#strangerinthenight

Chapter Two          ~Blown to smithereens~

At 2:00 AM Natalia sat at her car and headed to the Park Avenue. The road was empty and snow was heavily falling, making road almost invisible and hard to drive. Natalia felt exhausted. She drove with her window slightly open letting the cold air cool her face. Cold air mixed with snowflakes made her more awake. As she was approaching the crime scene, she could hear sirens wailing in the distance. "Looks like this is something really serious", she thought. Out of nowhere two fire trucks ran right past her, so she took advantage of the situation and decided to speed up after them.

Natalia parked her car on the street and walked through a boulevard to Park Avenue, two blocks away. All of a sudden she noticed dust, concrete and glass debris everywhere on the snowy street. Couple of cars nearby were heavily damaged as whole concrete wall dropped down on them. She felt an urge to look up and as she looked, she saw that half of the building was missing and what's left of it was in bursting flames. "Oh my God! That's whole one floor blown into pieces!", she noticed. As she continued walking toward the building, she was suddenly stopped by the policeman.

               "You can't go here Miss! You must go around, there's been an accident and we're securing the perimeter."

               "I'm from New York Post, I've been sent here to write a story about the accident. Can You tell me what exactly happened here?" Natalia asked.

               "Sorry I don't know much about it, You should talk to my superior, detective Willis about this" said the policeman stretching police tape around the tree to secure the perimeter.

               "Which one is he?" asked Natalia.

               "He's right over there" answered policeman pointing to the direction were couple of cars were destroyed by the explosion, "that tall, bearded guy right over there, he'll know more about the situation."

               "Thank You" said Natalia and headed toward the pointed location, to find detective in charge.

As she was walking toward him she realized that she forgot her notebook to write down the information for the story. "How dumb  I can be?" she asked herself, realizing she can use her phone as a dictaphone; "Well maybe not that dumb after all" she thought and laughed.

"Excuse me! Detective Willis?" she asked pretty loud, almost with scream while she was starting the recording on her mobile phone.

A tall, strong man immediately turned to her, probably as she startled him with her question.

"Yes?" answered a man wearing a navy blues suit, a black raincoat over it and a black hat.

"Hi, Natalia Miller" she tried to give her hand for a handshake but the man only touched his hat and nodded to her which made her a little awkward. "Erm..hi..I'm from New York Post" pointing at her press accreditation around her neck. "I would like to ask you couple of questions about what happened tonight. If..if that's alright with You?" Natalia asked.

"Yes...hi, I'm detective Joshua Willis, NYPD. How can I help you?" asked the detective.

"Can You give me a little bit more information about the explosion that occurred?" Natalia asked while looking at her phone checking if device was recording all of that.

"Well..." detective started "as you already know there has been an explosion here in Park Avenue 7, on the second floor at the.." he looked at his notebook "at the Chielinsky apartment. Our experts are currently still at the scene there trying to find the cause of the explosion, but per firefighter Johnson the explosion was most likely caused by a gas leak in the apartment" Willis answered.

"Where was Chielinsky family at the moment of the explosion? Was anyone hurt by the explosion? " she asked.

"Unfortunately.." Willis started "there was Mr. Chielinsky at the apartment when the explosion occurred. He was immediately taken to hospital as he had fatal burns on his body" said Willis and took the pack of cigarettes from his raincoat and lit one up. "As per paramedics" he continued "he has serious 3rd degree burns on his whole body, which indicates he was really close to the source of the explosion, and in this time we don't know what his condition is. Luckily, no one else was hurt."

"Who was  first to respond to a call about the explosion?" Natalia asked.

"I was" Willis answered without thought. "I...I was heading home when I saw explosion from across the park. I immediately headed here an called firefighters, paramedics as well as my colleagues to come to the scene." He looked at his notebook once more. "Sorry but I don't have any more information for you right now" he said.

"Oh, it's okay, I have already almost everything. Thank You detective...Willis is it?" asked Natalia and awkwardly smiled to him.

"Joshua" he said "you can call me Joshua, but yes Willis...detective Willis if you need it for the story" he smiled to her. "Oh...I almost forgot, there will be a press conference tomorrow at 1 PM about the incident so I'll probably have more information then, also here's my card."

