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  “Each of us will need to know how to use the LD1s,” Anna said matter-of-factly. “They can take photographs and high-resolution video, audio, and stream live to our social media feeds – or back into the studio, here. Think of them as the notepad of the future.”

  “You said ‘each of us’,” Melina said, making no secret of her skepticism.

  “I’m here to work too,” Anna told her and shrugged. “The sooner everyone learns the new tools, the sooner I can get into the trenches with you and make this thing work.”

  Now Anna stood again – though she was thrown off slightly, catching Fitz leering at her. She rebuttoned her blazer and then wished she’d taken it off. It was stuffy in the Oval Office despite the September day turning overcast outside the windowless conference chamber.

  “I get that you’re all pissed,” she said.

  “I’m not pissed,” Charlotte said happily.

  “Me neither, really,” the science guy said.

  “You’re new, too,” O’Dowd told Demien. “Give it some time.”

  “I get that most of you are pissed,” Anna corrected herself, adding emphasis that made her sound downright moronic. “And I understand why. Change is tough.

  You’re competent reporters and you want to be left the fuck alone to do your jobs.”

  The “salty language” made O’Dowd sit up in his chair. God bless him, he actually looked disoriented for a split second. Anna refrained from a grin.

  “Well, you don’t have those jobs anymore,” she said. “Those days are gone.

  But you’ve got new jobs now. Jobs that let you report on the city you love – if you still love it, I dunno. There’s a chance here to develop an integrated print-and-online hub, backed up with content from our syndicates, that will free you up more to do your job – your new job – if only you’ll take to it.”

  ANNA HAD TO wait for Lenore to finish with Fitzwilliams. There was something about their body language that stuck her as odd, but the other reporters mingling a moment and then moving on to their tasks distracted her, especially the viper’s glare from Melina Martelle. She had the righteous black woman shtick down tight and wasn’t afraid to wield it.

  “Miss Novak, wonderful to see you here at last.”

  Fitzwilliams rounded on Anna to put both big sweaty palms around the hand she offered to shake as if fending off an inappropriate embrace.

  “How are you settling in?”

  “I can live without furniture for a couple of weeks,” Anna said and smiled because she meant it. “I imagine I’ll spend most of my time here anyway, until we’re fully operational. You’re OK if I deal with Mr Iskov direct?”

  “Of course!” the managing director said and smiled in that way of his that meant completely avoiding meeting her eyes. “You report to Lenore, not me, Miss Novak. Remember that.”

  “Call me Anna, please.”

  “I’m just the schmuck who has to answer to our valued sponsor,” Fitz said.

  “Again, lovely to meet you, again … Anna.”

  She was glad when he left. Barrett watched Fitzwilliams go with a curiously thoughtful look she at once turned back on her.

  “You did well in there,” Lenore said.

  Anna checked around the Oval Office was empty before she replied.

  “I didn’t realize there was such a lack of goodwill.”

  “They’re print journos,” the older woman replied. “They’ll come around. Like you said, we need to. Otherwise, they can go look for new jobs and we’ll hire a few more perky twenty-year-olds like Charlotte. Her saving grace’s that she’ll say yes to almost anything.”

  “Gotta love that,” Anna said and laughed.

  The two women exchanged a drawn-out smile that ended with each of them caught in a silent awkwardness.

  “There was something I can do for you?” the editor asked.

  “Uh, yes,” Anna said.

  The thrum of trepidation she’d felt all morning wasn’t confined to her first day on the job.

  “I mentioned that on my first day I had a private appointment?” Anna said.

  “It’s not convenient, I know, but this is … unusual for me.”

  “Oh yes, you said,” Lenore said and then kept her half-shuttered eyes on her new recruit. “Sounds like it’s going to be a big day, with all that fire-and-rescue news.

  Sure you can spare the time?”

  “I’d never let personal business affect my work.”

  It was a simple answer, and effective.

