Depths of Depravity Read Online Free PDF Page A

publicity would make him even more money. Unless he’s got something to hide.”
    “ But he’s a billionaire. Maybe he just has enough money and he doesn’t want to be bothered.”
    “ Maybe. But I think this is worth looking into. Where was this photo taken?”
    “ It was outside of his building on 5th and Lexington. You’re not planning on camping out there to get a piece of him? I don’t think you’re going to get past security—”
    “ No, I’m not going to do that… You said Jennifer was working on the piece?”
    “ That’s right.”
    “ Stay right here, Roy. I’ll be right back.”
    “ Hey, I’m not going anywhere.”
    Roy turned his attention back to all of the work in front of him. I walked between all of the cubicles where all of the people worked. I looked for Jennifer and eventually found her in the corner, leisurely working on her latest article.
    “ Jennifer.”
    She slowly turned and looked at me for a moment. She stared at me, searching for something to say.
    “Victoria,” I said. “Investigative reporter.”
    “ Right. Uh, is something wrong?”
    “ I just talked to Roy. He said you were working on some profile about this guy named Landon Schra—”
    “ Don’t remind me,” she rolled her eyes.
    “ What’s wrong? What happened?”
    She sighed before she said an ything. The leisure demeanor she had when I first arrived was replaced by a woman who had been spurned.
    “ He was more trouble than he was worth,” she said. “I thought it would be interesting to learn more about a man who was a self-made billionaire. Not a millionaire but a billionaire.”
    “ What’s so interesting about that?”
    “ He made all of his money somewhere else. Then he bought an entire building and operates everything here. I figured maybe there was something behind all of the money he made. Maybe he could offer our readers some financial advice. Maybe he could talk about some job offers for people looking. Maybe he was just a really funny guy. Whatever the case, I thought it would make for an interesting read. But he didn’t want any part of it. I ended up canning it. It was too much effort.”
    “ I see…”
    I was more intrigued than I ’d ever been. Jennifer may have given up so easily but I was determined to find out what the case with this guy was. There had to be more to him than just being an asshole who didn’t want to talk to anybody.
    “ Jennifer, I was wondering—”
    “ You want to write about Landon? Be my guest.”
    “ Thanks. Do you have any notes or information?”
    “ Not really,” she shrugged. “Most of the stuff I had was general information I pulled off of the Internet.”
    “ Does he have any contacts? Like an agent, a publicist… Maybe a secretary?”
    “ Maybe,” she shook her head. “But getting in contact with them is more difficult than talking to Landon himself.”
    “ So you don’t have any leads at all.”
    She frowned at me and shook her head again. Jennifer was making it seem like it was an impossible task. There had to be some way to get ahold of him. There was a story behind Landon Schrader, even if it was something possibly mundane like Jennifer suggested.
    Like I was on a wild goo se chase, I headed back to Lily in search for any hint of an answer. She was busy filing her nails while she talked on her wireless earpiece like some bored secretary.
    “ Lily, can I talk to you for a second?”
    “ Hold on, one of my coworkers wants to talk to me,” she said to the person on the phone. “Yeah, I’ll call you back later. What is it, Victoria?”
    “ What do you know about Landon Schrader?”
    “ Landon Schrader? He’s a billionaire or something, right?”
    “ What else do you know?”
    “ Um, not much,” she shrugged. “ Should I know anything?”
    “ He’s a billionaire, Lily! I thought gossip was your department.”
    “ Yeah but only about people in the public eye.”
    “ How many billionaires are there in this city?”
    “ Too many