Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
I believe in the work. I believe in it the way I believe in breathing. Erik Lanning deserved someone who wouldn’t look away, and I was that person and I’m not interested in apologizing for it.
But the Al Jazeera offer has been open in that tab for thirty-six hours and I haven’t typed a single word of a response.
The Times offer has been open longer.
I think about Cole’s face in the hospital. The way he saved my life and never asked for anything other than to love him. I think about the first time we ended and how I told myself for six months that I was better this way, unencumbered, forward-facing, nobody’s emergency contact.
I don’t believe that anymore. I’m not sure I believed it then.
Another knock on my door and I turn to it.
“Tell me you’re not already fielding offers.” Frank Delaney fills the doorway. He’s been at the paper for twenty-two years and serves as the executive editor. He’s got his glasses pushed up on his head and looks frazzled. “Promise me you won’t take one of those job offers before we’ve had a conversation or else I’m going to consider it a personal betrayal.”
I can’t help but smile. “Good morning to you too, Frank.”
“I’m serious.” He drops into the chair across from my desk without being invited, but he’s the big boss and I’d never deny him because of that. “You know what this piece did for this paper. You know what your name is worth right now.” He leans forward, pins me with earnest eyes. “I’ve got three pitches I want to walk you through. There’s a story on the Columbia River water rights situation that’s been sitting in the queue for eight months waiting for the right reporter—”
“Frank.”
“—and there’s a tech angle on port automation in Tacoma that has labor implications nobody’s touched yet, and I pulled the thread on that Spokane city council issue from last spring and I think there’s—”
“Frank,” I say again. He stares at me beseechingly, the man who gave me my first staff job, and to whom I owe so much of my career. “I need a few days before we talk about next projects.”
“But not about the job offers?” he presses.
“I’m considering everything,” I say truthfully, although part of me wants to close out those two tabs on my computer and forget about the fact that everyone wants a piece of me.
He studies me thoughtfully. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I force a bright smile. “I’m great but… I just need a few days.”
He looks at me for a long moment, as an editor who’s been in this business long enough to know the difference between a reporter who is tired and a reporter who is somewhere else entirely.
Frank rises from the chair. “Take the week. The water rights story will keep.” He pauses at the door. “And for the time being, I’m just going to assume you’re not interested in leaving us.”
He leaves before I can answer, but I’m not sure what I would have said. I think I’m having an existential crisis and there’s no good answer to make me feel better about anything.
The newsroom moves outside my glass wall, the easy midday laugh of people who are doing work they believe in who haven’t recently been hung from a ceiling hook in a cabin in the Cascades.
I look at the two tabs open on my computer, and I go with my gut instinct.
I close them both.
I lean back in my chair and vainly try to locate the version of myself who would have looked at a Times offer and said no without a second thought, who would have called it a distraction from the work, who would have needed no one and nothing but the hunt for the truth.
I can’t find her. She’s utterly lost and I think it’s because for the first time in her life, she’s questioning where she wants to go.
CHAPTER 27
Cole
The debrief should only take thirty minutes, but it goes on for an hour because I keep losing the thread. The debrief should have been held the day after we rescued Tessa, but I kept pushing Malik off. I honestly didn’t want to think about any of it and needed some space, and Malik granted it without question.
But I’m here now, and I’ve got to get it done.
Malik sits behind his desk with the case summary pulled up on his laptop and a pad with handwritten notes beside it. He’s been walking me through the disposition of everyone involved with the methodical thoroughness that makes him good at his job. He’s already done this with Sully and Reid so his questions are organized and pointed.
And I’ve been present for approximately half of it, the other half wondering what Tessa’s doing today. It’s been four days since I walked out of her house and she’s been on my mind at least twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours.