ELEVEN

 

Chaz left to make phone calls, and the other guys ducked back behind the little walls around their desks. Maya turned to her computer.

“Umm, who’s this video about?” I asked her softly.

“The mayor’s son,” she said over her shoulder. “He’s working on his dad’s campaign, and Johnson asked him about voter fraud. Just watch, you’ll see.”

Voter fraud? I didn’t even know what that meant.

You couldn’t see Jeff Johnson in the video, of course, since he was making it. But you could see the other guy—the mayor’s son, I guess—really good for most of the video.

“I’m scared,” said JJ (as I was calling him in my head). “I don’t want us to lose. I’ve got some names of people that are, uh, deceased and whose voter registrations I can use.”

“Oh, wow,” said the mayor’s son. “Dude, you know I need to tell you that you should just focus on getting out the vote.”

“No disrespect to your dad, man, but what if it’s just not enough? I’ve got utility bills so I’m golden,” said JJ.

“Well, in that case,” said the mayor’s son, “I think my dad would be very interested in these extra votes. It’s gonna be a close election, and he needs all the help he can get. In fact, we were just talking about something like this last night.”

Maya snorted. I jumped. I hadn’t realized she was watching over my shoulder.

“He’s just such an idiot,” she said.

Okay, now or never, I thought. I don’t see how I can fake this one.

“Umm, I’m kind of confused,” I said. “What does that Johnson guy want to do?”

“He doesn’t actually want to do anything he’s saying. All he wants is to get Billy—that’s the mayor’s son—and the mayor to look like they’re willing to commit voter fraud,” said Maya.

I must have still looked stupid because she sighed.

“Johnson is saying he can go to lots of polling places with the names and utility bills of dead people, pretend to be the dead people, and vote for the mayor. That’s illegal. And Baby Boy Billy agreed to it. And said his dad would. That’s why Chaz and Johnson think it’s a gold mine,” Maya explained.

I frowned. I got it now, but it still didn’t make sense in a basic way.

I watched the rest of the video. Just a little bit more talking about how they could vote for dead people.

I watched it again, looking carefully at Billy’s face. He seemed so relaxed. Was JJ pretending to be a friend of his? He couldn’t be so dumb as to just start talking about this with any random guy, right?

I was wondering where JJ had the camera hidden. Somewhere on his head, I thought, since he got Billy’s face straight on. What did this freaky tiny camera look like that Billy wouldn’t notice?

I was going to ask Maya what she thought when Chaz strolled over and leaned against the wall.

“Pretty awesome, huh?” he said. “It’ll definitely affect the outcome of the election once we break this story. We’re sitting on it for the moment while we dig for more.”

“You mean, you’re letting Johnson decide when would be the best time to break this story,” said Maya.

Chaz seemed like he was ignoring her. “As you can see, Destiny, we’re still a small operation. We’re the newest part of Chatter, and I personally am eager to prove ourselves. Johnson is a valuable source—he could have taken this video anywhere else.”

Maya rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer.

“Later on I’m heading out to the mayor’s press conference,” said Chaz. “I thought you might want to come along. I was thinking that this internship would be a lot of shadowing and doing a little bit of reporting yourself. But none of that getting coffee crap.”

He smiled at me and I melted.