Post by Lindsey on Aug 2, 2007 14:00:52 GMT -5
Sorry so long in coming, girls! I'm on a streak now--so the next chapters should be coming faster than this one! 
Hope you like. There's not a lot of Apolo in this one, but it's building up, so bear with me!
----------------
Grace stumbled into her apartment, physically and emotionally exhausted. It’d taken everything she had left not to go to Apolo and try again to explain. In her heart, she knew it’d do no good. She need to have good, hard evidence that she hadn’t written that story, and right now she had none, zilch, zero. How can I prove to him that I wouldn’t, that I couldn’t, have done this? She racked her brain for ideas.
The thought occurred to Grace that she’d never even read the article to see what it said. She’d thrown the paper on the floor before talking to Mark, so she didn’t even have a copy. With my luck, the thing’s probably on the home page of the paper’s web site, she thought ruefully. It just might be to her advantage, though.
She grabbed her laptop off the desk and logged onto the internet, and in a few seconds, she’d found the article. Shaking her head as she read past the byline, she saw where snippets of her notes had obviously been worked into the article. How she regretted writing up those notes in a flurry of emotion! Grace silently admitted that she had been a little upset at the time, probably leading to her typing up the notes actually in the newsroom, but it had only been pretend. She never would have dreamed of actually using her notes in an article.
Suddenly her eye caught something on the page. This didn’t come from my notes, she frowned, puzzled.
“‘One security guard at the convention center said Ohno received the threat mid-evening.
‘I saw him and his dad talking with a few other people out on the terrace,’ the guard, who wished to keep his name private, said. ‘They all looked pretty worried. I thought it was a little unusual at the time but didn’t make any connection right off,’” Grace read aloud.
What security guard is this? Grace couldn’t for the life of her recall seeing any security guard around, but whoever this “other” reporter had talked to had found him and used him as a source. Good information, but he wasn’t very discreet about it, Grace thought, her mind working a mile a minute. The guard was her only hope. She had to find him. He could tell her who he talked to, and then she could prove it wasn’t her.
Grace snatched up her purse and was out of the door in a flash. It seemed like it took forever to get to the convention center, but as soon as she arrived, she hastily paid the taxi driver and headed inside the building.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist in the convention center lobby asked her.
Grace looked at her, flustered. She hadn’t thought of what to say at this point. She couldn’t very well say, “I’m looking for that security guard that was quoted in this morning’s newspaper,” now could she?
“I’d like to talk to someone in security,” she managed to get out.
“I can contact security for you, but we’ve had a problem with information leaking out recently, so no one is allowed to speak to security themselves without authorization.”
Grace shook her head. “I have to talk to someone myself. How do I get authorization?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s possible right now. Like I said, if you give me the name of the person who you’d like to talk to or a message for our head of security, I’d be more than willing to deliver that for you,” the receptionist said.
“Thanks anyway,” Grace said, and turned away, crushed. Her only hope had just been dissolved.
She found herself out on the steps in front of the convention center, unable to believe all that had transpired between the time she had stood on these steps the night before. She looked down at steps—the same steps that had only hours before been covered by red carpet. Suddenly she looked back at the convention center, and then at her watch. It was noon. She sighed. She had another plan, but it’d have to wait almost eight hours.
Grace was hoping against hope that the same security guards who were there during the ball the night before would be there at the same time that night, and if there was some possible way for her to get inside the convention center in the evening, she’d be able to find the guard who’d seen them out in the garden. How she’d know which of the many guards it was didn’t really matter. She’d find a way—somehow.
Grace pushed open the doors to the convention center. It was 8:00 in the evening, and guests were milling about in the convention center lobby. Obviously tonight there was no big event at the center, and Grace was pleased. It’d be much harder to do what she had planned if there had. Grace could feel her skin tingling with nervousness, but she tried her best not to let it show as she approached the lobby front desk again. Thank goodness it wasn’t the same receptionist.
“Where is your ladies’ room?” she asked politely, hoping the woman would assume she was a guest.
