Fluffy Bunny

"We had to make the deadline..." Jason Smith sighed to me, throwing the newest copy of our magazine on the desk that sat between us. I closed my eyes and turned my head away from it, my story was on the cover but there was no pride in it. "It's not libelous or anything. Be proud of the story, it's a good one! The blogs are already picking up on it; the indictments should be coming any minute now."

"I accused the President of the Unites States of America of being a murderer! I accused him of getting rid of his opponent in the election with no evidence! This is not going to end well for me or the magazine!" I stood up and paced around the office. My hair fell in my face, so I brushed it back and once again thought about the consequences of the story. "He could be impeached for something that he didn't do! Who knows what else is going to happen!"

"That's not our problem," Jason leaned across the desk and watched me. He kept an eye on the cover and the other one on me. It had been so easy, someone had faxed over the information, and everything that had been quoted in my article had come from that source. Jason had made a few calls and came back to me with confirmation. "Vic, this is your time to shine. When this issue hits the newsstands on Friday, your name will be the one on everyone's lips. Hell it already is, people want to know more about you. Your career is going to blow up big time, and all you had to do for it is repeat information that was given to you. That I gave to you, stop worrying about it and live it up a little. You will have a job at Coast to Coast forever, especially once the circulation jumps up with your story."

Coast to Coast was the magazine that had hired me straight out of college, it was a prestigious magazine alone the lines of Time. Circulation had been faltering recently, with most of the people who used to read the magazine turning to the internet to get their information. The story I had written about the President would certainly boost the circulation and remind people why they loved the magazine. Of course it would also bring down the Presidency and create a huge scandal across the nation. What worried me was that I had no proof that the story I had written was accurate. I had never even met the source; they were too scared to come face to face with me. The note had indicated that there was great danger involved in double crossing the President. "Aren't you worried about being sued? Doesn't it seem weird that the source wouldn't even meet with us?"

Jason sighed and put his head in his hands. It was the same old song and dance that we had been doing for the past 12 hours. He was confident that there would be no fall out from this story and I was just as certain that the world was going to collapse and I would be the one blamed for it. Since I wrote the story, it really would be my fault when the United States fell into anarchist's hands and everything that we knew to be true was destroyed.

"Stop worrying so much. Even if we hadn't double checked, the first source was very credible. They had a firsthand account of everything that happened. Like I said stop worrying and start prepping to go on the talk shows and talk about your incredible luck."

Pop, pop, pop. The blast came from the front door; I peeked out of the door and was stunned to see men in black ski masks storming into the office. Guns drawn, some firing off shots into the air. I closed the door, thankful that Jason's office was in the back and off to the side. "I think it's time for us to panic. There are men in the outer office with guns. They are firing them."

Jason took a deep breath, pulled out his cell phone. While he was on the phone he opened his office window and beckoned me to climb out of it. I pulled myself onto the window sill, thanking God that I had lost 15 pounds in the wake of a bad break up. My head went out the window first, and then I pulled the rest of my body out. The back of my khaki's caught on the window and tore. Who cared if anyone saw my boxers, at least I had worn underwear. Standing up, I was surprised to see another one of the goons waiting outside of the window. He pulled out his gun and pointed it at me. "You are the one who caused all of this. The President is not a happy man right now; do you know what happens when the President isn't happy?"

My bladder felt as if it were going to burst at any moment. The breath was leaving my body at an unusual rate; I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breath. It was a bad decision because the man grabbed me and pulled me close to his body. The gun pressed against my temple, the coldness sent a chill throughout my body. "How did the President find out about the story already, it hasn't even been published yet?"

Click. My captor had pulled back the safety on the gun, though my eyes were covered, I imagined his fingers playing with the trigger. In that moment, I knew that my life would be ended because of this story. "Silly boy, we are talking about THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! He knows everything; he knows where all the bodies are buried. Except yours of course, he wouldn't want another murder on his record."