"Oh, thanks..Joshua..it was nice talking to you and thanks for the information."

"Anytime! I guess I'll see you at the conference then?" Joshua asked shyly.

"You bet!" Natalia smiled back "Have a good night".

"You three" Joshua smiled and winked to her.

Natalia stopped the recording and slowly headed back to her car. On her way back she stopped and took couple of pictures of the blown building and ruined cars nearby, sat at her car and drove back home. as soon as she arrived, she turned on her laptop and started writing the article about incident in Park Avenue.

           Building blown to smithereens

Yesterday at 11:45 PM an enormous explosion shook up residents at Park Avenue 7. The nearby buildings and cars were damaged as whole second floor was blown up. One man was heavily injured as he was in the apartment at the time of the explosion. Man was taken to a hospital where paramedics determined that he has suffered 3rd degree burns on his body and is currently fighting for his life. Detective Joshua Willis, who was first to respond to a call, said "As per firefighters, cause of the explosion was most likely a gas leak inside the apartment, making this an terrifying accident." As this winter is extremely cold, residents of New York should pay more attention and check the quality of their gas installations and heaters before using them, as this kind of accidents won't happen again. 

She has read the article five times. "Yeah, Willis never said that Mr. Chielinsky was fighting for his life but that'll add a bit more drama to the article" she thought.  "Finished" she sighed. "Better send this to Eric, so he can review it."

She sent her article in an email and couple of seconds later she received an answer: "Great article. Will be printed in tomorrow's papers. Great job, Natalia! See you tomorrow morning! Eric".

Chapter One       ~It all started with a question~ 

That night of a snow storm changed everything for Natalia Miller, a 28-year-old journalist from New York. Natalia was working late that night, as she had to comply with the deadline for submitting an article which is to be published in tomorrow's newspapers. It was almost midnight when Natalia finished her article, left the office and headed home. As she was driving home, she silently mumbled to herself: 

               -"What is wrong with this weather? Yesterday was sunny and today it's snowing. We really fucked up this planet, didn't we?"

When she arrived home, she plugged in her laptop and headed to the kitchen, opened a bottle of wine and pour it in a glass. This was her little ritual every day after work, her relaxation from a stressful day. As she was stumbling through some news articles on New York Times website, her phone rang.

It was her boss, Mr. Carroll.

               -"What does he want now?", said Natalia.

She left it to rang a couple of times before she answered it.

               -"Yes, Eric!", she answered her phone.

               -"Hi Nat! I'm calling because a couple of days ago you asked me if I can give you more stories to work on. Something came up and I don't have anyone else to work on it, so I'm giving you a chance", said the voice on the other side.

               -"I'm tired Eric, I worked my ass off today, can we talk about this tomorrow morning?", said Natalia as she sipped a little wine from the glass.

               -"Listen Nat, I'm doing you a favor. You asked me for more stories, so here they are, take them or leave them!", said Eric angrily.

               -"Okay, yeah, I want the story. What is it about?", asked Natalia.

               -"My source just called me and said that there was an explosion on the Park Avenue. I need you to go there and see what you can find out about it", said Eric.

               -"Eric, really? It's catastrophe out there! Can't you see the storm!?", she screamed.

               -"Listen Nat. Do you want this story or not? Your last chance."

She was quiet for a moment.

               - "Natalia, are you there?", asked Eric.

She sighed.

               -"Yes, I'm here. Okay, okay, I'll go to the Park Avenue and see what I can find out. Do you have any more details about the explosion?", she asked.

               -"Not much, only that it was an explosion in one of the apartments on the fifth floor and there's a great possibility  that people were inside at the time of the explosion, police and firefighters are already there", Eric said.

               "-Okay, I'm heading there right now, talk to you soon. Oh...and Eric?" asked Natalia.

               -"Yes?", he asked.

               -"Thank you for bringing me this story, you know how much I need it", she said.

               -"Yeah, I know. You're welcome Nat. Please call me when you'll have some details, will you?"

               -"I will, don't worry. Bye!"

               -"Bye!"

She hung up, threw her phone angrily on the table next to her and poured another glass of wine.