Mystery: Reporter's Tale

This story takes place after my "Mystery of the White hair" series. Though I believe it can stand on its own, there are a number of references to characters and events from that series.

Also this story has a lot more buildup than action. I tried to write it as a noir-type piece, so the payoff isn't until the very end.

Hopefully people will still enjoy it. Comments and ratings appreciated as always.

Many teens and young adults are accused of having a disregard for their own mortality, or a willful ignorance of consequences. That's how you get virgins who're pregnant after their first night, skateboarders who are paraplegic after an attempt at a trick, and funerals for people who think outrunning the cops in a car chase is just like the movies.

For better or worse, the best journalists tend to be those who can hang onto that sense of invulnerability. It's what gives us the ability to follow trained soldiers into warzones when we've never even shot a handgun in our lives, or willfully drive into a hurricane evac zone to interview the fools and survivalists that refuse to leave.

Or to interview cult figures before their true danger is revealed.

To be fair, Subject K, wasn't calling for people to come to a desert compound. In fact, they were a complete rumor before Adam and I got wind of it. Adam really gets most of the credit for that part; he was following up on a series of odd cases out of some semi-large city in west Texas. It was all hush hush and rumors, stonewalling police, the kind of stuff that always gets good journalists' ears perking up. Our editor didn't think anything of it until Adam found out a doctor and a cop were both MIA. We got nothing out of the union or the city on the cop, but the doctor wasn't a local. Adam played up the fact that the doctor did a semester's work on epidemiology, and added in there were a number of missing persons around the same time the cop and doctor vanished. He tried to spin it as a possible outbreak cover-up and our editor bought it and asked me to help out.

It was a wonderful mystery. Missing people, half-remembered stories from bars and former coworkers. Names started to bubble up after a week or so. Doctor Shevade, Evelyn Riley, Jim Mendoza. I remember Mendoza because he was our first big break. He was also nice to look at. Freely admitted to sleeping with Riley (the cop) and gave us as much as he knew about her investigation, which centered on a white-haired woman. Based on his description the woman should not have been hard to find, especially in Texas; young, white-haired Asian women over six feet tall tend to stand out, but she was a ghost. So we had a target. The other major piece of info we got from him was that Riley had been talking to the doctor.

Everyone in the business knows what "discretionary funds" are for and we put them to their intended use. All of Dr. Shevade's information from the hospital was locked behind so much tape and doors we didn't have a prayer, but nobody had seized her personal notes. To be fair, there wasn't a lot there; she kept most of her stuff locked away in the hospital like a good researcher, but there were enough scraps of nighttime and shower notes left in the "to-claim" box from her room to give us an idea of what was happening.

College co-eds vanishing is one of those trigger conditions. Nine times out of ten it means you have a "serial" something. Serial rapist, serial killer, or crazy cult leader looking for "wives," which doesn't have a serial label but really should. Sometimes it's a party culture where the kids aren't watching their dosage, but usually those blow up after the first OD. We pushed on the local PD about their ignoring a pattern of concerning behavior and got stonewalled. We knew we were onto something when someone from an alphabet agency contacted us. It was another part of the game; they sent us a note saying that we were straying into an ongoing

federal

issue surrounding something called Subject K, and pushing farther was a risk to us. We asked for clarification and of course got told to shove it, but as far as we and our editor were concerned it was a neon sign; we weren't chasing ghosts. This was something real.

At one point Adam had a literal race when we pulled the name Mike Callahan from news reports and noticed he was tied up with a sexual assault case - where

he

was assaulted. He'd left his company by then and moved, but he hadn't covered his tracks that well. Adam got to him maybe three days before he vanished, either by his own efforts or because the government got to him next. But he gave us a solid name - Kimberly Kim.

We thought it was a joke, but we found real records for the girl. Including the fact that she'd gone missing. Lazy police paperwork gave us a break again because there was an old BOLO out for her that had never been rescinded, so we got an image, age, and everything. More discretionary funds and some charm got Adam photos of everything the super had packed up from her apartment.

