Chapter 1: The Errant Envelope
The hallway outside the finance office was a tomb of unfinished business. Rachel Morgan hefted her backpack, the straps digging into her shoulder as the last echo of Professor Clayworth’s droning lecture faded from her ears. Friday. Thank god. The weekend beckoned, a blur of library shifts, cheap wine, and maybe, if she was lucky, a few uninterrupted hours of sleep.
This corridor was a shortcut, a narrow, fluorescent-lit gullet between the history department and the west parking lot. It was always quieter here, a backstage area of the campus. The air hung thick with the smell of stale coffee grounds and the zappy scent of printer toner. Linoleum tiles, the color of old teeth, groaned under her boots. Sunset bled through the high, grimy windows, painting jagged orange stripes across a row of empty cubicles, their monitors dark and blind.
Halfway down, she stopped. A janitor’s cart, laden with garbage bags and smelling sharply of ammonia, was angled sideways, completely blocking the finance office’s heavy wooden door. That was new. She glanced around. No janitor.
She was about to turn and take the long way when the stack of papers perched precariously on the cart’s lower shelf decided to give up. It slid with a soft whssht, spilling a fan of documents across the floor at her feet.
“Perfect,” she muttered, dropping her bag. She crouched, her knees popping, and started gathering pages. Invoices, work orders, a spilled box of paperclips. Her fingers moved automatically, stacking sheets into a messy pile.
Then she paused.
The paper in her hand was different. Heavier. A proper financial statement, not campus letterhead. The logo at the top was unfamiliar: “Austerly Holdings.” Below it, a complex chart with a series of arrows and figures. Her eyes, trained by two semesters of accounting, skimmed the columns. It was a flow chart. Money in, money out.
A big chunk of money in, from the “Brennan University Endowment Fund.” A series of transfers, splitting, moving through numbered accounts. And finally, a single, massive outflow to something called “SCP Limited, Grand Cayman.”
That was weird. The college endowment was sacred, locked up in boring bonds and blue-chip stocks. They had a whole lecture about it in Econ 101. This looked… active. Messy.
Her thumb brushed the bottom of the page. A signature. Scrawled, bureaucratic. And beneath it, a co-signatory.
Her breath hitched.
It was Professor Clayworth’s signature. At least, it looked almost exactly like the one he’d just dashed on her mid-term paper an hour ago. The looping ‘C’, the sharp tail on the ‘g’. But the ink was wrong here—a flat, processed black, not his favorite blue fountain pen. And the line was too perfect, no variation in pressure. It was a copy. A really good one, but a copy.
A metallic creak made her jump. The finance office door began to swing inward, pushing against the janitor’s cart. From inside, a low voice, irritated. “—just get it sorted before Monday. He’s getting impatient.”
Rachel froze, crouched like a thief. She didn’t think. She folded the Austerly Holdings page twice, shoved it into the back of her ethics textbook, and stuffed the book into her bag. She swept the remaining scattered papers into a pile, dumped them onto the cart’s shelf, and stood up just as the door won its battle with the cart, scraping it aside.
A man in a crisp grey suit stood there, not a janitor. He had a forgettable face, clean-shaven, hair trimmed short. His eyes locked onto her. They were the pale, flat grey of a winter puddle.
“Can I help you?” he asked. His voice was polite, empty.
“Uh, no. Sorry,” Rachel said, forcing a smile. She hitched her bag higher. “Your papers fell. I just picked them up.”
He glanced at the cart, then back at her. His gaze felt like a physical scan. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Have a good weekend.” She turned, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She walked, consciously not too fast, down the hall. She could feel those grey eyes on her back, drilling between her shoulder blades until she turned the corner.
Outside, the cool evening air was a shock. She leaned against the rough brick of the history building, breathing hard.
What was that? A shell company? Cayman Islands? A forged signature?
A part of her, the sensible part that studied for exams and paid her rent on time, screamed at her to forget it. To go home, pour that wine, and watch something stupid. It was probably nothing. A misunderstanding. Some weird administrative thing.
But the signature.
That was personal. Clayworth was a blowhard, but he was her blowhard. He’d written her a recommendation letter. He wasn’t some financial criminal. Was someone using his name?
She unzipped her bag and pulled out the ethics text. The folded page seemed to vibrate with potential energy. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. This was a secret, hiding in plain sight on a filthy linoleum floor.
