Breathing heavily, Eve wiped the sweat from her forehead. She tossed her towel on the desk chair and began heading into the bathroom. A ding from her laptop distracted her as she turned on the light in the bathroom and she couldn’t help but take a look. Plopping down into her chair, she opened the notification. An article opened on the screen. It stated there was breaking news about a young woman who had gone missing and was presumed dead. It appeared as though the woman had been kidnapped. Eve poured over the article, looking for the details she knew she would find. The young woman had been taken without a trace while she was on her nightly jog. The only witness stated they had seen a black car with dark-tinted windows pull up next to her. She’d gotten into the car as though she knew who was in it, and the young woman was never seen or heard from again. Eve opened a file on her desktop and put the news article into it. The file was full of dozens of similar stories.

Eve had been compiling this collection of stories for her research into the disappearances. There had been a suspicious increase in kidnappings in the area, and all of the scenes had similar details. The victims were taken while they were out, doing something they did routinely, like jogging, and then they willingly entered a dark vehicle and disappeared. A few bodies had been found in the quarry, but most remained missing and presumed dead.

Some news publications had already picked up on the fact that these were all connected, but Eve was onto something even bigger than that. She knew they were connected and she had a working theory of how the victims themselves were connected. The real kicker was who was committing the crimes. Eve suspected that these were mob hits; she just had to find the final piece of the puzzle before bringing the story to her editor. She knew she had to be getting close. The closer she got to breaking a story, the more threats she received. Eve hadn’t gotten any direct threats yet, but she had noticed a car following her the last couple of weeks. There was no doubt in her mind as to who owned the car.

Eve looked at the clock and gasped, then left her computer on the desk and ran into the bathroom to take a quick shower. She couldn’t afford to be late for work. She had been stuck in between stories for a while, close to breaking more than one big story, but not quite there with any of them. Her editor was getting impatient and he was not being subtle about it. She’d have to give him something concrete soon or her job might be in jeopardy. She was an investigative journalist and a damn good one, but print news was dying and they really couldn’t afford to keep dead weight on staff. Soon enough, Eve would be considered dead weight.

Eve patted the bathroom counter blindly, feeling for her glasses. Once she found them she pushed them up the bridge of her nose. She had tried using contact lenses when she was younger but no longer felt the need, or want for that matter, to deal with the hassle. She wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at herself. Eve had never been one for vanity; her childhood had at the very least kept her from that worry. At the most, when she was young she’d only worried about what bruises were visible and what she could hide. As she looked in the mirror she was, as usual, caught off guard by the woman staring back. Eve had grown into a, for lack of a better word, stunning woman. She’d been gangly and awkward as a child, but it hadn’t taken long for her to grow into her height. She was tall and slender, her face angular but softened by a halo of brown hair. She could look severe from time to time, her full lips often set into a hard line of deep thought. It was when she smiled that her beauty was fully realized, though it was a rare occurrence. She slipped into a jersey dress that fell delicately across her figure highlighting her best features without giving them too much attention.

She hadn’t slept well for a while now, not since she’d noticed the car following her a couple of weeks back. Eve wasn’t a stranger to living in hiding or being threatened, but it always took its toll. She quickly covered the dark circles under her eyes with concealer before getting dressed.

Although Eve had been up for hours, she still didn’t manage to leave early for work. Her computer distracted her once again, as it did every morning. She’d had her friend Iris create a program that set up alerts for news articles that contained certain buzzwords.

Iris had been her best friend for longer than she could remember; they were so close they referred to each other as sisters. Iris was a computer programmer with a cyber security company. The program she’d designed for Eve was simple to her, but Eve thought it was incredible. It took articles from across all sources and countries in the world, analyzed and translated them if necessary. The only downside was that every alert distracted her. Often, she would read the alerted article and then find herself in a spiraled web, reading at least a dozen more.

Eve grabbed her laptop and left her condo in a hurry. No matter how late she was running, she always double-checked that her door was locked before leaving. It was an old habit that she had picked up when she was younger and she’d never broken it since. Eve had a healthy dose of paranoia that she had developed as a youth, and it came in handy in her line of work. Even as she drove into the office she kept checking over her shoulder for the car. She couldn’t see it but she felt it there.

“Good morning,” Kyle, the receptionist, said with a smile as Eve raced through the front door. “Running late?” He gave her a knowing glance. Eve smiled tightly at him, running past to the elevators behind the desk. Kyle was nice enough, and she knew that he meant no harm, but his comments bothered her. She always found them to be impertinent, and she never had a talent for small talk, so her typical response was a grin as she kept her head down and went to the elevators.

She tapped her foot impatiently as the elevator slowly groaned up to the seventh floor. She regretted that she hadn’t taken the stairs instead. The elevator in the building had not been updated in years. It moved slowly and the threat of it breaking down was constant. Surely it would have been faster if she‘d taken the stairs.

Finally, the elevator groaned to a halt on the seventh floor. Eve ran out of the metallic death trap and tried to make it to her desk before her boss, Mr. Hartley, could notice her. She didn’t want him to ask for an update on one of her stories because she didn’t have any yet. He had told her to move away from the mob story a while ago, and she had while at work, but her time at home had been dedicated to it. Her big story at work was just as important but didn’t feel as personal. She had been keeping it close to her chest because if she broke this one, her name would go down in history. She hadn’t even told Iris what the story was about.

“Eve, nice of you to join us today,” Mr. Hartley said in a deep voice. Eve jumped, not having expected the man to be behind her. “You missed the morning meeting.”