It might not be relevant but I feel I should mention that was the first time we fucked. Adam came to my apartment at 1am after getting off a red-eye from Texas and showed me the stack of photos. I think we were both too tired, and Adam might have been a little drunk, but I hugged him in excitement and before I knew it I was kissing him. Then I felt his hands on my ass and his tongue went into my mouth. My legs went around his hips next. Adam kept himself in shape but he wasn't jacked, so he supported me like that only enough to get me over to my kitchen table, where my thin robe puddled on the table and he started fondling my C-cups through the thin cotton tank top I'd worn to bed. He palmed my tits and the fabric moving over my nipples was enough to get me worked up. Then he started kissing down my neck and back up behind my ear, so I grabbed his head and his back and told him to keep going.

I don't know if I took off his pants or he did; I feel like I must have because I don't remember his hands leaving my tits, but while the guy's attractive I never felt deep, burning lust to get in the guy's pants. Then again, I was excited and it was the middle of the night so maybe I wasn't thinking straight. Either way his cock was out in the open and already hard. He or we were too impatient so he just pushed my panties to the side. His foreplay had been good but not amazing, so it took a bit before he could work himself in, but each thrust was tugging nicely on my lips and grinding against my clit a little so I let him go until he pushed through and sank in. Then it was off to the races, with him pounding into me, grinding me into my kitchen table. It got me hot and it felt good, but he was still more into it than I was and he came well before I was done, filling me up with a groan. He slipped out of me and was already unsteady. I helped him to my bed, hoping to maybe coax a second round out of him, but he passed out almost as soon as he was horizontal. I was still more tired than anything so I didn't make an issue of it.

We continued like that for a month. We'd get or find a tip, Adam would rush off while I collated info, he'd come back and we'd have either a celebratory or conciliatory fuck at my apartment. It was usually late, and I learned it was better for me to be at least partly buzzed; Adam was decent looking but he was a sub-par fuck buddy, and if I wasn't fully aware it made me resent the mediocre sex less.

I don't know if the sex distracted Adam or if it was frustration with our lack of progress, but his work started to slip. He'd be late following up on leads, and he'd miss connections when he was in the field. Usually I pointed them out when he got back and we went over the info, and by then it would be too late to act. By month two Adam was starting to talk less about leads and more about things like staying over longer and heading out for drinks or dinner. I shut that down hard, and that almost blew the whole thing up. Adam went behind my back and told our editor I was holding him back. Said he needed to work alone for a bit to "pound the pavement" and get away from the "charts and laptops." Our editor wasn't stupid; he knew what was up and met with me privately, telling me to keep working on my own and do my own field investigation on this; he was going to let Adam blow off steam for a week and then give him something new when this dried up. I suspected he was going to give me three weeks before he'd force me to admit the story was cold, but certain forces had other ideas.

I had a contact in the FBI who I'd tipped off that if groups of co-eds went missing I wanted to hear about it. There was one possibility where three girls went missing, but that turned out to be some dumb bimbos that decided hiking a mountain trail when it was "a little drizzly" had been a good idea. It didn't fit the profile anyway; the girls from Texas had never disappeared in groups. A week and a half after the split with Adam, my contact let me know the FBI was keeping an eye on a situation in Arizona. A few young professionals working in the tech companies around Scottsdale had been reported missing, all within the last two weeks. I took it to my editor, and I was on a plane the next day.

The disappearances hadn't been connected by the media yet, so the local cops were still in the "anything helps" stage of media relations. I got some brownie points by working with the detective, one John Meechum, to bring up the multiple cases, rather than calling out the PD in a press conference. I got the last known locations and noticed they were all bars. Then I pushed out on my own and discovered a couple of the servers at a local Twin Peaks were also MIA, but they were single girls who lived alone, and the restaurant managers were used to no-call no-shows so they didn't think twice. That was when I started showing pictures of Kimberly Kim around.