This was a secret, hiding in plain sight on a filthy linoleum floor. The weight of it pressed on her all the way back to her dorm. The usual Friday night sounds—music blasting from open doors, laughter echoing in the stairwell—felt tinny and distant, like she was hearing them through glass.
Her room was a capsule of organized chaos. Textbooks formed precarious towers on her desk, and her racing medals hung from the corner of her mirror. She dumped her bag, locked the door, and sat on the edge of her bed with the folded page.
Under the direct light of her desk lamp, the details sharpened. The numbers refused to be anything but what they were: a seven-figure sum from the endowment, moving in a convoluted but deliberate path. A rinse cycle. Her accounting professor’s voice popped into her head: “You see a series of transfers between entities with no clear business purpose? You’re not looking at logistics. You’re looking at laundry.”
She pulled up her mid-term paper, still on top of her pile. She laid it beside the financial statement, comparing the signatures. Side by side, the difference was a cold splash in her face. Clayworth’s real signature had a slight tremor, a human imperfection where the pen initially touched the paper. The signature on the Austerly document was flawless, a cloned thing. It was his name, but it had no soul.
“Okay,” she whispered to the quiet room. “So someone’s stealing. And they’re using Clayworth to cover it.” The naivety flared first—she should take this to someone. Campus security? The Dean? The man in the grey suit flashed in her mind, his polite, empty eyes. Would he be sitting in the Dean’s office?
A sharper, more stubborn instinct kicked in. Prove it. You can’t walk in with one stolen sheet of paper and an accusation about a professor. They’d pat her on the head and call her parents. She needed more.
She snapped a picture of the document with her phone, making sure the numbers and the forged signature were crystal clear. She sent it to her own email as a backup, her fingers moving swiftly. Then she carefully slid the page into a plastic sheet protector and tucked it between the pages of her old, heavy physics textbook on her shelf. Nobody ever looked in there.
The immediate next step was obvious, and it made her stomach twist. She had to talk to Clayworth. Not accuse him. Feel him out. See if he knew his name was being used. Maybe he was in on it? The thought felt wrong, like ill-fitting clothes. He was all about antiquated honor, always going on about ‘ethical anchors.’ Could be an act. She needed to know.
A buzzing from her bag made her jump. She fished out her phone. An unknown number flashed on the screen. Local area code.
Her thumb hovered over the answer button. The phone buzzed insistently in her palm, a little electric heart. The hallway, the grey suit, the folded paper—it all coiled into a tight spring of paranoia in her chest.
She let it go to voicemail.
Silence filled the room again, heavier now. Thirty seconds later, a chime. A voicemail notification appeared. She stared at it, the little icon like a tiny bomb. She put the phone on speaker, held it away from her, and pressed play.
A staticky silence, then a recorded voice, female, pleasant and automated. “This is a reminder from the Brennan University Facilities Department. Our records indicate a maintenance cart was reported obstructing a hallway in the Administration Wing this evening. We thank you for your cooperation in moving any obstructing items. Have a good night.”
Click.
Rachel’s blood went quiet in her veins. She hadn’t moved any cart. She’d just picked up papers. The only person who saw her was the man in the grey suit.
The call wasn’t a reminder. It was a receipt. We saw you. We know it was you.
The message sat in her phone, a perfectly deniable, utterly threatening piece of noise. She deleted it, her hands cold. Then she immediately walked to her door, flipped the deadbolt, and shoved her desk chair under the knob for good measure. It was a childish gesture, but the solid thunk of wood against metal was the only comforting sound she’d heard in an hour.
She looked at the time. 8:17 PM. The campus would still be awake, buzzing. The man, if he was looking, would expect a scared girl to stay hidden in her room.
A sudden, fierce rebellion rose in her throat. She wasn’t just going to sit here. If they were watching, let them watch her do something normal. Something boring.
She changed into running gear—tight black leggings, a loose tank top, her hair yanked into a ponytail. She laced up her shoes with sharp, deliberate tugs. She left the stolen document hidden, took only her key card and phone, and slipped out the door.
The evening air was cool now, a blanket of deep blue settling over the quad. Students criss-crossed the paths, heading to parties or the library. She started at a slow jog, her muscles grateful for the familiar burn. She took a route that circled the entire campus, her breath falling into a steady rhythm. Every few minutes, she’d casually glance around. A guy on a bench reading. A couple holding hands. A security car rolling slowly past. Nothing out of place.
