Billy Blood by Christopher Church

Billy Blood by Christopher Church

Author:Christopher Church
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-942267-18-8
Publisher: Dagmar Miura


Thursday

The ringing of his cell phone wrenched him awake. It was after nine, but just barely. He pulled it off the nightstand and squinted to see the number. It wasn’t anyone he knew, but showed an 818 area code—the Valley. He debated for a second whether to ignore it, but curiosity overcame his grogginess, and he answered, “Braithwaite.”

“Good morning,” a woman said. “My name is Megan, and I’m calling from LA’s number-one mega news source.” She recited the call letters.

“Is that a TV station?” he asked, closing his eyes again and pulling the blankets up to his neck. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Yes, you have,” she insisted. “We’re number one.”

“What do you want, Megan?”

“I’m in the news department, and I have a few questions about your work on the Billy Blood attacks. Have your psychic powers revealed any evidence so far?”

“How did you get this number?” he demanded.

“You’re in the book,” she said.

“That’s a lie,” he said, thinking quickly. Cell numbers didn’t have a book, and his name had been too garbled in the news coverage for her to have tracked him down based on that. The only way she could have found his phone number was if Frey or Arko had given it to her.

“Anyway,” she said, “exactly what kind of techniques are you using in your investigation?”

“I’m not doing any interviews. Don’t call this number again,” he said, hanging up before she could argue with him. He set his phone back on the nightstand and stretched, staying under the covers.

Frey really was exploiting every possibility to maximize his media coverage. A heads-up about the journalists would have been nice, but they must just assume over at Billy Blood that anyone would be thrilled to be entangled with the media—like being handed a bouquet of flowers, a welcome delight that required no warning. He’d dreamed about Frey last night, he remembered, although he hadn’t been able to manipulate the dream. He pulled his notepad off the nightstand and read through what he’d written. He thought about Frey, his demeanor. He’d only spoken to the guy once, and then he’d been handed off to Arko. It made sense, though, that a CEO wouldn’t have time to deal with every subcontractor.

What had Peggy said yesterday? Publicly traded companies had to reveal more about their workings than private ones. He wanted to look into that. He steeled himself to face the cold of this absurdly early hour, finally rolling out of bed and quickly pulling on his clothes.

Ned was at his desk, dressed for a home-office day, when he poked his head in.

“Breakfast?” Mason asked.

“I’ve eaten,” Ned said. “You’re up early.”

“It’s crazy, I know. But things are heating up—the circumstances demand sacrifice.”

Ned laughed. “You’re really going above and beyond, getting up at nine thirty.”

“So can you try to get me into Blue Hills? I want to see if I can catch Catherine before she leaves town.”

“I know just the guy to ask,” he said. “Let me call him.”

Mason went into the kitchen and made a pot of espresso, then ate some fruit with it, and made another pot.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.