Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Olivia POV
Media and Communications Center
I pulled my backpack from my shoulder as I walked into the journalism planning room. Small groups worked in the back corners while Mrs. P sat at the head of the oval table in the center. A large white board spanned the length of one wall—a version of a kanban board with each of our articles in progress. Along the other wall, a bulletin board monstrosity looked one part murder board, one part missing persons file—and one-hundred-percent 'mood'.
I sighed as my eyes found the picture of Dotty up on the board. The lady had been ducking my calls so far, not like I'd tried more than a couple of times. But a bit of digging had turned up a few things of interest. Mostly that she was still wealthy, a partial investor in the Silverado senior living center. And still had some honorary title with the Board of Trustees with the college. “Cooper'd better mind his manners around her. Hmph.” I let out a sigh and tapped my nails against the wall. Why had I crushed on him again? Could I claim temporary insanity due to teenaged hormones? I tilted my head. “Seems plausible.”
“Got a new idea for your story, then?” Mrs. P said as she approached.
Crap. What did I say out loud? “Oh, um, just contemplating. Heavily.”
“Something seemed plausible? Maybe if you share, I could help you shape your idea.”
I looked back at Dotty's face and tapped a finger to my chin. “It's a little out there. I'm not sure I know where to begin. Maybe I should work on my pitch?—”
“Your pitch was due two days ago, Liv.”
I nodded. “Yes, Mrs. P. And I did turn in . . . several ideas in the appropriate format. Some dating back as early as the first week of school.”
“And I have accepted exactly none of them. No history of the stadium, no expose on the evolution of baseball at the college. No hokey 'look back at how the founders lived'.”
“You know who she is, right?” I pointed at the picture of Dotty.
“Yes. What I don't have a pulse on is what angle you're pursuing with your interview. So when Mrs. Schreiber called to verify your credentials, I told her you were not currently on assignment.”
My stomach sank, taking the rest of my insides with it. Suck.
“So, Liv. Let's chat about this plausible idea of yours.”
I shrugged. “I kinda thought that I could find an angle after I interviewed her. Once I'm officially on assignment, that is.” I'm sure I didn't manage to keep the bitterness from my voice, so I rushed along. “Professional journalists handle interviews that way a lot, right?”
“Professional journalists pick the interviewee based on an angle and then dig deeper. I do happen to think Dotty is a fascinating study, so I'm inclined to let you move forward. But Liv, we talked about this early on.”
I nodded. “We did, yes. And I've been trying.” This wasn't good. I'd never been 'behind' in a class before. Shit. “You called her a fascinating study.”
A wry smile appeared on Mrs. P's lips. “Ha. Yeah, she's a spitfire. Raised two sons, one's a county judge a few counties over. And one played baseball, actually. Surprised you hadn't figured that part out. Considering. She and Coach Schorr weren't the best of friends during that time. But her son did well. Like many student athletes, though, he graduated and went into a more stable career. He's not local, though. Houston, I think.”
“Interesting. So, huh.”
“You'll need to have a plan. You can't just ask the woman to tell you about her life and write some pseudo memoir.”
Dammit. “She seems to have, er, hear me out.”
“Let me guess, is there a baseball angle you want to pursue?”
“Only a teeny tiny bit?” I winced and smiled like a kid caught in the pantry eating Oreos a half hour after bedtime.
She crossed her arms. Yeah, not amused.
“I don't have like a fully-developed angle, I'd need to research more about the psychology of being in a senior center, but between her legacy with the college and a tie to a freshman athlete . . .” Whatever was left of my poor stomach was disintegrating in the fire-and-acid whirlwind churning up my insides. Coop might full-on murder me if I tried to write another story with his name in it.
“I'll trust your instincts. If you hand me some watered-down memoir piece, you'll know it. Dig deeper, do the research you're?—”
“Mrs. P, how do I go about getting some resources?” Rivers Reyes the edgy fanboy oozed into our conversation space.
She pivoted. “Rivers, I'm?—”
“I need computer lab time and support from the helpdesk to perform asset matching.” He held up a laptop as he continued his approach.
I shrugged and tried to slowly disengage. Cathy would be super interested in whatever this was, but it wasn't all that intriguing to me.
He flipped his screen around to face Mrs. P and shook his head. “The IT manager says I need a charge code for his team's time?”
I shuffled noiselessly to the other end of the oval-shaped worktable. Only five minutes left until our class time was over.
“My source says several student athletes are involved.” Rivers's voice held a sing-song tone.
Source? Athletes? Wait, what? I spun around. “Who?”
