I pause the video. Boots hit hardwood. Maya stands just inside with her laptop bag on one shoulder and her Chronicle badge hanging from her neck. She stops when she sees me.
Her recorder is one floor above her head, her voice and mine sitting in a drawer while she stands below it.
"Cole said I could use the printer," she says, still half outside with one hand on the frame. "He gave me a key."
"He's not here."
"I can see that." Her gaze flicks once across the room, taking in the kitchen table, my laptop, the paused game.
"The printer is in the office," I say. "Down the hall. Second door."
She nods and steps inside. The front door closes behind her. The latch clicks.
She walks past the table toward the hallway. I stay where I am, the screen paused and my attention following the sound of her boots down the hall.
A chair scrapes lightly. The printer hums to life. Paper feeds. Then a grinding noise cuts through the house, and the motor stalls.
"Your printer is dead," she calls from the office.
"It jams on the left tray."
A pause. "Is that something I can fix, or does it require a blood sacrifice?"
I close the laptop and walk down the hall.
She stands over the printer with one hand on the tray and the other holding a page. Chronicle layout. The final version of the Voss-Maddox profile. My name. Cole's name. Her work in black ink.
I reach past her. My arm crosses in front of her body, close enough for the warmth of her sleeve to register against my skin. Her hand lifts from the tray. I pull it open, clear the crumpled page, and slide the stack back into place. The printer clicks. The motor hums again.
"It sticks when the humidity changes," I say. "March."
"Thank you."
The office is barely wider than the desk, with the printer on a file cabinet and six inches between her sleeve and my chest. She stands between me and the exit. I stand between her and the printer. The pages begin feeding again, one after another, too loud in the narrow room.
"It'll take a few minutes," I say.
She doesn't move.
"Do you want tea?" I ask.
"What?"
"Tea. While you wait."
Her head tilts, and her eyes narrow slightly, the look she gives sources when the quote lands wrong. "Since when do you have tea?"
I walk to the kitchen. After a second, she follows.
She leans against the counter while I open the cabinet. Cole's tea boxes line the shelf. Behind them, pushed to the back where I put it three days ago, sits the green box. Barry's Irish Breakfast. I take it down and set it on the counter.
Maya looks at the box. Then at me.
"That's my brand," she says.
"It was on the shelf."
"Cole has never purchased Barry's Irish Breakfast in his life." She picks it up and turns the box over in her hands. "This is unopened."