"Why are you guys shooting up the office? That doesn't seem like a smart thing to do? If the writer of the article ends up dead, doesn't that give the article some credibility and put the President in an even worse position? The election is only a few months away; two murders on his record might not look so good."
"Who says that you are going to die? Oh right, I did. Well that's the backup plan; the first plan is for you to tell us who your source is, so that we can take care of them. Otherwise, you die. I will kill you."
My mom used to tell me that the truth would set me free, that any guilt I had would be assuaged by just telling the honest to goodness truth. I doubted this would work but I tried it anyways, "My source was Fluffy Bunny."

Never trust anyone who calls themself "Fluffy Bunny."

The Search Begins

The Goon pushed me away from him, and fired three shots in my direction. My legs pumped as hard as they could as I made my great escape. Briefly I thought about going back to the office to make sure that everyone was ok but decided against it. Instead I pulled out my phone and dialed 9-1-1. "9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

"There's been a shooting at the Coast to Coast offices. 1540 West 32nd Avenue!" Before she could ask any more questions, I hung up the phone. My lungs felt as if they were on fire but I couldn't stop running until I made it back to my apartment. The goons were empowered by the most powerful man in the world, and I was empowered by a laptop and someone named Fluffy Bunny.

My eyes cut in every direction to make sure that no one had followed me. It appeared as though that I was in the clear. I ran across the street and into my building. The doorman looked at me as if I was crazy; it was not unusual for him to give me that look. I pushed the up button for the elevator and took in deep breaths. When it finally arrived in the lobby, I jumped into it and pushed the 11 button multiple times.

"Hey Vic, I let the cable guy in for you. It must have slipped your mind or something. He was just here. He gave me a copy of your magazine; your story on the President is so good. I always knew that the man was a scum bag." My neighbor Rita clucked. She held up the magazine as if to prove her point to me. Whoever gave it to her had to be connected to the magazine because the issue had yet to hit newsstands.

I opened my door, not sure what I was going to find. Hopefully Rita had seen the man leave and wasn't letting me walk into a dangerous situation. The silence was a strange comfort to me, normally it would have been off putting but today it meant that nobody was trying to kill me. I pulled out my cell phone with the intention to call Jason and make sure that everyone at the office was safe, when I saw the man walk out of my bathroom. "Hello, Victor. It is so nice of you to finally join me. Perhaps you were not expecting a guest tonight but you should have been. When you accuse the sitting President of the United States of murder, there is bound to be consequences. Then you give the investigators a very bad lie, you tell them that the First Lady was your source. Tsk Tsk. I expected better of you."

"I never accused the First Lady of being the one who told me that the President murdered his opponent. I told the guy who shot up my office and then tried to kidnap me, that my source was called Fluffy Bunny. Which is the God's honest truth." I watched him as he pulled his jogging pants band away from his body, displaying a gun hidden underneath. "Are you going to kill me? It would be better if you just did it right now, instead of waiting."

"It's cute that you are trying to be brave in the face of grave danger. It would be admirable if you weren't so detestable. You accuse an innocent man of murder and then you aren't even man enough to reveal who is spreading these lies. Instead you blame the First Lady. Don't give me that shit that you didn't, Fluffy Bunny is the code name given to her by the Secret Service. So now tell me why are you blaming the woman for turning her husband in? And why didn't you check into your story more?"

"I did a thorough check and so did my editor," My stomach was in knots, the gun had burned an impression into my brain. Jason promised me that he had checked and double checked all of the information that he gave to me. "Maybe instead of trying to bully me into saying something that isn't true, you should talk with the President. He knows what he did."

The thugs picked up the remote and zapped on the TV. Alyson Walters, the widow of John Walters the man who was killed, appeared on the screen. She was wearing all black; her cheeks were red and puffy from crying. Someone must have given her a cue off camera because she stepped to the microphone, squared her shoulders, and spoke eloquently, her voice strained by grief, "Thank you all for coming today. Victor Cross is a man to be commended for solving the murder of my husband, for being brave enough to take on the President of The United States. We all know that politicians are corrupt but never did I think that the leader of the Free World would silence his competition. Yet the evidence is laid out in the wonderful, masterful article that victor Cross has written. I urge the FBI, the police to arrest the man who killed my husband in cold blood. Yes Mr. President, you need to be tried and treated like any other thug, any other criminal, you need to be in jail!"