  “OK,” Lenore replied. “Am I allowed to know what you’re up to, or is it one of those things?”

  “I’m just having coffee with someone,” Anna replied. “An old work colleague.

  Sort of a … mentor of mine. You might’ve heard of him, actually. He’s a journalist too. Tom Vanicek?”

  “No,” the other woman said. “Should I?”

  “He’s the investigative reporter who brought down that judge who had ties to the Newark mob and those property developers?”

  “Oh,” Lenore said. “OK, I actually remember him from when that religious guy went nuts and slaughtered his big family. You remember that?”

  “Yeah,” Anna said. “I was in Fleet Street at the time. Tom and I haven’t exactly … kept in touch.”

  “Are you and him… ?”

  Barrett made a finger-fucking motion that made Anna blush and laugh at the same time.

  “No,” she replied. “Are you and him?”

  She cocked her thumb towards the door, the connection to Gus Fitzwilliams implicit.

  So much for candor. Lenore Barrett’s face shut down at once, corporate barricades thumping down in place so thoroughly Anna almost expected some noise.

  “Enjoy your catch-up,” Lenore said tightly. “I need you back here by eleven at the latest.”

  She retrieved her laptop from the table, snapping it shut and killing the mirrored feed to the display monitors in one fell move. Then Lenore nodded to her new recruit and swept business-like from the room.

  ANNA’S TREPIDATION CONTINUED coursing through her as she left the Oval Office too. Behind the horseshoe-shaped front reception counter, Irene Mengele smiled at her, curiosity in her dark gaze, and another woman entered from the side offices demanding her attention and letting Anna veer left towards the short corridor to the newsroom.

  Budget cuts had hit the Gazette in many ways. The editorial bullpen was half its former size and a new-looking wall partitioned the far side of the room from the other office space the media company now leased to a local construction firm’s sweatshop of Chinese draftsmen hard at work 24/7.

  The remaining space was open-plan, though each of the surviving reporters had staked out their own dominions. Douglas O’Dowd, the science reporter Demien Christopher, and the previous “new gal” Charlotte were at their desks busy getting into gear. Anna’s space was at the rear of the newsroom. Two big desks sat arranged into an L-shape, buttressed by two rows of black couches with their backs to each other.

  Anna sniffed at that, but there was plenty else to distract her apart from bad feng shui. She settled into her swivel chair for all of two seconds, framed by her spare set of clothes hanging still in their dry-cleaning bags on the wall behind her. Then she grabbed her purse, dutifully waking up her sophisticated computer array to scan the latest five emails come in. One-handed, she quickly crafted an email to the editorial news hub asking everyone to clear an hour for training after lunch. Then she backspaced half the short message and set a firm time of 1pm instead, and hit send.

  “I’m just heading out for an hour,” she said to O’Dowd as she gathered her things.

  He glanced at her and grunted. “OK.”

  “We’ll have a quick editorial catch-up then, OK?”

  O’Dowd looked up again and realized a response was necessary.

  “Sure.”

  Anna favored him with a tight smile she didn’t feel and passed it on to Charlotte looking at her expectantly as if awaiting a tas
k. Anna’s smile softened.

  “Charlotte, it would be great if you could prioritize that piece on the city’s portrait gallery, OK?” she said. “I want to get something up online so we can start creating a flow of steady content.”

  “‘Content’,” O’Dowd muttered with a face like someone just shat on the blotter in front of him.

  Anna ignored him, still edging for the exit.

  “I have the interview lined up for the third package on my list,” Charlotte said.

  “I thought it might be good to have one of those new video cameras and we could air the footage?”

  “Remind me what the third piece was?”

  “That family,” Charlotte said as if that were enough. “The two brothers who fell out over one’s wife, then they remarried, and now they’re uncles to their own kids– ”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that one,” Anna said. “It’s a little Jerry Springer, yeah?”

  O’Dowd glanced up at Anna’s remark.

  “Something we can agree on,” he said.

