The Assignment

I checked my black Casio for the fifth time in two minutes. Just like phones, watched watches don’t speed up. The rain was relentless, and I was beyond uncomfortable, drenched and chilled to the bone.

I’d responded to the post two days ago. The job: write a memoir in twenty-four hours. Ten thousand bucks. No questions. No names. It sounded simple enough, and I was ready. A freshly minted MFA from NYU, fueled by ambition and a healthy dose of arrogance. I was primed for a challenge like this.

It was going to be easy money. If she showed up. If this wasn’t some elaborate joke to see if anyone would actually take the bait.

I looked around. The park was empty except for me. It was 2:42 a.m., and Battery Park was deserted, save for the occasional gusts of wind that whipped through the trees. I wasn’t sure if I felt more stupid or scared. What had I gotten myself into? Was I about to be an easy target for some sick thrill-seeker, or worse…?

For a second, I started second-guessing everything—Was this really the right place? Was she even going to show? The longer I stood there, the more my overactive, laced with true-crime, imagination kicked in.

I promised myself: If she didn’t show up in one more minute, I was out. I’d forget about the whole thing, bury it deep, and never speak of it again. But as I stood there, the minutes felt like hours. I was starting to lose my nerve.

That’s when I saw her.

A figure, hooded, moving fast, and looking... off. My heart rate picked up. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it sure wasn’t this. She was stumbling, awkward—limping, almost. The image of Quasimodo sprang to mind. Her head jerked from side to side, scanning, like she was expecting someone to be following her. She wasn’t just walking; she was fleeing.

I felt the air around me thicken with tension. She was definitely the person I was waiting for—but everything about her screamed danger.

“I don’t think I’m being followed,” she said between breaths, her voice shaky. “But if you see anything moving behind me, let me know. I don’t leave my house without protection, but even my guys are on his payroll now.” She didn’t introduce herself, didn’t offer any pleasantries. Just grabbed my arm like she needed me to hold her up. She was old which unsettled me all the more.

I froze.

Her fingers dug into my forearm, cold and trembling. The grip wasn’t strong, but it was urgent, desperate. I didn’t move her hand off me. I just stood there, feeling her fear radiate.

When she finally calmed her breathing, she looked up at me. “Did you bring it?” she asked.

I almost didn’t hear her over the sound of the rain slamming against us. My hood barely kept the water off my face. I yelled back. “The bag? Yeah, I brought it. Here.” I whipped my body around to show her the bump my rain parka concealed. She nodded, her eyes darting around like she expected someone to jump out of the shadows at any moment.

“Let’s get out of this rain,” she said, before pointing to a stone alcove on the edge of the park.

I followed her, trying to ignore the nerves creeping up my spine. She hobbled across the grass, her gait uneven. There was something wrong about her—she wasn’t just scared. She was hunted.

We finally made it to the alcove. It wasn’t much, but it offered shelter.

Once underneath the make-shift cave, we both yanked off our hoods and wiped our faces, trying to shake off the rain. The moment her hood came off, I got my first real look at her.

She was short—six inches shorter than me at least. She looked more like Mrs. Claus than the hunchback I was expecting. This woman looked like she should be offering cookies and milk to a child afraid of the monsters in their closet. I was further unnerved realizing this woman was sneaking around the park in the middle of the night and not tucking someone into bed. Her wild, red curls were soaked, sticking to her face and neck. Her eyes, though... they were wide, green, and full of something—something I couldn’t quite place. They looked like they’d seen too much, like she knew what happened when people got too close.

Her voice was higher than I expected, almost like she was bouncing between words, nervous energy in her cadence.

“Would you like to tell me your name? You look familiar - do I know you?”

“NO!” she snapped, suddenly leaning in, her face so close I could feel her breath on my lips. Spittle flew from her mouth and hit my lip.

I didn’t flinch, but it took everything in me not to wipe it away in front of her. She didn’t apologize. Her hands were shaking too much for any of that. Instead, she just stared at me.

“I need to be discreet,” she said, her voice low but sharp. “I’m in a lot of danger. You have to finish this in 24 hours. No more. It’s... too late if you don’t.”

I stared at her. She was telling me to write a memoir from this journal, with no room for delay. What the hell was going on? Why didn’t I get these details prior to responding to the ad?

“What’s too late? Are you in danger?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

She didn’t reply, just pulled out a thick, weathered leather journal from inside her jacket and placed it in my open backpack.

“My father’s journal,” she said. “He died twenty years ago, but before he did, he made me promise to take this and finish what he started. He said the world needed to know what was in here. That it couldn’t stay buried anymore. My family cannot, will not tolerate the lies any longer. But I can’t—I can’t be the one to tell it. You have to.”

I opened the journal, but she stopped me.

“Be careful with that,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “There are people who would kill to keep it hidden. People who have already killed.”

She reached into the bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “This is for you. The instructions. If you do this, if you finish it... the money will be yours. These will direct you to getting the payment. But you and I will never meet again. I won’t risk it.”

She shoved the journal into my open backpack and pushed it closer to me. We worked like magnets repelled by the other. As she stepped closer, I instinctively pulled back.

“I can’t take this,” I stammered. “I—"

“You must,” she interrupted, eyes wide. “You must.”

Without another word, she stood and left the alcove, vanishing into the rain.

Back at my apartment, I opened the journal. Three hundred pages of frantic, barely legible writing. A man’s confession. A family’s nightmare. Answers to at least 20 cold cases which the police had long ago abandoned. A world of danger, locked away for decades. Secrets I had to reveal to the world. Answers which could offer families closure to their endless questions of what happened to their loved ones.

The hours bled together as I worked, barely stopping to drink coffee or stretch my cramped fingers. I was driven—fueled by the fear in her voice, the terror in her eyes, and the sense to help those with haunting questions. This wasn’t just a job anymore. This was a dangerous mission.

But I couldn’t stop. Not now.

Finally, ten hours later, I came up for “air” or dinner. I needed food, but even more than that—I needed to feel something normal. So I heated up some left over spaghetti in the microwave and flipped on the news.

The microwave beeped. I took a bite, and just as I was swallowing, I heard the anchor’s voice cut through the silence.

“Breaking news—earlier this morning, a middle-aged woman was found dead on the front steps of her home in Queens. The victim, an older woman with shoulder length described red hair, appears to have died from natural causes. Witnesses say she must have tripped on her way up her stairs and banged her head to the point she was rendered unconscious. While the police continue their investigation, it appears to have been nothing more than a tragic accident.”

I froze.

The woman on the news—the one they were talking about—was Trudy Capone.

I almost choked.

Trudy Capone. The same woman whose journal was sitting on my desk. The journal that had just cost someone their life.

And I couldn’t shake the feeling—it wasn’t over yet.