After that the screen went black, it had been turned off. The Thug turned to me, pulled his gun out of his pants and aimed it at me. I closed my eyes but my life didn't flash before them, like literature and the movies would have you believe it does. Instead I felt my bladder fill up I squeezed my abdomen in an attempt to stop myself from peeing my pants. "If the President is arrested, I will be back here to kill you. You better find out who this Fluffy Bunny person is and you better get them to tell you the real story of what happened."

Once The Thug left, I ran to the bathroom and relieved my bladder. His words running in my mind, I needed to find out whom the source was and if they were telling the truth. The trouble was that I hadn't talked to the source; Jason had brought everything to me. It wasn't unusual for him to do something like this, editors often did. It was unusual for him not to allow me to do some investigating on my own but he had wanted to get the story done right away. He wanted Coast to Coast to be the magazine to break the story of the century.
I grabbed my phone and sent a text message asking a reliable source about Fluffy Bunny. I wanted to see if what The Thug had said was true, if Fluffy Bunny was the First Lady. In less than a minute I had my answer.
It was the code name for the First Lady, and she had accused the President of murder just before my story ran.

A Deeper Mystery

Priscilla Robins was the First Lady of The United States and I was looking at her on my computer screen. Her red hair was frizzy and her emerald green eyes mesmerized every person who looked into them. One of the reasons that the American people had elected her husband to the presidency, Jackson Robins, was because Priscilla was renowned for her bluntness. She had once told a reporter that if her husband ever had an affair not only would she cut off his junk but she would take him for everything he was worth.

"Jackson has his career and I have mine. Just because he is running this country, does not mean I will not have a fulfilling career of my own!" The First Lady cheered in a clip that I found on Youtube. It was hypnotic the way she carried herself, full of confidence but never losing her feminine wiles. "My law career is not on hold, just because my address happens to be 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

"It would only take me about 4 or 5 hours to drive from New York City to Washington D.C." I told myself. I wanted to talk to Priscilla to find out if she was indeed the one who gave us the information about her husband. Yet it didn't make any sense, if Priscilla had thought her husband was a murderer she would just say it. There wouldn't be any of this cloak and dagger business. I talked to myself, trying to convince myself that this was the best way to get answers.
"She is the best person to start with. At the very least she will have a few answers for me, if I could get close enough to her."

I sent a quick text to my contact at the White House, and started to throw things into an overnight bag. My phone buzzed with a message, my contact had written back that the First Lady was actually in New York City. I dropped the clothes and decided to try and track her down. First I would stop by the office and talk with Jason, find out whatever I could from him about the source and how the information was given to him. I knew I should have questioned him more but when the editor of your magazine hands you the story of a lifetime, you don't question it.

The walk back to the office was fraught with nervousness, I looked every which way to make sure that I wasn't being followed. Once I made it there, I was surprised to find the building dark. There should have been police surrounding the building, taking statements, it was then that it crossed my mind that no one had asked to speak to me. After I punched in the code, I opened the door and noted that Jason's office light was still on.

"I knew you would come back, you want me dead? Just kill me already! I did everything you asked. Vic wrote the story that you wanted written and the President now stands accused of murder!" Jason yelled from his office, his speech slightly slurred. It was the office joke that Jason would drink to get
drunk after hours.

"Jason?" I called out. He must have been trying to stand or something because there were a lot of loud bangs coming from his office. Something inside of my gut told me to stay where I was but I ignored the nagging feeling and walked into his office. Jason was on the floor, trying to stand up. "Are you alright?"

