A Long Road to Redemption

Chapter 48

Shelia was staking out another person on the list from the flash drive. She knew Roger and Luke would disapprove, but when she got word from a source that a high-ranking Pierson executive was on the move, she couldn't wait for permission. She followed him to a small office across town and watched him enter. She decided to walk to the glass doors and peek inside. To her disappointment, a security guard was sitting at a desk.

She decided to wait, return to her car, and see who came out of the building. It occurred to her that there was at least another entrance to the building. Still, it was a risk she decided to take. An hour passed, and the executive exited the building and drove away. Although tempted to follow him, she decided to wait and see if someone else came out. A half-hour passed, and no one came out. If the guy did meet with someone inside, they must have exited the building from another door.

Disappointed, she decided to call it a night. Roger told her many times that sometimes police work was like that. You wait; nothing happens, and you must call it a day. Reporting was like that, too. Time spent on a lead for a story goes nowhere, and you have to start back at square one. It's frustrating but a fact of life in her line of work.

When she parked her car outside the small garden home, a thought crossed her mind that things had gone very well for them over the last several weeks. Taylor had brought in his FBI friend, and they were getting workable information from Gaddis. They also proved that Sullivan suppressed and planted evidence to make Sidney look far more guilty than she was. Shelia was confident they could get her a reduced sentence for her cooperation, if nothing else.

Walking through the door, she felt the day's concerns melt away. She was carrying tension in her shoulders from the workload she put on herself. Time for a vacation, she thought to herself, but she knew that wasn't likely. It was late, and she wanted to finish a report before bed.

She had just finished her story and sent it to her editor when she heard a glass breaking outside. The sound jolted her and she sprang to her feet to find out the cause of the noise. Instinctively, she grabbed a small statue off an end table as she walked by her couch. Shelia searched around the house but saw no signs of broken glass. She made her way to the kitchen door, but it too was closed. Opening it, she flipped on the lights.

Suddenly, a shadowy figure jumped at her. She recoiled in terror to see her neighbor's cat at her feet. Looking on her back porch, she saw that a couple of broken wine bottles lay on the concrete floor. "You scared me to death, kitty cat. I knew I should have put those bottles in the trash can."

Relieved, she walked back inside. She shut the door, locking it. As she turned around, she walked straight into a man who put his hand over her mouth before she even had time to scream. There must have been something in his hand because she could feel herself getting light-headed. Without the least amount of resistance, she felt the world go dark.