  “Ms Barrett said she wanted it,” Charlotte countered.

  Surprising Anna, the pretty young redhead locked eyes with her and smiled so sugary sweet it clearly wasn’t natural. Anna only nodded, half-heartedly glad to see the young reporter had a little steel of her own, despite appearances.

  “Sure,” Anna said. “We’ll see how it floats. Still prioritize the civic gallery thing though, cool?”

  “Sure.”

  Charlotte’s saccharine gaze stayed in place right until Anna left the room –and almost collided with Melina Martelle coming the other way.

  “OH, HEY,” ANNA said as she sidestepped and the other reporter did the same.

  Consternation rather than laughter at their near collision crossed Melina’s dark narrow face.

  “Yeah,” she said dully. “Sorry.”

  She waited for Anna to move so that she could head into the bullpen. Instead, Anna slowly exhaled and put a fist on her hip, faking a relaxed and casual look with her bag slung over her other shoulder.

  “That was a cute move with the water in there,” Anna said and gently smiled, more than prepared to dismiss the gathering hostilities if the other woman would too.

  “I was surprised Lenore didn’t fetch it for you,” Melina said.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Dunno,” Melina said and dropped her gaze. “You white gals gotta stick together.”

  “I’m not sure what I’m meant to make of that,” Anna said.

  Their eyes locked again. Melina was a couple of inches shorter, dark in skin and hair contrasted against Anna’s Nordic complexion.

  “I thought you might be happier,” Anna said to her slowly. “There’s a good representation of women in the newsroom. And our boss is a woman, too.”

  “A white woman.”

  “Skin color’s an issue for you?”

  “Is if it holds me back.”

  “I don’t think it’s Lenore’s skin color – or mine – making the difference here,”

  Anna replied in a civil tone, then lowered it.

  “Lenore and Fitz are clearly fucking, right?”

  Anna’s frankness was as clear as a slap to Melina’s face. The other woman’s eyes flew open and her expression shuttled through several different looks before she settled on something halfway between glad for Anna’s admission and a begrudging look of respect.

  “Ah, the secret everyone knows, yet no one speaks,” Melina said.

  Anna nodded, knowing how often such secrets became so clandestine in the workplace that even the other workers felt it off-limits – even paranoid, professional gossips like the Gazette news reporters.

  “Did you really know my work from Gamma Ray?” Melina asked.

  “Yes, I looked it up, after I read the CV in your file.”

  “You have all our personnel files?”

  The tone chilled once again as Melina dropped her best disbelieving look.

  Anna only nodded.

  “You think I’m going to come in and shake up a weary newsroom and not do my research?” Anna said. “Would you?”

  “I guess not,” Melina slowly replied. “But again, no one’s offered the personnel files to me.”

  “If you’ve got issues with my appointment, take it up with Mr Casabian,”

  Anna said and shrugged to show she had no interest in this fight. “I’m here to report the news and get the Gazette back to where it used to be – leading the news, not just reporting what all the other papers and TVs do every day.”

  To her credit, Melina only nodded, making a long, slow, thoughtful study of the Gazette’s new “editorial integration manager”.

  Anna gave another one of her signature tight smiles, checking her phone for the time as she continued down the hall to the front reception area and the exit.

  SHE HADN’T EXPECTED the gallery café to be so busy on a Monday morning, and the crowds threw her even more than the unanticipated, but perhaps not unsurprising adrenal rush she felt at seeing Tom Vanicek again. It only worsened when she caught a glimpse of him across the airy steel-and-glass chamber, broad-shouldered yet slumped in one of the café’s uncomfortable metal chairs reading through a leaflet to kill the time.

  “You’re going to think I’m still always running late,” Anna said.

  She dropped into the other chair with a gleaming smile, conscious as she did it that sitting at once aborted any sort of more emotional greeting – like God forbid they might share a hug. Anna hated herself for the difficulty she found swallowing, but that was just another convenient distraction as she coughed slightly to clear her throat, pointed at herself, and reached across for the metal water jug and a glass in case it became an emergency.

