Fool Me Twice

The unlikely trio

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Dan asked 

"Yup" Eric said from the driver seat. He looked intently ahead and barely glanced at Dan

"We're tailing Nate."

"I know. I'm driving" 

"Is there no other way? Maybe we could... uh we could.. ok there's no other way." 

Eric sniggered. "What had you expected?" 

"That we would find an Cayman account where Nate siphoning the blackmail money to." 

Eric laughed "Someone's watching a lot of spy movies lately. Gossip Girl is most likely an introverted assistant columnist in Glamour.  At least they were smart to know that transferring money directly to an account would leave lose ends. So, old school money bag drop off it is." 

Dan groaned. "I don't know I have a bad feeling about this man. And why would Nate go himself anyway. Wouldn't he hire some lackey for this?" 

"A lackey? And leave behind evidence. Ugh you moron. You use only people you trust with your life in a blackmail scheme. And I don't think there are many people in Nate's life." 

"Yeah and after what I did, he probably likes it that way." 

"You really leave no chance to go on a guilt-trip do you?" Eric scoffed. 

Dan opened his mouth to deny, but signed and said "Yeah I don't" 

Nate was driving took a turn towards the St. Paul's Chapel and Dan and Eric exchanged glances. Their suspicion was confirmed. 

Every third Tuesday of the month, Nate had one-hour blocked on his calendar under the name St. Paul's. Eric had suspected that this could be the meeting place to hand over the money to the infamous blogger turned blackmailer. 

They saw Nate take a turn towards the parking lot and Eric stopped the car. 

"What are you doing?" 

"We can't go in. He'll spot us." 

"So, what do we do?" 

"We wait for him to come out and stalk the place."

They waited for over twenty minutes, but Nate's car reappeared again and Dan ducked for good measure. He pulled Eric's sleeve and signaled to duck. Every moment he was crouching Dan felt like Nate would tap on his window with a furious face any moment. 

"He's gone." Eric said

Once they were inside the church they hid behind one of the columns keeping an eye on the suspicious looking black duffle bag that was lying on the third row. It was uncanny that their first hunch had proven true. So, this was where Nate dropped off money every month to keep Gossip Girl silent. 

Dan felt guilty thinking what his friend was going through for past two years. If only he hadn't used The Spectator as the scape goat for running his infamous article. Dan had thought that the media company was dying a slow but sure death. He hadn't anticipated that Bart's death meant a new lease to Nate's company. And the article cemented The Spectator's standing in New Your digital landscape. Now if people found out that the company's reputation was built on fraud, there was no telling what the backlash would be like. 

Eric slouched on the pillar and was playing some sort of arcade game on his phone. 

"Hey!" Dan slapped his shoulder. "Focus." 

"Ugh it's been thirty minutes. What if that's just a bag with someone's sweatpants?"

"What are the chances there is a black bag in an empty Church?"