All of them.
Instagram. Facebook. Twitter.
Gone.
The next morning, I found Rodriguez in his office before my shift.
"Cap. Got a minute?"
He looked up from his paperwork. "Briggs. How you holding up?"
"Fine." I wasn't, but that wasn't why I was here. "I wanted to let you know that I want to be taken off the calendar permanently."
Rodriguez set down his pen. "You sure? The foundation uses those sales for?—"
"I'm sure."
He studied me for a long moment. "This about the teacher?"
I didn’t say anything, but I knew he knew the answer.
He nodded. "Alright. I'll let them know."
"Thanks, Cap."
I turned to leave.
The article was still out there.
The photo. The comments—calling Maya desperate, calling her a clinger, calling her a single mom who got lucky. Every time someone Googled my name, that's what they'd find.
I couldn’t undo it.
But maybe I could bury it.
I thought about the reporter from the fire scene. New York Times. Professional. She’d asked the right questions. If anyone could write something that told the real story, not the tabloid version, but the truth, it might be her.
It was a long shot. She covered arson, not firefighter love lives. But I was out of options.
I found her byline online. Sloane Harper. Investigative reporter. A string of serious pieces: city corruption, housing fraud, police misconduct. Not exactly puff pieces about reformed playboys.
But there was a contact email at the bottom of her bio. I stared at it for ten minutes.
Then I wrote to her.
We met at a coffee shop in Midtown.
Sloane was already there when I arrived, laptop open, leather messenger bag taking up the chair beside her. She looked up when I approached. Green eyes assessing, giving nothing away.
"Shane Briggs." She didn't stand. Didn't smile. "I have to admit, I was curious."
"Thanks for meeting me."
"You said it was about the school fires." She gestured to the seat across from her. "I'm covering that story. What do you know?"
I sat. "I know who set them, and why."
That got her attention. She closed the laptop. "I'm listening."
