Except on this story, I guess, which is why it’s a shame I still don’t trust mine.
Too late now.
There’s a heavy silence between the four of us. The redhead who’s just come up the driveway—the young woman Salem and I have known as Jess Greene for the last two months—is swallowing heavily as she stares at the woman who opened the door. Her sister, apparently, and also, apparently, the real Jess Greene.
Salem still has that light in her eyes, and for a second I wonder if she had an instinct something was off, too. If in fact we’re here because of that instinct.
She speaks first, calm and unbothered. “May we come in?”
“No,” says Jess, her voice sharp, impatient, and I can’t help but look at her again. When she first opened the door, I’d had an instinct, all right, but it wasn’t a professional one. I’d felt a strange thunk in my chest at the sight of her: big, blue eyes and the thickest blond hair I’ve ever seen, wavy and reaching well past her shoulders. Against her clothes—a loose black T-shirt, slim black jeans, black sneakers—everything light about her had been a curious sort of shock.
“Jess,” says the other woman, the redhead, the person whosenamewe don’t even know, and it at least pulls me back into the moment. A source who’s deceived us, who’s given us information that’s probably useless to us now. This might be Salem’s story, but I’m not trying to be involved in things she considers a failure.
I’m trying to impress her.
“Let them in,” the redhead says. “I’ll exp—”
Jess cuts her off. “Explain why you have a bag packed?”
The redhead flushes. I saw her a couple of times when I was sitting in while Salem did video calls with her. She looked older on the screen, and I wonder if she somehow altered her appearance for those calls. Worn makeup or clothes that’d make her seem more grown-up. Standing here, I wouldn’t guess she is any older than twenty.
This is a disaster.
“Yes,” she says, and I transfer my gaze to Jess, which is a mistake, because for a split second, a second that might be imperceptible to everyone on this front stoop but me—she looks as if she might cry. My chest aches. The wrong instinct. I’m supposed to be curious, determined.
I’m supposed to want to figure this out.
“You can explain that without them coming in,” she finally says, no trace of tears in her voice.
“I don’t think she can,” Salem says, and then she turns her eyes on the redhead. Our source. “I think you probably have an explanation to make to me, too.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Jess snaps.
Salem raises her hands in surrender. I cross my arms and look down at my boots. Maybe we ought to give these women some time alone.
The redhead clears her throat.
“Ms. Durant,” she says, even though she’s been calling her Salem for the last two months. “My name is Tegan Caulfield. I know I told you something different. I—”
“Are you recording this?” Jess says.
“No,” I say, and Salem cuts me a look. I don’t know why I answered. My job here isn’t really to talk, at least not yet.
“We are not,” Salem says pointedly, and I’m pretty sure some of the tone there is directed at me. She looks at Tegan. “Go on.”
I expect Jess to intervene again, but whether it’s shock or curiosity or some combination of the two, she doesn’t, not yet.
“Jess is my sister. My half sister. I contacted you using her name because two months ago, I was still seventeen years old.”
Oh, Christ. My fingers dig into my biceps. Salem betrays nothing. In my periphery, I think I can see Jess’s chest rising and falling with quick breaths.
“But I’m eighteen now. And the information I’ve given you is good. It’s—”
“Absolutely not,” Jess says, finally speaking again. When I look at her, I can tell she’s straightened her posture. She’s lifted her chin, too. But her cheeks are flushed, same as her sister’s. “Whatever this is, we’re not doing it. You two need to go. Tegan, you need to come inside.”
It’s a knee-jerk, desperate response; I can tell. She feels powerless, confused, caught off guard. We may not have come for her, but whether she knows it or not, Salem’s already thinking of her as a source, too. And Salem is good at cultivating sources. She’s good at calmly sharing what she already knows; she’s good at making every bit of the story she’s working on seem like it’s in the public interest.
People say you can’t stonewall Salem Durant.