“Down the hall this way, and it’s the third door on your left,” the woman pointed. “You can’t miss it.”
Relieved, Grace recognized the hallway as being in the direction of the ballroom they’d had dinner in the night before. She thanked the receptionist cordially and slipped down the familiar-looking corridor. Sure enough, Grace found the restroom, but what interested her more was the sight of the courtyard garden only slightly beyond it.
Grace looked cautiously behind her. The hall was fairly empty—she supposed that was a good thing. Biting her lip thoughtfully, she decided to go to the garden. It was the only place she could think of where she might have a chance of finding the guard who’d seen them the night before.
Grace plopped herself down on a garden bench and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, she saw an overweight, uniformed man step out of the conference room and mosey his way out to the garden. Holding her breath, she watched the man yank out a pack of cheap cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket and head down the stairs to the fountain—towards her.
So that’s why he was out here, she thought to herself, becoming more and more certain this was the man she needed to talk to. He looked just like someone who’d talk to a reporter for money—or something else.
Grace stood up, startling him.
“Good evening,” she greeted him, her eyes narrowing. He looked both surprised and worried for a moment, dropping his already-lit cigarette on the ground.
“I don’t know anything,” the guard mumbled nervously, fidgeting with his pack of cigarettes.
“I haven’t asked you anything,” Grace returned, hoping she sounded intimidating. “But now that you mention it, I do have some questions for you.” She was now convinced this was the right guard.
“Please, ma’am, if they find out it was me that talked to that reporter, I’ll lose my job,” the man suddenly sounded earnest.
“So you admit to talking to the reporter?” Grace could feel the excitement brimming up inside of her, and she had to mentally tell herself not to appear too aggressive.
“Well—”
“What did she say her name was?”
All of a sudden, the man grinned and looked sheepish. “Now that I remember. It was Grace…ehh…Lewis.”
Grace’s back stiffened. “She said her name was Grace Lewis?”
“Yup. She was a babe, too.” The man looked off like he was remembering. “Tall, blonde, long legs…”
Grace frowned, completely confused. “But I’m Grace Lewis,” she said.
Now the man looked bewildered. “There are two of ya?”
“Apparently. I don’t know.” Grace hadn’t thought of this. Here she was hoping to get the name of the person who’d used her name, only to find out the imposter had impersonated her on both paper and in person! Frustrated, Grace almost turned away. But then she realized she’d have to get all the details she could. She hadn’t come this far to leave empty-handed.
“You said she was blonde?”
“Yup, and taller than you. Hot little thing. Wore a little pin-striped mini-skirt. I always liked that little business suit type of thing.”
Grace was disgusted. She didn’t want to know how the girl had milked the information out of him—she just wanted to know who it was. “What did she ask you?”
Obviously more at ease, the man lit up another cigarette. “Well, she just came up to me and asked me if I knew anything about the death threat on that Nono kid.”
“Ohno,” Grace corrected him, coughing as a puff of smoke hit her in the face, stinging her eyes.
“Whatever. I hadn’t heard anything about it, but I told her I’d seen a few people out here. I couldn’t see everyone, but I was pretty sure I recognized that kid and his father. It was getting kinda dark then, kinda like it is now.”
The man was starting to look Grace up and down in a way that made her feel a little uncomfortable, but she shook it off and kept listening to him.
“So what else?” she prodded.
The man’s eyebrows curled into a scowl, and he blew some more smoke in Grace’s face. “Now wait a minute. Why am I telling you all this anyway? What are you going to do for me?”
Grace was offended. “I’m not going to do anything for you at all, Mister—” she glanced at his name badge, “Mister Jarvis. You should be thanking your lucky stars I’m not reporting you to your superiors. So you just tell me whatever else you know.”
The threat of reporting him made the man shape up a little. “Look, lady,” he said, raising his hands in the air defensively. “I don’t know nothing. I told you everything that happened.”
Grace let out a long breath and nodded. “Okay. But just remember this. We never talked. And if anybody else tries to come around here claiming they’re me, well—they’re not.” She nodded again in attempt to emphasize her point.
