done in their own worlds. And Ella had her life as well. A week ago, she would have been sad about leaving her friends as they went off to be with their husbands. Not envious, but…okay, yeah, she’d been envious. As she hurried down the street towards the newspaper’s headquarters, she wondered about the lack of envy this time. Was it simply because she’d spent a glorious weekend in Malcolm’s arms?
That didn’t make sense because…well, because Malcolm was just a temporary lover. An amazing, wonderful lover, but there could be no future between them. She would be heading out of the country in a few weeks. That’s all this was, an affair.
Or was it? She thought about her devastation the other day when Malcolm hadn’t been with her when she’d woken up. That level of hurt didn’t come from someone for whom she had temporary feelings.
“Oh no!” she gasped, stopping in the middle of the busy sidewalk. She didn’t notice the angry glares as she realized what was going on in her head. No, in her heart. Was she in love with Malcolm?
That seemed impossible! They hadn’t known each other long enough for love to develop. Ella didn’t believe in love at first sight. Especially not with Malcolm. She’d suspected him of being a part of that secret club! She knew that he wasn’t now, but when she’d first met him, Ella had been convinced that he was.
And yet…!
“No!” she said again, shaking her head as if that could stop the realization that she had very strong feelings for Malcolm. “Impossible!” she said out loud.
Lifting her chin, she forced her feet to move forward. “I’m going to be late and I hate being late,” she muttered, not noticing a woman’s startled glance before she hurried away from Ella. “Focus on the meeting and ignore everything else,” she whispered.
Ella hurried, pushing her feelings for Malcolm to the back of her mind. She didn’t have time to examine her feelings right now. She had an investigation to finish and a meeting with her editor.
Ten minutes later, she stepped into her boss’s outer office. “Hey George, is he ready for me?” she asked of her editor’s assistant, who stood guard outside of Jim’s office.
“He’s been waiting for you,” George replied with a smile. “Go on in.”
Ella thanked him and moved forward, pushing open Jim’s office. “Hey boss,” she said once she was sure he wasn’t on the phone.
Jim turned away from the computer monitor and smiled at Ella. “Hey, Ella. How’s it going?” He waved to the table in the corner instead of towards one of the chairs in front of his desk. That was a relief, she thought. This would be a less formal conversation. Always a good sign.
“It’s going pretty well. I discovered a few new leads over the weekend that I’m following up on with my sources.”
Jim nodded. “What did you find out?”
If anyone else had asked about her leads, Ella would have simply smiled and shrugged. Or probably not even mentioned that she’d discovered something new. But this was Jim and she trusted her editor. He’d helped her out of a lot of difficult situations, plus, he’d been in the business for decades. The man had sources and resources that she might be able to tap into.
“I overheard a conversation about something mysterious being shipped out of Tular. It isn’t a country that was on my radar for this type of illegal trafficking, but I’m not discounting the possibility.”
“Where did you hear about this?” he asked.
She hesitated. She respected Jim and knew that he was a good newsman. But she didn’t want to lose this source. “I was at a social gathering,” she admitted, mentally acknowledging that her reply was a bit ambiguous. “The party itself wasn’t significant though. The conversations were generally boring and pointless. All but the one I overheard. So, I’ve gotten a few sources to ask around about it, see if they can find out anything. It might be nothing, but I thought it was worth looking into.”
“I agree,” Jim nodded. “Some of the best leads are the ones we don’t think mean anything.”
“Exactly,” she replied, relaxing back into her chair. “I have some ideas on the connections, so I’ll look into those this week.”
“Good!” He shuffled some papers on the table. “I was hoping you could look into something else. This story might give you some good cover in case one of these sources becomes suspicious.”
Ella didn’t like the sound of that. “Jim, this