Paradise - Excerpt by Kate Sweeney

The research building at the Reichmann Institute went up like a matchstick; it was ablaze within minutes. The boiler blew—that was an easy explanation, and better still, it was true, and well, shit happens.

When the smoke cleared, literally, Dr. Tom King answered all questions and told everything he knew to the young government agent, who watched him with a suspicious eye.

"So we have the bodies of the four found charred beyond recognition, but the dental records match. Nurses Amanda Norris and Janice Ruiz, janitor Doug Maynard and…Alpha." The agent looked up from his notes.

"Devastating but true." Tom hung his head as he listened to the litany of the dead.

"And you’re sure the body found was that of Alpha?"

"We’ve gone over this ten times, agent. Yes, the dental records match. You saw them yourself." Tom looked him in the eyes, never blinking.

The agent nodded and looked at the charred remains of the building. "Well, there isn’t much more we can do. You’re out of a job, Doctor. You were in charge here since Dr. Reichmann died. But to be honest, the government wanted nothing more to do with the whole mess and was looking for a good excuse to terminate this. This fire took care of it for us, however it may have happened." He kicked at the rubble at his feet. "Kinda odd the Institute had all this funding but never took care of a lousy furnace, hmm." He looked back at Dr. King. "Of course, you knew this day would come, but we’ll be watching from time to time. Of course, you know that, as well."

"I’ve worked on this project for nearly twenty-one years. I know what it’s like to be under the microscope."

The agent laughed. "Now you know how your experiments felt."

Dr. King wanted to punch the young toady dead in the face. "It’s over. Alpha is dead, and I don’t want to think about it anymore. I too want nothing more to do with this…mess, as you say. It was wrong from the beginning," he said sadly. "I plan to live a nice quiet life being a small-town doctor for the rest of my days. You can come to visit whenever you like." He let out a sarcastic laugh. "But you’ll do that anyway, won’t you?"

The younger man reddened for a moment. He nodded and gathered his folders and left.

Tom stood there, looking out at the charred remains of the Institute and watched the government car pull away. Then he quickly packed everything he owned and left the remains of the miserable existence behind him.

"Jon, I’m telling you she’s up there," Gennie said.

Her editor took off his glasses and looked around the conference table. Jon Tucker looked at his best reporter Gennie Gastineau as she played with a strand of her curly red hair. Though cut short, she always found a wayward curl. It truly annoyed him. "Gennie, what the hell are you rambling about? Who’s up where?"

"A mountain man, well, woman," she corrected herself hastily and leaned forward. Another reporter stifled his laughter as he cleared his throat, avoiding Gennie’s glare. "There’s this woman up in the mountains right outside of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. People say she’s been up there for more than twenty-five years." Gennie eagerly looked around the table.

"So what?" This came from Christine, another reporter.

"What else do we have for this paper?" Gennie asked, leaning back and folding her arms across her chest. "Ed? What do you have?" She got a glare from Ed but nothing more and got the same from Christine when she asked her. Gennie looked at her editor next. "Jon, I’m telling you, this could be a great story: a woman living alone in an isolated area for over twenty years. C’mon. It’s got Grizzly Adams and Jeremiah Johnson written all over it," she said enthusiastically. "The paper’s circulation is dying here. We need something." In the back of her mind, she screamed, "I need redemption."

Jon took a deep breath and tossed his pen on the desk. "Tell me about this mountain woman."

Gennie ignored the groans from her fellow reporters. She pushed the short red curls off her forehead, rolled up her sleeves, and quickly leafed through her notes. "Graham Sheridan," she started quickly. "No one knows how old she is. Hardly anyone ever sees her. Apparently, she lives up on this mountain alone and only comes down for supplies or has them sent up. No one wants to go up there. According to the locals, they have this, well, I guess you call it a legend." She was interrupted by a snort from Tom, which she ignored. "They say she killed a bear with her own hands. She’s completely self-sufficient and took a pot shot at somebody when they trespassed." She stopped leafing through her notes. "I think there might even be a picture of her from this guy."

"How did you find out about this?" Jon asked.

Gennie thought about it for a moment. "I think I read about her somewhere. A local paper in Steamboat. Does it matter?" It had nagged at her brain for a week now. Gennie couldn’t remember just how she found out about Graham Sheridan. She watched Jon now as he toyed with his pen.

He shook his head. "Okay, but I don’t see what the big story is, Gennie," her boss said seriously. "What’s the angle?"

The other two writers glanced at her and waited. An angle. She absently pulled at her red curls as she thought of something—anything.

"You’ve got two days. Get me an angle and you’ll be on your way to Colorado. Until then, there’s got to be something going on in this city." He glared at the reporters sitting around the table. "And you’d better find it. You’re not getting paid to sit on your brains."

Ed and Christine jumped and hurried out of the conference room. Gennie gathered her notes and slowly followed.

She sat at her computer and looked at the screen. "Graham Sheridan, why would you spend your whole life isolated? What happened? How old are you? Why?" She searched the newspapers of Steamboat Springs. She scanned every issue and looked through her notes that she had collected over the past few weeks. "No mention of parents, siblings, other relatives. It’s as if she dropped right on top of a mountain. There’s got to be a picture of her."

She called several people in Colorado and was waiting for someone to call back with something. She sat there and tiredly tossed down her pen. She looked up at the diploma hanging on the wall of her cubicle, mocking her as always.

University of Missouri, School of Journalism, magna cum laude. She was going to be the next Edward R. Murrow and get the Pulitzer Prize by thirty. Now at forty-three and fired from The New York Times, Genevieve Gastineau went back home to Clinton, Wyoming, disillusioned, heartbroken, and summarily disgraced. Being hung out to dry by her editor in New York didn’t help. She was the patsy, the scapegoat, whatever label you put on it.

She needed redemption. She needed salvation. Hell, she needed a story...