Her eyes, his lies

Chapter 35

It was nothing like the establishment of publicly-available truth that Jane had imagined.

They were seated in a one-room office, the artificial fabric of the seats hissing beneath them. Dust freely floated through the air, dislodged from the furniture by a draft from the ceiling-mounted fans above them. The journalist was a severely overweight man clothed in the most awful shade of green, a pair of thick-framed glasses atop his nose.

Ryder was seated next to Jane, elbows digging into the armrests of his chair, posture intense. It was clear that recounting his father's crimes to a stranger made him intensely uncomfortable.

The journalist was looking between them like a man that couldn't believe his eyes. He adjusted his glasses, peering at the yellow notepad between his fingers.

"Let me get this straight, Mr. Jackson-"

"Ryder. Just call me Ryder," the teenage boy interrupted. He frowned in distaste at his own last name.

"...right. Ryder. You're telling me that your dad, the philanthropist mayor, the man who built half of down town, is actually the boss of an extensive criminal organization?" the journalist's voice was positively electrified with sarcasm, each word enunciated as if he were speaking to a child.

Jane could see Ryder was growing more and more annoyed by the second, so she stepped in. "Look, mister. Why would he be lying about his own father? We know how serious this sounds."

The man huffed, throwing the notepad onto his desk. "I don't believe you two because it's his father."

"Why would he lie about his dad if he was such a good person? Wouldn't that make his own son want to protect him instead?" Jane countered.

The journalist shook his head, completely ignoring her argument. "You should know better than to make up lies with nothing to back them up. You could get in all kinds of trouble."

No, Jane thought. It wasn't that he didn't believe them. There was something else here. The same instinct, buried in the back of her mind, had come alive. The same instinct that had served her so well this far. It was warning her.

The journalist was nervous. She could see it in the set of his frame, in the way he so vehemently argued against Ryder, and because his notepad had no notes. The yellow paper was entirely blank, untouched by the journalist's pen. He never had any intentions of running their story in the first place.

Beside her, Ryder's frown intensified. "I don't get it. Why don't you want to report on this?"

Because Jackson had gotten to him first, Jane realized. The man probably had his fingers in every public media outlet based in Alexander.

"Because he's afraid," Jane answered. "Afraid of your dad."

Realizing the act was not working, the journalist looked over his shoulder, ensuring nobody else in the tiny office was listening. "Okay, okay. Quiet, alright? You never know who's in his pocket."

Jane nodded, leaning over the desk to hear him better. He was speaking so softly that the sound of the fans overhead nearly drowned him out.

"Everybody knows about Jackson, alright? It's not exactly a well-kept secret. There's rumors everywhere. But he makes sure nobody has enough tangible proof to paint the whole picture. Otherwise..." His thumb swiped across his neck, pantomiming a violent form of death.

Despite the explanation, Ryder only seemed angrier. "You're supposed to be a reporter. Isn't this what you guys do? Fight for the truth?"

The journalist raised both palms upwards. "I got a family, man."