"No, I'm not alright. My reputation, your reputation, the magazine's reputation is all on the line. I got caught up in something that I couldn't understand and now everything is wrong. We accused the President of committing murder, the first sitting President to ever have an accusation of this level hurled at him. We have effectively changed the course of the country and made history. We did this without any evidence," Jason chuckled as my head began to spin. The story that was supposed to bring me all of this attention and get my career off the ground was a LIE. "At first it was so easy, you know? I was fed the information that I gave to you, I thought that everything was kosher. Then you wanted follow up, why Vic? Why couldn't you just take the story, everything that I gave you and be happy with it? Once you wanted confirmation, I began digging and that's when the threats started."

"What threats?" I asked, my head turned towards the office door. The expectation was that more of the thugs would be walking through the door any minute. Jason took a long sip of the amber liquid that was in his cup. His bloodshot eyes looked at me, his lips quivered ever so slightly. "Jason tell me what's going on."

"The President didn't kill anybody, well maybe he did, I don't know. What I do know is that in order to end his Presidency, some very powerful and nasty people decided to leak this story. They came to me knowing that not only did I need a really hot selling issue but I also needed some money, I was in desperate situation. They gave me more money than I knew what to do with, it got me out of that situation," Jason slurped the rest of the liquor in his glass and he refilled it with a nearly empty bottle. "What I didn't know, what no one tells you is that one door closes and a much more sinister one opens. These people don't play games; they wanted the story out before the election. Not too far in advance, this is why I choose the last week of September to run it. They weren't happy with that though, you would think that them having the cover and my best reporter on the story. They wanted it leaked beforehand, but that doesn't sell copies of the magazine."

"What are you talking about?"

"Fluffy Bunny isn't real. There is no one who uses that name, wait that's not true. It's the name of the First Lady who was supposed to take the fall for this if it ever got out. Is she involved, no. Poor woman doesn't know what's about to happen. None of that matters now because the story is out there, the blogs have picked it up and now President Robins stands accused of murder. His goons are after us, the conspirator's goons are after us. Basically we are both dead, no matter what." Jason pulled a gun out of his drawer, which seemed to contain everything. He out the barrel in his mouth then took it out. "You should follow my suit and kill yourself."

Everything happened in slow motion. He put the gun was back in his mouth and he pulled the trigger. I tried to scream but nothing came out of my mouth. Jason slumped back in the chair.

First Truth

"It took a lot of balls for you to ask to meet with me, after you accused my husband of murder." Priscilla Robins said as she sat down at the table. We had agreed to meet in a small diner on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was a little place where we could talk without the interruption of the paparazzi or any other handlers getting in the way. "I am interested in what you have to say for yourself though."

"Please forgive me. I was given the information from my editor, who I thought I could trust. It turns out that there was someone out there who wanted your husband to lose the election and apparently they also wanted John Walters out of the race too. They accomplished this by killing Walters and setting up your husband for the murder. The question is who would do this?" I watched as she took a long sip from her coffee, then she looked at me with the green eyes that had captivated me for so long. "Please believe me, I am just as much a victim of all of this as you are."

A haughty laugh escaped from her mouth, the emeralds that she called eyes narrowed in on me. "Please do not try and act like a victim. Any journalist worth his salt would have done some investigating before running a piece like the one that you wrote. You are just as responsible in this mess as anyone else."

"How do I know that your husband didn't mastermind this whole thing? You could just be a pawn of his. I mean it can't be a coincidence that you show up in New York City the same day that everything is exposed to me. The very day that I have run into thugs threatening my life, saying that they work for your husband. Maybe you guys want me to go around telling everyone that the piece is a lie and then your husband gets away with murder."

"He is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! If he wanted someone killed, all he has to do is pick up the phone and say the word. Make no mistake my husband is far from a saint but he would have easily won the election with what he knew about Walters. Plus as everyone knows, I am his best asset."

"What did he know about Walters?"

"I'm not going to tell you. All you would do is take my words verboten and write another story to keep your name in the headlines. Do some research and act like a journalist." She stood up and tossed a scarf around her shoulder. "Think about that next time you write a brilliant story that can change the course of history. You aren't writing for the internet. Next time keep that in mind."