She looped back around, her path taking her past the Faculty Building, a modern glass-and-stone structure. Professor Clayworth’s office was on the third floor. A light was on.
She slowed to a walk, catching her breath, pretending to stretch her hamstrings against a low wall. She watched the window. A shadow passed behind the blinds. He was in there. Working late on a Friday. Maybe grading papers. Maybe signing something.
Her phone buzzed in her armband. A text this time. From her roommate, Chloe.
Chloe: Party at Sigma Pi! You coming? Trademark punch that tastes like rocket fuel. I’m already halfway there.
Rachel stared at the bright screen, then up at the lone, lit office window. The normal world was right there, shouting, holding out a cup of forgetfulness. All she had to do was say yes.
She typed back, her thumbs sure.
Rachel: Can’t. Got a thing. Have one for me.
She sent it, pushed off the wall, and started running again, not toward the dorms, but away, into the darker paths lined with old oaks. The map in her head was redrawing itself, shifting from campuses and dorm rooms to flow charts and Cayman accounts and the flat, grey eyes of a man who sent polite warnings.
She ran faster, not from something, but toward a decision that was hardening inside her with every stride. She wasn’t going to the cops. Not yet.
And she wasn’t going to hide.
The run burned off the sharp edge of panic, leaving a colder, more determined clarity. She took the long way back to her apartment, entering through the side door of her building and taking the stairs two at a time. Inside, she reset the chair under the knob, then stood in the center of her living room, hands on her hips.
The single page wasn’t enough. It was a snapshot. She needed the album.
She booted up her laptop, the fan whirring in the quiet. She started with “Austerly Holdings.” Nothing. No website, no business registration in the state database she had access to through the university library portal. A ghost. “SCP Limited, Grand Cayman” was even worse—a black hole. Off-shore. Deliberately opaque.
Her fingers flew next to the Brennan alumni network, a shallow social media sea of golf tournaments and fundraising galas. She searched for any connection to Austerly. A few alumni listed it as an employer on their profiles, all in vague “financial management” roles. Their profiles were sleek, professional, and utterly devoid of personal detail.
One name appeared twice: Martin Gable. Class of ’09, Board of Trustees Finance Committee. His LinkedIn said he was a “Managing Principal” at Austerly. She clicked his smilin,g, polished photo. Mid-forties, veneer-perfect teeth. The kind of guy who called fundraising “friend-raising.”
A solid knock at her door made her entire body jerk.
Three firm, measured raps. Not the erratic bang of a drunk neighbor. Not the cheerful fist-bump of a friend.
She stared at the peephole, a dark circle in the wood. The clock on her microwave glowed 10:48 PM. She didn’t move. The knock came again, insistent.
Swallowing hard, she crept forward, rising on her toes to press her eye to the fisheye lens.
The man in the hallway wasn’t the one from the finance office. This man was older, maybe forty, with a lean, weathered face and sharp grey eyes that seemed to be looking directly at the peephole as if he knew she was there. His salt-and-pepper hair was tousled, and he wore a worn leather jacket over a dark t-shirt. He looked like a slightly dissolute professor, or a journalist who’d just come from a bar.
Not campus security. Not the grey suit.
“Rachel Morgan?” His voice was muffled but clear, a low rasp with a hint of impatient charm. “My name’s Milo Davidson. I’m a reporter. I think we might be interested in the same thing.”
A reporter. Her mind raced. How? She hadn’t told anyone.
“Go away,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt.
He gave a short, dry laugh. “You were asking questions in the Administration Wing tonight. Around the finance office. You’re not very subtle. Neither is the guy in the grey suit who’s been making calls about you. Can we talk? It’s colder than a banker’s heart out here.”
The mention of the grey suit did it. She undid the deadbolt, pulled the chair back, and opened the door a crack, leaving the chain fastened.
Up close, his eyes were even more assessing. He held up a press badge for The Metropolitan Ledger. It looked legit, weathered around the edges. “I’ve been poking around Brennan’s endowment for a few weeks,” he said casually. “Hit a wall. Then tonight, I hear a student is suddenly making people in the finance office twitchy. Put two and two together. Can I come in? I promise I’m more useful than I look.”
