Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Gracie

" T his has got to be a prank," I whisper to my photographer, Steve. "There's no way this is real life."

"Unfortunately, this is as real as it gets," Steve says with a sigh.

He's been a photographer at our news station for over thirty years and he's seen everything, but even he hasn't seen a haunted dishwasher before.

"It's possessed!" the frazzled owner of the house I'm standing in says. "It talks all night!"

The house is a mess with empty wine bottles lined up on the counter and an old mangy cat hiding under the table who's looking at me like it can't believe I'm standing in this kitchen voluntarily.

"What does it say?" I ask as I pull out my notebook.

Steve gives me a look. He can't believe I'm humoring her. It's more than that though. I'm a reporter and being a reporter means tirelessly digging for stories, even when there's no story in sight. You never know what you can dig up with a little elbow grease.

"It speaks a language I can't understand," she says as she bites her bottom lip. "I was hoping you could help me with that."

"I speak English," I say with a smile. "And un peu du Fran?ais."

Steve lifts his camera to take a picture, but as he looks around, he realizes there's nothing worth photographing so he lowers it with a sigh.

"Can you turn it on?" I ask the lady.

"Sure," she says as she takes some dirty glasses out of the sink and puts them into the dishwasher.

My pulse races a little as she pushes the on button. How cool would it be if this dishwasher was actually possessed? It would be the story of the century, and I desperately need a story. The only scoops I've had since I've been a reporter have been on top of the many ice cream cones I've eaten at the end of long horrible days.

My career in news peaked in college. I interviewed a CEO of a huge Fortune 500 company for the University paper and I caught on to some fraudulent activity. I researched it, wrote it up into an article, and the real news picked it up. The guy got fired. It was a big deal at the time.

But no one cares anymore. The news moves fast and if you're not constantly producing compelling new stories, you get left behind. It helped me land this job, but it hasn't done much for me beyond that.

I'm not getting assigned any juicy stories. No corruption. No fraud. No murder. Just crap. Filler stories. Embarrassing stories.

Last week, I covered a dog who went viral for getting its head stuck in a fence and a lady who turned one hundred years old. She wouldn't let me into her house and screamed at me to get off her porch before she called the cops. Happy birthday, you old hag.

I need something good. Some meat. Something with substance.

I'm ready for some big interviews with powerful people. Movers and shakers who make the world turn. That's what I want. That's what excites me. Not this . Whatever this is.

"See?" the lady says, staring at me with a smug look as the dishwasher begins to make noise. "It's haunted."

I twist my face up as I hear the water wooshing through the pipes.

"It sounds like an old shitty dishwasher," Steve says, eyeing the door.

The old cat is eying it too. She might try to make a break for it when we leave. I don't think I'd stop her.

"It's a demonic language," the lady says. "Listen. Agudabu shosshanu."

I wince as I look at her. "It sounds like water to me. Sorry."

She frowns as we head to the door.

"Anything else?" I ask, a seed of hope blooming inside me. "Any unsolved murders or corruption in the family?"

"My kids won't talk to me," the lady says.

The blooming hope withers and dies as Steve opens the door. "Next time call a repair man."

He takes one step onto the decrepit porch and the cat rockets to the door with huge wild eyes. The lady snaps it up just as it's about to taste freedom for the first time. She clutches it to her chest while it wiggles like crazy, meowing in desperation.

"Good luck," I whisper to the cat as I follow Steve onto the porch.

"That was a waste of time," I say as I get into the car. "Shockingly."

"Not a total waste," he says as he pulls out of the driveway. "There's a coffee shop near here that has the best donuts."

"How is a coffee shop going to get me a Pulitzer Prize?" I mutter as I gaze out the window at the sunny summer day.

Even though I'm stuck in this shitty little regional new station, I have big dreams and aspirations. Growing up, my friends all worshipped Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner, and Rhianna. Not me. I had posters of Christiane Amanpour, Katie Couric, and Diane Sawyer on my walls.

I had visions of being the top reporter in the country and known around the world for my hard-hitting journalism and ground-breaking stories. I'm twenty-seven and I thought I'd be there by now, but things rarely work out the way you want them to. Doesn't mean I'm going to give up. I'll get there someday. I'm going to make sure of that.

Steve buys a dozen donuts and we head back to our crummy little office that shares a building with a dentist that's rarely open and a call center that sells timeshares in Vermont. It's not the cool dynamic workplace I was dreaming of as a teenager, but it's a start. If it was a style, it would be called beige drab.