I got hits. A few people remembered seeing the girl. Most of the comments were about how comical she looked. People with the right fan knowledge called her a walking anime girl. A few bitter Neanderthals called her the "dyke slut" that stole the hottest girl at the bar, which doubly pissed them off because one of their friends swore he'd scored with the girl the week before, and she definitely seemed "all about the cock" to his oh so expert eye. I started to suspect some sort of drugging or sex trafficking angle at that point, which of course only excited my editor even more. I checked local women's shelters and hostels for anyone that might be willing to talk to another girl who wasn't a cop, but nobody knew anything about abductions like I was following; those in the know were always from "standard" trafficking scenarios like border crossers or homeless.

Another week went by with plenty of whispers but nothing solid. Then another girl disappeared. This one was a local co-ed, rather than a professional. People started worrying about serials, but I was already way ahead of them. I started quietly circulating Kim's pictures around again. One woman who was hanging around the campus saw the picture and denied knowing the girl, but something about her told me she was lying. She knew something. I tried to follow her around campus but she made a beeline for a Honda sedan and took off like a bad out of Hell. I got the plate but my contacts said it was registered to a corporation headquartered in Texas. Confirmation for me that the situations might be connected, but nothing I could follow up on.

Then I got the letter.

It would have been odd for no other reason than it was a physical letter, but it was also written in beautiful cursive. Unfortunately for me it had been phased out by the time I went through grade school; I had to actually use a damn online translator for some of it. But I saw the signature at the bottom right away.

Kimberly Kim.

I hear you're looking for me. We should chat. No cops. I promise you I'm not abducting anyone, or forcing anyone to do anything. If you can get an interview printed without getting me arrested, I'll give it to you. I'm sending a car in two days. That should be enough to confer with your people. If you want the interview, get in with the girl that picks you up. It'll be a BMW. If not, or if my girl sees anyone there except you, and only you, she's gone, and we're done.

I was on a video chat with my editor before the paper hit the table. I knew we could do the interview, and keep the police out of it. If Kim was running some sort of cult, we would have the scoop on it, and we'd be the logical avenue for information stemming from it; interviews with cult members, the families of the missing girls, and first in line for press access to any police activities.

Unfortunately for me, my editor thought I was too green for this. Adam was in SoCal and they diverted him over the next day without telling me. On another call with Adam in the room and my editor on the screen, they both tried to convince me to have Kim meet with both of us, or even just Adam. I got some satisfaction over pointing out I had no way to do that, whereupon they argued Adam could convince the girl. I told them I wasn't going to be responsible for messing up our only shot with them. Adam angrily told me he'd handle it on his own.

On the appointed night, a BMW drove into the motel's parking lot, drove slowly past Adam, ignored his waving, and sped off.

My editor told Alan to hang around for two more days in case they tried to make contact again, and told us to bring everything to the police. As if he were a drop of vinegar in tea, Adam turned our whole relationship with the PD sour. He made them beg for every bit of information we had, and they began threatening

me

with charges in retaliation. Adam was happy enough to throw me under the bus in the name of "journalistic integrity." I almost ended up spending a night in jail before Detective Meechum got everyone to calm down and asked what throwing the "cute reporter" in jail would really help. He at least looked at me apologetically while making that point.

By the second day Adam was clearly done with the story; he'd come in, used up all of his "hotshot journalist" energy (I knew for a fact it couldn't be big dick energy), and he was ready to move on. He recommended to the editor that we drop it; obviously after being outed the group would pack up and move. He also suggested he'd been talking to our editor's boss and they agreed that I should be pulled off because they'd recognize me and consider me a risk.

I knew what it was and so did my manager. This story was a blot on Adam's record, and he'd started to repair his rep by getting cozy with the manager. He wanted this story killed. But my editor was too much of a wuss to buck him, or more accurately his manager. He told me to come back to the office and we'd talk about it. Adam had the gall to offer dinner, hinting that if we started working together again in the future, my star would rise with his. Since I was sure his idea involved me riding more than his coattails, I begged off.

It was only when I started packing my stuff that I noticed the piece of paper in my jacket pocket. The police had taken it when we were at the station (just as a courtesy, not for evidence processing). On the paper, typed this time, were simple instructions.