Rachel hesitated for a three-count, then slid the chain off and stepped back. “Five minutes.”
Milo Davidson stepped inside, his gaze sweeping the room—the laptop open on the coffee table, the textbooks strewn about, the running shoes by the door—in one fluid, calculating glance. He didn’t sit until she did, lowering himself onto her couch with a sigh.
“Nice place.”
“What do you know about the finance office?” she asked, cutting through the small talk.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I know the Brennan endowment is performing about fifteen percent better than comparable institutions. Suspiciously better. I know a trustee named Martin Gable funnels a lot of business through a private firm called Austerly. And I know,” he said, his eyes locking onto hers, “that someone with access is forging signatures to authorize moves. Your Professor Clayworth’s is the third I’ve seen.”
The air left her lungs. “You know about the forgery?”
“I suspect. You have proof?” He raised an eyebrow.
She didn’t answer. “Why are you here?”
“Because you have something, or you saw something. And because you’re a student with access. I can’t get past the front desk of the admin building. You can walk right in.” He gave her a lopsided smile that was probably meant to be disarming. “And because the guys involved aren’t nice. They’re the kind of nice that comes with a threat. You got a call from facilities, right?”
She stiffened. He read her reaction and nodded.
“Standard operating procedure. A warning shot. Next one won’t be so polite.” He relaxed back into the couch, his arm stretching along the back. “So. Let’s help each other. You tell me what you found. I’ll tell you what I know. Together, we might actually get a story that doesn’t get buried.”
Rachel studied him. He was cynical, clearly. But he was also the first person who hadn’t treated her like a confused kid. He talked about proof and stories. “What’s in it for you?”
“The Ledger pays me. I get the byline. I get to watch some smug bastards squirm.” He shrugged. “The usual. What’s in it for you? Truth? Justice? The exhilarating fear of pissing off powerful people?”
A faint smile touched her lips despite herself. “Maybe.”
“There you go.” He glanced at her laptop screen, still on Martin Gable’s profile. “He’s the spider. Austerly is the web. Your professor is either a fly, or he’s another spider. We need to find out which. To do that, I need access to internal records. Budget proposals, transfer requests, anything with a signature trail. The digital kind is best, but even paper trails in archives.”
“I can’t just waltz into the records room.”
“You’re a student worker. Or you can be. The library annex hires for archival digitization projects. I checked.” He said it so smoothly she knew he’d had this planned before he ever knocked. “You get a job there. You find the records. You get me copies.”
As he laid out the simplistic plan, his eyes, for a fleeting moment, drifted from her face. They traveled over her shoulder, down to where she sat perched on the edge of the armchair, her worn leggings outlining the curve of her body. The glance was quick, practiced, entirely divorced from his conversational tone. It wasn’t lecherous, just… acquisitive. An automatic assessment filed away, unrelated to endowment funds or forgeries. She remained completely unaware, her focus on the maze he was describing.
“It’s risky,” she said.
“Everything’s risky. Sitting on what you know is risky. They already know your face.” He stood up, signaling his five minutes were up. “Think about it. Don’t think too long. These things have a momentum.” He fished a card from his jacket pocket and placed it on the coffee table. “My cell’s on the back. Text me if you decide to play. Don’t call.”
He moved to the door, then paused. “And, Rachel? Buy a burner phone. The one you have? Assume it’s a speakerphone for the other team.”
The door clicked shut behind Milo Davidson, and the lock engaged with a sound like a final period. Rachel stood in the sudden silence of her apartment, the card on the coffee table gleaming under the lamp.
Down in the parking lot, Milo slid into his car, an aging sedan that smelled of old coffee and fast food. He cranked the engine, but didn’t pull away. He replayed the encounter in his head. Smart. Nervous. Those wide green eyes taking everything in. And Christ, that body. The way those running leggings hugged every curve of her ass, which was, frankly, spectacular. Legs that went on for days, a waist he could practically span with his hands. Full lips that were made for whispering secrets, or better yet, for staying quiet.
He smirked, putting the car in reverse. A fun distraction. That’s what she was. A few weeks of stress relief between the sheets while he pieced this endowment scam together. She had the access he needed, and she had a face and a figure that would make the chore of babysitting a source far more enjoyable than some sweaty, desperate male whistleblower. He could already picture the gradual seduction, the way he’d leverage her fear and her determination to get closer. It was a classic play that worked everytime. He’d done it before with many women.
