1. Jamie
The headline is huge and bold against the glare of my screen:CROOKED CRANES: Three Generations of Corruption. And underneath, in smaller text that makes my stomach flip:By Jamie Dean.
That’s my byline. My work. Months of late nights and cold coffee and nervous sources. Months of dead ends and near-misses and one terrifying night when I was certain someone was following me home. Now it's real and it’s everywhere.
The Times ran it above the fold, print and digital. They gave me five thousand words and a promise of legal protection, and in exchange I gave them the story that could bring down one of the most powerful political dynasties in American history.
I’m sitting on the sofa, my laptop balanced on my knees.
On the TV on the opposite wall, CNN is running a segment on the offshore accounts. I pick up the remote and click over to MSNBC where they have a panel discussing the bribery allegations. Even Fox is covering it, though their angle is different. I don't care. They're still talking about it. They'realltalking about it.
They’re talking aboutmystory. I’ve done my time in the tabloid trenches waiting for the chance to finally make it into serious journalism. It’s finally happened. Now that it’s finally here, it’s a little hard to believe.
I can't stop watching. I’ve brought down the damnCranes.
Senator Carter Crane II appears on screen, stepping up to a podium bristling with microphones.
Senator Crane’s face has graced the front of every major newspaper and magazine in the country. It’s no secret that he’s been preparing himself for a presidential run and that his son Carter Crane III is preparing to take over his father’s seat in the senate.
The senator’s used to playing to the press with a broad grin and easy charm but today, the harsh camera lights carve deep shadows under his eyes, and for the first time, he looks every day of his sixty-two years. Despite the obvious strain he must be under, his voice is steady.
"These allegations are baseless," he says firmly. "It is nothing more than a desperate attempt by a tabloid journalist to make a name for himself at the expense of a family that has served this country for three generations."
Tabloid journalist. The words should sting more than they do. Maybe I don’t care because they used to be accurate.
Until a few weeks ago when they unceremoniously fired me, the Daily Scoop paid my salary.
I’m not particularly proud of my tabloid days but not all of us were born with a silver spoon in our mouths.
Senator Crane is always going on about ‘hardworking Americans’ who ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’.Well, Senator, I did just that. I worked my ass off to expose your bullshit.If he wasn’t such a thundering hypocrite, he’d respect that.
Unlike him, I need a job to pay my bills. I inherited a lot of things from my mother – a decent work ethic, strong morals, my brown eyes – but she left me nothing financially. Every asset she had was sold to pay her medical bills.
As for my father, the last time I saw him, he was sleeping rough under a bridge upstate. I got my hair from him and my jawline, but nothing else.
Besides, the Times has my byline now. I'm not a tabloid hack anymore, no matter what Senator Crane wants to call me. He’s a corrupt megalomaniac and he should have been taken to task years ago.
My phone buzzes on the cushion beside me. I thumb open the screen and read the text. It’s another interview request, this one from a podcast I've never heard of. I set it face-down again. That's the fourteenth one today. I’ve accepted seven interviews of the fourteen, all from big name media. Jamie Dean is hot stuff.
The Senator continues his statement, his wife standing just behind his right shoulder.
I did a deep dive on her early in the investigation but I didn’t find anything. Elizabeth Crane is old money and good breeding, the kind of woman who chairs charity galas and never says anything controversial. She watches her husband speak with a polite smile on her face that says there is nothing to worry about.
Catherine Crane—Kate—is standing slightly apart from her parents, arms crossed. Krazy Kate, the tabloids call her, when they're not calling her worse things. She's the one the gossip columns love to photograph falling out of clubs at 2am. Right now she looks like she'd rather be anywhere else and slightly irritated, like they dragged her out of bed to be there. They probably did.
And there's the son.
Carter Crane III steps into frame, and I find myself leaning forward.
He's tall and broad-shouldered. Even filtered through a screen, there's something commanding about him.
He stands with his hands clasped in front of him, and he doesn't speak. He doesn't need to. His presence alone says everything: the dynasty stands united. If anything, his expression is one of slight boredom, like my story is just one more nuisance to be swatted away.
Crane the third is ridiculously good looking, just like his father. Almost too good looking. He’s even got his own fan club.Crane’s Dames.
For a split second, I wonder if he was at the same masquerade ball that I was at just before Christmas.
Nope. No chance. Forget it, Dean. It was someone else.
