rivals, but stopped when I saw whose name was on the by-line: Tammy Smith. ANd then I read the headline…it was my headline, or a headline of an article I had not yet published. That particular article had the only copy that was kept safe on a flash drive…the location of which only I knew.
Filled with dread dread, I needed to head to my office as quickly as I could.
“That absolute conniving bitch,” I fumed.
I had just finished reading the article with Shirley and was absolutely livid. The article itself was well-written, precise and captivating–because I was the one who wrote it.
Tammy Smith had been fired from our paper two months previously for falsifying her sources. Now here she was, working for our rivals and passing my discarded content off as her own.
The article itself was one I had dropped when the Salazar story hit my radar. Like all my discarded projects, I loaded it onto a red flash drive just in case I would need to refer back to it later; a flash drive that had mysteriously disappeared from my office the day that Tammy was fired.
There was no doubt that the article was ninety percent written by me…Tammy hadn’t even bothered to paraphrase or add anything new except for the conclusion.
“Surely there has to be some legal action you can take against her?” Shirley insisted.
“I have no proof that the articles are mine,” I groaned. “The only copies I had were on that drive.”
Shirley stared at me in disbelief.
“So you’re telling me that a brilliant journalist such as yourself never made back-up copies?” she gasped.
I palmed my face in frustration. Shirley was right, I had made a giant error and now I was paying the price for it.
Not only was it bad enough that Tammy had my articles, but I had made notes on which sources I had used for each story. She now had access to at least half of my usual sources.
Informants generally didn’t have any loyalty to any particular journalist, only the one who was currently playing them. They wouldn’t reject Tammy if she paid them well.
“Helen is going to kill me when she finds out Tammy has my drive,” I groaned, “She’s already pissed enough as it is that Tammy is trending.”
“I suppose there’s no point in trying to get it back?” Shirley asked, trying to find a glimmer of hope.
I was sure my mistake had been learned from and Tammy had probably made multiple copies already. I was sure Tammy had made multiple copies already, learning from my own mistake.
“I have other things to worry about besides some fraud,” I said bitterly, “She’ll run out of material sooner or later and have to rely on her own putrid skill.”
A thought suddenly hit me; Atlas was one of the sources that cropped up regularly in my files. If Tammy had been in contact with him then perhaps he may have mentioned something to her before he disappeared. It was a long shot and getting her to cooperate would be difficult but I had to try something.
I had to get dressed.
“Oh no” Shirley sighed, “Your brain wheels are turning again aren’t they?”
“I have to go see Tammy,” I said like a person running a marathon, “She might know something I need too, for once in her life.”
“Ugh fine, I’m coming too,” Shirley grumbled.
“What? No!”
“Uhm, yes! This Tammy girl sounds like the type who can be bribed if your powers of persuasion can’t woo her into submission.”
I sighed. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have some support and a back-up plan.
However, Tammy was nowhere to be found. I managed to track down her landlord who said that Tammy had moved out of the apartment a few months ago, hinted that she was living with a new boyfriend.
He also said that he was still waiting on her last month’s rent but was unable to track her down; the new address she had given was a fake.
The next step was the Gazzete. Luckily I was an anonymous reporter so they would not recognise me.
I pretended to be Tammy’s cousin who was trying to get in touch with her. After speaking to a few different people, I finally spoke to the editor who said that Tammy was a remote intern so they had no idea where she lived.
Eventually I gave up on the search for thorn in my side for