“Stay safe, stay kind, and we’ll see you again at eleven.”
The network logo and production credits flickered across the screen as Mallory and David exchanged a few final words and the technicians cleared the set. Their microphones were dead, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying—but I didn’t need to.
I’d learned her rhythms. The way she shifted her weight when she was already thinking three moves ahead. The slight tilt of her head when she was done pretending to listen and ready to act.
She was telling me it would be time to move soon.
For the first time in—decades, really, which was… curious—I felt reluctant to do so.
I rose and turned off the screen, the sudden silence in the room almost intrusive, then crossed to the far wall of my workspace.
The map waited there, meticulous and familiar. Names. Addresses. Photographs. Threads of connection only I seemed to see. I had nine remaining in this cluster. Northbrook accounted for seven. Mallory had flagged four more on-air, though by my count there had been five.
Which meant one of them had likely fallen just outside Cook County.
Unfortunate, but not catastrophic. Sometimes blurred boundaries were useful. Confusion created space. Space created opportunity.
Twelve completed.
Chase Ashford.
Mark Varela.
They were nearly tied. A difference of only a few points—too close to call without another round of evaluation. The next candidate lagged far behind them. He would need time. Pressure. More data.
No. We couldn’t leave yet.
I liked being here.
Closer to her.
That she had taken the time—on-air, no less—to warn me about additional obstacles in the region was… considerate. Thoughtful, even.
I turned slightly, my gaze drifting to the framed photo on the worktable beneath the map.
Mallory, caught mid-smile. Studio lights in her eyes. A moment frozen that couldn’t quite capture the way she moved through a room, or how her voice shifted when she was uncovering something real.
Photographs were a poor substitute for presence.
But they helped.
Especially when she wasn’t on the air.
Was that what was bothering you?
Something had been. I’d seen it in the way she paused between sentences, the fraction of a second where her eyes lost the teleprompter and focused on something else entirely. Not her cohost. Not the story itself.
She hadn’t looked afraid.
She’d looked… distracted.
No, that wasn’t right either.
Preoccupied, maybe. As if something had slipped out of alignment and she couldn’t quite name it yet.
Whatever it was, I would find it. I didn’t like her worrying. Worry made people careless. It made them reach for the wrong conclusions.
I opened the drawer and selected one of the blank cards I kept for occasions like this. Thick paper. Neutral. No watermark. Nothing that could be traced back to a store if someone cared enough to look.
