Carly pulled into the parking lot at the manufacturing plant and sat looking around for a minute. It was a huge, gray steel building with different levels and additions that made the place look cobbled together. Dark smoke billowed out of several chimneys, and if the day hadn’t been sunny and warm, Carly thought it would be a pretty foreboding place.

She got out of the car with her briefcase and headed for the shop’s front door. She caught a glimpse of the Cross River, which meandered behind the building and then jutted off to the south. At this section, it looked pretty narrow but was moving along at a good clip.

The front door was locked, but there was an intercom button that invited her to push it to gain entrance. She told the person belonging to the voice that emanated from it that she was Carly Roberts, a reporter with the Newton Weekly. There was a silent pause, and then a buzzer sounded, indicating Carly could pull the door open.

A receptionist sat behind a large desk ignoring Carly as she entered. The woman had dark hair in a high ponytail, straight bangs, and rimless glasses. After shuffling papers around for several moments, she finally glanced up. “What can I do for you?”

Carly smiled brightly and held her press badge out to the woman. “I’m Carly Roberts from the Newton Weekly,” she said. “I’d like to talk to someone about allegations of illegal chemical dumping by Monroe Manufacturing into the Cross River.”

The woman, whose nametag identified her as Lydia, blinked and pursed her lips. She reached for a phone on her desk and punched a couple buttons. Lydia waited a moment and then repeated Carly’s identity and request for an interview into the receiver. She hung up after listening for a minute and rose from her chair. She motioned Carly to follow her and took off at a fast clip across the lobby’s gray marble floor.

Carly hustled to catch up, the briefcase falling off her shoulder into the crook of her elbow. As she walked, she stuffed her press badge into her suitcoat’s pocket.

Lydia led Carly to a conference room, motioned for her to go in, and then left without a word. Carly looked around. “Okay,” she mumbled to herself. “I guess I’ll make myself at home.” She sat at the end of the table and pulled her notebook and a pen out of her briefcase. She flipped past the pages about cupcakes to a clean sheet and wrote Monroe across the top. Then she sat drumming her pen on the paper for five minutes.

A man of about fifty years, with a gray ring of hair around his head and a matching mustache, finally appeared in the doorway of the conference room. He looked hurried and waved Carly back down when she started to get up to greet him. He didn’t attempt to shake her hand by way of introduction. “I’m Stuart Monroe,” he said. “How can I help you?”

“Mr. Monroe. It’s nice to meet you. Are you the owner of Monroe Manufacturing?”

“I’m one of three partners. My father and brother are the other two.”

“Well, thanks for taking the time to meet with me on such short notice today. I hope you understand my urgency. I received an anonymous tip at the paper that your company is illegally dumping harmful chemicals into the Cross River. Is that true?”

Stuart sat in a chair on the side of the conference table, leaving one chair between them. “No.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t, so she plowed on. “Do you use harmful chemicals here?”

Stuart’s facial expression was blank. His lips barely moved when he spoke. “We’re an upholstery manufacturer. There are all kinds of chemicals in this building. The government thinks most of them are harmful, and we follow their strict guidelines on dealing with and disposing of them.”

“How do you dispose of them?”

His face didn’t change at all, though Carly watched closely for anything that might tell her he was lying. “In different ways. Some need to be mixed in barrels with other chemicals to make them neutral. Others have to be run through some other type of treatment facility, so we send them off on freight trains. Seems like, if they really are harmful, that would be more dangerous than keeping them on the grounds here, but we aren’t in charge of such regulations, and we don’t argue.”

Carly nodded and smiled. “Well, that’s great,” she said. “It seems like you totally have a handle on the right way to do things here.” She made a few notes while Stuart sat stone-faced and silent. Then she glanced up. “Could I have a tour of your facility? Maybe you could just show me the points in your process during which you use harmful chemicals and their exit points from the system?” She batted her eyelashes a little and tried to look harmless.

“Sorry. We don’t do tours.” Stuart finally smiled, showing a line of small, white teeth. It looked more like a snarl. “Too many harmful chemicals on the premises. Our workers go through a month of intense training on how to stay safe before they’re allowed on the floor. We can’t take the risk of having a lay person injured. I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh, I’m not a lay person, per se.” Carly dug her press badge out of her pocket and held it up. “I’m press. And I’ll sign a waiver if need be.” She leaned closer to the mustachioed man. “Mr. Monroe, if I can write a piece showing that your facility handles waste in a safe and legal manner, the people of this town will be reassured. They’ll no longer feel the need to bring any type of legal action against your company for perceived misdoings.”

A thrill traveled through her body. She felt like a real, hard-hitting reporter. Carly was sure Stuart would be won over by her stunning logic. Instead, his face grew red and his mustache twitched. “I don’t take kindly to threats, Miss Roberts,” he sputtered. “You’ll need to leave now.”

Carly closed her notebook and tried to look nonplussed. She held her back straight and her head high as she walked ahead of Stuart Monroe back through the lobby and out into the parking lot. Neither Monroe nor Lydia said another word to Carly as she exited the plant. The heavy steel door latched behind her with finality.

When she raised her hand to push her hair off her face, it was shaking a tiny bit. She made a fist out of it. How dare that man treat her so badly? She was a journalist—a truth-seeker. She deserved respect.

As Carly marched to her car, frustrated, she turned to look at the river again. If the people in that building were dumping chemicals into it, they should be visible from the rolling hills to the south. She got in the car and grabbed her phone, pulling up a GPS map. She zoomed in on her current location and examined the area directly to the south. There was a subdivision close by. Carly wondered if she could see the plant from the north end of that neighborhood, which was listed on the GPS as Pine Hills.

She tapped the steering wheel for a minute. Binoculars and a high-powered camera would be necessary to get what she needed. Her dad had both at home because he was an avid bird watcher. Carly fought the urge to head straight to Pine Hills. She’d go back to the paper and write her cupcake article and then stake out Monroe Manufacturing from the subdivision the next day.

For the first time since she’d started her new job, Carly hoped Donovan didn’t give her a story at the next morning’s meeting.