Outrageous Proposal Part 55

I had no time to consider that future horrorscape. Instead I turned my focus to the present, and let myself get judgy and grumpy about every little thing I hated about this city to keep my mind from wandering. The cab driver from the airport must have sensed my mood, because he didn't even try to make conversation as he drove me straight for Sentinel Security's head offices. My plan was to get there, conduct my research, and get back to Seattle without having to stay overnight. But all of that depended on what I found-or didn't find.

My flight got me in a little earlier than I expected, and the front door to the modest, two-story office building out in the City of Industry was still locked. a.s.suring my taxi driver I'd be fine on my own, I waved him off and wandered down to a sketchy convenience store to grab myself a coffee and a donut while I waited. The vibe around here was so different from Seattle, and especially Thornwood, that I found myself somehow feeling homesick for a place I wasn't even from. Everything was bright and bland here. I missed the shadows.

I missed Noah.

By the time I got back to the building, someone had arrived and opened up the place. A pretty young woman sat at the front desk, jacket still on her shoulders, rifling through some paperwork. She looked up only a moment when she heard the bell on the door.

"Hi there, give me just one second," she said to me.

I nodded and wandered around the waiting room with my coffee. It was small and surprisingly basic for a firm that dealt with clients as big as the Sun Fest. A few outdated chairs, a water cooler, a table stuffed with random entertainment magazines. On the walls hung various professional photos of security teams at work during concerts. It seemed like the owner of this place probably took home more than his share of the big paydays, and left the branches with as little money to operate their overhead as he could get away with. That could be useful. I was suddenly glad for the wad of cash in my wallet, courtesy of Slipstream's expense account.

After a few moments, the receptionist let out a big breath and stood upright. "Hi, sorry! I didn't mean to keep you waiting. What can I do for you?"

I turned to her with a patient smile and walked up to the chest-high counter. "My name is Laurel Barnes. I have an appointment to meet with Maria Haro."

She nodded and bent down to look at her computer screen. She scrolled a few moments, frowning. "I... I'm sorry, I don't have an appointment for you here. What did you say your name was?"

"Laurel Barnes. My a.s.sistant called yesterday and set this appointment. She a.s.sured me it was taken care of," I said, putting my coffee on the counter.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Barnes, it's just not..."

"Miss, I'm with Bear River Insurance, and I'm supposed to be meeting with Maria Haro to discuss some important matters-I'm sure you can guess which ones. I was a.s.sured by your staff this meeting was set up for today. Does Ms. Haro understand that her job, and this very business remaining open, depend on the findings I present to my company?"

It was all bulls.h.i.+t, obviously. Just a bit of social engineering one tended to pick up as an investigative journalist. I found Maria's name, as well as the public paperwork showing the name of the firm's insurance company, during my research. A few phone calls later, and I had confirmation she was one of the people in charge of the festival security detail.

But this poor girl didn't know that. She just went pale and started stuttering.

"Oh, oh G.o.d," she said. "I must not have saved the appointment right in the program..."

I checked my phone impatiently, dramatically. "I came here straight from the airport, and I have to be back there before nightfall. This kind of evasion does not bode well for my report. I suggest you get a hold of her right now."

"Y-Yes, ma'am, right away," said the receptionist. She reached for the phone, but then thought better of it and excused herself, disappearing through a door with a keycard lock.

She wasn't gone three minutes. The door flew open and the girl held it open for who I could only a.s.sume was Maria Haro. Her dark hair was pulled back in a tight, smooth bun, and her face wore an expression of surprise, and just a bit of fear.

Maria came around the desk with her hand outstretched. "Hi, I'm Maria Haro. I'm told there was some problem with scheduling?"

I shook her hand and kept my eyes on hers. "Laurel Barnes, Bear River Insurance. I set an appointment to meet with you that was, apparently, not taken correctly. It is imperative I speak with you today, Ms. Haro. This is regarding Sun Fest." I gave a suspicious look to the receptionist, as if I was afraid she would overhear.

Maria took the hint and waved a hand for me to follow her. "Let's speak in my office." She led me behind the desk and through the keycard door into a tight, bland cubicle farm. Most of the s.p.a.ces were empty this early, but a few people were on headsets taking appointments and giving service quotes. Maria had a small, windowless office near the back, and she closed the door behind us before she took a seat at her messy desk.

"I didn't expect that you'd need to speak to me," said Maria. "Rory said he was going to handle all the statements himself."

This was the part where my job got a little tricky and dangerous. Truth be told, I loved it just a little. I thought of Noah calling me a shark, and had to fight the smile it nearly brought to my lips. "He did. But there were some additional questions we had about the reports."

Maria went a little pale. She leaned on her desk and crossed her fingers. "Oh?"

"You were under orders to confiscate all audience recording devices after the incident, is that correct?"

Maria blinked, surprised. I wanted her off-kilter. "I... yes, that was the order."

"Tell me, in your own words, what kept your people from successfully completing that task. There are videos all over the Internet."

Her breathing started to get a little ragged. "We didn't have the manpower to cover a crowd that large individual by individual. I sent in the call for backup on the radios and we did our best to line the exits, but it all happened too fast, and we weren't ready for it. I put priority on the front rows and we seemed to have gotten most of those."

