Deadly News: A Thriller Read Free

this story. At the time, I had no idea. But now, I wouldn’t have even gone into work. Hell, I could’ve quit.
    “But that’s not what happened. I didn’t mean to get involved, but I did. Sometimes chance is simply unlucky, the coincidence unfortunate.”

Abby’s Tale
    Abby Melcer sat at her desk, staring at her computer screen, trying to figure out a way to integrate the incoherent quotes she’d gotten earlier that day into a coherent story. This was not how she imagined her life working out when she’d discounted her guidance counselor’s advice and majored in journalism. Thank God she’d minored in psych, or she’d probably never even have gotten this job. It had come down to her and someone who’d minored in English. Hell of a thing to decide a job on; one of the candidates having a less common, and possibly slightly more applicable, minor.
    That win wasn’t feeling much like one right now.
    “Abbs,” Ecks said, walking up to her desk.
    “Oh good,” she said. It took a second for her eyes to adjust focus from the computer screen to him. “You’re always someone I want to see.”
    “I know,” he said, smiling. Then his smile dropped.
    Abby couldn’t recall ever seeing him so serious. Not like she studied his every move, though.
    “This, uh, this came for you. A guy—I think it was a guy—dropped it off. Darla said he told her he was repaying a favor.” He held out a folder, tape sealing its three edges.
    She swiveled in her chair to fully face Ecks. “What is it?”
    “I don’t know, I didn’t open it.” He shook it at her. “Here.”
    She took it from him. “Thanks.” She stared at him.
    “Well are you gonna open it?”
    “Yes.” She spun back to her computer screen. “Once I finish this damn story.”
    “Tomorrow’s?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Oh. Well, hey, let me know if it’s something interesting.”
    Still looking at her screen, “If it’s something
interesting
, you’ll be the first person I tell.”
    “Okay, cool. See you.”
    She stared at the quotes and sighed.
The Thin Man had red eyes, and he cast a hex at my red, the sign, you know, following left and which one is? But that’s besides. So anyway, we got to the back of the store, and the body was just standing there.
    Everything else aside, either this man saw a mannequin, or a dead body was standing on its feet. Abby wanted to go with the former, but that’s not what the man said, and her editor didn’t like her reporters to ‘improvise’, as she called it.
    Disgusted, right eye throbbing with the promise of a migraine, Abby got up to use the restroom. Standing, she moved the mouse to bring up the task bar to look at the clock. She’d now been up for—mental arithmetic was hard—twenty hours? Twenty-two? Eighteen?
    She had to use the ugly bathroom to avoid passing by Ecks’s desk. It had only one stall, and the door’s lock was broken. It always seemed dirty, too. It was used less than the other one though, so it probably just seemed dirty because of its state of frequent disuse.
    After washing her hands, she stared at her reflection in the hazy mirror. Over her right shoulder was a small window that looked out into the night. There was a light on in one of the windows in the building directly across from this one. As she watched, she saw movement, then the light went out and that window got lost with the rest of the darkened ones surrounding it.
    That she wasn’t the only one working late gave her some small comfort. She began washing her hands again, only realizing she already had when the waving of her hand under the automatic soap dispenser triggered the memory of having done the same thing seconds previous. She groaned, and tried to rinse the soap off without getting her left hand wet. It didn’t work.
    She just had to finish this report, then she could go home and sleep for the next week. She wiped her hands on her jeans as she exited.
    Out in the newsroom, the night shift was busy preparing for