“I'll make a call to the help desk, Rivers,” Mrs. P said.
“I don't have names. Yet. They're getting me the list of file accesses.” Rivers turned his laptop around and tapped at something. “I need to run matches on IP addresses and?—”
“What's the issue?” I moved closer.
“Weren’t you paying attention?” Rivers scowled. “Stolen tests.”
Mrs. P put her cell phone to her ear and turned away.
“Wait. Answer banks? Or tests?”
“It's hacking. Unauthorized use, misuse, academic misconduct. All of the above.” Rivers didn't bother looking up as he spoke to his laptop.
“Sure. Yeah, of course. It's bad. Really bad.” I tried to sound aghast. “Don’t they give out practice tests, though?”
“This was the live test bank. TST cyber team contained the server and they’re scanning for any malware. The theory is the hacker left a backdoor to access the live test bank anytime he wants. They’d always know what’s on the exam.” Rivers ran a hand through the mess of bangs on his forehead and shot me glare. I glanced away.
How is this an investigative news story instead of a matter for the school's IT team?
“My source says this version of the live testbank was leaked on a pastebin site. But the file had code embedded to track and log the IP address of anyone who accessed it. They’ve managed to retrieve the tracking data, but I would need to map it to the asset list.”
The whole thing sounds like entrapment. Never mind the fact that those who tried to cheat have been preparing for the wrong test, now. My guess is your source is the hacker, the only person who intentionally did anything wrong.
My nails cut into my fists. I need to get ahead of this. If anyone on the baseball team had been desperate enough to fall for this scheme—they’ll be disciplined. Benched. Expelled.
I shifted from one foot to the other. I need Cathy.
“What are you doing here? I thought you lived in the baseball locker room.”
“Ah, you know, working on . . .” I shook my head and tried to get my brain to refocus. “My Founders’ Day article. Important interview coming up. As soon as Mrs. P authorizes my credentials with the interviewee?” I turned a pleading look toward our sponsor.
She gave me an exaggerated nod, her cell phone still glued to her ear.
“No shirtless pics this time?” Rivers let out his oh-so-appealing snerk with his oh-so-hilarious barb.
Shirtless boys sell. I just shrugged and smiled. “Some of us enjoy our work.” I met our faculty sponsor's eyes. “I want to do a story on Antonio Jimenez. He's been back and forth between the US and the Dominican for several years. His younger brother plays in the baseball academy at home. His dad was a pro for several years before injury ended his career early.”
I knew a few things about that. Lived with it in my own house. And if there was one thing I could understand about Antonio, it was that baseball was his family business the same as it was mine.
“Sounds interesting.” She held her phone away from her ear for a moment. “And diverse. Good angle. But no.” She turned her attention back to her cell.
Dammit. I wanted that article so I could say I'd done what I could to help 'sell' Antonio to Hilda—who, I hated to be the one to break it to him, had a strict no Latino men policy for her dating life. She'd grown up around them, and decided at some point, they were not for her. I think her dad told her once she shouldn't bother going to medical school.
It wasn’t my business and it made me super uncomfortable to think about. Being Latina, Hilda could make the kinds of generalizations she spouted about the men in her family. La gringa white girl, aka me, could not. Would not. Nope.
Especially because I thought baseball players, the best of them, were sinfully gorgeous—I didn't care what color their skin was.
Ahem. Where was I again? Dammit, shot down on my Antonio piece.
“But Mrs. P? What if I?—”
“It's not baseball season.”
I sighed.
“Bring me a pitch and maybe I'll reconsider next semester once the season starts.”
I nodded and offered her a smile. I wanted to leave, but I wasn't going anywhere until I found out everything Rivers knew.
“I'll call Dotty after this, but get on it right away. I need your mostly-final draft by that third week in November. We go to press whatever that Friday is. And I have another assignment for you.”
“Oh. Yes, that would really great. Another assignment, definitely. And a great time to do it.” I kept the grin plastered on my face.
This was the absolute worst time to take on another assignment. The baseball exhibition game was the one bit of excitement we had in the entirety of Vanquer and its surrounding area (no one counted football if they had any taste). And now I had to make sure none of my players were on that stupid hacker's list.
Reyes was heading for the door. Crap!
I waved at Mrs. P, grabbed my bag and hustled after him. Class had ended, but I needed to catch cyber dude with the hacking 'Source' of potential doom.
I caught up with Rivers in the hallway. He walked with his laptop balanced on one forearm—and typing with one hand. Seriously?
“Hey, wait up.”
