Transparency by Charles Royce (children's books read aloud txt) 📕

a large white hangar with a sign that reads PanAir in raised letters. The driver turns off the car. West pulls out his phone.

They wait.

A plane taxis toward them, stops about thirty yards away.

“My hands?” Josh breaks the silence.

“That’s not them,” West says. “They’re close, but they’re still in the air. I can’t see them through the clouds.”

“Still, could you?” Josh moves his hands toward West again. “These are digging into my wrists too much. Please.”

West doesn’t look up from his phone. Then, with a jerking motion, West looks up, then out the window, to his left, to his right.

“What’s wrong?” Josh asks.

“There may be a problem.” West opens the door, hops out. He circles the car, leans against the back-passenger door.

Josh watches a Learjet flying toward the tarmac directly across from the hangars. The plane almost lands then pulls back up at the last possible second, disappearing quickly into the clouds. Josh turns to West who is just outside his window. He can read an incoming text on West’s phone:

FB. Do it, or we’ll do it for you.

“No,” he hears West say. “No, no, no, no, no.”

The limousine door next to Josh opens.

“Move over,” West says to Josh. He taps on the glass and yells at the driver. “Go!”

Josh slides across the seat, looks outside. Four men in black jackets are walking toward them, then fork in different directions.

Two men walk to the plane that has already landed, two toward the limo. The man in front turns around to the others, motions with his hands, points. Bright-yellow letters are printed boldly on the back of his dark jacket: F-B-I.

As the limo hurls away, West slams his fists on the front seat.

He looks directly at Josh, speaks through his teeth.

“What have you done?”

C h a p t e r   5 0

“WHAT ARE THEY doing? Where are they going?” Agent Pillsbury places her binoculars in the center console, turns to the driver. “This is not good. Follow that car!”

As the FBI van chases after James West’s limousine, she talks into her headset. “We had the wrong plane, fellas. They were in a plane that hadn’t landed yet, not the one already on the tarmac. Anybody get the tail numbers on that plane in the sky? They’re not heading back to wherever they came from without refueling first.”

A response comes through her earpiece. “Copy that. We didn’t get the numbers. Repeat. We did not get the numbers.”

“Get me the info for all planes coming in and out of Teterboro.” She rips her headset off. “F-f-fiddlesticks!”

C h a p t e r   5 1

“DANGIT!” TRACY’S HEEL is caught in a sidewalk seam in front of the TriCity Towers, Élan International’s brand-new headquarters. She tries to pull her shoe out. “Don’t just stand there, Shawn, help me!”

“Sorry.” He bends down, tries to shake it loose. “I was distracted by this place. It’s incredible seeing the building finished, especially at night.”

“You get used to it quick,” she says.

“Is everything open?” Shawn pulls at her heel, noting the rubber tip has lodged in the crevasse.

“Yes, all three towers. The shopping mall, the hotel. Everything came together.”

“Damn, this heel is really in there.” Shawn tugs at her shoe a little more.

“Hurry. I’ve got to get up there. With Josh still MIA, somebody has to be the point person.”

“I can’t get it loose.”

“Screw it.” Tracy breaks off the heel, takes off her shoes, holds them in front of her, wrists dangling. She stands up. “How do I look?”

Shawn looks at her outfit—a tight black blouse, a string of white pearls bouncing off her dark chest, a pair of black slacks flared at the bottom, bare toes peeking out. “Um, beautiful?”

“I’m gonna run up to my office and grab some tennis shoes.”

“Must be nice.” Shawn walks behind her.

“What must be nice?”

“Being a model. Some tween on Instagram is going to see you and start wearing bell bottoms with tennis shoes for her piano recital.” Shawn looks up to see photographers barreling toward them. “Or no shoes at all.”

“Miss Heissman!”

“Tracy!”

A gaggle of paparazzi stop midway down the stairs and begin to photograph them.

Tracy whispers to Shawn. “It’s early, they need to act like they’re doing something.”

“Do I need to know who I’m wearing?” Shawn asks.

“Yes, you do,” Tracy says. “And don’t say Walmart.”

Shawn looks down at his suit.

The photographers begin asking questions, but not the ones Tracy is expecting.

“Any comment on the timing of your article?”

“What is your take on Ghost’s part in the Pub Murders?”

“Have you visited the gravesite?”

Tracy stands still, confused, still holding her shoes. “Hold on, what are you guys talking about?”

One of the photographers steps forward. “Your article in Press. The one about Ghost.”

“About him and Lily McGuire, the cop?” she asks.

“No,” the photographer says, his voice growing more frustrated the longer she doesn’t understand. “The article is about Ghost, only Ghost. Sorry. Bastien. The article that comes out tomorrow in the magazine. With the forward from the editor. The digital version comes out the night before. Everyone’s already talking about it.”

Another steps up with his iPad. He types in a search bar. “This one.”

Tracy grabs the pad, reads the headline and byline:

“Why He Mattered: The Ghosts of Bastien Morrell” by Tracy Heissman.

Her eyes start to well as she reads the forward from her editor.

Our parent company, Élan International, tried to kill this story, but what Tracy Heissman has so eloquently brought to life is too important to be quashed. Hopefully by giving voice to Tracy, we can all begin to find our own. The writers and editors of Press will not be silenced.

Pamela from PR approaches her. She is dressed in a tight-fitting electric-red dress with a plunging neckline.

“Well, hello, Pamela,” Tracy says. She gives the iPad back to the photographer and mouths a thank you.

Pamela ignores her comment, hands her a headset. “We need you at the VIP area. Here, put this on.”

“Okay.”

“VIPs are starting to arrive.” Pamela starts walking. “Josh is nowhere to be found, and we need to