The apartment is small. Clean. A studio, the kitchen counter to the left of the door, the couch and rug in the center, the bed visible beyond them with the nightstand and lamp glowing at its edge. Books on the shelf, alphabetized. Laptop on the desk, closed. Blanket folded on the couch with the edges aligned. Single mug in the drying rack. The walls are bare.
She closes the door behind me and leans against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed.
"The file is secure. The calls are handled. You don't get to manage either."
"How many calls?"
"You're here for something else."
"How many, Maya."
"Three."
"Three calls. Same number?"
"Same area code. I'm handling it."
"You're handling it by sitting in your apartment alone with the chain on."
"I'm handling it by staying upright. By going to class. Filing stories. Staying away from Cole. Refusing to let some anonymous caller turn my life into a crisis that other people get to manage for me."
"And if the calls escalate?"
"Then I'll handle that too."
"You keep saying handle. What does that actually look like? Because from where I'm standing, handling it looks like deleting call logs and shaking in the dark."
Her chin lifts. "From where you're standing. You've been standing in my apartment for three minutes and you think you know what handling looks like for me. It looks like going to class. Filing stories. Sitting on your couch while your brother's shell company names live in my head and a phone number I can't trace keeps lighting up my screen. It looks like doing everything I've always done while something tries to take it from me."
"Who has the number?"
"Everyone has the number. It's my professional line. It's on my Chronicle byline."
"So anyone could be calling."
"Anyone could be calling."
"But you have a theory."
She holds my gaze until the refrigerator cycles on behind her. "I have a theory," she says.
"A theory you're keeping in the same drawer as my family's federal case numbers."
"A theory I'm keeping until I have enough to act on it. That's what journalists do. We don't move until the sourcing is solid."
"And in the meantime you sit here alone with the deadbolt on."
"In the meantime I sit here alone with the deadbolt on. Because that's what I've always done."
There are three feet between us.
She stands there in a sweatshirt that hangs past her wrists, her hair loose around her shoulders. No press badge. No Chronicle lanyard. Her arms are crossed hard enough to drag the sleeves over her knuckles.
My chest constricts until the breath has to fight its way in. Office. Kitchen. Three feet of space now, and my hand still wants the back of her neck.
"You've got a vocabulary for what you think I am," she says. "Tourist. Parasite. Last night you told me I was everywhere, like I stumbled into your life without understanding what I was walking into." She holds my gaze. "You've known me for six years, Dante. You've never once asked me a real question. Everything you think you know about me is an assumption you made when I was fourteen."
"I never asked."