“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” the man said, taking a long drag on his cigarette again and then throwing it to the ground and extinguishing it with his foot.
Grace rolled her eyes. She turned her back to him and walked away triumphantly, reaching into the pocket of her jacket and pulling out a mini voice recorder. She smiled as she pressed the button to stop the recording. At least now she had some evidence. And maybe—just maybe—it might convince Apolo that she was on his side.
Grace stepped out of the taxi and into the cool Seattle rain outside of Yuki’s Diffusions. None of the lights were on, but she’d guessed that Apolo would be sleeping in the back room again—mostly for the security of his father. None of them knew who they were up against, but she assumed Apolo thought their chances of staying safe were better if he wasn’t staying with his father. Slipping around to the back of the building, she noticed the glow of a table lamp in the small window. It had to be him.
Grace tried to smooth her damp hair, hoping she didn’t look like a drowned rat. She reached inside her jacket and felt for the recorder. She pulled it out, looking at it for a long moment before stepping up to the door and raising her fist to knock.
Suddenly she felt a little fear stab her heart, and she dropped her hand. What if he still doesn’t believe me? she asked herself. She didn’t think she could take another rejection. She’d been holding it all inside up until now, but as she stood out in the rain, all her emotions from the last few days started building up inside of her, and she slumped to the doorstep, her tears indistinguishable from the raindrops on her face.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, clutching her knees to her chest and sobbing. But when she finally stopped, she oddly felt better. Reaching into her pocket and pulling out the recorder, she placed it directly in front of the door where it would be safe from the rain, covered by the frame of the door.
She stood up and looked at the light again. It was late. Maybe he was having trouble sleeping. She knew she would tonight.
Grace walked away from the building to a safe distance and then picked up three small pebbles off the ground and hurled them, one by one, at the little window. She waited until she saw a shadow appear in front of the window—a shadow that was decidedly Apolo’s—and then she turned and walked away. There was no reason for her to stay. She knew he’d eventually find the recorder—and if he wanted to, he’d come find her.
Hope you like. There's not a lot of Apolo in this one, but it's building up, so bear with me!----------------
Grace stumbled into her apartment, physically and emotionally exhausted. It’d taken everything she had left not to go to Apolo and try again to explain. In her heart, she knew it’d do no good. She need to have good, hard evidence that she hadn’t written that story, and right now she had none, zilch, zero. How can I prove to him that I wouldn’t, that I couldn’t, have done this? She racked her brain for ideas.
The thought occurred to Grace that she’d never even read the article to see what it said. She’d thrown the paper on the floor before talking to Mark, so she didn’t even have a copy. With my luck, the thing’s probably on the home page of the paper’s web site, she thought ruefully. It just might be to her advantage, though.
She grabbed her laptop off the desk and logged onto the internet, and in a few seconds, she’d found the article. Shaking her head as she read past the byline, she saw where snippets of her notes had obviously been worked into the article. How she regretted writing up those notes in a flurry of emotion! Grace silently admitted that she had been a little upset at the time, probably leading to her typing up the notes actually in the newsroom, but it had only been pretend. She never would have dreamed of actually using her notes in an article.
Suddenly her eye caught something on the page. This didn’t come from my notes, she frowned, puzzled.
“‘One security guard at the convention center said Ohno received the threat mid-evening.
‘I saw him and his dad talking with a few other people out on the terrace,’ the guard, who wished to keep his name private, said. ‘They all looked pretty worried. I thought it was a little unusual at the time but didn’t make any connection right off,’” Grace read aloud.
What security guard is this? Grace couldn’t for the life of her recall seeing any security guard around, but whoever this “other” reporter had talked to had found him and used him as a source. Good information, but he wasn’t very discreet about it, Grace thought, her mind working a mile a minute. The guard was her only hope. She had to find him. He could tell her who he talked to, and then she could prove it wasn’t her.
Grace snatched up her purse and was out of the door in a flash. It seemed like it took forever to get to the convention center, but as soon as she arrived, she hastily paid the taxi driver and headed inside the building.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist in the convention center lobby asked her.
