The message left with a soft swoop. Erin set the phone on the passenger seat and closed the door. The car smelled like rain and dog. She started the engine and eased out of the lot.
At the first red light, her phone buzzed.
Okay. 6:30 works.
Then a second bubble:
Thank you for not picking the park.
Erin smiled without meaning to. She didn’t answer right away. She turned onto Charles and watched the river keep its own pace. A pair of runners splashed through a shallow puddle and didn’t slow down. She thought about what she would bring to a bench. Not flowers. Not apologies. Something smaller. Honesty in a portion she could carry.
At the next light, she typed:
I’ll be there early.
She sent it before she could smooth it into something cooler. Maybe she didn’t need cool. Maybe she needed true and careful.
Her phone stayed quiet. That was fine. Agreement had already arrived. She pictured the bench, the gray water, the ducks that crowded the edgeswhenever someone showed up with a paper bag. She pictured Jamie walking toward her with her hands in her jacket pockets and a look that said she had things to say and would try to say them right.
Erin passed the turn for home and kept driving until the city lights thinned. The road stretched ahead, slick and bright under the streetlamps. She thought about the word that had lodged in her chest all day and finally felt it stop scraping.
Not a door swinging open. Not yet. A hand on the handle. Pressure, steady and sure. Enough to prove it could move. Enough to try.
Forty Six
The newsroom felt ordinary again. Phones rang, printers hummed, someone swore softly at a graphics crash in edit three. Jamie logged in, checked her rundown, and opened a new script window. The cursor blinked. She didn’t rush it.
“Look who remembered what a desk looks like.” Harper slid by and set a coffee on Jamie’s mousepad. “Two cream, two sugar. Don’t say I never loved you.”
Jamie smiled. “You love me when I’m easy to caffeinate.”
“I love you when you hit your slot.” Harper leaned, glasses pushed into her hair. “You good?”
“I’m getting there.”
Harper heard the truth in it and nodded once, like that was enough. “Holler if Henry tries to feed you breaking with ten minutes to air.”
“Ten? Luxury.”
Harper snorted and moved on.
Jamie reread yesterday’s A-block and trimmed a line that sounded like she was trying to impress someone. She wasn’t. Not today. The morning had a steady feel to it, like she finally matched the pace of the room instead of chasing it.
“Garrison.” Henry’s voice carried across the bullpen. “Office.”
She saved, grabbed her notebook, and crossed the floor. Henry had three tabs open and a ball of stress in his jaw. He pointed at the chair. She took it.
“We’ve got a thing,” he said. “Not official. Not even close to official. But if it shakes out, it’s ours.”
Jamie stayed quiet.
“A source says we can get the girlfriend of the boy from the convenience store robbery. She posted something late last night and deleted it.” He tapped his screen. “There’s a screenshot. People are reading it like a confession-by-proxy. We push this, we spike digital. You on it?”
Jamie let the words sit. Convenience store robbery. Boy. Girlfriend. A deleted post. Traffic dangling like a carrot. The old thrum rose and she watched it, small and bright, like a spark in the corner of a pan. She didn’t feed it.
“What’s BPD saying?” she asked.
“Nothing yet.”