He slowed but didn't turn around. I sped up to fall into step beside him.
“What do you want, shirtless wonder?”
“Wow, nice greeting.” I rolled my eyes. “And here I was thinking I could help you with your hacker story.”
“I don't need help. I'm a real journalist.” He scoffed.
“Well, you did ask for some resources. And while I'm sure Mrs. P will get them for you, it's not like the IT department always sees the same, you know, urgency that real journalists do.” I let out a yawn. Man, two o'clock had become kryptonite for my energy levels. “Guess I'll need some coffee. Anyway, you really want to take a chance on the college helpdesk when the difference of a few hours could make or break your story?”
“What do you care?” He paused and turned my direction as he typed.
“You're right, I'll be forever in your journalistic shadow. But it's just that my roommate came in third in the Defcon CTF last year. And when she gets bored, she blathers on about bits and bytes until I really just can't?—”
He fixed me with a stark, bored stare. But he'd stopped typing. “What do you want?”
“In exchange? Oh, I dunno. How about you could just owe me one?”
He made a wry-looking face. It wasn't much different than his usual expression. His lips just kinda puffed out a bit more. Reminded me of a catfish. “Yeah, sure.”
“The next time I get a septuagenarian to interview, I'll be calling you.”
“I dunno, Liv. Maybe you could get her to take her shirt off.” He rolled his eyes and puffed out a laugh.
Oh, he had jokes. Yeah, no. I flipped him off.
“I'll text you when I get the list?” His mouth tilted like it might be trying to . . . smile?
“Sounds divine. Just make sure I get a teensy tinesy acknowledgement in your Pulitzer speech, would ya?”
“Yeah, bite me.”
I laughed and veered off toward the student center's non-stop coffee bar. “Or you could take off your shirt.” I called out over my shoulder.
I mentally shuddered at the thought. Rivers, shirtless? Bleh. Definitely not the kind of boy I wanted to see shirtless. Now Tanner? Tanner was a different story. Antonio? God, Hilda was being ridiculous.
Coop used to be near the top of my 'definitely shirtless' list. But after our last exchange, I wouldn't put him at the bottom . Just, not all that bothered about him, really. I hated that Dublin and Cathy were right. But it did leave me in a bit of a conundrum.
How on earth could I avoid the inhuman Storm Cooper and still do things like: win the baseball reporter beat, intern as a baseball scout for Schorr, make all my Insta highlight reels?
I groaned through the receiver at Hilda. The fans on screen broke out into their low-octave “Coop” cheer, that sounded like boo-ing. “He's up to bat, again. I can't watch. I can't look!”
“Chica, this is the point of a baseball game, right? To watch it?”
I grumbled and made a face at her, that she couldn't see. “I'm flipping you off right now.”
She laughed through the speaker.
“I wanted to see him win.”
“The Wildcats are winning,” she said. “They're ahead by two runs.”
“But he's losing.” Coop dug into the batter's box on my television screen. He leaned too much, then over-corrected. “He looks miserable out there.”
“I wonder why the coaches let him play. It's too much.”
No, Storm Cooper or not, he was human. Seeing him struggle after the death of his mom . . . made him vulnerable and real. And as irritating as he was in person, the other night, I don't know what happened, but somewhere in between the barbs and aggravation, he became a real person to me. Not just the fantasy guy my teenaged idiot self used to scrawl her name beside. Liv Milline-Cooper. Hyphenated, of course, for maximum baseball clout.
My stomach squeezed. I needed to burn anything in my closet or desk that might still hold those childish scribbles.
I shook my head and opened the door to the student center. “Maybe we could learn to behave more like friends.” I grabbed a double-paned cardboard coffee cup.
“Oh, well now, sweet thing, I don't think we should behave at all. You look like you want a guy who gives you what you need.” A voice drawled over my shoulder. “And I know. What you need.”
“What?” I glanced up to see a guy in his frat-boy polo shirt with his slick playboy-like grin leer at me. I frowned and tapped my left ear. “On the phone.” I shook my head and whisked past him to the register. I kept my hand near my ear, palm hovering over my cheekbone as the lady scanned my ID card. I faked again like I was muting my phone with a tap to my ear. “Thank you.” Tap. “Oh, what was that? Oh, ha ha ha. Yeah, you caught me, gotta have my caffeine.” I pointed at my ear. “Sister. Knows me too well. Thanks again, bye!”
Coffee in hand, I all but ran out the door toward the athletic center.
You've got to stop talking to yourself out loud. You're gonna get in trouble.
But like a lot of things, it was a habit I didn't know how to break.