Chapter 155 – Another Type of Mask – Silver Brooks

We didn’t approach our mission unprepared. We were no longer Holly and Silver. We were Olivia and Jess, two concerned students visiting Channel 12 News Station with a news story of our own. We just needed an audience with someone in the staff to talk about our valuable insight.

Holly warned me about the intense secret nature of our mission, and how any slip up could give us away. Yet I couldn’t keep myself from laughing as we stood on the outside of the news station building. This was like something out of one of the spy shows that I watched as a kid! I knew we weren’t here for fun, but I couldn’t help myself.

“What’s wrong, Jess?” Holly asked me. “You’ve been smiling and laughing ever since we pulled up. You’d better get a lid on that or the staff will think you’re high.”

“I… I’m sorry, Olivia.” I said, stifling a laugh. “It’s just… the hair from this wig keeps getting in front of my face. Maybe I should’ve worn it in a ponytail.”

“Nonsense, your hairstyle is what’s ‘in’ right now. You look like you could be an influencer or web vlogger.”

I struggled to hold back another laugh.

“If… If you say so, Olivia...”

“Please, Jess,” Holly said. “We’ve known each other since kindergarten. Just call me Ollie.”

This made me break out into laughter. Holly sighed and put her palm into her face.

“Get it all out.” Holly said. “The moment we step through those doors its showtime.”

I composed myself and went over some of the notes that I brought along with me. We came up with these characters back at Autumn Eden Elementary School while we were getting dressed. The disguises were as close to perfect as a disguise could be. Holly looked nothing like she normally did.

She was wearing heavy black makeup around her eyes and had on a long black wig. If I had passed her on the street like this without knowing about the disguise then I never would’ve imagined that this could be Holly. She actually looked like Malorie, which was what she was aiming for.

Her wig had the same haircut that Malorie had in one of her old photographs. She was wearing thick black lipstick to match the rest of her makeup. She had skull-shaped earrings and additional rows of black clip-on earrings going up her ear. Similarly, she was wearing a fake clip-on nose ring also.

She did not look like the type that would visit a news station out of personal interest, and I even said as much to her. She said that it was okay because this was about fitting her alibi. The story that she wanted to sell was that she was a relative of Malorie’s and had exclusive information on her case.

I was here as ‘Olivia’s’ close childhood friend, helping her reach out to the media about her cousin. Unlike Holly’s character, I actually looked like someone that might do this. I was wearing a red wig over my real hair. I had painted-on freckles, large glasses, and a satchel bag full of school books that was left partway open for all to see.

I was an ‘academic’ with deep knowledge about our school that, in actuality, came from Holly. There was so much for me to remember that it was no surprise that I was choking up this close to showtime. Holly planned to take the lead but needed me to help sell the image.

Holly was wearing a black turtleneck dress with long sleeves. Beneath the skirt of her dress she was wearing thick black leggings and tall black boots. All this in combination with her makeup made her look depressing. She was a world away from how she normally looked.

I was wearing the Meredith school uniform with no embellishments. I wasn’t even wearing a jacket, which was why I was trying to compose myself quickly so that we could get out of the cold. I looked like a well-to-do honor student and couldn’t take myself seriously when I first looked into the mirror.

Holly was actually the one to drive us here using Alyssa’s scooter. She was learning to drive it with Alyssa’s help. She planned to get a full driver’s license soon. Right now she only had a learner’s permit. Her mother was also teaching her how to drive separately. She was good enough to not raise suspicion on the drive over.

“Okay.” I said to Holly. “I’m ready to go inside, Ollie.”

“That’s the spirit.” Holly said in a deeper voice than normal.

Her voice was flat and monotone, like she didn’t really want to be here. My voice was supposed to be higher-pitched than usual but I could hardly handle that. Instead, I was going to avoid talking as much as reasonably possible. Holly obviously had a great deal of experience with this type of thing.

We walked into the lobby of the news station and saw a few people moving around between rooms. The place was busy. They normally went on the air about half an hour from the time we arrived. Our timing predicament wasn’t by mistake. Holly intentionally chose to visit at a difficult time.

“Good evening.” A depressed sounding Holly said to the receptionist working the counter. “We were hoping that you could let me talk to Miss Maria Novak.”

This was another big part of Holly’s plan for getting to our target. She wasn’t aiming for Sarah Rivera directly. Coming straight to her would be suspicious. It would also put her on immediate guard. Instead, we wanted to make our decision to talk to her look like a lack of choice, as if she was our second option.

The receptionist lady turned away from her computer monitor to give us a bored and uninterested look.

