Vigil Read Online Free PDF

Henry.
    “Henry,” said Lauren. “The girl was rescued last night. We couldn’t have beat them to this story. The paper was already at the presses while this was going on.”
    “I know that.” Henry waved her away. “I don’t care about this girl. I don’t care about the guy she claims was trying to kill her, the one they’re calling The Phantom. For all we know, she made the whole damned thing up. None of that matters. But it does rankle having them sail in and try to take over our story.” He turned to me. “ Your story.”
    They both looked at me.
    I didn’t know what to say.
    “It was your story, wasn’t it?” said Henry, turning annoyed eyes on Lauren. “You haven’t confused the interns again this year, have you?”
    “I never confused the interns!” She was indignant.
    “It’s my story,” I said.
    “Good,” said Henry, looking me up and down. “Listen, girlie, anyone can get lucky with a hot story one time. You’re just a kid from school, and you lucked onto the front page. It takes a real reporter to stay there, to find her way back week after week.”
    I took a deep breath. “Well, I want to be a real reporter, sir.”
    “Sir.” He laughed. “She calls me sir.”
    “She does impressive work,” said Lauren. “She’s polite too.”
    Henry was still laughing. “All right, then. You want to be a real reporter, get me more on this guy. These news stations, all they’ve got is some wide-eyed trashy girl talking about Vigil. We had quotes from Vigil. Can you talk to him again?”
    My mouth went dry. I knew what the proper answer here was. I was supposed to say yes, and then I was supposed to do everything in my power to find the masked man again. The masked man who’d climbed in my window last night and kissed me. “I can try.”
    Henry arched an eyebrow. “Try?”
    “It’s only that I don’t know anything more about him than what I reported. He found me. I didn’t find him.”
    “How’d he find you?”
    “I was on the docks, and he told me to leave because it wasn’t safe,” I said.
    “So, you go back to the docks,” said Henry. “And wear something trashy. That should attract some scumbags. Hopefully, Vigil will come in and save you.”
    Right. And if he didn’t?
    Henry opened the door to his office. “By tomorrow morning, girlie.”
    I gulped.
    Lauren left the office, and I followed her.
    Henry slammed the door after us.
    “Is he for real?” I said.
    She started walking. “Anything about him seem fake to you?”
    “He told me to wear something trashy. That’s like sexual harassment in the workplace, isn’t it?”
    She snorted. “You’re going to go to the docks, aren’t you?”

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    “You going clubbing?” Airenne asked me.
    I was in the bathroom, applying eyeshadow. I knew two ways to wear makeup. One was mascara and lipstick, and it was my general mode of operation. The other was Cabaret-style. Full-on makeup. The works. Too much makeup for normal interaction. Makeup for the stage.
    That was what I was doing right now.
    I looked up from the mirror. “No, this is for a story.”
    She lounged in the doorway to the bathroom. “You going undercover as a hooker or something?”
    I considered. “Kind of.” The truth was that the girls who’d been killed had all been hookers or strippers. I’d spent a good portion of the day going over all the news reports about Vigil, and the reigning consensus was that the man that they were calling The Phantom was the serial killer.
    I wasn’t sure what I thought about that.
    I thought the killer was Hayden Barclay, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was this other guy. The Phantom.
    Or maybe Henry was right, and the girl had made the man up. After all, it did seem strange to think that two masked men had suddenly appeared in Aurora.
    And there was a third possibility, one I didn’t want to consider. Maybe I’d been right in the first place. Maybe Vigil was the killer. Maybe he’d