She’d done this dozens of times. Stand straight, project calm, give the update. But her pulse thudded anyway.
“The joint task force between Boston Police and the Massachusetts State Police executed several warrants late last night,” she said, reading cleanly from her notes. “These arrests are part of a broader effort to disrupt narcotics distribution networks that have operated within the greater Boston area.”
A few flashes burst near the front row. Erin blinked through them and kept her voice even.
“Seven individuals were taken into custody without incident. Evidence was recovered at multiple locations. The investigation remains active, and additional warrants are expected in the coming days.”
She glanced once toward the back, where Jamie stood half-hidden behind another reporter. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second before Erin looked away. It steadied her, somehow.
“Questions?” she said.
The first few were routine. A follow-up about agency coordination. Another about whether this connected to the retail theft cases announced last week. Erin handled each without hesitation, the words coming clean and clipped. Then a man near the aisle, a freelance stringer she recognized mostly byreputation, raised his voice over the low murmur.
“Can you confirm whether the mayor’s daughter has ties to any of these suspects?”
The room shifted. Chairs squeaked. Erin’s breath caught. For a beat too long, no one spoke.
“We’re aware of those reports,” she said finally, careful, professional. “She’s not a suspect. She’s being looked after, and her family is cooperating fully.”
The silence stretched a half second longer than it should have. A few mics pushed closer. Someone murmured something she couldn’t catch. Erin’s fingers tightened around the sides of the podium.
“That’s all I can say at this time,” she added quickly. “Any further details would compromise ongoing efforts.”
She nodded once toward the crowd, a signal the briefing was over, and stepped back from the mic. Her commander’s eyes found hers immediately, hard and unreadable. Erin felt the blood rush in her ears. She could hear her own sentence echoing.She’s being looked after. She’s being looked after.
By the time she made it back to her office, her inbox had already started to fill. Links, timestamps, social media clips. A headline scrolled across her monitor in a tab someone had forwarded: “PIO Confirms Mayor’s Daughter Linked to Drug Investigation.”
She closed it with a shaky breath and sat down. The hum of the air vent above her was louder than it should have been.
Her phone buzzed.
You handled yourself fine.
Define fine.
Better than the others would’ve. You okay?
Always.
She stared at the last word.Always.It didn’t feel true, but it was what she knew how to say.
* **
The rest of the afternoon blurred into short meetings and carefully worded emails. She drafted a release to clarify her comment, sent it for approval, and tried to focus on anything that wasn’t the hollow in her chest.
Every time she looked at her inbox, another subject line mentioned the press conference. “Clarification requested.” “Media follow-up.” “URGENT: second round of statements?” The words bled together until they stopped meaning anything. She rewrote the same two sentences half a dozen times before giving up, leaning back in her chair until it creaked under her shoulder blades.
Her commander stopped by once. He didn’t close the door, just leaned on the frame and said, “Stick to the talking points next time.” It wasn’t a yell, but it landed like one. Erin nodded, promised she would, and waited until he walked away before letting her hand fall flat against the desk.
The hum of the station pressed in on her. Phones ringing. Radios crackling. The low, constant shuffle of people moving past her door. She could feel every sound scraping against her nerves. The press had already started calling for comment, and someone from the communications team had fielded half of them before looping her back in. She gave them the same line each time: “We don’t comment on family connections within active investigations.” It only made her throat tighter.
At one point, she caught her reflection in the dark glass of her monitor and almost didn’t recognize herself. The uniform still looked right, the posture still correct, but the woman in the glass looked tired in a way that clean lines could not fix.
She minimized the news tab again, but not before catching another headline: “Mayor’s Daughter Questioned in Ongoing Probe.” The words made her stomach roll. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true. Once it was out there, it would live forever.
She stood, walked to the breakroom, poured coffee she didn’t want, and tried to breathe through the noise in her head. A few detectives passed her on their way out, and one of them, Reyes, gave her a look that hovered somewhere between sympathy and caution. She hated both.
Back at her desk, she typed another draft of the release, this one strippedbare to the facts. No emotion. No room for misinterpretation. She sent it up the chain, folded her hands in her lap, and stared at the cursor blinking on a blank follow-up email until her vision blurred.
