A Soul To Steal (3 page)

She would be gone now, he thought. If there was destiny involved, surely it had just slapped him in the face and passed him by.

He tossed the paper in a recycling bin and left the shop.

*****

Quinn stared at his desk and for the 15
^th
time this week wondered how he got anything done. The desk was beyond a disaster—it was a crater filled with papers, pads, pens, highlighters and paperclips. Underneath all of it could be the
Dead Sea
scrolls, but Quinn seriously doubted he would ever know.

It was a pile of rubble that shifted from place to place, exposing bare brown areas of desk. He didn’t think the entire desk would ever be seen again, at least not while he worked there.

Scattered around were various pieces of Tupperware, which he hoped would find their way back to his apartment one day. But considering that every day he forgot they were there, he thought they would have to get up and walk home themselves.

Quinn slung his bag onto an extra chair and flicked on the computer. The computer had no sooner booted up then a little sign appeared in the window.

“How could you perform an illegal function yet, you dumb machine?” Quinn asked it.

Quinn turned off the computer and started again.

He hated computers. Clearly the feeling was mutual. A day that went by without a major computer fault eating one of his stories or just generally going haywire was an event to celebrate. Quinn thought maybe it would help if Ethan actually shelled out some real money for this place, but that was like asking for a miracle.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by Kyle, who practically burst through the door from the stairwell, walked quickly to his desk and threw his bag on a chair.

“Fantastic,” Kyle declared, to nobody in particular. “Absolutely fantastic.”

Quinn didn’t reply.  You didn’t bother replying to Kyle. In a way, his manner of conversation was like a bad computer program. No matter what input you gave, his output would always be the same.

“I mean fantastic,” Kyle said again, for the first time really turning to Quinn.

“What is fantastic?” Quinn asked, not exactly expecting it to make any difference.

“The fire last night. Whooh, boy,” and Kyle shook his head as if he could not
believe
someone had not seen this “fantastic” thing. “Makes me wish I were still a fireman.”

“Thought you were a policeman,” Quinn shot back.

“Of course, of course,” Kyle said, as if this were a minor detail. “But we handled fires all the time. But last night. Last night was...”

He stopped as if searching for the right word.

“Fantastic?” Quinn offered, smiling slightly to himself.

“Yes,” Kyle said, and pointed to Quinn, gesturing with his finger to his nose. “Yes. Absolutely fantastic. This stupid kid was playing with matches in the garage and managed to light some dry wood lying around.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” Quinn said.

“Yeah, well, you should have seen what happened next,” Kyle said, savoring the moment, his hands twitching slightly while his eyes shifted away from Quinn and stared into space.

“The kid ran out, got his parents. And they ran in. And the father saw it, right? He knew what was going to happen.”

“What happened?” Quinn asked, still vaguely looking more at his computer, which looked like it was crashing again, than Kyle.

“The gasoline, man,” and Kyle came up right next to Quinn, as if to whisper conspiratorially.  “Two cans of it—just sitting there. You wouldn’t believe it. When it went off, it was like a bomb. A large explosion.”

“Jesus, was anybody hurt?” Quinn asked, for the first time really looking at Kyle. But Kyle still had that far away look, as if he were replaying the whole thing in his mind.

“Was anybody hurt?” Quinn repeated, with more emphasis.

“What? Oh, no,” Kyle said. “No, the guy knew there was no way. He just got his family out and ran. Ran and ran.  But the garage really went up. I saw that fire burning, and whew! What a doozy. Fireguys said they hadn’t seen one like that since the gas explosion over in Ashburn.”

Quinn didn’t respond. He didn’t want to talk about the gas explosion in Ashburn. Janus and he had been the first on that scene—before even the police arrived. It wasn’t a pleasant memory.

“Amazing,” Kyle said again, shaking his head.

“But nobody got hurt,” Quinn repeated.

“No, no,” Kyle said and his voice appeared to echo with disappointment.

Quinn wasn’t sure though and quickly dismissed it. Injured people might make a better story, but he doubted even Kyle was that cold-blooded.

The guy was a softie, despite a muscular build and an almost fu-Manchu mustache—not to mention an obsession with WWF wrestling that bordered on serious psychosis. He wanted the story, but he wasn’t the type to really want someone dead.

“Amazing,” he said again and wandered back to his desk.

Quinn rolled his eyes.

Within two hours, much of the rest of the staff started to arrive.

Janus showed up first, predictably announcing himself by chucking a mini-basketball at Quinn’s head.

“Head’s up,” he yelled a second before he cut it loose.

Quinn nabbed it out of the air with terrific speed.

“Jesus, how the bloody hell did you pull that?” Janus asked.

“Quick reflexes,” Quinn replied.

“Like you knew it was coming,” Janus muttered.

“I've told you before—you Welsh boys can’t throw too damn well. Too busy playing soccer,” Quinn said and grinned.

“Like you throw better?” Janus asked, but he was chuckling. “I’m sorry about the story.”

“The what?” Quinn replied.

“Come off it, mate. I saw the Summer story,” Janus said.

Quinn grimaced and lied, “It sucked.”

“It didn’t and you know it,” Janus replied.

His voice was not entirely unsympathetic, however. He had his own issues with Summer, to be sure, but even photographers knew what it was like to see a better picture in somebody else’s paper.

Quinn sighed.

“What do you want me to say? She beat me,” he said.

“Well at least you beat her the week before,” Janus replied.