"Team meeting!" my boss Walter shouts as we walk in. "Conference room. And bring those donuts."

Everyone has their eyes on the greasy donut box as we gather around the large table for an official CNR Media meeting. CNR is the premier news station in Northern New York. It's a pretty remote and boring area, but we cover all of the local news up here. If a deer shits in the woods, we're reporting on it.

I had moved out here hoping to work in New York City, but there aren't many reporter jobs these days and all I could find was this. Everyone has to start somewhere though, right?

I sit in the chair right beside Walter and get ready with my pen and notebook. Everyone else is fighting over donuts and slouching on the chairs as I'm getting my potential stories ready.

"How was the haunted dishwasher story?" he asks as everyone gets seated, stuffing their faces with the powdery donuts.

"It was just a regular noisy dishwasher," I say in a flat voice.

He nods with a thoughtful look. "I was afraid that would be the case."

The weekly meeting gets started where Walter assigns all of the stories and asks us what we have cooking.

It's all the usual bs. Sarah suggests we do a story on the corn maze in town, Reggie lets us know that the speed limit on a road I've never heard of was lowered from 40 to 35, and Angela says that a dog show is coming to town, which gets everyone talking about their own dogs for some reason.

Everyone groans when it's my turn. "And what do you have for us, Gracie?" Walter asks, already looking ready for happy hour even though it's only two o'clock.

I open my notebook and start reading off the stories I'm working on. "American weaponry in the hands of the Taliban," I say. "I've requested interviews with several heads of the Taliban and with a US general on the matter. Still waiting to hear back."

"Shocker," Reggie mutters and everyone laughs.

I grit my teeth and ignore him. "I've contacted the head of an aerospace company about the rumors of faulty aircraft caused by aggressive cost-cutting and his role in the malfunctions. I'm hoping for a sit-down interview where I can expose his criminal negligence."

Walter sighs beside me. I ignore him and continue. I list six other stories I'm trying to get going from industrial espionage to corporate fraud.

"Sounds riveting," Walter says, thankful he gets to move on. "Sam?"

"Oh," Sam says, getting excited. "My buddy Earl caught a trout this big! I thought we could do a story on it."

While everyone is excited about Sam's dumb idea, I catch a glimpse of Walter's notes.

"What's this?" I ask as I grab the paper. He tries to snatch it back from me, but I yank it away. "Hector Contreras contacted you? He wrote back? Why didn't you tell me about this?"

Hector Contreras is the leader of a vicious South American drug cartel in El Nicanduras called Los Lobos de la Muerte. They're responsible for over twenty percent of the cocaine that's shipped to the United States.

I tried to get an interview with him last month, but he never answered me. At least, I thought he didn't.

"He wants an interview?" I say, staring at the paper in disbelief. "You tried to hide this!"

"You're not going," Walter says as he snatches the paper out of my hands, crumples it up, and tosses it at the recycling bin. He misses by a few feet. "It's too dangerous."

"Good reporting is always dangerous," I say. "I'm not afraid."

"You should be," Walter says, shaking his head. "Hector Contreras has people beheaded. Tortured. He's the most feared man in Central America."

"That's why I want to interview him!" I say, raising my voice. "It would be the story of a lifetime. A one-on-one interview with a stone-cold killer like him? That could make my career."

"Or end your life is more like it," Reggie mutters. I ignore him. I'm too incensed. This is the opportunity I've been waiting for and I'm not about to let this man's small thinking ruin it for me.

My heart is hammering in my chest as I stand up, my hands balled into fists.

"No one knows anything about this guy," I say in a tight voice. "He's refused all invitations from the press. This would get international coverage!"

Walter bangs his fist on the table. "I'm not having one of my reporters waltzing into a vicious cartel where she can be tortured and killed!"

" Walter ," I snap. "I'm doing this interview!"

"No, you're not!" he shouts back. "I'm forwarding the request to CNN."

I grab his laptop and yank it off the table. His big mouth drops open as he stares at me in disbelief. I snatch his phone too and back toward the door, clutching them to my chest like I've taken them hostage.

"I'm doing this story," I tell the room of powdery-faced ‘journalists'. "I got the interview and I'm doing it. None of you can stop me."

I storm out of the conference room and head to my desk with Walter's electronics. My pulse is racing, but it's less from the big scene I just made and more from the opportunity of a lifetime.

This is just what I need.

Just what I've been waiting for.

An interview with Hector Contreras.

That Pulitzer is as good as mine.