Something Wicked ✅ (Excerpt)

Chapter 4

Daisy glanced at her watch for probably the tenth time in the last five minutes, trying not to tap her foot with all the nervous energy coursing through her, lest it throw off Amy's perfect editor-in-chief voice and derail the Carleton Advocate staff meeting currently going on. Or worse, frustrate Amy enough that she threw pens and pencils at her again. Amy had wicked good aim from years of playing softball.

And she didn't like being interrupted or distracted. Two things Daisy was rather good at with her inability to keep her opinions to herself in staff meetings.

Even though she had only been there for 10 minutes, Daisy was aching to get out already. She wanted to try and get a hold of Tara's roommate about a possible interview before media law. Possibly get something to eat as well considering she wasn't touching the greasy pizza everyone else was eating with a 10-foot pole. That shit would kill you.

Daisy then glanced around the room, taking in the roughly 25 students lounging around the large living room of the old house on mismatched sofas and loveseats. Some were on folding chairs or the floor as well, the group barely fitting in.

Even though they had a large journalism department in a stately building on campus, for some reason the Advocate had always been set up here, giving them a bit of autonomy and the ability to work without the president or anyone else in administration breathing down their necks - literally speaking. While they had a decent budget, more of it went into keeping the layout staff with updated software, printing and paying the staff than keeping up the aging house that had computers and desks crammed into all of the available space.

It was rare to have the entire staff present for one of these shindigs, though Daisy knew why they all made a point to show up today. Everyone had been talking non-stop about Tara Smith since they came in, whispering excitedly over pizza slices and shooting reverent looks in her direction, likely knowing that she was heading anything on the story.

But now they were all silently eating or taking notes as Amy ran through all the sections, getting updates on where they were for the next issue which was set to go to the printers tomorrow night. Amy would likely be here most of the day and into the night finishing up her own stories and copy-editing. Tomorrow as well. Technically, Daisy should be there too, but she had a bit of leniency since she was covering Tara's story.

"Right, so that's it for the regular part of this week's issue," Amy finally said, glancing over at Daisy. "Front page is going to be the latest on Tara Smith. Daisy's been covering it so far for the website, but we're planning to do a large round-up with everything we know so far-"

"Did someone really beat her face off?" one of the newbies - Derek Collins - asked, interrupting Amy, earning a sharp glare from the short woman for interrupting.

Daisy rolled her eyes and grumbled to herself, wondering just how he got through the normally grueling interview process to get one of the coveted staff positions. There were only about 25 to 30 spots on the paper any given year and nearly 500 in the journalism program, so Hough could be picky. Apparently he wasn't picky enough. At least by Daisy's standards.

"Are you fucking serious?" Meredith Cole shouted, smacking him on the back of the head. "Show some respect. A student is dead. Murdered."

While she was in the entertainment section, Meredith was a solid writer, Daisy thought, and great researcher. She was a junior like Daisy and they had most of the same journalism classes. Daisy glanced over at Amy, who was still glaring at Derek.

"Right, so we need a team working on this. Daisy is the lead, obviously. She and only she will speak to the police, family, university - basically anyone connected directly to the case. But we need support. People to do background searches, grunt work. Get campus opinions and so on," Amy said. "Write secondary articles."