“What, the stalker stuff?” Quinn said. “I guess, but no one will remember, and she didn’t exactly give me credit when she did the same story two days later.”

“You expected her to? That’s optimistic of you.”

“No,” Quinn said. “I suppose actually following the basic tenants of journalistic civility is too much to ask.”

Janus laughed, turned and walked back to the darkroom in the corner of the newsroom—the place where the photographers worked, lived and breathed. Quinn briefly wondered why they still called it a darkroom. With everything having gone digital several years ago, there was no need to keep it dark anymore.

He had little time to think about it, however, before Rebecca came out of her office and took a sharp look around.

“Why isn’t anybody in the conference room?” she asked the staff loudly, glaring at them all. “Don’t we have a meeting anymore or did I miss a memo?”

Nobody pointed out that it was only two minutes after ten o’clock and that that was hardly late. Instead, they all looked at each other and scrambled to get in the room after her.

Chapter 3

“Fifty men went up a hill,

None of them came down.

Fifty men went to him,

None of them were found.”

—Traditional  Scottish Rhyme, circa 1880s

Less than 20 minutes after accepting the job at the
Loudoun Chronicle
, Kate was already beginning to have doubts. Before she had made the rather impulsive decision to come back here, she had carefully considered the pros and cons.

The paper had been around for nearly two hundred years, was well entrenched in the community and was one of the few paid subscription papers left in the area after recent expansions by
The
Washington
Post.
Since the
Post
was unlikely to hire her, and journalism was the only career she ever considered, the
Chronicle
felt like the right place to be.

But her sense of balance had forced her to acknowledge some unpleasant truths. The
Chronicle
’s subscription was dwindling; its stories often lacked polish; and she feared it would be more provincial than she was used to.

Within those first few minutes, she knew she had been right on all counts. They were nice, of course. Lawrence, the editor, introduced her around to smiles and nods from all sides. But the meeting then became a series of inside jokes, unsubtle digs between reporters and general confusion.

To add to her doubts, the guy she had seen in the coffee shop this morning—the one who could not stop staring at her—was here making a repeat of his morning’s performance. She had the feeling that he was trying to be subtle, but if so, it wasn’t working. Every time she looked away, she could feel him watching her.

The sensation wasn’t threatening—she had no malicious vibe off him—just unnerving. Momentarily, the thought flitted through her mind that she had something on her face, or was somehow dressed inappropriately. But if that were true, only one guy noticed, and she thought that was unlikely.

Rebecca tried to keep the meeting going by listing various sections of the paper: Schools, Crime, Politics, Business and Sports. It was life divided into easy-to-understand categories that had little bearing on the world outside—life as a series of boxes. Not that Kate saw any other way to run a paper; it just felt forced.

But the meeting was bogged down from the get-go. The schools reporter was feuding with the crime reporter. The guy who was staring at her—Quinn—was bickering with the political reporter. The sports reporter wouldn’t say two words together, earning him the anger of Rebecca, and the business reporter was nowhere to be found.

About the only good thing was that it was over quickly. Rebecca, though clearly annoyed, waded through the options and quickly chose those she thought would be on the front page. But the overall feeling was provincial—no doubt about that.

Within minutes of leaving the meeting, it only became worse. Kyle, the crime reporter, was waiting for her outside, anxious to talk.

“Do you know what the key to being a good reporter is?” Kyle began.

On the face of it, this was an offensive question. Did she know what being a good reporter was? Well, she had been doing it for three years; she certainly hoped so.

“Oh here we go,” said another voice, one of the photographers.

Kate glanced at Bill. He was a huge guy, fat from every angle, but cheerful and friendly.

“What?” Kyle said, looking annoyed.

“Don’t let him bother you,” Bill said.

“Kyle, are you bothering the new girl already?” a new voice piped in from behind Kate.

It was Janus—she remembered the name because it sounded like a girl’s, but was spelled differently.

Behind Janus, Kate noticed the guy from the coffee shop—Quinn.

 “Not a problem,” Kate replied to Janus.

“Anyway,” Kyle said, clearly irritated at the interruptions and the crowd around him.

“Oh, is Kyle going to give his watch speech again?” Janus asked, and thrust out his hand to Kate. “The name’s Janus.”

“He’s Welsh,” Quinn said behind him. Quinn thought it was possible this was the worst opening line he had ever used on anyone, but it had just popped out there.

Janus turned and looked at him with mock offense.

“How dare you bring my ethnicity into it?” he said, far too loudly. “I tell you, Kate, the racial stereotyping around here is just ridiculous.”

“It’s best if you ignore him,” Quinn said, sticking out his own hand for Kate to shake. “He won’t go away, but you will gradually tune him out.”

“Gentlemen, I believe I was talking to the lady,” Kyle said, and stroked his mustache angrily.

“Right, right,” Janus said. “Mustn’t get in the way of the watch speech.”

“The watch speech?” Kate asked, a little bewildered at the motley collection of guys around her.

“As I was saying, the most important part of being a reporter is...”

Janus shot up his hand and Bill quickly followed. Quinn laughed and Kyle ignored them all.

“The most important part is to set your watch ahead by three minutes,” Kyle said, looking very serious.

The others started chuckling.

“Set it three minutes ahead?” Kate repeated, feeling like she was being put on.

The others started laughing again.

“Don’t listen to them,” Kyle said again, waving his hand dismissively. “It’s very important.”