Page 2 of Captive Hearts
‘Did they?’ Ashley asked.
‘Yes.’
‘A minute ago, it was just a theory. Now you’resureabout the point and the method of entry?’ Ashley asked the man.
‘No, I mean, I don’t know, I didn’t… I wasn’t….’ the man stuttered. Ashley let him sputter. She knew she was right. The theft had been this man’s fault.
The headmistress sighed. ‘Oh, Barry. Youdidn’t.’
The caretaker looked at his boss. ‘I didn’t leave it open, I can’t have! I didn’t even lock up, the other caretaker was supposed to!’
It didn’t take long for Ashley to put two and two together. ‘Oh, so you thoughthewas doing it, and he thoughtyouwere doing it?’
The man opened his mouth to explain more. But what was there to say? He began to blub. ‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’
The headmistress was beside herself. ‘Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ she muttered to herself, the camera now forgotten. ‘You know what this means, don’t you, Barry? We’re at fault. Which means the insurance won’t pay up. How the hell are we going to pay for this ourselves? I’m budgeted down to the penny!’ the headmistress cried.
Ashley sensed it wasn’t going to get any better than that, and she turned around to face the camera. ‘This is Ashley Quick reporting for KTN,’ she said, the sound of the man’s tears in the background. ‘Right, cut,’ she added for Mac.
Mac put the camera down. He was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Unbelievable,’ he muttered to himself.
Ashley ignored him, turning back to the headmistress. ‘Thanks very much for that, it’ll be on at six tonight.’
The headmistress, her face as pale as the moon, a thousand-yard stare in her eyes, replied, ‘I’ll be sure to tune in.’
Ashley nodded. She walked out.
***
‘We’re not putting it out,’ Bernie, the station manager, said firmly. This was after a lot of back and forth between Ashley and the editor, Nicole, about what would be included in the package. Nicole was of the opinion that Ashley had been a vicious pit bull who’d gone too far, and Ashley was of the equally strong opinion that Nicole could shove it up her arse. Finally, they’d had to take it to the boss. He was on Nicole’s side. ‘We’re going to take a soundbite from the beginning before you started applying the thumbscrews to that poor old guy. But that’s all. We can’t air the full interview.’
‘What?’ Ashley said. ‘Why not? It’s news, isn’t it?’
‘Ashley, for the love of god. We’relocalnews, we don’t do things like this,’ he told her.‘We don’t do “gotchas.”’
‘I know it’s not usual to get a confession during an interview, Bernie, but this is good stuff, you’ve got to see that,’ Ashley exclaimed. ‘I got the truth.’
‘You got an old man to cry, and you got a school in financial trouble. No one would want to see this,’ Bernie told her sharply.
Ashley was ready to explode. ‘This isn’t right. And I think if I talked to the station owner-’
Bernie shook his head. ‘I’ve already done that.Everyoneupstairs has seen this. They think the same as me. It’s not appropriate for local news. I’ve already deleted the footage; this is never getting seen.’
Ashley gasped. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘I’ve done it. And you should thank me. You don’t come off well in this, Ashley. You come off like a bully.’
Ashley frowned. ‘I’m not abully. I was just… It was obvious what had happened, and I just thought-’
‘Yeah, I know. You saw a story. Well, if you’d solved amurder, we might be having a different discussion right now. But it was a shitty small story that didn’t need to come out.’
Ashley wanted to keep arguing the point. But she was starting to wonder if Bernie was right. Had she gone too far?
Bernie took his tone down to something gentler. ‘Look, Ashley, you need to stop trying to push your job to be something it’s never going to be. You wanna do things like this, you can’t do them here. Maybe you should consider taking your talents elsewhere.’
‘I’m trying to go national,’ Ashley admitted. ‘I’ve applied everywhere.’
‘Then what the hell are you still doing with us tin-pot locals?’
