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Waiting.
And somewhere beneath the thrill of landing the biggest opportunity of my career, another thought takes shape.
Mitchell Knight wants me inside his house for thirty days. The question isn't whether there's a story here.
There absolutely is.
The question is why the hell he's so determined to control how I find it.
Chapter 5
Mitchell
“Keep looking.”
I stare through the wall of glass behind my desk while the man on the other end of the phone gives me another rundown of everything his team has uncovered on Layla Hawthorne.
So far?
Not much.
Which, ironically, tells me plenty.
No buried scandals.
No ethics violations.
No history of fabricating sources or twisting facts to fit a predetermined narrative.
No questionable payments.
No political entanglements worth mentioning.
No trail of pissed-off former employers willing to tell us she's a nightmare.
There are plenty of pissed-off former interview subjects, but considering what she does for a living, I'd be concerned if there weren't.
She's thorough.
Persistent.
Aggressive when she needs to be.
She's broken stories people wanted buried and walked away from stories she couldn't substantiate.
That last one pleases me more than I want to admit.
Layla Hawthorne, it seems, is everything a good journalist should be.
Smart.
Curious.
Relentless.
And irritatingly ethical.
Which would be fantastic if I weren't currently concerned she's digging through my dead grandfather's life.