It was strange to see her Secret Service agents jump to attention as she made her way out of the diner. I watched as she walked away, I was concentrating on her so hard that I missed the shots that were fired. Instinctively my body fell under the table, and my breath became heavier. Even though she had her guards around her, I wanted to check on Priscilla but it was not wise for me to leave my safe spot.

The other diners began to panic and scream, many of them rushing out of the door. I followed them and decided to head in the direction towards the office. At first I pumped my legs hard, running towards my destination but after a while I slowed my pace. No one was following.

A bullet flew past my ear; the heat of it scared me. I turned and found someone running after me, gun in hand. An alley presented itself to me, so I ducked into it. My plan was to lose the gunman and get to the office to fin the paperwork that Jason kept on Fluffy Bunny.
Like everything in life at that time, my plan backfired. The gunman followed me into the alley and fired another shot at me. I ducked down and the bullet sailed over my head. Something in me snapped and I stopped running, stood up tall and turned towards my would be killer. "I don't know what you are hoping to do but if you are going to kill me, then just do it already. Just shoot me, right here and now."

"Leave well enough alone. Quit investigating things that are none of your business, otherwise I will. My boss is not pleased that you don't seem to be happy with the story that you were handed on a silver platter. You and that editor of yours, should be grateful for what we have given you. The coward killed himself before we had a chance to do it, such a waste of alcohol too. At least he isn't hiring whores anymore to do things that he was too scared to admit to liking."

"What are you talking about?"

"Never mind that! Just leave well enough alone, that is the take away from this. You don't need to know everything, you have your story and that should be enough." He pointed the gun just beyond my shoulder and fired off a shot. It whizzed by me, making my blood run cold. "Now Victor why don't you be a good boy and go enjoy some of that attention that is coming your way?" There was something about the way he was talking to me that made me angrier than I had ever been. I rushed towards him, my head down and ready to run into his stomach.
"I'll have you arrested, you son of a bitch!"

"Tsk, tsk. Victor you should have just done what I asked of you. Now you won't live to see the glory that will be heaped upon you," I heard the gun release another bullet. Throwing myself to the ground I prayed that I wouldn't be hit.
The pain spread throughout my body and the blackness sucked me into it.




Missing Evidence

When I woke up, I found myself in a hospital bed. My arm was in a sling and a haze surrounded me. My throat seemed to be drier than the Sahara Desert; every time I opened my mouth another dust ball came out of it. The nurses came in and did everything in their power to make me comfortable but all I wanted was to leave the hospital and finish my search.

Finally after the third day of being laid up, I was let out. I stopped by the office and began digging though the files that Jason kept. None of them seemed to have anything to do with Fluffy Bunny, but I was determined to find something, anything. The police had left Jason's office pretty much the same way it had looked on the day that he had killed himself.

Sadness ripped through me but I pushed it down. Whoever had given the tip to Jason was becoming desperate to keep their identity secret, and they would do anything to make sure that happened. Even if it meant that they had to kill me and any associated with me in the process. There was no way that I would let this person win, let them ruin my reputation.

Kitty Rowland. The name appeared on a file at the very back of the file cabinet. Kitty was an aggressive reporter from one of the tabloids; she was always after a huge story. I opened the file and was surprised to find that she had been investigating John Walters. After some digging she had come up with a sex scandal but that's all there was to it. A smile crossed my face, maybe if I talked to her I could find out more about the enemy that would want the Presidential nominee dead.

The computer booted and soon I was on the internet. All I needed was a phone number for her, a simple Google search would provide that, I thought. For a minute I stared at the doodle that they had up, then I typed in her name. The first hit took me by surprise, it was from the tabloid that she had worked; it was her obituary. Kitty Rowland had been killed just days after John Walters had been.

The breath left my body as I realized how far ranging this conspiracy was. Innocent people were dropping dead left and right, yet no one was investigating it. Why weren't the police at least looking into the connections between my story, the death of John Walters and Kitty Rowland. The phone stared back at me, I was tempted to pick it up and call the cops and tell them what I knew but it wouldn't do me any good.