“And why would I let you do that, Morticia? She’s set to go on the air in just a few minutes.” The receptionist said.

“She’s the one who has been writing and talking about my cousin, correct?”

“Is your cousin another member of the Addam’s family?”

Holly rolled her eyes at the receptionist and pulled out a photograph of Malorie with her friends. Holly slapped the photograph on the receptionist’s desk.

“Malorie Noelle! That’s my cousin, smartass! I’m assuming you know who she is, or are you too good to watch your own broadcasts?”

Holly wasn’t speaking carefully like usual. She was acting annoyed and on edge, which was an in-character response to the receptionist’s provocations. The receptionist took the photograph and looked between the photo and Holly, considering things. Then she gave me a cursory look over as well.

“You two are from that school, same as Malorie?”

“I’m sorry, was that not obvious?” Holly asked. “We know something about my cousin’s murder that isn’t being shared in the news and we need to tell someone about it. Someone important.”

The receptionist handed Holly’s photograph back and gave us a more serious look.

“Listen girls, you two came here at a really bad time… She’ll be going on air by the time I finish checking you two in and writing up passes.”

“Five minutes!” Holly said. “Give me five minutes to talk to her! We’ll be in and out before anyone knows it. You won’t even need to write a guest pass for us.”

The receptionist leaned back in her chair and sighed. She turned towards a young man that was walking through the lobby.

“Hey, Ian! These two girls want to talk to her majesty!”

Ian stopped walking and headed towards us.

“Who…? Maria…? Maria’s in makeup right now.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know… They say they’ve got information on that Malorie girl everyone’s been talking about. This one here claims to be Malorie’s cousin. Maria might want to know. I know she’s been working on another project for that.”

“Well they won’t have long…” Ian noted.

“And you’re wasting precious time by just standing here…” The receptionist sang in an annoyed tone.

“Alright.” Ian said sternly. “Girls, come with me… Man… I really hope Maria doesn’t bite my head off for this.”

Ian started to lead us away. The receptionist smirked and waved at us playfully.

“Bye bye, girls! Say hi to Uncle Fester for me.” The receptionist said.

“What a bitch.” Holly said as we walked away.

This caused Ian to snort audibly and made me to laugh.

“You have no idea.” He said.

Ian brought us into the office proper, deeper in than I thought we’d be allowed to go without a guest pass. It was interesting seeing the set. People were frantically moving around us as they prepared to go on air. No one paid any attention to us as we walked through. They were all too busy.

Ian brought us to a private room near the main set. He gave a courtesy knock before walking in. A young assistant was helping Maria Novak with her makeup. Maria pushed her away as we entered the room. She immediately gave Holly an intense stare.

“Who’s the gothic chick?” Maria asked, waving over at Holly. “Ian, my precious boy, please do not tell me you brought two high school girls over for an autograph right before I’m set to go on? You wouldn’t pull some shit like that on a nice young woman like me, would you?”

Ian chuckled nervously before quickly hiding behind the two of us.

“Aha… Umm… No, actually… They umm… Well… It was something about that Malorie girl and…”

Holly pushed Ian away.

“Oh cut the crap, I’ll take over from here.” Holly said assertively.

Ian looked happy to be out of Maria’s line of fire, but this made Maria’s icy gaze fall heavily on Holly. Holly wasn’t at all intimidated by this celebrity. Holly had to be made of ice herself, because this local star intimidated the hell out of me. I was just now realizing the seriousness of the situation. It wasn’t every day I got to meet someone I saw on TV.

“My name’s Olivia. This geeky redheaded nerd here is my best friend, Jess.”

“H-hey…!” I said lightly.

“Anyways, we’re here to talk to you about my cousin, Malorie Noelle.”

“Malorie…?” Maria asked in disbelief. “Malorie Noelle is your cousin?”

“You don’t see a family resemblance?” Holly asked. “Here, check out this photo of her that her brother gave me.”

Holly handed over the photograph in question. The photograph didn’t actually come from Malorie’s brother, but it was among the lesser known images of Malorie. It seemed to have the appropriate effect on Maria because her doubtful look was gone. She grinned and stood up out of her seat. She put a hand on Holly’s shoulder.

“The you should’ve come to me sooner! We’ve been looking for people with insider knowledge about her for weeks now! You couldn’t have come earlier, before we were about to go on the air? Why now?”

“Truth be told, I didn’t want to come at all.” Holly said and nodded in my direction. “This dork was the one that talked me into coming here. ‘They should hear your story’ she said. ‘Everyone deserves to know the truth’ she told me. I’m still not convinced this is the right idea.”

Maria’s grin faded into a frown.