Again, I fought to maintain my poker face at the news that my hunches just kept on being right. Security had taken everyone's phones in the front rows to hide something.

"Do you still have the phones?"

"Yes, they're in evidence lockup. Their files have been stored."

I put my coffee down on the desk because I was so thrilled at the news, I couldn't hold still. "I'm going to need to look at the videos on those phones."

Maria frowned now, and for the first time put up some resistance. "Rory said those phones are to be shown to no one..."

"But I work for-"

"...by order of the insurance company, which has already sent a rep to view them."

f.u.c.k. The wheels in my head spun for a fix. Maria watched me carefully, waiting. Before I could get a lie off my tongue, she was reaching for her phone with a panicked look in her eyes.

"Wait," I said, leaning forward but not so far that she would feel threatened.

She paused with her hand on the receiver. I put up my left index finger and, slowly, with my right, reached underneath and pulled my wallet out of my back pocket. I threw five crisp hundred dollar bills on the desk in front of her. Maria looked up at me with surprise.

"I'm not here to get you in trouble," I said. "I don't care about the company or the insurance, or any of that s.h.i.+t. But an innocent man is about to go down for what happened at that festival, and you and I both know he shouldn't be."

Maria's hand slid slowly off the phone and into her lap. The color drained from her face.

"I'm asking for your help to save him. I'll make sure it's worth your while." I nodded toward the money on her desk. "And I won't tell a soul about your involvement."

Maria said in a tight whisper, "Who are you?"

"I'm a journalist. That means even the government can't make me talk about you. Just take the money, give me what I need, and no one will ever know. Win-win."

"I could lose everything," said Maria.

"You have my word that if you somehow lose your job over this, I'll personally find you a new one." I put my hands on her desk and waited until she looked me in the eyes. "I really need your help, Maria. Noah Hardy is going to go to prison over this if the truth doesn't come out."

Maria stared at the money on her desk and took a few deep breaths. Downwardly she said, "We all were just trying to do what we thought was right... Protect the company, protect our jobs."

"You get no judgment from me," I said. "I've seen the clients this company handles. Their legal teams would crush you all like bugs. Just tell me what really happened that day and why you had orders to hide it. I can get the truth out and keep you safe at the same time. Like I said... everybody wins."

Maria frittered at her desk, thinking. She looked up at me and said, "Can you just step outside for a few minutes, and give me a chance to think about this?"

I gave her a tired look. "If you're just going to call security, we can get this over with now and save some time."

"I'm not," she said immediately. "I just need some s.p.a.ce to think. Please."

Either I trusted her, or I didn't, and at this stage, there wasn't much of a choice. So I got up out of the chair with my coffee and stepped just outside the door, carefully hanging near her office so no one would think I was trying to snoop and make this more complicated than it already was. She could have been calling whoever Rory was, or some bigger boss, or even the cops. But this was what standing on the edge felt like. All I could do was wait, and see what happened, and hoped I had enough brains to talk myself out of it if it didn't go my way.

It wasn't long before the door creaked open and Maria nodded me back inside her office. The money still lay on her desk where I left it, unmoved. I closed the door and sat across from her.

"So, how do we do this?" she asked, uncomfortable.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and showed it to her as I brought up the voice recorder app. "I have to record this to do my job. But I'll die before anyone gets this phone."

She didn't look terribly happy about it, but she nodded anyway. I started to record and put it on the desk.

"Normally, the oversights we cover up aren't this ugly," started Maria. "Sometimes a guard will have a rough time with a drunk fan, rip their clothes, accidentally break their phone... and we're all fine with throwing those under the rug. People have no idea the abuse security guards can take at a show, especially a big one."

"Sure," I said. "Uniforms tend to bring that out in people."

Maria nodded. "People don't get hurt often, not really. Definitely not like this..."

"So where were you working the day of the show?"

"I was in charge of the crew at the main stage. At the time of the incident I was in the backstage area where the bands set up their tour buses. I heard the calls on the radio and rushed over. It wasn't long after I got there that my phone rang and Rory-he's the branch supervisor-was issuing the order to grab all the recording devices. Without question, I spread the order to my people."

Maria took a long pause before she continued. "I got to the stage and my crew was huddled around the man's body... he'd hit his head on one of the steel stage beams on his way down. I've never seen so much blood in my life. EMTs had been called, but he was long gone before they got through the crowd."

I wondered if Noah had been forced to see what happened to the man he attacked. I hoped not.

"It was chaos for the first hour after it happened; I can barely remember doing my job. But the body was removed and we got most of the close cell phones locked up in the security trailer on site. Rory took the crew from the main stage and tore them a new one for letting something this explosive happen on their watch. He put me on the duty of uploading all the cell phone footage for archiving and destroying the phones after. I was up all night while he ran around trying to do damage control."

"I know you've got beat cops on your payroll," I said, recalling the names Steve had texted to me on the plane ride over. "Perkins, Dylan, Martinez... is that why it was so easy for you to keep the news about confiscating the phones quiet?"

