“I just got in.” Lamont leaned against the chrome and glass counter, giving her his best smile as he flicked his hair back over his shoulder. “You’re looking well.”
“Me? Please. I saw you on social media last week.” Louise lowered her voice, even though the lobby was empty except for the two of them. “I know that was you looking all mysterious and dangerous in Tuscany. When did you start moonlighting as a bodyguard?”
Lamont chuckled. “That wasn’t moonlighting. I was just helping out a friend.”
“A friend who needs a bodyguard or a sexy entourage?” Louise fanned herself with one hand. “The photos were something else. Half the women in the office were swooning over you and your friends. Not to mention a few of the men as well.”
“It was all show, you know how it is.”
“Uh-huh.” Louise didn’t sound convinced. “So what brings you to our humble newsroom? Please tell me you’re picking up a new assignment. This place has been so boring lately.”
“No assignment, no.” Lamont shifted his weight, keeping his movements casual. “Actually, I was hoping to catch up with one of your journalists. Ewen Cross? I ran into him in Egypt aboutten days ago, but we didn’t get much time to talk. I figured I’d swing by his office now that I’m back in town. He mentioned wanting to check some facts for a story I’m working on.”
The change in Louise was immediate. Her bright smile froze, then faded. Her eyes darted toward the security camera in the corner, then back to her computer screen.
“Ewen Cross?” she repeated, her voice carefully neutral.
“Yeah.” Lamont kept his tone light, but his instincts were screaming. “Is he in? Busy? I can leave him a note and come back later if he’s on a deadline.”
Louise’s fingers moved over her keyboard, clicking through what looked like an employee directory. Her shoulders hunched forward slightly, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped to barely above a whisper.
“When exactly did you see him in Egypt?”
“About ten days ago. We bumped into each other at a restaurant.” Lamont watched her face carefully. “We only talked for a minute before he had to leave - apparently he had another appointment. But he gave me his card and said he had something important to discuss. He did mention he was only going to be in Egypt for two more days when I saw him, but I got caught up with other things, as you saw. I figured he’d come back here. I’ve been trying to touch base with him ever since, but I’m not getting any response.”
Louise glanced toward the elevators, then toward the hallway leading to the back offices. Nobody was coming, but Louise gave the impression someone evil was going to jump out of the nearest artwork. She leaned forward across the reception desk, and Lamont mirrored her movement until they were both hunched over the glossy surface like conspirators.
“He never came back,” Louise whispered.
Lamont’s blood went cold. “What do you mean?”
“From Egypt. Ewen never came back from Egypt.” Louise’s green eyes were wide and worried. “He was due back last week, but from what I hear, nobody’s heard from him. His phone’s off. His apartment’s empty. His editor filed a missing person’s report with the NYPD three days ago, but...”
She cut herself off, glancing around again.
“But what?” Lamont kept his voice low and calm, even though his hound was snarling inside him. “Come on, Louise, you know I can be trusted.”
“Word came down from upper management that we’re not supposed to talk about him. Like, at all.” Louise’s fingers twisted together. “His name got scrubbed from the active reporter list. His office was cleaned out yesterday – the things on his desk were just boxed up and stuffed in the basement. It’s like they’re pretending he never existed.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know!” Louise’s whisper turned urgent. “Ewen’s been with The Times for three years. He’s a good journalist. A really good journalist. Apparently, he was working on something big before he left for Egypt, but we all know how protective you journalists are about your leads. He wouldn’t tell anyone what it was. Renee, in accounting, said she heard him tell someone in the break room that it was too dangerous to involve anyone else until he had solid proof of whatever this thing was.”
Lamont’s mind raced, his brief meeting with Ewen now seen through a more sinister lens. The two men who’d grabbed Ewen at the restaurant...how Ewen hadn’t seemed pleased to be withthem...although he went when grabbed. The desperate, almost pleading edge to Ewen’s tone when he asked Lamont to call.
“Do you have any idea what the story was about?” Lamont asked.
Louise shook her head. “Ewen kept everything locked down tight. I overheard him on the phone a few times. He was talking to someone about government contracts. Defense contracts, maybe? And something about falsified documents, but they were all snippets, and face it, around here, those sorts of conversations are common.” Louise sighed.
“So you think he might’ve been investigating some form of corporate corruption?”
“Maybe? I honestly don’t know.” Louise bit her lower lip. “Whatever it was, it was big enough that Ewen took vacation time to go to Egypt. He didn’t file it as a work trip. He paid for everything himself.”
Which meant Ewen had been trying to keep The Times from knowing where he was going. Smart, if he was investigating something that involved people with enough power to make a journalist disappear. Although not smart enough, apparently.
“Who else knows he’s missing?” Lamont asked. “Is anyone looking for him at all?”
“Just the people who’ve noticed he hasn’t been around. His editor, like I said. A few of us who worked with him regularly. But everyone’s being really careful not to say anything out loud.” Louise’s voice dropped even lower. “There was a guy here two days ago. Tall, expensive suit, government badge. He was talking to the publisher for over an hour. After he left, that’s when the word came down. No more questions about Ewen Cross. No more looking for Ewen Cross. Drop it entirely.”
