Rachel stared at the men suspiciously, her eyes registering their official uniforms, all they needed were dark sunglasses to complete their outfits. One had brown eyes the color of strong coffee, the other had hazel eyes that kept darting around as though expecting something to jump out of the afternoon shadows. Their nondescript black car had one last person inside and in front of her viewpoint on the threshold Rachel could see a tightly pulled ponytail.
“Rivers?” one of the men said.
“Oceans. The Pacific,” she responded. “Unfortunately I don’t have a boat so you both are in the wrong place.”
Both men frowned, wondering if she had a screw loose somewhere.
From the car came a bark of laughter. Rachel’s eyes drifted to the car. From the driver’s side came a badass-looking woman dressed in black too with her no-nonsense ponytail swinging as she walked with her block heels making impressions in the ground.
“I told you, boys, to let me handle this,” she said in a strong voice. Her voice matched her firm look. She held out a hand for a strong handshake but Rachel simply stared at her hand. The lady smirked and put her hand back in her pocket.
“Eileen Smith is the name. Was a huge fan of your work on the ABN network. We need to have a chat.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening.”
Eileen was undaunted.
“We are from People’s Magazine and…”
Rachel’s heart picked up pace. “What? People’s Magazine?" She asked shocked then got angry as she realized what was happening. "Nathaniel put you up to this, didn’t he?” After two days she was sure he had moved on after his hurtful betrayal. If this was an act of bribery to buy her forgiveness she wasn’t having it. Then again he probably sent them to see how far into the depth of depression she had fallen so that they could document it and make her the story of the year. She could just picture him behind his huge mahogany desk in his office laughing at her, pleased to be the reason she was once again in public disgrace. Fingers trembling with rage she pointed at them “If he put you up to this you can as well get back in your car, drive back to Gem Hills, find Nathaniel fucking Madden, and tell him to go to hell and never come back.”
“Unfortunately no, we already tried to contact you before Nate reached out to us. We are here because we appreciate your skills as a journalist. And actually, we are not journalists – I am not a journalist but Johnny here is,” she pointed to the hazel-eyed fellow. “Kary,” she gestured to the brown-eyed dude who hadn’t stopped staring. “Kary and I are with the GHIA”
Rachel frowned suddenly alert. The GHIA was Gem Hills’ Internal Investigation Agency. Once or twice she had had to deal with them when she was working on a story about an actress who got abducted from her home one night. She preferred to do her stories without getting any agencies involved yet here she was standing in front of two GHIA officers and one People’s Magazine agent. It suddenly occurred to her, now that she didn’t have Nathaniel’s protection they were here to do a story on Jacob’s pending allegations.
Her eyes turning hard she took a step back into the house, she hoped Mabel was clear out of harm’s way if the officers decided to forcefully take her to their agency.
“You guys are too late, you should have come earlier when my story was still fresh.” She started to close the door but Eileen hooked a foot in the doorway. The woman looked strong but she was a lot stronger than she looked. Despite Rachel’s effort to close the door Eileen easily overpowered her. She threw the door wide open and tried to smile reassuringly at Rachel but her smile was like a grimace.
“Look we are not here to do a story on you. Hell, I never even believed those accusations leveled against you. We are here to talk and we need your help.”
Rachel eyed them dubiously, still cautious about letting them in but doing her best to keep a brave face. “What do you need me for?”
“Well first you have to let us in,” Eileen said. She wiggled her foot. “Damn you almost took my foot out with that stunt.”
“Could have fooled me, “ Rachel snorted. “If you’re sure you’re not here to gawk at the twice disgraced Rachel Rivers then I have a condition for letting you in.” she waited until all three of them were paying attention to her, it wasn’t a long wait since Kary and Johnny were watching her like a specimen to be studied. “You won’t involve my sister in anything. Whatever happens, you will keep my sister out of it.”
“We promise.”
Satisfied with that Rachel let them in but kept a close watch on them. Being in the media for years her eyes were trained to notice things and she couldn’t help but notice that neither of them carried a weapon or cuffs. Yet it didn’t rule out the possibility that one of them could be hiding something in a hidden pocket.
Once they were seated – Rachel herself wasn’t seated, she was ready to either bolt or show them out of the door if any one of them tried something funny – Rachel got down to business.
“So what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Okay, so we won’t mince words with you. We know you’ve had some friends at the ABN network still talking with you, when was the last time you heard from any of them?”
Rachel frowned. “What does that have to do with anything? Is someone in trouble? Dana maybe? She’s a snake so you should look into her.”
Eileen exchanged glances with Kary and Johnny. “In a second. So we need you to answer because that determines how much of your help we’ll be needing.”
“Okay I haven’t spoken with Mark in a while but I spoke with Ben last week I think during the Mainland's fashion week.” She and Nate had shared a wild passionate night the day before. Days after that they used THE ROOM for the last time. She shook herself mentally. I won’t think about that, it means nothing to me as it meant nothing to him.
Eileen’s face for the first time showed something other than a serious business look. Her next words would make Rachel understand why.
“Ben is dead.”