My briefcase was open, so I stuffed the file on Kitty in there. I went through Jason's phone log. The usual numbers appeared on the screen, a strange one jumped out at me. The pen was in my hand before I realized that I had picked it up. I found a post-it note and jotted the number down threw it on the file. My eyes scanned the room for anything else that might help me solve this case but nothing stood out to me.

My cubicle was near Jason's office but I decided not to stop at it. There was nothing there that would help me. I clicked the lights out, and then headed out the door. A breeze had just blown my shirt against my body when I felt the heat.

The glass cracked, and a force of fire forced its way out of the building and pushed me to the ground. My head hit the concrete; it felt as if my head had exploded along with the building. I let my eyes close for a second, then the blessed sound of the fire trucks heading my way made me feel better. Soon help would be here and there was nothing that anyone could do to hurt me any longer.

I tried to keep myself awake until the emergency crews arrived but I couldn't fight the urge to sleep. My eyes closed and let the darkness creep in, my breathing relaxed. There was movement around me but I could not open my eyes enough to see who it was. I figured that it was the First Responders and would let them do their work on me.

Work. The word sparked something in me. Jason's words about being in financial trouble started echoing in my head as did the Goon's who was in my apartment. The Goon had said that Jason had hired hookers and did drugs. The last piece fell into place as I thought about poor Kitty Rowland; she had been investigating John Walters for some kind of sex scandal. Then of course there was the Fluffy Bunny reference which referred to the First Lady.

Or the one who wanted to be First Lady. Alyson Walters had every reason to set the President up for murder and get rid of everyone who threatened her determination to get her husband elected. However that went out the window when you factored in the fact that her husband was killed and she would not ascend to the position. Unless she was having an affair with the potential Vice President, but that didn't make sense.

The blackness started lifting, one of my eyes opened and I noticed that I was in a vehicle with grey interior. I had not been saved by the police or EMT; someone had kidnapped me and was taking me somewhere to get rid of me. I sucked in a deep breath to keep the panic hidden and tried to plot out my escape, but then it dawned on me.

Priscilla Robins had more to gain from the scandal and the death of her husband's opponent than anyone else did. She had to be connected to this in some form or another. She had to be the one who was behind the conspiracy. Pride swelled up in me but I realized that my figuring out the mystery meant that I was about to die and would never be able to reveal the truth to anyone.
Something happened to me in that minute that I thought I had it solved. It didn't feel right but then nothing did. Somewhere along the way I allowed myself to pass out again and woke myself up by whispering the words that would haunt me: "Alyson Walters murdered her husband."


The Truth Comes Out

I was being held in a hotel room, not a nice one but a hotel room nonetheless. It was small, the paint was peeling off the walls and there was more dirt on the floor than in the parking lot. One of the Thugs was stationed outside of the door; he kept coming in to make sure that I was still alive.

"The Boss will be here soon, so make sure you stay awake and don't die. I swear if you die I will make you pay!" The Guard said as he walked into the room, he surveyed me for a second then sighed. "I swear if you die, I will bring you back to life just so I can kill you again."

My epiphanies all went out the window. There was no way that either of the women I had thought was behind this could be. They were both classy women and more importantly they were both law abiding citizens. This was the work of a ruthless criminal. Maybe John Walters faked his own death and set everything up.

The door opened again, I expected it to be one of the thugs again. But instead a shadowy figure stood in the doorway, I tried to hear what was being said, or at least hear a voice but the figure was silent. When it turned into the room, I seen the gun being shoved into the pocket, there was a long silver piece at the end of it. It was a silencer. "So you figured me out. I am quite curious as to how you did this, when you haven't done any real investigating. Are you some kind of genius or something?"

"No Alyson, I am not a genius. I actually have been doing some investigating," She didn't need to know that everything had fallen into place because of a series of coincidences and near deaths for me. "It wasn't very clever using the code name of the First Lady; didn't you think that someone would put two and two together? I mean it's not as if it were that hard to figure out. And if you were trying to set her up, well you didn't do a very good job at that either."

