Headline: Murder. Maggie K. Black

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СКАЧАТЬ awesome, except that he’d warned them it would mean cutting staff. Now was no time to have a mind full of smoke and haze.

      Her temples ached. If she closed her eyes, she could almost recapture the memory of the man who’d saved her—dark eyes, a voice as deep and soothing as a morning cup of coffee, chestnut hair curling ever so slightly at the nape of his neck. Daniel. But then she’d blink and he’d be gone again.

      “Hey, Olivia? Come look at this.”

      She slid her chair over. It was an internet web page. Three crude figures in black fatigues and featureless fencing-style masks stood in the center of the screen under the words The Faceless Crew.

      The sudden reminder of how terrified she’d been sent adrenaline coursing through her. “What is this?”

      “It’s a fragment of a website that was shut down a few weeks ago.” Ricky ran one hand through his shaggy hair. “Remember that car bombing in Vancouver last June that turned out to be some turf war between small-scale rival gangs? These guys tried to take responsibility for it and a few other car fires, too. They posted some stuff on various hate websites, trying to get attention as some kind of homegrown terrorist group for hire. No one took them seriously.”

      She vaguely remembered Ricky bringing it up at a news meeting weeks ago. Vince had said no hard facts equaled no story and that the paper wasn’t in the business of chasing ghosts. But it seemed these men weren’t ghosts anymore. “Can you print it for me?”

      “Yup, and look here.” He zoomed in. “I was able to recover some text, too.”

      She read out loud, “‘The Faceless Crew are a gang of three killers. Rake is the strategist and leader. Brute is the weapons expert and, ah...assassin. Shorty is the explosives expert.’” She looked up. “They misspelled assassin. Looks to me like three brash, delusional kids who watched too many action films and decided to go start their own gang.”

      “You can see why no one took them seriously.”

      Right up until the moment they planted a bomb in the court garage and killed a man. Then again, an alarming number of gang-related murders, and even terrorist attacks, were committed by angry, mentally unstable young men whom no one took seriously at first.

      They walked over to the shared printer and waited for the page to come through.

      “Is it possible someone got them to murder Brian Leslie?” Ricky asked.

      “I don’t know.” She ran both hands through her hair, then twisted it into a knot at the back of her neck. “Brian owed his crew a lot of money. They hadn’t been paid in weeks. He’d skimmed money off their checks. He had them working off the books without them knowing it, which meant they can’t even claim unemployment now. So I can imagine a lot of people wanted to hurt him. But there are far easier ways to get justice than hire contract killers with gang ties.”

      The paper inched its way out of the printer. “What happens to the company now that he’s dead?”

      “It’s a family business, started by Brian’s father. The only remaining member of the Leslie family is Brian’s niece, Sarah. But she’s just a teenager and can’t inherit anything until she turns eighteen sometime this fall.” It was any guess how she’d handle the mess her uncle left behind. “I’m just sorry I lost the camera. If I still had it, we’d have photographic proof that these were the guys. But it wasn’t in my bag at the hospital, so I can only guess it’s now buried in rubble. You want to come with me to talk to Vince?”

      Ricky shook his head. “No. Just try to talk him into keeping me on staff if this turns into something.”

      Torchlight’s editorial pool shared the large top floor of a converted Toronto townhouse. She climbed down the steep stairs to the second floor, went down the hall and knocked twice on the editor’s door.

      “Come in.” Somehow Vince’s salt-and-pepper hair seemed even grayer than usual. His tweed jacket was pushed up over his elbows. She laid the printout on his desk. He leaned on his desk with both hands and stared down at it. “What am I looking at?”

      “Something Ricky found online.” She took a deep breath. “I think this might be who I saw kill Brian Leslie.”

      “I seem to remember Ricky showing me this printout before.” Blue eyes glanced up under bushy eyebrows. “You already know what I’m going to say about it, don’t you?”

      Yup. Theories were for the writers’ meetings. Facts were what got printed in the paper.

      “I know we can’t just print that these three random men might have been involved in this murder without something solid behind it.” Reporter Thinks She Kind of Remembers Seeing Three Masked Men Who Could Be the So-Called Faceless Crew was hardly a headline she’d put on the cover of the paper, either. “But I’ll get something solid. I’ve put in calls to the police, Sarah Leslie and the crown attorney’s office. I’m just waiting for someone to call me back.”

      Not to mention, she’d also tried calling her older sister. Chloe was a detective in Northern Ontario. While this was hardly her jurisdiction, her sister had an incredibly practical way of looking at things that Olivia found both infuriating and helpful. Besides, it was always wonderful to hear her voice. But Chloe hadn’t called her back, either.

      “Well, I’ve never seen police and the courts put such a tight lid on a story.” Vince sighed like an ancient freight train billowing steam. “And every news outlet in the country will be after an interview with Sarah.”

      “Yes, but not every news outlet has a reporter who was there in the garage when her uncle died.”

      “Oh, you don’t need to remind me.” A reluctant half smile crossed the newshound’s lips. “You should probably be thankful I didn’t fire you over that.”

      A flush rose to her cheeks.

      “Any progress tracking down the other witness?” he asked.

      “Daniel? No, but I’m pretty sure he said something about being a carpenter.” And also a bodyguard. Her memories of him were so larger-than-life it was hard to know if they were all real. “But his truck was pretty distinctive. I thought that if I went around visiting some construction sites, I might find someone who knows who he is.”

      “From now on, I want you to limit your pursuit of this story to email and telephone.” Vince crossed his arms. “This whole Faceless thing looks more like urban legend than fact, but anyone capable of murdering a man and blowing up his car inside a government building is more than capable of taking out a lone reporter. We can all sit down as a writing team next week, talk it through together and decide how to proceed. There might be other tacks we can take on this.”

      Her heart sank. “You mean, there might be other reporters you could put on this story.”

      “We’re a family here, Olivia.” Vince frowned. “You know that. As an editor, it’s my prerogative to assign stories however I think will serve the paper best. Jack is our crime reporter. He’s got expertise in things like this. True, he’s off on a book tour right now, but he’ll still be able to take lead on this one remotely.”

      She looked down at the ground. Just because Vince liked to say the staff were family didn’t mean it was accurate. Everyone was loyal to the paper, but it wasn’t the СКАЧАТЬ