“Sorry, Mr. Hartley. I know, I got caught up in a story,” Eve said nervously. Her heart beat hard in her chest. She had never been comfortable with her superiors, and interacting with them made her anxious.

“Got any updates for me on your big story?” Just as Mr. Hartley asked this, Eve’s phone buzzed. She looked at the screen quickly.

“Actually, I do,” she said, reading the text on her phone. “I have a meeting with a source later today.” The text was confirming that meeting. The source was anonymous at this point, having refused to give his name. Eve wasn’t sure that the meeting would even get her anything, but the man seemed nervous enough and experience told her that there could be a reason.

“And it’s a reliable source?” Mr. Hartley asked. He was going to give her a bit of a hard time about this because she had been late. She also hadn’t told him much about the story yet, only that it was big. Eve smiled and nodded at him, hoping that it would suffice. Mr. Hartley grunted and let her be. Eve let out a breath once he stalked off.

In truth, Eve knew very little about the story she was going to break. She had been investigating illegal activity within the real estate company Melcor Corporation for months now but hadn’t gotten anything solid. She knew they were up to their necks in blackmail, money laundering, tax evasion and who knows what else but couldn’t get anything to stick. Nearly every witness she found was unwilling to speak, and the ones that were willing to talk mysteriously ‘forgot’ about what they were going to tell her about.

She had been careful with this new source, though. Eve didn’t want him to be scared off by Melcor like the others. They had been in contact for a couple of weeks now, but he kept rescheduling their meeting. He wouldn’t tell her anything over the phone and each time he called her it was from a new number. Unlike her other sources for this story, he had reached out to her, claiming that he had information for her about the Melcor Corporation that she would want to hear.

Eve was wary of meeting with sources that she didn’t know. For all she knew, this man had been hired by the Melcor Corporation to kill her, or at the very least to threaten her. At this point, her job was on the line and if Eve did not meet with him, she might lose her position completely. She would have a hard time finding another place that gave her the license to write such hard-hitting stories, and the thought of going back to writing for cheap tabloids made her sick to her stomach. It was a rare opportunity for someone as young as she was to be working as an investigative journalist, and Eve did not want to lose that. No matter the danger she might be in, she was sure that the only way she would be able to keep her position was to meet with this man.

“What are you working on? Anything good?” Eve’s deskmate Alice asked after Mr. Hartley left. Alice worked in sports but had a knack for writing the stories that no one else would. She often annoyed Eve by gossiping and discussing the stories she was working on. Eve preferred to keep her stories a secret until they were completed. It was safer for everyone that way and it kept her stories clean from leaks or outside influences. If someone caught wind of what she was writing, her sources could get bullied into silence and the story would be killed before it was even written. For this reason, Eve never shared details about her stories with anyone. Despite this, Alice asked her nearly every day what she was working on.

“You know I don’t discuss my stories,” Eve replied in a bored tone. Alice was a strong writer and was one of the best in her field; for that reason and that reason alone Eve had some respect for her.

Alice pursed her lips and made a popping noise. “One day you’ll tell me,” she said with a sly grin. Eve knew that the woman was only teasing her and did not really care about her story. Alice was one of those people who just liked to talk and it did not matter what the conversation was about as long as she could be in it. “I am about to break a story that outs one of the greatest baseball players of all time as a steroid user.”

Eve knew by the way Alice framed her statement that she wanted her to ask who the player was.

“Sounds interesting,” Eve said instead, trying to end the conversation there.

“Don’t you want to know who the player is?” Alice was practically hitting the ceiling, jumping up and down with excitement.

“I’m sure that I will find out when I read your article,” Eve said. She had not looked up from her computer screen the entire conversation with Alice. It was their routine every morning until Alice gave up and continued the day without bothering Eve. She would get bored and move to a different desk to discuss her stories and other office gossip where it would be more appreciated.

“It’s a doozie, let me tell you,” Alice said with a low chuckle. She wouldn’t tell her unless she asked, but Eve was not about to humor her.

“I can’t wait to read it when it is published,” Eve replied shortly. She was tired of the conversation and wanted it to end. She could handle Alice and her talkative nature most days, but she was under far too much stress to do so now. “I am supposed to meet with a source shortly. I need to prepare.” That was the most information Eve had ever given Alice about one of her stories and it had the opposite effect of she’d desired. Alice launched into a thousand questions about the story and her source, many of which Eve honestly did not have an answer to. She knew very little, which made her uneasy.

Eve’s phone buzzed and, continuing to ignore Alice’s line of questioning, she picked it up to look at the message. “I would love to stay and chat, but I have to go,” she said hurriedly, pulling her belongings frantically off her desk and stuffing them into her bag. Her source had sent her a text message moving their meeting up. If she were going to make it to their meeting point, she would have to hustle. If she missed the window, she worried that she would not be able to connect with him at all.

“Meeting with your source?” Mr. Hartley stopped Eve as she was rushing to the staircase.

“Yes. The meeting has been moved up to 11:30. I have to leave now or I won’t make it in time.” Eve was frantically trying to get around him, but her boss did not seem to share her sense of urgency.

“Where are you meeting your source?” he asked.

“The Sunset Diner, about an hour outside of the city.” Eve knew that Mr. Hartley was about to ask her if she had taken proper safety precautions. She had not because her source had remained anonymous to even her. “I will be in touch with the office by noon and again an hour later.”

“And if you are not?” he asked, his arms crossed. Eve was known for high-risk meetings with sources that she had not properly vetted or that were more dangerous than she would let on. As hard as Mr. Hartley could be, the safety of his writers was important to him.

“Then I may be dead,” Eve replied as she marched past him.