Back in his cramped one-bedroom, the blinds permanently half-drawn, Milo poured two fingers of cheap whiskey and opened his laptop. He created a new folder: “Brennan / Source R.M.” He began typing notes, but they quickly strayed from the financial.
Rachel Morgan, 19. Brennan University sophomore. Red hair (fiery, long). Green eyes. Athletic build—runner’s body. Curvy, emphasis on hips and rear. Full lips. Naive, determined, visibly frightened. Lives in campus apartments, building C, room 212. Observable vulnerability: wants to do the right thing, fears being in over her head. Physical proximity will be key. Establish trust, then escalate.
He saved the file and took a long sip, his mind already weaving the threads of the story with the much simpler, more immediate goal of getting her into his bed.
Across campus, Rachel paced. The specter of the grey-suited man was now joined by the sharp, grey eyes of Milo Davidson. A reporter. It made sense. It was also terrifying. He was a known variable with unknown motives. His warning about her phone felt paranoid and absolutely correct simultaneously.
She fished her phone from her armband, powered it down, and buried it in a drawer under her socks. The silence it created was immense. She spent the next hour just thinking, circling the problem. Could she trust him? He knew things. He’d named Gable. He’d known about the forgery. He also had the weary, cynical air of a man who’d trade anything for a story. Including her.
But what was her alternative? Go it alone? She’d already been made. Sit on it? The idea made her skin crawl. The forgeries were happening. Money was moving. Maybe Milo, for all his obvious self-interest, was the only tool she had.
The morning came in a blur of fractured sleep. She met Chloe at the cramped diner off campus, the air thick with the smell of grease and strong coffee.
“You look like hell,” Chloe said, shoveling scrambled eggs onto her toast. “All-night study sesh?”
“Something like that,” Rachel muttered, pushing her own food around the plate.
“Spill. It’s a guy, isn’t it?”
“It’s not a guy.” Rachel hesitated, then leaned in, lowering her voice. “What if… what if you found something? Something bad happening at the school. And you could get in real trouble for knowing. Would you go to the police? Or would you try to find someone else to help you expose it first?”
Chloe’s playful demeanor evaporated. She put her fork down. “Rach. What did you find?”
“I can’t say. Not yet. Just theoretically.”
Chloe studied her friend’s face, seeing the tension there. “The police are for, like, crimes. If it’s the school doing something shady, they’d just cover it up. You’d need a reporter. Or a lawyer. Someone with a platform.” She frowned. “This sounds scary.”
“It is,” Rachel admitted, the confession a relief.
“Then be careful. And don’t trust a guy who says he just wants to help. They never just want to help.”
The advice echoed in Rachel’s head long after they split the check. Back in her room, she stared at Milo’s card. The sun was higher now, casting clear, bold light that made the shadows of last night seem melodramatic. But the forged signature wasn’t dramatic. It was a fact.
She picked up the cheap, prepaid burner phone she’d bought at the convenience store at 7 a.m. Her fingers hovered over the keys, then tapped out a message to the number on the card.
> It’s Rachel. I’m in. Where and when do we talk strategy?
The reply was almost immediate.
> My place. 4pm. 221B Cedar Street, apt 3. Don’t bring your old phone.
Across town, Milo read the text on his screen. A slow, predatory grin spread across his face. He took a sip of cold coffee, his mind already shifting gears from investigation to execution. The hook was set. Now to reel her in. The strategy session was the perfect opener. A private, controlled environment. He’d be helpful, insightful, just vulnerable enough to seem trustworthy. He’d gauge her reactions, find the pressure points, and begin the careful, enjoyable work of seduction. The story would get written. And he’d have a very satisfying perk along the way.
He deleted the text, cleared his throat, and started mentally outlining his next moves, both for the corruption at Brennan and for the redhead now walking right into his orbit.
The address on Cedar Street led to a brick building squashed between a laundromat and a boarded-up storefront. The buzzer system was broken, the door propped open with a cinder block. Rachel climbed two flights of stairs, the air thickening with the smell of fried food and mildew. Apartment 3 was at the end of a dim hallway.
She knocked, the sound too loud in the quiet. She’d worn running shorts and a plain black tank top, her hair in a messy bun. Practical. Not trying to impress anyone.