Grace looked at her, flustered. She hadn’t thought of what to say at this point. She couldn’t very well say, “I’m looking for that security guard that was quoted in this morning’s newspaper,” now could she?
“I’d like to talk to someone in security,” she managed to get out.
“I can contact security for you, but we’ve had a problem with information leaking out recently, so no one is allowed to speak to security themselves without authorization.”
Grace shook her head. “I have to talk to someone myself. How do I get authorization?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s possible right now. Like I said, if you give me the name of the person who you’d like to talk to or a message for our head of security, I’d be more than willing to deliver that for you,” the receptionist said.
“Thanks anyway,” Grace said, and turned away, crushed. Her only hope had just been dissolved.
She found herself out on the steps in front of the convention center, unable to believe all that had transpired between the time she had stood on these steps the night before. She looked down at steps—the same steps that had only hours before been covered by red carpet. Suddenly she looked back at the convention center, and then at her watch. It was noon. She sighed. She had another plan, but it’d have to wait almost eight hours.
Grace was hoping against hope that the same security guards who were there during the ball the night before would be there at the same time that night, and if there was some possible way for her to get inside the convention center in the evening, she’d be able to find the guard who’d seen them out in the garden. How she’d know which of the many guards it was didn’t really matter. She’d find a way—somehow.
* * * * * * * * *
Grace pushed open the doors to the convention center. It was 8:00 in the evening, and guests were milling about in the convention center lobby. Obviously tonight there was no big event at the center, and Grace was pleased. It’d be much harder to do what she had planned if there had. Grace could feel her skin tingling with nervousness, but she tried her best not to let it show as she approached the lobby front desk again. Thank goodness it wasn’t the same receptionist.
“Where is your ladies’ room?” she asked politely, hoping the woman would assume she was a guest.
“Down the hall this way, and it’s the third door on your left,” the woman pointed. “You can’t miss it.”
Relieved, Grace recognized the hallway as being in the direction of the ballroom they’d had dinner in the night before. She thanked the receptionist cordially and slipped down the familiar-looking corridor. Sure enough, Grace found the restroom, but what interested her more was the sight of the courtyard garden only slightly beyond it.
Grace looked cautiously behind her. The hall was fairly empty—she supposed that was a good thing. Biting her lip thoughtfully, she decided to go to the garden. It was the only place she could think of where she might have a chance of finding the guard who’d seen them the night before.
Grace plopped herself down on a garden bench and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, she saw an overweight, uniformed man step out of the conference room and mosey his way out to the garden. Holding her breath, she watched the man yank out a pack of cheap cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket and head down the stairs to the fountain—towards her.
So that’s why he was out here, she thought to herself, becoming more and more certain this was the man she needed to talk to. He looked just like someone who’d talk to a reporter for money—or something else.
Grace stood up, startling him.
“Good evening,” she greeted him, her eyes narrowing. He looked both surprised and worried for a moment, dropping his already-lit cigarette on the ground.
“I don’t know anything,” the guard mumbled nervously, fidgeting with his pack of cigarettes.
“I haven’t asked you anything,” Grace returned, hoping she sounded intimidating. “But now that you mention it, I do have some questions for you.” She was now convinced this was the right guard.
“Please, ma’am, if they find out it was me that talked to that reporter, I’ll lose my job,” the man suddenly sounded earnest.
“So you admit to talking to the reporter?” Grace could feel the excitement brimming up inside of her, and she had to mentally tell herself not to appear too aggressive.
“Well—”
“What did she say her name was?”
All of a sudden, the man grinned and looked sheepish. “Now that I remember. It was Grace…ehh…Lewis.”
Grace’s back stiffened. “She said her name was Grace Lewis?”
“Yup. She was a babe, too.” The man looked off like he was remembering. “Tall, blonde, long legs…”
Grace frowned, completely confused. “But I’m Grace Lewis,” she said.
Now the man looked bewildered. “There are two of ya?”
