Murder Talk (In the Spotlight #4)

Prologue

Owen “Mac” MacKenzie

If I’ve learned anything as an investigative reporter, it’s that some people deserve to die. When the system overlooks the most privileged among us for heinous acts, someone has to hand out justice.

Since I was young, something in me enjoyed hurting others. Not people I cared about, and never to the point of getting in trouble, but I learned quickly what I could get away with. If a bully deserves a taste of his own medicine, I find a way to dole it out. I like to think of it as instant Karma.

When my friend and assistant was kidnapped and trafficked from her native Dominican Republic, I became that person.

So far, we’ve taken down a drug cartel of smugglers who forced unsuspecting tourists to risk their lives, and I have worked my way up to the possible leader of a human trafficking ring.

I investigate, report on it, and if nothing is done through the legal system, I become their reckoning.

“Mac, do you copy?” Diane asks in her melodic accent. I couldn’t do my job, or this side hobby, without her, and I try to keep her happy. I know she gets a kick out of using the comms lingo, so I reply in kind.

“Copy, Di. He’s just starting to talk.”

The man slumped over, held in place by the ropes I used to restrain him, coughs out a pitiful, “Help?”

Larry is unrecognizable from the man I knocked out as he stumbled from the country club the night before. He got drunk on one-hundred-year-old scotch and made an easy mark, considering how hard he was for Di and I to track down and isolate from his security detail.

Like most men with more money than sense, he thought he was safe at the private club. I have connections from my Ivy League education, though, and can get into places most reporters can’t. Being a scholarship kid didn’t matter as much once I was in a fraternity on merit.

“No one is coming to help you, Larry.” I push on his forehead with a gloved hand to reveal bloodshot eyes and the gash on his cheek opens to trickle blood down his chin and neck. “Just like you made sure no one was coming to save the people you sold.”

“I didn’t,” Larry wheezed when his lie was met with a fist to his gut. “Ow,” he spat and whined. “Please, stop?”

“Do you think the men, women, and children you got rich selling were ever listened to when they asked your goons to stop?”

Di had been my first rescue, and together we took out those who worked under Larry.

But I know the majority of those in a crime organization are replaceable.

Di stumbled on some emails with video files, and tracked them back to the man before me.

He likes to see everyone he’s selling and sample his favorites.

“Who are you working with?” I ask, because he doesn’t strike me as a criminal mastermind. The trail stops with him, but I suspect it goes higher. “Who is in charge?”

“I am,” Larry insists, his eyes going wide.

His breathing is erratic and his eyes flick around the room.

We’re in an abandoned shed not far from the golf course he’d been relaxing on the day before.

The sun is almost up, and a sliver of pink light peeks under the door.

I don’t have much time left until employees will be within hearing distance.

“Lying again,” I tut and lift my foot to smash his genitals. Larry lets out a cut off scream, choking on his own blood as he pisses himself. “Who?”

Shaking with fear and pain, Larry convulses and I worry I’ve gone too far. Yanking his head back by the hair extensions, I smack Larry’s face to rouse him. “Wha-?”

“Tell me a name, or that pretty trophy wife of yours gets sold just like your victims. Maybe I’ll take a turn, first,” I taunt, hoping he cares enough about the bubble-headed bleach blonde to come clean.

“T-t-” Larry starts and spits out more blood. Internal bleeding, shit.

“Spit it out, or it will be your mom, as well.”

“Tom,” he finally lets out with a whimper before his eyes roll back and Larry loses consciousness for the last time.

“Di, did you get that?” I ask, knowing she records everything to her secure server. After the kidnapping, I moved her into my place in Los Angeles, and I know her computer system is fortified to the max.

The sound of her manicured nails tapping along with her, “I’m on it,” is familiar, and I know she always does what she says she will.

“Thanks.”

Untying Larry, he slumps to the floor without a sound.

I already got his wallet and jewelry off of him to make it look like a robbery, but I toss the wallet back out minus his cash and cards.

The cars I’ll destroy, but the cash I can spend freely.

Journalism doesn’t pay well when you freelance and chase pet projects.

Pulling the lighter from my pocket, I set the flame to the pile of dried leaves and paper some rodent made a nest out of in the corner. I don’t get to stay to watch Larry’s last breath, because the flame catches quickly and I need to move before someone sees the smoke.

The bloody gloves go into a plastic bag in my pocket as I pull the baseball hat low over my eyes. I’m in shoes that are two sizes too big, but I laced them tight so I can move quickly through the forest. Smoke scratches at my throat as I leave the shed behind without a backward glance.

“Did you scrub the club’s videos?” I ask Di as I make my way through the forested area. I have a mile jog to where I stashed the car I ‘borrowed’ but I’m dressed like a runner in tight black clothing.

Might as well get a workout in while hiding blood stains.

“Roger, you’re a ghost,” Di confirms and I nod to myself as I make it to the road and keep up my slow jog like I don’t have a care in the world.

“When you’re in the car, there is something I wanted to tell you about.”

“Not over comms,” I reply and she scoffs. Using our nicknames is as much as I allow. You investigate enough crime, you learn how to hide it well.

The pickup truck is still where I left it in the driveway of a property with no buildings, and I find the keys in the visor where I left them.

The old man who owns it doesn’t leave his house except on Sundays, and Di insists he won’t notice.

Stripping, I change into jeans and a T-shirt before hopping in.

Starting it up, I take my earbud out and call Di on the burner phone I left in the truck along with a bigger bag for my dirty clothes. It will all be burned.

“What’s up?”

“I didn’t want to tell you until this last guy was handled, but I got an email yesterday,” Di tells me in her sing-song way.

“I’ve been awake for thirty-six hours without food and I really need to pee,” I remind her in lieu of telling her to get on with it.

“You’re no fun,” she teases and then I hear her clicking on the keys stop, the creak of her computer chair tells me she's leaning back before giving me her news. “The studio called. They want you to do a TV show.”

“I did Anderson’s show last week,” I frown and turn onto the freeway as the sky gets lighter as the sunrise gives way to daylight. In the distance, I see a thin line of smoke, barely visible in the morning light. “Is there a new story I need to look into?”

“No, Papi. They want you to have your own show,” she tells me with a laugh. “You would be the host.”

Her words take a minute to process. I’m not a household name, but I am well known in the news media. My social media was also popular, since I did up to date commentary on recent events. But my own show?

“What’s the offer?” I ask, needing to know if it would be worth staying in one place full time. I’m used to a nomadic lifestyle and picking my own stories. A TV would mean at least four days a week in one location to film, for months of the year.

“You get to pick the stories, filming Monday through Thursday in Burbank,” Di confirms. I like the idea of picking the stories.

Possibly getting interviews with witnesses who might otherwise shy away from talking to me.

“Plus, we wouldn’t have to share an apartment anymore. Hell, you could buy us both houses.”

“That much?” I ask in disbelief. I grew up lower middle class and knew the struggle to get by my whole life. But I am almost forty-three years old. It might be time to slow down. “Enough for a nice place with a guest house so you’re close by?”

“Maybe,” Di hedges. I know she isn’t a fan of my hovering.

One thing is still nagging at me. “But we don’t have to stop with our side…business, right?”

“Of course not,” Di agrees, and I hear her nails clacking again. “I’ll find this Tom guy and we’ll take him down. Along with anyone else who deserves it.”

She is the only one who knows about my predilection to murder, and I’m not sure I can stop now.