I checked my camera. Thirty-seven shots. Walsh's face, clear and sharp, in half of them.
Perfect.
MY APARTMENT BUILDINGlooked worse in the dark.
The converted warehouse sat on the edge of downtown, where "historic charm" meant "the landlord hasn't fixed anything since 1987." Exposed brick. High ceilings. Unreliable heat. Rent I could almost afford.
I climbed the three flights of stairs—elevator had been busted for two months—and stopped outside my door.
The new locks gleamed silver in the dim hallway light. I'd installed them ten days ago, right after someone had trashed my place. Smashed picture frames. Overturned furniture. Torn apart my files like they'd been searching for something specific.
I kept my photo archive in three places: encrypted cloud, an external drive at Morty's office, and a secondary cloud account under a fake name. Paranoid? Maybe. But five years in this job had taught me that people who wanted to silence you didn't stop at threats.
I unlocked both deadbolts and pushed inside.
The apartment still looked like a crime scene. I'd cleaned up the broken glass and righted the furniture, but I hadn't replaced anything. What was the point? The threats kept escalating. Graffiti, then break-in, then the bridge, then bullets. Whoever was behind this wasn't going to stop until I did—or until I couldn't.
The evidence was hard to ignore.
Three weeks ago: "I SEE YOU" spray-painted in red across the exposed brick wall above my bed. I'd hung a tapestry over it because repainting exposed brick was a nightmare, but I knew it was there. Felt it every time I tried to sleep.
Ten days ago: the break-in. They'd trashed the place—slashed my mattress, smashed my coffee maker, dumped every drawer. My computer had been accessed too. I'd found the logs. Whether they got what they wanted, I had no idea.
Five days ago: someone tried to run me off Lock & Key Bridge. I'd swerved just in time, ended up with my car half-mounted on the sidewalk, shaking so hard I couldn't drive for twenty minutes.
Two days ago: a bullet through my window. I'd paid the glass guy double to keep his mouth shut and not ask questions.
Going to the cops wasn't an option. Cupid City PD hated gossip sites—they'd threatened to investigate our methods more than once. Trespassing. Fake credentials. Unauthorized surveillance. If I walked into a precinct, I'd walk out in handcuffs. So I handled it the way I handled everything: alone.
I tossed my bag on the couch and grabbed my backup camera from the closet. The closet that also served as my disguise headquarters—wigs on the top shelf, fake credentials in a lockbox, a collection of uniforms and outfits that would make a theater department jealous.
My phone buzzed. Morty.
MORTY: Office. Now.
ME: It's 11pm.
MORTY: I don't pay you to sleep.
ME: You don't pay me enough NOT to sleep.
MORTY: Get your ass here or you're fired.
I stared at the screen. Morty threatened to fire me approximately three times a week, usually when I refused tochase a boring story or showed up late to the office. He'd never meant it. His site traffic tripled when I delivered a scoop.
But this text felt different. No emoji. No sarcasm. Just flat, direct urgency.
ME: On my way.
CUPID CONFIDENTIAL'Soffice sat above Giovanni's Pizza on a street that smelled like grease and regret. The neon sign in the window—a winking cartoon Cupid holding a camera—flickered like it was having a seizure.
I buzzed myself in and climbed the narrow staircase. Morty's voice boomed before I even opened the door.
"—don't care what it costs. She's my best shooter and I'm not writing her goddamn obituary."
I pushed through the door. The office was exactly as chaotic as always—pizza boxes stacked in the corner, monitors covering every surface, cords snaking across the floor like they were trying to strangle someone. The air smelled like coffee, weed, and the vanilla vape juice Morty inhaled like oxygen.
Morty stood behind his desk, phone pressed to his ear, pacing in the two feet of space his hoarding allowed. Sixty-one years old, Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned over a Ramones T-shirt, reading glasses on a chain around his neck. He looked like someone's retired uncle who'd gotten really into conspiracy theories.