"You men think that you have all of the answers, don't you? John always said the same thing to me. He was the dumbass who was losing the election to that fool Robins. I mean how hard did he have to try and lose? This election was in the bag; until he banged that co-ed. Fortunately, she was one of my girls. I was able to keep her quiet by giving her a little extra money. Then I found out that your friend, Jason, was quite fond of men. Of course he was very discreet and required the same. When he came to the lady I had in charge, I made sure to get his name and looked into his background. Luckily for me, he owed some outstanding drug debts to some of my friends. Of course I used this to my advantage and started to plan how I was going to turn things around,"

"But if you wanted your husband to win the election, why kill him? I mean it doesn't make much sense to kill the man who was going to be the one to get you into the White House." My rationale seemed flawless but there was something about this woman that seemed very unstable. I wanted to keep her talking, so that I had time to plan my escape. There was no reason on God's green Earth that I should have to say this more than once in my lifetime.

"I was never going to get near the White House with the imbecile in charge. I mean he couldn't even shut up a pesky little tabloid reporter. It should have been as easy as 123 but no, he kept trying to make deals with her. Finally I just offed her. She had found out about his little activity with my co-ed hooker, and was like a dog with a bone. She had to die. Then I realized that there would be an investigation and had to cover it up. So I decided to take care of two problems in one and killed John. Of course I would never pull the trigger myself; I am a lady after all. No I hired a hitman to do it, and then I started to think about the best way to overthrow the Government and start from scratch. That's when I came up with the plan to frame the President. Priscilla was always accusing him of murder, because of the genocides in those African countries and his stance that it wasn't our problem to deal with. It wasn't a huge leap to think that he would kill his opponent, especially since he was expected to lose the election."

"That's where Jason and I came in?"

"Well Jason, yes. His fondness for male hookers and recreational cocaine gave me leverage over him that I needed. Then I fed him the story and he handed it over to you. If only you had just accepted that everything had been double checked and was truthful. Instead you decided to unravel this story and now there is a long trail of dead people. Which will soon include you."
As she lifted the gun to me, the door burst open and there was a whole team of police who came through it yelling, "Freeze! Police!"

Alyson fired off a shot at the police and they returned fire, hitting her. There was a pool of blood that formed on her green dress. The reign of terror that she had started had come to an end.

Epilogue

"Alyson Walters orchestrated the entire conspiracy to slither her way into the nomination for President." I read aloud the follow up article that I had written. The new editor, Tanya Marshall looked pleased with what I had written.

"Ms. Walters had never considered the fact that somebody would figure out that she was running a high class ring of hookers. Once that tidbit started coming to light, the woman became obsessed with making sure that it didn't happen."

"Vic, you have already sold me on this story. We are going to run it on the cover, with a mea culpa to the President. Our reputation may have taken a hit when the truth came out but this story is one that is not only true but the stuff that movies are made of."

The intercom buzzed and the secretary's voice came over it, "Vic, the First Lady is here to see you."

"You better go."

I left Tanya's office, and found Priscilla Robins waiting for me by the door.
She didn't greet me in the usual way, "You almost destroyed my husband's reputation and had him sent away for murder. But at long last you did some investigating and saved the day. I suppose some sort of thank you should be in order but really I just can't bring myself to be grateful for you doing your job. Thank God it happened before the election and my husband was able to keep his job."

"It's always a pleasure to see you as well, Priscilla. How do you like the new offices? The other one was blown up by your mortal enemy, I almost died."

"I was on her trail for the hooker ring. All I needed was some shred of evidence, and then I was turning her over to the authorities and was going to beg to prosecute her."

"Goodbye Priscilla. Unless, of course you are here to give me an exclusive interview or something, maybe you want to tell me about the affair allegations against your husband? That would be great."

"My marriage is no one's business. But I will grant you an interview about my big plans, if you promise to treat me like every other person you interview and not a delicate flower or a player in the biggest story of your career."

"I promise. Let's get started. I just need to grab my recorder and some research."

We spent the entire afternoon going over her desire to make a name of her own, After a few hours I stopped the interview. We had to make the deadline