The door swung open, and Milo filled the frame, backlit by the low afternoon sun slicing through a single window. He’d shed the leather jacket. Just a faded t-shirt and jeans. He looked her up and down, a quick, automatic scan that felt like a breeze passing over her skin. “You found it. Come in.”
The apartment was a physical manifestation of a cluttered mind. Stacks of newspapers formed precarious towers against one wall. Books sprawled open on every surface—a coffee table, the arms of a worn leather chair, the edge of a small, greasy stove. Half-empty coffee mugs sat beside half-full glasses of amber liquid. The dominant scent was old newsprint, cigar smoke, and underneath it all, a cheap, spicy cologne.
A large desk was the epicenter of the chaos, buried under manila folders, yellowed ledgers, and a sleek laptop that looked surgically attached to a power outlet. The window behind it looked out onto a flickering neon sign for a bar two doors down. Already, though it was barely four, the neon cast a sickly red glow across the room.
“Home sweet home,” Milo said, his voice dry. He cleared a pile of photocopies from the sofa. “Sit. You want a drink? I’ve got whiskey. Or more whiskey.”
“I’m okay,” Rachel said, perching on the edge of the cleared cushion. The leather was cool through her shorts.
“Suit yourself.” He poured two fingers from a bottle on the desk anyway and came to sit beside her. Not on the other end of the couch. Close enough that she could smell the whiskey on his breath, see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes. He stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, his fingers not quite touching her shoulder.
“So. You’re in. Good.” He took a sip. “First rule: deniability. You don’t know me. We never met. The burner phone is for logistics only. No details over text. Ever.”
“Understood.”
“Second rule: evidence chain. You find anything, you get it to me physically. A photocopy. A flash drive. Not an email. Not a cloud upload. Something I can hold.” His grey eyes were sharp, focused now. The playful cynicism was shelved, replaced by a brisk, procedural intensity. “The job is the access point. The library annex digitization project. It’s real. I know the supervisor. He owes me a favor. You’ll start next Thursday. Three afternoons a week.”
Rachel blinked. “You already set it up?”
“I made a call after you texted. Confidence moves things.” He smiled, a brief flash of teeth. “You’ll be scanning old budget proposals, filing cabinets from the ’90s. Boring as hell. But in that room, there’s a locked cabinet for ‘Active Fiscal Review.’ Current stuff. The key is on a hook behind the supervisor’s desk. He takes a long lunch at 12:30 every day.”
Her mind was racing, trying to map his words onto reality. A job. A key. A cabinet. It was suddenly, terrifyingly concrete. “What am I looking for?”
“Anything with Austerly Holdings on it. Or SCP. Or any transfer authorization with Clayworth’s signature. Especially anything with Martin Gable’s name attached. You photograph every page. You don’t take the originals.” He leaned forward, putting his glass on the crowded coffee table. The movement brought him even closer. His knee brushed against hers. He didn’t move it away. “Clayworth is the linchpin. We need to know if he’s a victim or a volunteer. That means getting closer to him.”
“How?” Her voice was a little thin. The brush of his leg felt like a static shock.
“Office hours. Ask for clarification on a lecture. Flatter him. You’re a student. He’s a professor. It’s the most normal interaction in the world. You probe. You listen.” Milo’s gaze was locked on hers, but his attention felt divided, as if part of him was monitoring her physical reactions. “Ask about the ethical frameworks for non-profits. See if he gets tense. Mention you heard a trustee, Gable, speak somewhere. Gauge his response.”
“He’s not just going to confess.”
“No. But people reveal themselves in tiny ways. A twitch. A change in subject. A too-long pause.” He picked up his glass again, his fingers loosely curled around it. “You’re smart. You have a good face. People want to talk to you.”
There was a weight to the way he said good face that had nothing to do with journalism. Rachel felt a flush creep up her neck. She was here for a plan, not… this. Whatever this was—the proximity, the loaded comments. She shifted slightly, creating an inch of space between their legs.
“And after I get the documents from the archives?” she asked, forcing her voice back to business.
“We meet. We piece it together. And then, when we have enough, we take it public.” He said it like it was simple. “My editor is a bloodhound. He’ll protect the source. You’ll never be named.”
She nodded, looking around the room to break the intensity of his stare.
He walked to the desk, giving her space. “The job starts at one. I’ll text you the supervisor’s name and the address tomorrow.”