Hard To Bear (16 page)

Half an hour later, her cell phone rang.

The man on the other end sounded snooty and pompous. 

“What is the nature of the story that you’re writing?”

“Who am I speaking with?” Coral asked.  Geez, these people really didn’t care about the corporate image they were projecting, did they?  A “hello” would have been nice.

“That’s not your concern.”

“I don’t talk to anonymous people,” she said coolly. “You can give me your name, or I can hang up and go back to writing my story.”

“Everything that I say is off the record, and I assure you, if yo
u violate that, I will sue you.”

“I’m waiting.”

“My name is Easton Berger, attorney at law. I represent Metamorph.”

“I figured as much, what the threats of lawsuits and all,” she said.

“Again, why are you writing about a property purchase? There’s no news value there.”

“Well, there have been a number of parcels of land in the county area of Blue Moon Junction that have been snapped up over the past year.  We traced the purchase of one of the parcels back to your company,” she said.

“I fail to see why that’s newsworthy.”

“My boss determines what’s newsworthy
,” she said.

There was a long moment of silence, and she could hear angry, indignant breathing on the phone.
  She formed a mental picture of him: he’d be skinny as a pipe cleaner and he’d have gold rimmed glasses and he’d glare at people down his long, straight nose.

“I will tell you, again, this is off the record, the reason that we purchased the property is that we are cultivating a rare flower which will only grow in the soil in that particular area.  It has healing properties, and
we are hoping to synthesize it for mass production, but at the current time we have only been able to grow it in small quantities.  I will also tell you that ours is a very competitive business, and if word of this were to leak out, there would undoubtedly be trespassers on that property, putting our business at risk.  I will also tell you that we have armed guards stationed on our property, and trespassers will be shot on sight, as is our legal right.”

“If that’s all off the record, that’s fine.
We’re still running a story stating that the parcels of property have been purchased. If you want to maintain an official ‘no comment’, you’re certainly welcome to do so.”

“Yes, that is all that I can give you.  An
d if you run that story, you jeopardize the development of a medicine which could save hundreds of thousands of lives,” he said angrily.

“I’ll tell my boss,” she said.  I don’t believe a word you’re saying, she thought.

“When is the story running?”

“I don’t know yet. And if that’s all you’ve got to say, I need to get back to work.”

She reported her conversation to Mr. Brewster.

“Among the many reasons that I think that he’s lying, if there was some
rare and precious flower on their property, there’s no way that he’d tell us about it, even off the record,” she said.

“I agree that he sounds like he’s lying, but we can’t force him to talk,” he said. “And he made it quite clear that we’re not welcome on the company property, so at this point it’s difficult to verify what they’re doing out there.  We don’t have any proof that they’re violating the law in any way, or that they’re doing anything other than what they claim.”

“So we’re not going to run any story?”

Mr. Brewster frowned, stroking his grey-streaked beard.  “I didn’t say that.  I think we need to start rattling some cages.  We can at least run a story in this afternoon’s paper mentioning the mysterious property purchases, and the fact that the company who bought most of the property refused to comment.  And we can mention that Adrian was investigating the property purchases before he failed to show up at the newspaper, and that he’s been reported as a missing person.”

“What about the other disappe
arances?”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have anything to tie them in with Adrian’s disappearance. Okay, get busy.  You’ve got an hour.”

Coral rushed back to her desk.  This was actually exciting. It was as close to real news as she’d ever gotten so far.  It was also scary; she felt the heavy weight of responsibility resting on her shoulders.  Three people were missing, and every word that she wrote had the power to shed light on their disappearance, to put pressure on the authorities to act…

Stomach churning, she sat down and turned on her computer.

*  *  *

Flint pulled up in front of his office to find Rory standing on the front porch, holding a newspaper in his hand.   Uneasiness rippled through him; Rory’s face was like thunder.

He climbed out of his truck and walked up to the house.

“What’s up? Trouble in paradise?” he asked.

“You’ve got to see this,” Rory said angrily.   Flint grabbed the newspaper from Rory’s hand, and a jolt of anger shot through him when he saw the headline.

“Are Swampland Purchases Tied In With Reporter’s Disappearance?”  Underneath the headline was a map highlighting the location of the parcels of swampland, and a picture of Adrian Freidman.

His heart thudded painfully in his chest.

“Son of a bitch,” he said.  “This jeopardizes our entire operation.”

“
Ya think?” Rory said angrily.  “I can’t believe they did that.  Didn’t you try to talk her out of it?”

“As much as I could, yes, but I can’t actually tell her anything about why we’re here or what we’re investigating.   If I’d been able to tell her what we were doing, I could have convinced her to hold the story.”

“Too risky,” Rory growled. “There’s far too much riding on this for you to trust a woman that you’ve just met.”

“I know.  God damn it,
god damn it, I can’t believe this.”

Flint
pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Coral.

“
What the hell were you thinking?” he yelled.

“I beg your pardon? What are you talking about?”

“The story in today’s paper.  I’ve been begging you to back off this entire investigation, damn it to hell.  You’ve put a lot of people at risk, including my family.”

“
How did I put your family at risk?” she sounded baffled.  “We’ve got three missing people in this town, and a company buying up a lot of property near the town and refusing to reveal what they want to use it for, and that’s newsworthy.  If anybody, including you or the police, had at least given me a hint of what’s going on here, we might have been able to hold the story, but with the radio silence I’ve been getting, we didn’t have any other options.”

