TEN
“Not now. I’m busy,” Ian Savage said without looking up.
Ben Morrison ignored his boss and took a seat in front of Ian’s rough wood desk, which he’d made from a fallen oak tree. Tall and reed thin, the man was nearing seventy. In a crowd, or anywhere for that matter, you couldn’t miss his abundance of silver hair. Old woodsy cologne came off him in waves, which always made Ben think the old man had more than one gargantuan bottle of the stuff hidden away at home.
“This will only take a minute,” Ben told him.
Ian continued to search through files and papers stacked in front of him, ignoring Ben completely. He was always misplacing something, always grumpy and seemingly discombobulated.
“I want to do a serial story. Just enough words every week to keep readers wanting more.”
Ian’s reply came out sounding like a grunt, which motivated Ben to continue. “I want to investigate the disappearance of a young woman who went missing ten years ago,” Ben said. “But first some backstory. Two sisters are abandoned by their mother. Father takes to drinking. Teenage daughter gets pregnant. After one DUI too many, Dad goes to jail. Older sister drops out of school to try to help her younger sister with baby. Younger sister goes out one night and never returns. Ten years later, she’s still missing.”
“Just like more than half a million other missing people in the United States,” Ian muttered as he placed all the papers and files back into one tall stack and started his search again.
“No,” Ben said. “This is different.”
“How?”
“We’re the number two rated paper in Sacramento.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
“CSI and Cold Case TV are two of the most popular shows right now,” Ben continued. “The Cole sisters were born and raised right here in Sacramento. Sophie Cole disappeared and was never heard from again. Her older sister, Jessie Cole, never returned to school to get her degree. Do you want to know why?”
“No.”
“Because she never stopped looking for her sister. For the first two years, she worked closely with the police. Then she became a private investigator. Ten years after her sister disappeared, she’s still a PI. She works out of an office not too far from here.”
Ben knew Ian well enough to know he was interested because he kept glancing his way before pretending to examine the same piece of paper. He was curious but determined as always to play hardball.
“Yesterday,” Ben told him, “Jessie Cole was following Parker Koontz through Capitol Park. Koontz fired off two shots, and Cole fired back. Koontz is in critical condition.”
Ian looked up. “That’s the woman you’re talking about, huh?”
Ben nodded. “Koontz is a criminal defense attorney. From what I’ve read about him, he’s well respected in the community.”
“So, what exactly are you selling here?”
“This would be Cold Case TV on paper and all over social media. This will be a story about a family, two sisters born and raised right here in Sacramento. One’s missing. The other won’t stop looking.”
“How are you going to find the time for this project?” Ian asked. “Maybe you could help Gavin out with the Heartless Killer case.”
Ben raised his hands, palms up. “The last thing we need around here is another dead-in-the-water story about a serial killer who’s been given the wrong nickname.”
“What’s wrong with the Heartless Killer?” Ian wanted to know. “One of his victims was stabbed in the heart, wrapped in Christmas lights, and left under the tree for her family to find. Another victim, also stabbed in the heart, with a screwdriver I might add, was placed in the middle of a pumpkin patch, right where all the little kindergarteners could find the body. And the most recent victim they found had her heart ripped out of her chest. I would call that heartless.”
Ben grunted. “Human nature demands that everything be given a label. The Heartless Killer has been around for seven years—”
“Six,” Ian cut in.
“Okay, six. His original victims had bite marks; another had her eyelids removed. What about the guy with dead insects stuffed inside his nostrils, and—” Pain sliced through Ben’s skull, like a lightning bolt striking his brain. He grabbed both sides of his head and squeezed his eyes shut. In his mind’s eye, he saw a woman’s naked body stretched out in a field of tall green grass. If not for the thin red line across her throat and her bloodless face, he would have thought she was alive.
“Hey,” Ian said, worried, “are you okay?”
Ben opened his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and said, “Damn migraine.” He shook off the image. “The point is the killer could have been given any random nickname, so why bother? How about the Phantom, since some say he doesn’t exist at all? Four years ago the woman who escaped before he could drag her into the woods told detectives the man sang ‘Hound Dog,’ so why didn’t they call him Elvis?”
Ian nodded. “See? You could help put another spin on this whole thing.”
“The public is tired of the same old thing. They want to be entertained.”
Before Ian could say another word, Ben swiped a hand through the air as if to erase all this nonsensical talk before continuing on with his original reason for entering Ian’s office. “Back to the Sophie Cole case. My focus will be on the missing sister and my own investigation into finding out what happened to her. The media attention surrounding the shooting in the park will merely be icing on the cake, pulling readers in, making them eager to know more.”
Ian narrowed his eyes. “People will get to know Jessie Cole through your eyes.” He waggled a crooked finger at Ben. “If you do this right, everyone will want to know what happened to Jessie Cole’s sister.”
“That’s right.” Ben shrugged. “What do we have to lose?”
Ian smiled. Not something he did often. “You should take a look in the mirror right now, because you look a lot like the Ben Morrison I interviewed twenty years ago.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Determined, passionate . . . two of the reasons why I hired you on the spot.”
Ben used to wonder a lot about that Ben Morrison, the man he used to be but could no longer remember. He pushed himself to his feet and went to the door.
“Where are you going?” Ian asked.
“You’re busy, and I need to get started if I’m going to have the first thousand words on your desk by Monday.”
“Did you hear me say yes? Did those words ever come out of my mouth?”
“I didn’t hear you say no,” Ben said as he made his exit.