Nick's lead paragraph had not been changed. And they had also left Hargrave's quote on the front before the story jumped and was continued on a deep inside page. Nick sighed a bit in relief, but the respite was short-lived. When he logged into his e-mail file and scanned the dozen or so names there, Deirdre's was high up with a capitalized subject field: SEE ME!
No, thank you, Nick thought. He started down the list, looking for someone familiar. Hargrave, Cameron, anyone. His eye instead settled on [email protected] and the subject field read: you're a smart guy, nick. m.r. The initials had already been branded into his head overnight. Michael Redman. Nick pulled up the message: meet me behind super saver at ten.
He checked the time the message was sent. Almost two hours ago. The morning paper, displaying Hargrave's paragraph, had been out since dawn. He then looked at the clock in the middle of the newsroom: nine forty-five. Fifteen minutes… if it was the old abandoned Super Saver Market three blocks away, he could make it.
Nick closed out the message screen and then punched Hargrave's cell number into the phone while he stood. He looked around the newsroom, where he could see only a few heads. After three rings on Hargrave's cell, there was a heavy click and a recorded answer kicked in. Hargrave's voice, in a clipped tone, said, "Leave a message." Nick's head was already dwelling somewhere else and he quickly came up with a stumbling message:
"I might have gotten a response from the sniper. I'm going to meet him. I'll call you later. Oh, the e-mail account he used to get the message to me was from an account called [email protected], so maybe you could find something out about that. I'll call you later."
Nick punched off the phone and started around his desk on the way out. He took the long way around the assistant editors' pod so Deirdre would not spot him from her office. But Bill Hirschman caught Nick's eye from his desk in front of the city editor's glass window and started toward him. When the education reporter came near, he stopped at an empty pod partition like he didn't want to get too close to Nick and catch whatever he had.
"The vultures are out after your ass, Mullins," he said, just loud enough for Nick to hear. He tilted his head back toward Deirdre's office. "They've been in there for an hour. The boss, the managing editor and the man."
Nick looked past Hirschman's shoulder, but the angle on Deirdre's floor-to-ceiling window was too severe to make out the occupants.
"Best I could hear was something about you and a vigilante story you were supposed to be working."
Nick nodded, checked his watch and said thanks.
"I'll be back, I gotta go check out a lead."