Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“Thanks for the gear,” I say, earnest slipping out. “Really. It helps.”
He ducks his head, pleased. He likes to be useful; it’s his favorite flavor of absolution. “Anything for my girl,” he says, which is a sentence I used to love without footnotes. Now I want it notarized.
They wave. They drive off. I stand on the curb with my bag of microphone guts and my brain buzzing like a live wire. The second they’re out of sight I text Arrow:
Me: I asked about last night. Mom says bed early. Bob says late meeting at Stonehouse. Subtle Nico mention—Mom remembers the name. Bob gives blur.
Me: He lies neat. Not sloppy.
He replies before my phone can settle.
Arrow: Sloppy men make mistakes.
Arrow: Good pulls. I’ll see if Stonehouse receipts match anything.
A long beat passes, then…
Arrow: You okay?
I stare at my reflection in the dark phone screen, hair a mess, mouth a line. The right answer is no. The useful answer is I’m upright.
Coloring later. Recording a mini. Meet me at 6 to wire the arm?
Arrow: I’ll bring pizza and a screwdriver.
Arrow: Proud of you for not flipping a table.
I can flip a table later if needed.
Arrow: I know. That’s why I’m bringing a screwdriver and not bail.
I smile despite the knot in my chest and head upstairs. The apartment smells like lemon cleaner and new beginnings in cardboard boxes. I unpack the arm and the mount with surgical care, laying things out on the coffee table like a ritual. Ready for installation.
I sit, mic in front of me, and press my palms flat to the desk. The wall hums, the names stare. Merritt’s line has already faded a shade in my mind, and I hate myself for that and forgive myself in the same breath because I have to keep moving. Someone wrote a check. Someone signed with clean hands. The Five were hired, or nudged, or given cover. Sloppy men are good at cover.
I hit record and talk—not names, not Club Greed, not Stonehouse—just a voice in a room, telling the story of a city where men make jokes with their fingers and think no one will notice the echo. I end with, “Some of us are listening now,” and let the mic go quiet.
When it’s done, I text my mother: Sunday works. I’ll bring a pie. Then I stand in the doorway and look at my apartment like it’s a stage where something true might happen tonight.
I don’t know yet if Bob is a lever or a confession. I do know this… he’s lying about last night, and I am done pretending not to notice. If he’s an edge, I’ll hold it. If he’s a thread, I’ll pull until something unravels that looks like an answer—or a noose.
36
Arrow
The boom arm swings over Juno’s desk like it was built for her hands. We tightened it just enough to move when she wants and not when gravity gets ideas. The new dynamic mic hangs there, fat and matte, with the pop filter hovering like a second moon.
“Say the line,” I tell her, mostly because I like the way her mouth shapes it.
She gives me a look and leans in. “Bagels and truth,” she murmurs, and the mic eats it clean—no squeak, no room noise, just her voice coming through my headphones warm as a furnace.
“Perfect,” I say, meaning the gear and not pretending otherwise.
She peels the headphones off and drops them on the desk, hair escaping her clip in a way that makes my hand itch to touch it.
“Stonehouse didn’t send receipts,” she says, because we don’t get to do gear without doing grief. “Gage pulled the POS logs; Bob’s card didn’t hit. Club Greed holds it till morning like Devereaux said.”
“Sloppy men,” I say. “They like cash and tabs.”
She makes a face. “I hate that he’s sloppy.”
She’s about to say more when my phone chirps with Gage’s moth emoji—his way of saying he found something.
Gage: HOLO-BURST Q4 media invoice log.
Gage: Two payees, week before Arby went blonde: Arby’s shell “ARKATE STUDIO LLC” (voided), and “PikeShift Media LLC” (paid).
Gage: The wire for PikeShift didn’t originate from HOLO-BURST. It came from Nereus Brand Partners LLC → pass-through → HOLO-BURST’s agency.
Gage: Nereus. Again.
Nereus. It’s been drifting through everything for weeks—pinging the marina network, living on a member’s slip, hiding in the name of a device that shouldn’t have a name. It keeps showing up like a watermark until you tilt the page just right.
“Devin,” Juno says, low. She’s on my shoulder before I realize I moved to make room for her. “PikeShift. That’s his channel.”
I scroll. Gage isn’t done.
Gage: DM scrape (public to public) from months ago. Arby to Devin under a clip about “brand wars”: “If they’re making you bid against me, walk. They don’t play fair.”
Gage: Devin reply (deleted, cached by a fan account): “Welcome to the grown-up table. Snooze you lose.”