Maria nodded firmly. "This place is in tight with the cops. We have to be, really. I suppose we're in the same business, when it comes right down to it. But there's a lot of personnel crossover, too. Officers use these gigs as an easy way to make money on the weekends because their skills transfer so easily."

"Was one of those men on the front lines of the Cut Up Angels set that day?"

"Yes," said Maria. "A couple of them."

I said nothing, but felt disgust riling up in my gut. Even though the men were just protecting each other, exactly how I was trying to protect Noah, it still felt like an abuse of power I couldn't excuse. Having a brother-in-blue directly threatened by this failure of duty would make it pretty d.a.m.n easy for local cops to want to play along with the security firm's cover-up. After all, they both had something to lose from exposure.

And Noah was just their spoiled, rock star patsy.

"What was on the videos you took?" I asked on the edge of my chair. "How did that guy get past security?"

Maria's eyes grew wet. "One of the guards at the end of the line got distracted by the show, and that was all he needed to crawl over the barricade. They didn't even see him until he was on the stage, and by then, it was too late."

"Maria," I said with a firm gaze. "Did he have a knife?"

Something like horror and relief mixed together washed over Maria's face. "How did you know that?"

Adrenaline pumped through my veins like a shockwave of suns.h.i.+ne. I rushed to my feet and leaned over the desk. "You mean there was a knife? That man was trying to attack the band?"

"I didn't tell anybody but Rory that!" said Maria, shocked. "I showed him the videos and he told me we couldn't tell anyone, because... because how would we ever get hired for a job again? We would all look like complete fools and lose everything. He even went out and found the knife where it fell under the stage mechanisms before the police could collect their evidence." She put her head in her hands. "Oh, sweet Jesus, I didn't mean for this to frame somebody. I thought we were doing the right thing for my workers!"

When Maria looked up at the smile on my face, she gave me eyes like she thought I was crazy. I just leaned over the desk and took her by the shoulders. "Maria, you beautiful angel. Tell me you saved one of those videos that shows the knife."

"We saved all of them," said Maria. "We saved them on a secure hard-drive only Rory and I can access."

I scrambled in my pockets for my keys, and the spare USB drive I always kept attached to them on a ring. "Give me a copy, please-just one video, one with a distinctly clear shot of the knife."

"Oh, no, please... this is already too much!" she said, worried.

I fumbled for my wallet and threw the rest of the cash on the desk. Maria gasped.

"No one will ever know it came from here," I said. "You said yourself you didn't get all the phones from the crowd. For all anyone will know, a fan sat on this video and waited to sell it to the press. Delete the firm's copy of it-they have plenty of other incriminating evidence, anyway, and they'll probably be deleting it themselves once this drops."

At first she just whimpered, unsure, debating.

"Maria," I said quietly. "This will save his life."

She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

"Please," I said. "I can't let that happen to him."

Maria's expression changed slowly, like something came over her. Somehow the fear fell from her eyes. But she still bit her lip when she nodded at me and blinked a few times. "Okay. Okay, I'll help you, as long as you keep your promise to protect me."

"With my life," I said and dropped the keyring in her hands.

Ten minutes later, Maria was a thousand dollars richer, and I had the key to Noah Hardy's salvation literally in the palm of my hand. I made Maria double and triple check the integrity of the file on the drive before I gave her my unlisted number and told her to call me if anything at all spooked her. She actually gave me a shaky, awkward embrace after she called me a taxi, and waited out front with me until it arrived.

"Take me to LAX," I told the driver. No way was I staying in this s.h.i.+thole any longer than I had to; I'd use the expense account to buy a quicker flight back to Seattle.

I sent a text to Steve that just said "You better get your hands on the finest whiskey your b.i.t.c.h a.s.s can afford." After a few anxious minutes with no reply, I huffed and put my phone away. He must have been busy.

A screaming part of me wanted to call up Noah right then and give him the incredible news, instantly putting his troubles behind him. But as I sat in the back of that taxi and held the USB drive in my hand, I realized the labyrinth of a mess I'd gotten myself into didn't have an exit so simple.

Old stories about wishes and being careful about making them, they all felt a little too real in that moment. I had everything I wanted in my hands. I had my bombsh.e.l.l story; I had the mea culpa to my journalistic missteps; and I had the key to making sure Noah could at least escape this nightmare without having to endure prison. He could start healing, moving on, find a new band that didn't treat him like s.h.i.+t the way Angels did. Noah could be free. I really had found the magic bullet.

But there was no way in h.e.l.l Noah would ever forgive me for what I was, and how I got here. And the only way I could get us both what we wanted was to blow the cover on my true self. Salvation required a sacrifice, just like in the old stories.

I had to lose Noah to save him.

Suddenly, I was wracked with sobs so intense, the taxi driver asked if he needed to pull over and get help.

Ashamed, I kept my face down and told him no. Keep driving.

He threw a box of tissues from across the pa.s.senger seat. "Everything will be okay, miss. We will make your flight."

"It won't be okay," I said, gasping in breaths. The words came out before I could stop them, so desperate for escape that even a stranger hearing them was better than no one at all. "I love him, and I have to ruin everything.