FICTION
Sins Of The Past Part 3
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson and Henry James Series By P.G. & Sharon Barnett
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson. And I’m Henry James, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
Sometimes, and especially in our line of work, to get to the story we want to tell, we have to work on the one we need to tell first. Pamela Lambert A.K.A. Penelope Layne was the story our editor-in-chief wanted us to tackle, but her situation and the fact Rick McDonnell seemed so keen on tracking her down seemed like an appetizer, a tease leading up to the main course.
Our main issue was there was something not right with this menu. Too many items had been omitted. The problem was, we didn’t know just what items they were.
Something wasn’t right. We could feel it, a hint of strangeness running just beneath the surface of conscious thought, a nagging irritation neither of us could get a handle on.
“So, what now?”
“What do you mean, Henry?”
“Which story are we going to work?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious. If Rick finds out we’ve been poking around in his business, he’ll shut us down pretty quick.”
“I’ve got a funny feeling about this princess. Like somehow, Rick’s got more of a connection to Pamela Lambert than he’s telling us.”
“I don’t know. But I do know this. If there is a connection, don’t you think Rick knows we’re going to find out about it?”
“Like he wants us to find it?”
“Yeah.”
“Why couldn’t he just tell us and be done with it?”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“Okay, look. As far as Rick’s concerned, I’m out of the field, so any of the leg work you’re going to have to handle by yourself.”
“You going to be okay without adult supervision?”
“Bite me, Johnson.”
A knock on the closed door quickly dampened our conversation. Immediately following, the door swung open. Standing in the doorway was one of the people from the copy desk in the basement.
“Shelly? It’s been a while. Is that a new hairstyle?”
The young woman grinned sheepishly and brushed her fingers through one side, pulling strands of hair behind an ear.
“Yeah, Mr. James. You like it?”
“Highlights your green eyes, girl.”
“They’re blue.”
“Uh, okay, what can we do for you?”
“Well, Mr. McDonnell told us you’d be working in house as a senior editor for a while and wanted you to be set up in the editing system. Have you logged in this morning?”
“Haven’t even fired this new computer up. Why?”
“Well, uh, there are about seventy-five pieces you need to take a look at before noon today.”
“Uh, how many?”
“Seventy-five.”
“Stop it with the laughing Shaundrika. Shelly, if you’ll recall, I worked with you and Tom on the copy desk. None of us ever had to do that many, and not a single one of us had to do that kind of work in three hours.”
“I don’t know Mr. James, but Mr. McDonnell said to assign the stories to you. You know when we heard the news you’d died, we were just crushed. And now that you’re, uh, well, uh…”
“Not dead?”
“Yes, we’re just so glad you’re back.”
“And yet you just assigned me seventy-five stories to go over before noon.”
“Mr. McDonnell said…”
“I got it. When Mr. McDonnell barks, everybody jumps. I got it. Fine. I’ll log in and take a crack at ’em. Thanks, Sherry.”
Sherry gave us an awkward smile, then turned away. We gazed across the desk at one another, the realization of what was going on sitting in the corner, much like the elephant it was.
“Henry, this almost looks like he intends to bury your butt so deep in work, you’ll have just enough time to do the editing work and follow the Lambert story.”
“Yeah, and nothing else. This is bullshit Sunny, and you know it.”
“We have to play this game, Henry.”
“You know I suck at that.”
“You suck at a lot of things, old man. I’m going to give the cyber twins a call. They should have found something by now. In the meantime, Mr. Senior Editor, I’d suggest you get to work. You’re burning daylight.”
“Why, thank you, John Wayne. Don’t come back unless you’ve got something we can work with.”
At eleven-thirty, the call we’d been expecting came in, and by eleven-thirty five we were sitting across the office desk again. The information provided by Donnie and Becca was interesting. What was troubling about it wasn’t that it was a plethora of information. It was very little information at all.
“That’s it? That’s all they gave us?”
“Yeap. Pamela Lambert was released from the Ohio prison for the criminally insane. Two weeks later, her parole officer reported she missed her first scheduled visit. A BOLO was issued, and she hasn’t been seen since.”
“Moved to another state, maybe? Left the country?”
“No sign of that. She doesn’t have a car registered in her name. No rental. No bank accounts, no credit cards, no airline tickets, nothing Henry.”
“Damn, I can’t believe she’s good enough to pull that off.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time now, would it?”
“Touche. How far out was the BOLO?”
“Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana. Even Wisconsin and Canada.”
“You’re shitting me. That many states and a completely different country and nobody can find a single trace of this woman?”
“Not yet. Which scares the hell out of me, Henry. If she’s as good a chameleon as this, she could be standing right next to us, and we’d probably never know it.”
“Oh, we’d know it, alright. When one of our asses gets nailed to a freaking cross.”
“I wished you hadn’t said that, James. Last time you got lucky.”
“I know, princess. Look, get in touch with Donnie and Becca again. Tell them they need to go deeper. If they can’t give us something better than that to go on, we’re going to have to handle this ourselves.”
“Like how?”
“She walked out of the Ohio prison for the criminally insane and just disappeared? Then that’s where we start.”
“Whoa, back up a minute. I’m not about to try and track this woman down by myself.”
“Then it looks like Mr. McDonnell and us are about to have us a little showdown.”
Read On — Sins Of The Past Part 4
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