Last chance. Leave the mouth-breather. At 5:30 walk down the street to the Red Robin. The bartender will tell you your car is here. Go with them.

This is where the invincibility complex comes in handy. Everything I was ever taught as a journalist and a woman went against this. You don't go out alone, at night, in a strange city, and get in a stranger's car, even if 5:30 in April in Arizona may as well be midday. Best case you'll end up at some wild party and then spend the next week scouring the internet making sure certain videos and pictures really did stay private. At worst you're in a middle eastern country after two days, chained to a bed and drugged up so you can't fight off the men that visit. But I was a journalist. I had a story and the magic halo of the press protecting me. I'd go in, meet with Subject K, and get out with my life, dignity, and a Pulitzer-worthy exclusive story.

I snuck out without running into Adam and got to the bar early. I had to wait fifteen minutes and thoroughly annoyed the bartenders by only ordering seltzer; I didn't want to be anything less than totally clear-headed for this. I did leave them a twenty-dollar tip in recompense when they told me my car was there, though.

I walked out to the car, a black BMW sedan I didn't know the model of because I wasn't into cars. Standing next to it like a chauffeur was a woman with long black hair and a figure that wasn't curvy but was being almost forced into it by the businesslike dress she wore, which seemed to be maybe a size too small. I gave her a funny look because she seemed familiar, but she opened the door for me without a word before starting off herself. I shifted over to the far side so I could see her while she drove. It took a few minutes before it hit me.

"You're Heidi Robertson!" I practically yelled.

"Just Heidi now, miss," she said with a British accent that caught me off guard, but only briefly.

"You know you've been reported missing for months? There are lots of people looking for you," I insisted.

"I'm where I want to be, Miss," she replied, "Um, I hate to be rude but it's a bit of a long drive and I need to concentrate."

I decided not to push it but I kept my eye on her for any chance to follow up and start a conversation. But it soon became clear to me that she hadn't been brushing me off with an excuse; Heidi seemed to be using a lot of her energy remaining focused on driving the car. It started out as her looking fidgety and nervous, possibly checking around to see if she were being followed. But after a while it was clear she had real trouble of some sort; she was shifting in the seat almost constantly, her breathing was heavy and irregular, and she was clearly sweating, even though I was perfectly comfortable and more covered; I'd put on a nice blouse and slacks with a light jacket. Heidi's dress had a lower neckline and no sleeves, so in theory she should be colder.

I was down to wondering if she had some form of early menopause and hot flashes when I finally broke down and asked, Are you okay?"

"I...I just need to get where we're going, miss. I'm...well you probably can't do anything to help," Hedi replied.

"Try me," I said.

Heidi briefly turned around and looked at me. We were on a wide roadway and between towns, so there was little on either side of the road for her to run into even if she veered off, but the amount of time she took her eyes off the road was worrisome. Then I noticed the look she gave me and flushed. Heidi eyed me more blatantly and more obviously than any man I'd seen. Her eyes barely flicked over my face but lingered on my chest and hips, or maybe legs, or maybe somewhere else. Then her eyes came back up and locked on my lips. My own lips parted a bit, I wasn't sure why, but Heidi actually licked hers.

"No," she said as she turned back to the road, "She...she said I have to get you back. No distractions. You'd be one..."

"Heidi, we don't have to go back," I insisted, "we're alone in a car. We can go anywhere. I know people, we can get you help. If the car's being tracked we can ditch it."

"You don't understand," Heidi insisted, "I've been away before. I don't want to go through that again. It's too much. I just need to get back."

I thought I was getting a clearer picture. This was definitely more in cult territory than criminal enterprise. I'm sure they were probably doing something illegal; based on Heidi's behavior I suspected drugs were involved with this group somehow. But their primary threat wasn't as drug pushers or sex traffickers. This was the next Branch Davidian compound or Manson family. That at least meant kidnapping or killing me was slightly less likely, though I'd have to be wary of eating or drinking anything, or anyone sneaking up on me with a needle.