“Jayden, listen to me, very carefully. Is thereanyrecord of you helping her? Anything at all? Financial records? Did you buy her anything on your credit card?”
“No. I ... I don’t think so.”
“Then the police will not come looking at you. And if they do, if you fuck up and you talk, weallgo down. You hear me? You’ll take your mother down with you. Your father. All the others. A scandal of epic proportion. You’ll do prison time. That’s how serious this is. So you just shut the fuck up and lay low. Go away if you need to—take a holiday out of country.”
“I got exams coming up—I want this degree.”
“Then focus on what you do want. And listen, I don’t know what you were thinking getting messed up with that girl in the first place—you can do so much better—but I am sorry for you. You have my condolences. Now let it—her—go.”
Several reporters glanced Merry’s way as she entered the newsroom. They’d clearly all been talking about her, about her brazen tweet, her blog.
“You okay, Merry?” It was Dwaine, a colleague whose desk abutted Merry’s.
“Fine,” she said as she hung her jacket over the back of her chair and seated herself at her computer.
But she was not okay.
For the first time in five years she had a bad need for a hit of crank, and it scared the bejeezus out of her. She’d cracked at the idea thathemight be back—and it proved that she was still just a junkie tweaker. It was spiraling her out of control. She needed sleep. Had lost her appetite. Had consumed too much caffeine and was overcome by jitters.
Another reporter’s voice came from the other side of her cubicle partition. “Want a bet they fire your ass before the hour is out, Winston? Career suicide by Twitter.” He chuckled dryly. “You wouldn’t be the first. Who was that politician, put a photo of his prick on Twitter? And the MVPD chief, tweeting sweet nothings to the wife of another officer under his command, thinking it was private? Just watch Killion usethatwhen he eventually fires Chief Gunnar’s ass. It’s the same psychology—like getting behind the wheel of a car ... you’re removed from face-to-face responsibility and you think reality can’t bite you in the butt.”
“Fuck off, Steve.”
“Merry!” The editor in chief, red-faced, stalked into the newsroom and jerked his head toward his office door. “My office.”
“Whooo,” the reporter said from behind the wall. “What I tell you?”
Quickly, she began copying her files onto a memory stick. Once they’d been moved over, she started deleting everything she’d ever written on her workstation computer.
Dwaine watched her. “They’ll find them,” he said. “It leaves digital footprints.”
“Nothing worth finding,” she snapped, pocketing the memory stick along with the saved digital files of the recordings she’d made of her deep throat’s calls. She wasn’t going to leave her hard-won work and contacts if they fired her.
She got up, squared her shoulders, and walked to the gallows, half expecting to see out the corner of her eye the security guys arriving with a cardboard box to pack up her things while she was inside the editor’s office.
“Shut the door,” her boss said as she entered. She closed the door and seated herself slowly in front of his desk.
“I had a visit from two MVPD officers at my home early this morning. They want to know who your source is.”
Merry cleared her throat. “My sources are good. I verified the information given to me by those sources,” she lied. “And don’t ask me to reveal them, because they’ll stop talking.”
“The MVPD is looking for a possible internal leak.”
“Then that’s their problem, not mine, not ours.”
His gaze tunneled into her. “What you did—putting information out like that on Twitter, on your blog—”
“The info wasn’t wrong—it all checked out. The MVPD has a media conference coming up this morning, and nothing I put out there is being denied.”
“You’re treading a very fine line here, Merry. If they do come back with a court order—”
“Then let them. With all due respect, sir, freedom of the press is a good fight. And look at the publicity my blog and Twitter account has brought theSun.Every reporter, every news station out there was onto it and running with their own versions. It’s been picked up by the wires, even. It’s me who’ll get sued for my personal blog and tweets if I’m wrong, not theSun. You get all the glory plus my follow-up stories. And if the MVPD does come after me for my sources, webecomethe news. Even better.” Her mouth was dry, her pulse racing, but by the look in her boss’s eyes, she was winning.
He heaved out a big sigh. “Okay. You’re on thin ice. Proceed cautiously. Because if the editorial board does decide to cut you loose, you’re gone, Winston. No benefits, no letter of reference, zip. And I will not back you. I took a risk hiring you in the first place, and theSuntook a chance in unofficially allowing you to run your crime blog on the side to begin with—we’re feeling our way in this new and ever-changing digital landscape.”
“You know why the editorial board hasnotshut me down? Because I’m moving print newspapers. I’m bringing new readers. Wasn’t that the mandate when Raddison Industries bought the outfit—build readership? Go lowbrow and trashy?”
“Be careful,” he said quietly. “I like what you bring to the paper, Merry—there’s a feisty rat-pack quality to your approach. I like your energy. But if there’s someone or some persons inside the MVPD feeding you information on the side, they’re using you as much as you are using them. They have some kind of agenda.” He watched her in silence for a beat. “You could get yourself into hot water, and we will not be able to help you out.”