“Oh? And why would you believe something like that? Were you planning to go to one of the other stations with this?”

“No!” Holly said so aggressively that Maria pulled her hand away. “It’s because all the media is the same! You’re all corrupt and work for big businesses and the government!”

Maria rolled her eyes.

“You’ve been watching too many of the corporate news channels, kid. You need to learn to appreciate the local media community.”

“I’m a huge fan of yours.” I said. “That’s why I suggested that we come here. Your first piece on Malorie Noelle was the best to date.”

Maria put both of her hands on my shoulders and smiled. I couldn’t help but to smile back at her.

“See! Here’s a smart girl, Olivia! You should listen to your friend more often!”

“Anyways, I want to talk to you about our school principal, Ms. Sampson. You know she’s under arrest?”

“She’s not under legal arrest, just under an ongoing investigation.” Maria said. “The police have been stingy with information and we’re not allowed to get into contact with her while she’s dealing with them. Things have been silent since she was put on paid leave by the school board. You wouldn’t happen to know something special about her, would you?”

“Hell yeah I do!” Holly said confidently. “You see, I tried to restart the theater club in our school, only to be blocked at every chance. Isn’t it really fishy that we couldn’t get permission from the vice principal who was a former member of the theater club? I always had my suspicions about her, but now after that Angelica Morelli stuff…”

“Exactly!” Maria said. “You’ve come to the right place to talk about this! I-…”

Ian came back inside the room suddenly.

“They say you’re on in ten minutes!” Ian said. “They asked me to let you know that preparations are complete.”

“Son of a…” Maria started to say. “Girls, you two will have to come back some other time.”

“Is there someone else we could talk to while you’re busy? Jess told me that there was someone from our school that worked here. I forgot her name though.”

Maria stepped back and put a thoughtful finger on her chin.

“Who…? There’s no one here that…”

“She’s probably talking about Sarah.” Ian suggested. “She used to go to Meredith’s School for Troubled Girls, same as them.”

Maria snapped a finger at Ian.

“You’re right! Run over to her office and drag her over here. It’s about time she made herself useful every now and then!”

“Right away, ma’am!”

Ian wasn’t joking around when it came to being prompt about this. He literally ran out of Maria’s office to go to a room down the hall. He almost collided into another person that was running through the hallway. This place was hectic just before they went on the air. Was that true of all big stations like this or were they just disorganized?

Ian soon came back with a young woman in tow. She was around Ms. Sampson’s age, maybe a year or so younger. She was shorter than I expected, nearly the same height as Holly. She was pretty, in a cozy sort of way. She was wearing vibrant clothes that matched the season.

The winter-themed sweater she was wearing along with her tied up hair made her look jovial. She was wearing pants under her skirt and thick winter boots. She had a totally different vibe than her co-workers. Most of them were wearing office attire. Only she looked so casual.

“Ian said you needed me…?” Sarah asked in confusion. “Did you want me to get another cup of coffee for you?”

“No, you can do that for me when my segment is finished. Right now I want you to talk to these two girls about Malorie.”

Sarah’s eyes widened as she looked between the two of us. There was a sudden flash of panic on her face before she schooled her features and gave us a friendly smile. Maria and Ian probably thought that she was just being weird, but Holly and I weren’t fooled. We shared a look between each other after noticing.

“Malorie…? You mean Malorie Noelle…?” Sarah asked.

Maria let out a sarcastic chuckle.

“How many Malorie’s do you know? Yes, Malorie Noelle! This one here says she’s Malorie’s cousin.”

“Cousin…?!” Sarah nearly shouted.

“Yes, a cousin. Don’t you have those too?” Maria asked.

“No… I mean yes, but… I didn’t know that Malorie had a cousin attending the school… No one told me about...”

“We’re telling you now!” Maria said impatiently. “Take them over to your office and let them tell you everything they know about their vice principal. They say they’ve got inside information.”

The panic was written all over Sarah’s face now. Did she suspect us of being imposters, or was she not prepared for the possibility of someone coming to talk to her about Ms. Sampson? Probably the latter since it was a conversation bound to be filled with landmines for her. Ms. Sampson was used to selling their story to people. Was Sarah Rivera?

“Wait…” Sarah said. “How do we know these two are who they say they are?”

Holly let out an audible sigh and took off one of the black gloves she was wearing, revealing her ring. She took off the ring and held it up so that everyone in the room could see. Sarah visibly paled upon the sight of it. She recognized it without even examining the numbers engraved into it.

“This is Malorie’s graduation ring.” Holly said. “It was something that I inherited from her side of the family. I was her favorite cousin, after all. Now are we going to talk, or do you need further convincing?”