Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 106596 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106596 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
With that, I curled my finger, motioning her into the conference room. People had begun to trickle straight into it with their coffee cups and sleepy eyes. Judith obeyed, her catlike, limber walk telling me she knew I was looking.
James Townley opened the door for us before he walked in.
“Son.” He clapped my back.
“Call me that again if you want a one-way ticket to early retirement,” I muttered.
“Junior.” He winked at Judith.
“Mr. Numbers.” She saluted.
They shared a knowing smile. I punched him in the face. Internally, of course. My limits were few and far between, but they were there. Besides, James had just married the morning show’s latest weather girl—who was thirty, both in age and IQ points—in a Hamptons ceremony that made Harry and Meghan’s royal wedding look like a karaoke evening for a low-budget Jersey Shore bachelorette party. That thing got more news coverage than the North Korea threat. I shot James a don’t-fuck-with-me frown—just to make sure he knew that I knew he’d checked out Judith’s ass when she walked in—and he pretended not to notice me.
From that point forward, it was same old, same old. My staff presented me with their ideas for tonight’s show starting with Kate beside me—my right hand—then moving to the person next to her and so forth.
Kate (forty-something, happily married, and openly gay) suggested we start with the volcanic disaster in Maui. Jessica (twenty-something, single, and clingy as saggy balls) came up with new details about the EU crisis, and Steve, the newbie who was shaping up to be a little less useful than a bag of unwashed anuses, suggested we talk about the cheese crisis in Belgium. I braced my hands on the back of the chair I stood behind so I didn’t accidentally punch him from across the table.
“Junior?” Frankly, I did it because I didn’t want James and her to have something uniquely theirs—a pet name, a connection.
“Me?” She pointed at herself, looking up from her abused notebook.
I shot her a condescending glare and punctuated it with a raised eyebrow.
She tucked her hair behind her ears and cleared her throat. “Yes. Okay. Good thing I have Kipling.”
Kipling? Who the fuck is Kipling?
“So, there’s a YouTube blogger…”
“Next,” I barked.
This wasn’t Couture. I doubted our viewers wanted to hear about some chick showing people how to apply eyeliner for twenty minutes, unless she was dead and chopped into tiny pieces, spread across the five oceans.
“Wait,” she bit out, her teeth grinding together. “There’s a YouTube blogger with over two million viewers. He just posted a video telling people he hid a body part of someone close to him who passed away in the woods near his house. Whoever finds it will get ten grand in cash.”
“What?” Kate nearly spat her coffee all over the desk. “How did we not hear about this until now?”
“First of all, we are the news.” Judith smiled apologetically, and my jaw ticked, fighting a smirk. “And it happened literally ten minutes ago.” She swiveled to Kate, her chest rising and falling. “Honestly, I doubt it will warrant much reaction at first. Most of his viewers are minors following his journey as a pro skateboarder. But this is definitely something we should be alarmed about. Can I?”
She pointed at Steve’s iPad. Steve dragged his eyes to me, a question mark and boredom shining through them.
“Give her the iPad, doofus.” I shook my head.
Five seconds later we were looking at Cody McHotson—not his real name was my wild guess—wearing a Viking helmet, sleeveless Billabong tank top, and a smug smile that flashed bleached teeth. He looked like the reason they invented guns, but he was actually doing this—sending minors out to look for a body part.
“It’s not gross or anything.” He tucked a lock of his blond side-bang back into his hat. “Like, don’t expect to find something super weird. But it’s there, and hey, if you feel like making a buck, you should go for it.” The stoner laughed into the camera, sending a plume of smoke toward the lens.
“Is he a minor?” I turned to Judith.
She shook her head. “Twenty-one.”
It was official. This generation was too dumb to repopulate. Hard to believe I would be dependent on his likes fifty years from now.
“Good lead, Humphry. Jessica, follow it.”
“I’m on it.” Jessica saluted, typing away on her phone.
“Hey, what about me?” Steve flung his arms in the air.
“You gave me a lead about Belgian cheese. Be happy my shoe is not in your ass.”
“Ugh,” he wailed, picking a pastry from the basket and stuffing it into his mouth.
He was of the Phoenix Townley brand—a rich boy who’d wormed his way into my newsroom through connections. My father had paved the way for people who were incapable of consuming a latte without burning themselves in the process, let alone making one, yet simply had the right last name. Of course, same could be said about me. With two differences: I hadn’t asked for this job, and I’d goddamn well earned it.