Olivia
Chapter Nine
The truck stop sits where the county road meets the highway. We’re in the middle of nowhere, an hour’s drive from High Vale. There’s a fuel island and a diner, and a parking lot with maybe four vehicles in it.
My editor’s car is one of them.
I park Savage's truck around the side by the propane cage and sit for a second with my hands on the wheel. Two rigs are idling with their curtains drawn and their running lights on, and a dog is barking in one of them.
I'm going to fix this; I have to.
Nancy's in the back booth.
She's ordered coffee she hasn't touched. Her silver bob is immaculate, but her glasses are pushed down her nose, the glass smeared, and her normally perfectly ironed blouse is creased. In ten years I have never seen this woman outside a corporate building.
“You look like you haven’t slept,” she says.
“You’re right.” I slide in opposite her and get it out fast, before I lose my nerve.
I'm killing the story. Not delaying it; killing it completely. I want the preliminary findings deleted off her drive, and I'll pay the advance back over as long as it takes.
Nancy doesn't argue, which freaks me out. We’ve spent ten years fighting over subheadings and commas, but she takes me pulling the story with a nod and glances out of the window.
Something is really wrong. My stomach lurches.
“Nancy.”
“There are people who'll be very relieved to hear that.” Her hand comes across the table and covers mine. It's cold. “Olivia. I want you to know I didn't have a choice.”
The bell over the door goes.
There are three of them. They walk slowly, like this is all completely normal.
The one in the center is around forty. Dark curly hair, cut recently, a quilted jacket and clean boots, the kind of man you wouldn’t look twice at. He stops at the end of the booth. He smiles at me like we've met before and he's pleased about it.
“Miss Martin. Steve Peters.” He tips his head toward the back of the building. “There's an office through here that they’ll let us use. It's quieter, and I'd rather not do this while people are eating.”
I look at Nancy.
“Your editor's been very cooperative,” Peters says. Perfectly pleasant. “Don’t be too hard on her. Most people find it easier to comply, at this stage.”
One of the others helps Nancy up out of the booth by the elbow, polite as a waiter, and walks her out through the front door into the gray light.
The office behind the fuel desk is small. It has a strip light, a desk, two chairs, and a calendar from a tire company that’s still turned to last month. It smells of fryer oil and pine air freshener, which does nothing to help my stomach.
Peters sits, putting a folder on the desk between us. “May I be direct? It saves us both a lot of small talk.”
“Please do.”
“Olivia Martin. Not Lily Torgan, exec assistant extraordinaire.” He opens the folder and turns the first page around so I can read it. “Four months with Rotmere. Very good work, from all accounts. You’re very clever.”
He turns the pages for me, one at a time, like a man showing off his vacation photographs.
The apartment I haven't slept in since April, from the inside. Everything’s been ransacked. Then my aunt's street, three states from here, a picture of her house taken from a parked car, with her front door circled in red pen.
Then a print out of texts from my phone. Including the message that asks to meet me. Everything in me goes cold.
Fine. Beautiful day. When can we meet?
Peters talks for a while.
The worst part is how reasonable he sounds. I fold my arms and don’t answer him. Then he asks if I'd like some coffee.
They don't want the story killed; they want a new one written. And they want me to write it.
They’ll pay me well, and ensure my career is a great deal better than the one I've got, because they can open doors that would never be open to me otherwise. And occasionally there'll be a subject I'm asked not to pursue or something they’ll want positive PR for.
“Everybody at that Lodge is somebody we have an arrangement with,” he says, absently stroking the folder with his pointer finger. “Senators, TV stars, tech CEOs. It isn't a punishment, Miss Martin… it’s a relationship. Most of them are perfectly content.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then you drive home and nothing happens to you at all.” He spreads his hands, his nails are clean and cut short. “I want to be very clear… I'm not going to hurt you. I've never hurt anybody in my life.”
The door opens and a young woman comes in with two cups on a tray.
She's maybe twenty-three. Rotmere fleece, hair scraped back hard, no makeup. She sets the cups down without looking at me. Her eyes are on Peters the whole time, her fingers trembling slightly. She looks at the tray, and the desk, and the door.
She's been in this room before. I know it.
“Thank you, love,” Peters says, and he says it kindly.
I have to put my hands in my lap, digging my nails into my hand.
“There's one more item,” he says, when the door's shut. He takes a single sheet from the back of the folder.
A long-lens photograph of a small white Cessna flying, its silhouette stark against the mountain. It looks to have been taken from the Lodge. Then another group of photos of men wearing pilot uniforms. One of them is Lucky and my heart slams into my ribs.
“Somebody has been busy for a long time,” Peters says.
“We've known there's a leak for over a year, and we’ve narrowed it down a great deal. There are four names left, one of them the pilot of this aircraft.” He taps the photograph. “Give me the right one, and it will work in your favor. And your aunt’s favor.”
I sit very still.
“We have four pilots on rotation with us. This one flew a light aircraft off a decommissioned strip on our land. We want to know why. Two of the others have been siphoning off some of our supplies for a while. And the fourth lied about his credentials. One of them is your source. Tell me which one.”
Peters waits for me to answer, like he’s got all the time in the world. I try to calm my breathing. They don’t know who my source is, but they’re suspicious of Lucky. And they'll check whatever I give them. If it comes back wrong, I don’t know what they’ll do to me.
But it will buy me some time and get Lucky off the hook.
“You want a name,” I say.
“I'd be very grateful.”
I lift my chin, looking him straight in the eyes, point at one of the photographs. “Him.”
Peters thanks me, puts his pen back in his jacket, and goes out to make a phone call. The door clicks shut.
I sit alone under the strip light, clutching my coffee, and try to come up with a plan.