shoulders.
“How did it go?”
“Short and uninformative.” Laura swiveled her chair and stood, sliding into his embrace. “He basically read me a press release over the phone and then declined to say anything else. I might as well have interviewed a rock.”
“I’ve got some news that will cheer you up.” He smiled down at her. “You’ve got company.”
She found Sophie, Matt, Alex, Kat, Joaquin, Holly, and Megan whispering together in the living room, carryout Thai food spread out in containers across her coffee table.
“Surprise!” Sophie gave Laura a bright smile. “We brought lunch for you both.”
Laura felt a swell of happiness to see them, even Alex.
Javier leaned down and spoke for Laura’s ears alone. “You have a good time with your friends. Mind if I borrow your computer to catch up on e-mail?”
“Feel free. The browser should be open.”
He thanked Sophie and the others for the food, then disappeared down the hallway. Laura soon found herself enjoying panang curry with chicken, spring rolls, and rice—and catching up with her coworkers about events at the paper.
Repairs had been completed so that no one could tell there’d ever been a car bomb. The cafeteria’s new healthier lunch menu had everyone in an uproar—everyone except Holly, who said she no longer had to feel jealous of what the others were eating. Matt and Tom had gotten into a blowout in the newsroom over a headline. Alex had been roughed up by a few members of a prison gang who were living on the outside and hadn’t appreciated his questions. Kat and Gabe would be leaving for two weeks on the Navajo reservation to help with the
“It’s bullshit, man.” Joaquin was clearly furious. “Since when is our job only to pass on G-rated news?”
This led to a long discussion about editorial autonomy.
Then Megan announced that she’d been accepted into law school.
Laura felt a rush of joy for her. “Oh, that’s wonderful! When do classes start?”
“They start in August, but I’ve got a reading list that I’m going to work through this spring and summer.”
Megan talked a bit about her plans after graduating, how she planned to open a resource center that provided guidance and support to women who were being released on parole in hopes that fewer of them would wind up behind bars again.
Laura was struck by Megan’s courage, her moral fiber. “What a beautiful way to turn your own suffering into something positive.”
“How are you doing, Laura?” Sophie asked. “We all know what happened to Javier yesterday. I’m so glad he wasn’t seriously hurt.”
“Sorry to interrupt.” Alex stood. “Where’s your bathroom?”
“Down the hall and on your left.” Laura returned to Sophie’s question. “I’m fine, I guess. I was pretty shaken up when I heard. I’m just glad Javier was able to defend himself. If he hadn’t been armed . . .”
She didn’t want to think about that.
“Do they have any idea why this guy tried to shoot him?” Matt asked. “It must be related to the attacks on you, right?”
And Laura remembered that her friends were reporters.
She answered carefully. “We assume so, but we don’t know anything for sure.”
Holly leaned forward, looking gorgeous in a blue and white Prada print suit. “So have you and your sexy SEAL
“Holly!” Sophie rolled her eyes.
Kat looked up from her lunch. “That’s your business, Laura, not ours. Please don’t feel you need to answer.”
Then Laura heard Javier’s voice.
“Hey, get the hell out of here. Are you wearing a wire, man?”
She set her plate on the coffee table and hurried down the hallway to find Javier standing face-to-face with Alex in the doorway to her office, his fists clenched.
“What’s going on?”
“I was sitting at your computer, and he walks in, starts asking questions about the shooting, pretending to give a shit. I look up to find him looking over my shoulder at the files on your desk, and I start asking myself whether he’s just talking to me because he’s your friend or whether he’s trying to grab a quote.”
Laura took one look at Alex, and she knew that was exactly what he’d been doing. She touched a hand to Javier’s arm. “Javier can’t give interviews. You know that. Give me the recorder. Give it to me!”
Javier moved closer, crowding Alex. “You’d better do what the lady asks.”
Alex drew a digital recorder out of his pocket and handed it over. “This is bullshit, Laura. I’m just doing my job.”
It was one thing to wear a digital recorder in an interview. It was another to wear it into someone’s home when no interview was taking place in hopes of stealing a quote or two in the guise of casual conversation.
She scrolled back, deleted the file, then handed it back to him. “I thought you were a friend coming into my home, Alex, not a journalist working a story. I guess I was wrong. You need to leave. Now.”
Alex walked off, muttering profanity.
Laura turned to find the others standing down at the end of the hallway, watching, looks of astonishment on their faces.
“I guess it’s time for us to go,” Alex said.
Sophie glared at him, crossed her arms over her chest. “No, just you.”
Joaquin glared at him. “What the hell were you thinking, man?”
And Laura felt a rush of relief to know that the rest of her friends from the paper hadn’t been a part of Alex’s scheme.
JAVIER AND LAURA had a quiet dinner, did the dishes together, then settled on the couch, Laura’s head resting on Javier’s lap.
“I’m sorry Alex was such a jerk today. In the I-Team meeting this morning he implied that I was keeping information from him—which I suppose I am. I didn’t think he’d join us for lunch only as a pretext to snoop in my office or to try to steal a quote from you. That’s low.”
Javier stroked her hair, the feel of it like silk, being close to her making it impossible for him to feel angry. “The stupid
“Can you imagine what might have happened if you hadn’t been in my office? He would have been free to look around and read everything. He might have found the FBI file. What would I tell Zach then?”
“Why aren’t you like that? I always say that I can’t stand the media. You’re part of the media, but you’re not like him or that
“Gary and to some degree Alex live to break a story. It’s not the content of the story that matters to them. It’s the thrill of being first, of winning that race to make news. For me, journalism is about people. It’s about the human element.”
“I guess that’s what sets you apart, why you’re so good at what you do.”
“When I was a new reporter straight out of college, I was sent with a cameraman to a house where a father had just run over and killed his own eighteen-month-old daughter. He’d been pulling out of the driveway on his way to work and didn’t know that she’d gotten outside. She died before they reached the hospital. My job was to stake out the house and try to get an interview with him or the child’s mother.
“When I got there, the place was already surrounded by reporters and photographers. They stood in the driveway, on the sidewalk in front of the house, and spilled into the street. After a few hours, the parents returned from the hospital to find that they couldn’t even get into their own driveway. They ended up having to park down
