Page 140 of A Duet of Darkness and Dreams

“Marty,” she says with a massive grin. “And I’m Flora.” I take the marker from her outstretched hand and the notepad from herdesk. “What are you doing here?” she asks when I hand it back. “Are you doing an interview for the paper?”

My mouth twists. “Not exactly. I’m here to see Tony Yahamara.”

“Right, yes. I see here you have an appointment. I—thank you for the autograph. Mister Yahamara’s office is on the tenth floor. Just take that elevator there.”

I drum my hands on the desk then head for the elevator. “Thanks.”

When the doors open to the tenth floor, there is a sea of small cubicles that span the wide-open space. People are chattering and phones are ringing. I don’t see him yet, but it’s better this way.

“Mister Yahamara will see you now, Mister Noblar,” says a middle-aged woman as she points to a large wood-paneled office to my left. Opening the door, an older man with a salt-and-pepper beard steps forward and shakes my hand.

“Mister Noblar, please come in,” he says politely. He gestures toward the leather seats in front of his desk. “Would you care for a drink?” he asks.

I plop down in the chair, quickly taking in my surroundings. “Oh . . . no, thank you.”

He nods then sits down across from me. “How can I help you, Mister—”

“Just Dave, please,” I say. Mister Noblar just reminds me of my dad, and it’s not like I need that reminder right now . . . or ever.

“Dave,” he says. “When we spoke on the phone it was unclear what kind of feature you wanted us to do about the band.”

“Actually, I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely honest about my intentions, so for that I apologize.”

He sits back. “I see.”

“The reason I’m here is because you currently employ an intern who . . . well, I’ll just come out and say it, stole the work ofsomeone else and passed it off as his own in order to get where he is.”

Yahamara narrows his eyes at me. “That’s a very serious accusation. But I can assure you that we vet our interns very carefully.”

“So I guess someone else isn’t doing their job very well either. You see, your intern, Simon Cranmer, stole work published by Isabella Rodriguez from theStoneman Press.”

“That’s preposterous. We take plagiarism very seriously.”

My mouth twists. “Doesn’t really seem like you do, or I wouldn’t have hauled my ass in a suit all the way downtown on a Wednesday morning.”

“I—”

“Not only that, but he continued to blackmail this talented writer with a photo of her in a . . . compromising state. When she refused to cower to his demands, he published that photo in your paper.”

His mouth falls open. “But he—he told us quite the opposite—”

“So youareaware of such an issue.”

His reddening face turns splotchy. “He told us that someone from his school had attempted to steal his work and—”

I pull the originalStoneman Pressarticles out of my jacket pocket and lay them on the desk between us. “These are the original articles,” I say pointing to them. “You can check the dates. I believe Cranmer deleted the originals from the school archives to cover his tracks.” Who knew holding on to this stuff would be such a stroke of luck?

Yahamara picks up the papers and quickly scans them, his forehead wrinkling further with each new piece of evidence.

“I won’t go into too much detail, but the fallout from this has been devastating for Miss Rodriguez’s prospects as a journalist. Considering the plagiarism you printed and profited from, andthe use of an image without the consent of the lawful owner, I would say you have a fairly substantial lawsuit coming your way.”

“This is hardly enough evidence to win a court case—”

“And I assure you that I’ll fight this in every way possible.”

He clears his throat and smiles uncertainly. “Sir, I . . . Is that really necessary?” Yahamara blunders, putting the articles back down before him.

I shrug and pull on the collar of my shirt again. “I suppose that depends.”

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