We’re staying at a hotel because this apartment can’t accommodate a seven-foot orc. Jonus takes up the entire king bed and his horns leave scratches on the headboard. The bathroom is comically small for him and he has to duck through every doorway.
But none of that matters because the article is everywhere.
Front page of the Times. Cable news on every channel. Trending on every independent news platform and social media. Larry Aldridge is arrested and awaiting trial. His criminal network is being dismantled piece by piece as federal investigators follow the money trail I mapped out from a couch in Truckee, California.
And I’m being celebrated. There’s Pulitzer buzz, which I try not to think about too hard. Interview requests are flooding Jonus’s inbox. Other journalists I admire reach out to congratulate me. It’s surreal and wonderful and I keep waiting for someone to tell me it’s not real.
Jonus is beside me through all of it, handling media coordination like the professional he is. But the dynamic has shifted and everyone in DC can see it. He’s not just my media handler anymore, he’s my partner. The other journalists keep glancing between me, the overweight, curvy redheaded reporter and the huge orc in a suit who stands beside her with his hand on her lower back.
Aldar came with us to DC. His stated reason is security coordination and tech support for the media appearances. Someone still needs to monitor threats, Aldridge is arrested but his associates aren’t all accounted for.
His real reason is that my best friend, Lucy, works at the Library of Congress, fifteen minutes from our hotel.
Anna and Keric were invited to fly in from Maine. I insisted. Anna Kim is the real hero of this story and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. She’s the one who uncovered the corruption, survived three years on the run and nearly died protecting the evidence that brought Aldridge down. I’m just the journalist who wrote it up. Anna lived it.
But Anna is uncomfortable with attention. She doesn’t want the spotlight. “This is your moment, Sloane. You almost died in a pit to get this story published.”
“And you spent three years running from the people who put me there. We’re partners in this.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going on camera. I’ve had enough of being a public figure for one lifetime.”
I respect this, but I make a mental note. I’m going to tell every journalist, editor and media person at that event tonight that Anna Kim is the real hero and I’m just the one who wrote it down.
The media event is tonight and is being held at a venue in downtown DC. It’s a reception celebrating the Aldridge takedown, hosted by the Times in partnership with the two other outlets that ran the story simultaneously.
I walk in with Jonus on one side and feel the room shift. Every head turns. Some of them are looking at me, the journalist who survived a cartel kidnapping and filed the story of the decade. But plenty of them are looking at the massive green orc in a tailored suit beside me, and I can see them trying to compute the visual.
Let them compute.
My editorimmediately pulls me aside near the bar. Melissa Duncan is glowing, working the room, already using the word Pulitzer in casual conversation as if she’s trying to manifest it into existence. She’s got that look on her face — the one that means she’s already made a decision and is about to present it as a collaborative discussion.
“I know what you’re going to tell me,” she says.
“You do?”
“You want to stay in California. You’re going to pitch me on remote work.” She waves her hand. “I’m not stupid, Sloane. I can see what’s happening with you and that orc. I saw it the moment you two walked in together.”
I open my mouth but she keeps going.
“So here’s what I’m proposing. Remote correspondent. West Coast bureau of one. You file from Truckee, you fly in for the big stories, and we do a weekly video call. I’ll fight the board on it if I have to.”
I stare at her. “You’re offering this before I even asked?”
“You just delivered a Pulitzer-worthy exposé from a couch in a mountain town while recovering from a kidnapping. You proved you can work from anywhere. I’m not losing my best investigative journalist because she fell in love with a huge green orc.” She takes a sip of her drink. “Besides, having a correspondent embedded with an orc family in rural California? The stories you’re going to find out there. I’d be an idiot to bring you back to the bureau.”
I hug her, right there at the bar, in front of everyone. “Thank you, Melissa.”
“Don’t thank me. Just keep filing stories that make my career look good.”
I find Jonus across the room and catch his eye. He raises an eyebrow. I mouth “I’ll tell you later” and I can see him filing this away, curious but patient.
The event fills up.
I keep scanning the crowd for Lucy. She confirmed this morning she’d be here. She was excited, she wanted to meet Jonus and Aldar in person. “I need to see if Aldar is as intense in real life as he is over text,” she’d joked.
It’s been forty-five minutes past when she said she’d arrive. This isn’t like Lucy. She is the most reliable person I know.
I find Aldar in the corner of the event, tablet in hand, his expression tight and hard.
