Now, he saw the number had risen again—152—and instead of the one comment he expected to see right after he first posted it (LeonardC404: Reminds me a little of Daufuskie Island off the coast of South Carolina from Conroy’s The Water Is Wide. Great detail; felt like I was there.—Dad), he now had three. Three!
He scrolled down to the second one.
MacLuvsCheese: Is this for real? I’ve never heard of this place! And I live in Virginia. Crazy.
Anders grinned. A comment! From a stranger! And he had felt the same way, not ever having heard of the island before. He moved on to comment three.
41NM241: Earn $175,000 working from home! Click here to learn how: bitly.sjfl53
Oh. He tried to swallow the disappointment at not having a comment from the one person he hoped to have a comment from, and focused on whether to delete the spam (three comments was still better than two), when the email alert on his phone dinged.
From: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Your Cake Walk story
You came all the way to Frick Island and missed the biggest story out here. For a reporter, you’re not very observant.
Anders’s forehead crinkled as he scrolled down for the rest of the message—or a signature, at least—but that was it. He read it again and scoffed—there were plenty of things Anders could be accused of, but being unobservant was not one of them. He returned his attention to the stocky zookeeper, who was now droning on about the efforts of the various teams of people it had taken to relocate the bear from Ecuador to the United States. She was thanking each one by name, and if it were the Academy Awards, an orchestra would have long drowned out her words with music.
He looked at the email once more, his thumb hovering over the delete button. Though he’d only been a full-time reporter for a little over three months, he was used to getting weird missives like these. Even at his college paper, reporters got more than their fair share of calls, emails, and even old-fashioned letters from people who always said they had the next big story waiting to be uncovered. Nine out of ten times, they did not. In his experience, they often just wanted attention. Anders read the missive a third time, but instead of deleting it, he let it be. Just in case.
—
Anders followed his regular routine, head down working, yet always remaining attentive, alert at every assignment he was covering, looking for the more interesting, deeper story that could be his next podcast—something that could be worthy of following up and building on the minor success of his Frick Island episode.
But another week passed by, Anders covering the grand reopening of a renovated Starbucks, a three-day county fair, and the inevitable sale of a local radio station to a national conglomerate, and nothing jumped out at him. He was frustrated. Demoralized, really. He should be patient, he knew. That was another thing his dad always said: Patience, persistence, and perspiration are the three keys to success.
But patience was not Anders’s strong suit.
He sat at his computer in the office, elbows on the desktop, head down, hands in his hair. One window on his computer screen opened to an email from his sister asking him if he was planning to drive in for Labor Day weekend on the Thursday or Friday before. Another window displayed a press release touting the accolades of the new dean of the school of education at the local university, information for the latest riveting article Anders was writing.
“There are doughnuts in the break room.” Anders lifted his head and turned to see Jess standing behind him, clutching a powdered orb in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. “Might help your day get better.”
Anders eyed her. “You have jelly on your shirt.”
She glanced down at her sleeveless white blouse, dotted with small cutouts of floating Weimaraner heads, which was a bit disconcerting, if Anders was being honest. “Well, shit.” She turned to set her coffee mug on the bookcase behind her but was closer than she thought and hip checked the structure, jarring the tan liquid out of her mug and onto her blouse, while simultaneously sending a teetering stack of back-issue newspapers cascading to the floor.
Jess froze, shocked from the commotion.
“You were saying?” Anders deadpanned. “Something about my day?”
“Ha ha.”
Anders stood up. “I’ll get you some paper towels.” When he got back with a wad clutched in his fist, half damp, half dry, Jess was on her knees trying to corral the papers currently splayed all over the floor. Anders knelt beside her. “Here,” he said.
“Thanks.” Jess took the proffered towels and dabbed at the stains, as Anders continued the newsprint cleanup effort.
“Every time,” she muttered. “Every. Single. Time. Should have known better than to wear white.”
But Anders didn’t hear her. He was staring at the front-page headline of a newspaper he had just picked up:
CRAB BOAT SINKS OFF FRICK ISLAND, MISSING WATERMAN PRESUMED DEAD
He rocked back on his haunches, lowering his bottom to the worn carpet, and scanned the article. The name “Tom Parrish” jumped out at him, tickling the recesses of his mind.
“Anders!”
“Huh?” He looked up.
“I was asking could you let Greta know when she gets in? I gotta run home and change before the city council meeting at two. Can’t exactly go looking like this.”
“Oh, yeah. ’Course.”
She stood up, still scrubbing the front of her ruined shirt, though it was clearly beyond saving. Anders glanced back down at the story, the byline catching his eye. “Wait,” he called out after Jess, who was already halfway to her cubicle.
She paused. “What?”
He flicked the paper with his middle