“Apparently. I don’t know.” Grace hadn’t thought of this. Here she was hoping to get the name of the person who’d used her name, only to find out the imposter had impersonated her on both paper and in person! Frustrated, Grace almost turned away. But then she realized she’d have to get all the details she could. She hadn’t come this far to leave empty-handed.
“You said she was blonde?”
“Yup, and taller than you. Hot little thing. Wore a little pin-striped mini-skirt. I always liked that little business suit type of thing.”
Grace was disgusted. She didn’t want to know how the girl had milked the information out of him—she just wanted to know who it was. “What did she ask you?”
Obviously more at ease, the man lit up another cigarette. “Well, she just came up to me and asked me if I knew anything about the death threat on that Nono kid.”
“Ohno,” Grace corrected him, coughing as a puff of smoke hit her in the face, stinging her eyes.
“Whatever. I hadn’t heard anything about it, but I told her I’d seen a few people out here. I couldn’t see everyone, but I was pretty sure I recognized that kid and his father. It was getting kinda dark then, kinda like it is now.”
The man was starting to look Grace up and down in a way that made her feel a little uncomfortable, but she shook it off and kept listening to him.
“So what else?” she prodded.
The man’s eyebrows curled into a scowl, and he blew some more smoke in Grace’s face. “Now wait a minute. Why am I telling you all this anyway? What are you going to do for me?”
Grace was offended. “I’m not going to do anything for you at all, Mister—” she glanced at his name badge, “Mister Jarvis. You should be thanking your lucky stars I’m not reporting you to your superiors. So you just tell me whatever else you know.”
The threat of reporting him made the man shape up a little. “Look, lady,” he said, raising his hands in the air defensively. “I don’t know nothing. I told you everything that happened.”
Grace let out a long breath and nodded. “Okay. But just remember this. We never talked. And if anybody else tries to come around here claiming they’re me, well—they’re not.” She nodded again in attempt to emphasize her point.
“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” the man said, taking a long drag on his cigarette again and then throwing it to the ground and extinguishing it with his foot.
Grace rolled her eyes. She turned her back to him and walked away triumphantly, reaching into the pocket of her jacket and pulling out a mini voice recorder. She smiled as she pressed the button to stop the recording. At least now she had some evidence. And maybe—just maybe—it might convince Apolo that she was on his side.
* * * * * * * * * *
Grace stepped out of the taxi and into the cool Seattle rain outside of Yuki’s Diffusions. None of the lights were on, but she’d guessed that Apolo would be sleeping in the back room again—mostly for the security of his father. None of them knew who they were up against, but she assumed Apolo thought their chances of staying safe were better if he wasn’t staying with his father. Slipping around to the back of the building, she noticed the glow of a table lamp in the small window. It had to be him.
Grace tried to smooth her damp hair, hoping she didn’t look like a drowned rat. She reached inside her jacket and felt for the recorder. She pulled it out, looking at it for a long moment before stepping up to the door and raising her fist to knock.
Suddenly she felt a little fear stab her heart, and she dropped her hand. What if he still doesn’t believe me? she asked herself. She didn’t think she could take another rejection. She’d been holding it all inside up until now, but as she stood out in the rain, all her emotions from the last few days started building up inside of her, and she slumped to the doorstep, her tears indistinguishable from the raindrops on her face.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, clutching her knees to her chest and sobbing. But when she finally stopped, she oddly felt better. Reaching into her pocket and pulling out the recorder, she placed it directly in front of the door where it would be safe from the rain, covered by the frame of the door.
She stood up and looked at the light again. It was late. Maybe he was having trouble sleeping. She knew she would tonight.
Grace walked away from the building to a safe distance and then picked up three small pebbles off the ground and hurled them, one by one, at the little window. She waited until she saw a shadow appear in front of the window—a shadow that was decidedly Apolo’s—and then she turned and walked away. There was no reason for her to stay. She knew he’d eventually find the recorder—and if he wanted to, he’d come find her.
I am off to read the new chapter that you posted.