  Tom checked his watch out of reflex.

  “I’m not going to chew you out for five minutes,” he said and smiled in that subdued way of his.

  “Call it my journalistic PTSD,” Anna said and sipped her drink. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten my job interview? I sure as hell never will.”

  Tom chuckled, but the mirth in his gray eyes said it all. He’d taken to wearing his hair in a vintage cut, shaved nearly to the skin on the sides and back, and at first Anna wondered if that was a vanity to lessen the intruding steel in his dark hair. But if anything, he looked in even better shape than she remembered, despite that perennial tenderness around his eyes that spoke of some kind of vulnerability even an old friend like her didn’t want to acknowledge existed in such an otherwise handsome, rugged-looking man – and a top-notch news reporter.

  Or he had been, once, at least.

  Tom Vanicek was with his editor during Anna’s job interview almost ten years previously, directing the majority of the questions and dismissing some of her easy answers by explaining it was him who’d directly suffer if the Philadelphia Post “hired another dud” for his four-member City Beat squad. The depth of realness – and his obvious dislike for her carefully-rehearsed questions – helped forge a connection that never really died. Tom’s editor still had to assert his dominance though, and when he asked Anna to self-assess her “greatest weakness”, Anna’s instant reply that she was “always late” stayed as an in-joke between them all through the future years and even now, years later and halfway across the country.

  As much as she’d prepared for the job interview, the editor’s lame question caught her out of left field at the time, perhaps already fallen under the spell of the hard-nosed yet compassionate Tom Vanicek.

  Tom’s head had actually struck the edge of the table as he collapsed laughing at the total deal-killer of Anna’s reply. And the editor’s wide-eyed lack of appreciation for her honest self-criticism pretty much spelled the end of her employment prospects until Tom managed to start breathing again and insisted Anna get the job.

  “We need more naïve honesty around this place,” he’d sniggered. “I find that very attractive.”

  And then he clued into the unfortunate subtext of his
own remarked, flustered himself as he added, “Appealing, I mean … in a new cadet.”

  Tom sat more upright across from her and dropped the smirk.

  “It’s been a while, huh?”

  “Yes, a few years,” Anna said. “I forgot we were even connected online.”

  She smiled again and wished she didn’t feel like she was faking her way through their long-overdue catch-up. Clearing her throat once more, she switched language and asked Tom – in the native tongue their fathers shared – how he was faring with his Czech these days.

  Tom chuckled, blushing slightly and telling her everything she needed to know as he declined the reply.

  “I always wondered why you didn’t just work as a linguist,” he said to her instead.

  “You taught me to love the news too well.”

  Tom’s smile unexpectedly faltered.

  “Maybe that was my biggest mistake.”

  Anna had her own thoughts on Tom’s potential biggest mistakes – including not acting on the long-held attraction between them (though right at that moment, she wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing). Tom was married at the time, and from what Anna’d seen in his ex-wife Maya, that mistake perhaps outranked anything as minor as a long-lost unrequited office romance.

  “You said you were in town for a conference?” Anna prompted him.

  “Yeah,” Tom said. “More training, for the work I’m doing now.”

  “Yeah,” Anna said, mirroring him in speech and posture. “Working with young offenders, huh? How’s that going?”

  “No, let’s talk about you,” Tom answered and smirked and cast a glance over her, then deliberately shifting to a different pose as he saw what she was doing and eased back once more in the seat and clasped its curved narrow metal arms.

  “Still hate talking about yourself, huh?”

  “I’m bored with me,” he said and grunted a laugh. “I’d rather know about you.

  How’s the move? You said this was your first day?”

  “Do ex-journos still want to talk shop?” Anna asked.

  “For some reason, yes,” Tom said with a soft laugh. “Something about it stays with you – transfers, even. Everything we do, all that training, it’s applicable outside the job too, in the world.”