“You had the option not to print the story!” he roared, and
hurled the phone against a porch railing, where it shattered into pieces.

What Coral didn
’t know was that his family was also descended from Original Shifters.   She also didn’t know that there had been kidnappings of at least a dozen descendents of Original Shifters, from around the world.  

Flint frequently used his business as a cover for the Enforcer’s activities, but it had never hit so close to home before.

When The Enforcers had learned of the kidnappings, and of Metamorph’s suspected plans on the ley line property, he’d immediately set up surveillance to ensure that his family was safe, and then arranged for the expansion project so that dozens of Enforcers could be covertly moved in to town, pretending to be the construction crew.

“Do you think they’ll still go forward with their plans?” Rory asked. 

Flint was boiling over with frustration.   “Metamorph put a fortune into this project.  I know they’re going to wonder if their plans have been exposed, but I think that they’re still going to go forward with their operation.  There’s too much at stake for them if they abandon ship.  That comet won’t be passing by again in our lifetime; they’ll never have another opportunity like this one.”

“Well, it’s not like we have any choice,” Rory said. “It’s still our best chance to rescue the kidnap victims and shut these bastards down for good.  We’ll carry on as planned.
”

The sun blazed in a cloudless sky, and the lightest of breezes ruffled the trees. Coral and Frederick stopped for a moment; they were near the edge of Metamorph’s property.  Overhead, eleven million miles from Earth, Archibald’s comet soared through the airless space between the planets, dragging a scattered trail of meteors behind it.

They’d hiked this far in human form, and now they were preparing to shift.

Coral stood perfectly still in the sunlight, squinting up at the sky.  In the daytime, the comet wasn’t visible, but it would be approaching the Earth at its closest point within a couple of hours.

“What are you doing?” Frederick asked.

“Nothing.  Just trying to see if I feel anything different, a sudden surge of power or anything like that.  I don’t feel a thing.  Then again, from what Blanche told me, the historical record indicates that none of the people who turned into shifters felt anything different, right up until they were suddenly able to shift.”

Coral paused. “We’ve got company,” she said.
“Good God, Blanche followed us here.  I can smell her.”

Blanche came bustling out of the woods, jogging towards them at a surprisingly fast pace for someone her age.
  She was wearing camouflage print jogging pants and camouflage sneakers.“Are you crazy?” Coral demanded when she reached them. “What are you even doing here?”

“
I told you to call me if you were going to do any more snooping! It could be dangerous!” Blanche looked hurt.

“
Yes, it could be dangerous, which is exactly why I didn’t tell you! How did you know we’d be here?”

“Bettina overheard you two talking, and she told me about it.  As if anyone in Blue Moon Junction can keep a secret from me.”  She reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a
.22 calibre pistol.  Coral yelped in alarm.

“Now, just in case we run i
nto kidnappers, we’ll be armed. So anyway – oh, good heavens, can you believe that nosy bitch followed us here?”

“Yes, actually, I can,” Coral said wearily, watching
Maybelle race towards them. “I’d be more surprised if she hadn’t.”

Maybelle
was huffing and puffing by the time she reached them.

“Nice try,” she said snootily to Blanche.  “If you think I’m going to let you get Coral killed, you’ve got another thing coming.”
  She was wearing a pink and blue flowered track suit and blue running shoes. She was toting a flowered purse; she reached into it and pulled out a Glock.

“Now this is a gun,” she said. “That wimpy little pea-shooter wouldn’t take out a hummingbird.” She dismissed Blanche’s gun with a scornful glance.

“Oh, listen to the mighty hunter – who’s dressed to make sure every varmint that’s not legally blind can see you coming from fifty miles, in that flashy getup.  Typical, you’re vain even when you’re chasing a gang of kidnappers.”

“Why, you-” Blanche swung towards
Maybelle with a snarl.  Her snout protruded, and fur sprouted on her face.  It was gray heavily speckled with white.  A warning growl rumbled up from Maybelle’s throat.

“Ladies!”
Coral barked at them.  “This is why you’re not coming with us.  They’ll hear you coming from miles away.” Sudden inspiration struck her.  “You two need to be our sentries.  We’re going to go a little further in, and then shift and take a run through the woods to see what we can see or scent.  Stay here, and if we’re not back in an hour, then go back to town and call for help.”

Blanche’s face rippled and turned human again.  She glanced at
Maybelle questioningly.

“Well, I guess…”
Maybelle said hesitantly.

“I don’t like it.  You have no idea what you’re going to run into out there-” Blanche protested.

              “Let’s go, Frederick,” Coral said quickly.  She didn’t want the two women to have a chance to argue with her – or follow her.

             
Within minutes, they’d made it through the towering pine trees and stopped at a clearing.

             
“Thank heavens we managed to shake those two crazies.  Seriously, I can’t believe-oh, for the love of God. More company? Is there anyone in Blue Moon Junction who
hasn’t
followed us out here?”

Then Coral hesitated.  She smelled something…a familiar scent.  She felt a prickling of warning, and the hairs on the back of her neck
raised.

“Melinda’s here,” she said
to Frederick. “She was using Scentsbane to disguise her scent, but not enough of it.”

Frederick nodded
eagerly. “I know.  She asked me not to tell you in advance, because she knows how you feel about her, but she’s meeting us out here.  She’s going to come with us.” He beamed with pride, a smile stretching across his homely face.  “She said that if anything happened to me, she couldn’t stand it.  She just had to be here to protect me.”