Midnight Escape by Lorena McCourtney

Author:Lorena McCourtney [McCourtney, Lorena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rogue Ridge Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The entire building vibrated when the daily run of the printing presses began. Most people outside the newspaper business hated the noisy clatter and rumble. Even some within the business were not fond of it. But it exhilarated Guy, just as almost everything about putting out a newspaper exhilarated him, from digging up the news to sitting at his cramped desk pounding out the words on a typewriter. He liked watching the Linotype operator cope with the temperamental complexities of the typesetting equipment, liked hearing the impudent chatter of a newsboy hawking copies, and he’d never forget the thrill of spying a man at a coffee shop actually reading something he’d written.

Even though he had to search back on pages four or five to find his own stories, he liked to run down and grab one of the first copies as it rolled off the press, the sharp smell of ink still fresh on the page. He covered the routine court and police reports, but the top reporter, “Scotch” Wiseman, got any crime stories important enough to warrant a position on the front page.

But today would be different! The piece he’d written after dashing back from the police station this morning might not garner a banner headline but it should make page one. It was news.

After pausing to savor the moment of excitement when the presses started up, Guy began typing again, working on a human interest piece about an old Navajo woman weaver he’d met while wandering a shabby area of town. He paused again when Ben from the wire services room tossed him a torn scrap of paper.

“This just came in. Thought you might be interested.”

Guy could guess the subject matter even before he saw the St. Louis dateline. Earlier, when Gillian was still interested in him, she’d apparently spread the word that he was connected to the rich and powerful Wilkersons of St. Louis. Now Ben, a nice guy who no doubt thought he was being helpful, always routed Guy a copy of any Wilkerson-connected news.

Actually, those occasional bits of news had been helpful. He’d meant it when he warned his father he wasn’t going to let him get away with arson or violence, and through the wire service releases he’d been able to keep an eye on the Wilkerson activities.

Now Guy’s gaze flicked across the few lines of print. “Without preliminary announcement, the Wilkerson Textile Mills abruptly closed its doors today putting an estimated four hundred people out of work.” The release went on to say that owner Nat Wilkerson was not available for comment, and there was no word on whether the closure was expected to be temporary or permanent.

Guy sympathized with all the mill workers hurt by loss of their jobs, but the sympathy did not extend to his father. Nat had long scrimped on everything from wages to safety measures at the mill, his concern only for profits. And Nat was surely now too swamped with business problems to give much thought to Bethany and his grandson.

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