9. Archer
ARCHER
PRESENT
She was incredible—a true professional. She was also cutthroat.
I was shadowing Ace at work today, and I had just watched her conduct an interview like a true boss.
Watching her interview some asshole politician who stole funds from a police officer’s memorial fund to pay for her own wedding and two of her plastic surgeries was incredible.
She gave back as good as she took in that interview, while remaining calm and authoritative the entire time.
I had a newfound respect for her that I hadn’t had before.
I was amazed at how truly great she was at this job.
I’d never had a doubt she’d be good, but seeing her in person—she was so much more than that.
It wasn’t just how she conducted an interview, but also how easy her banter was with her co-anchors and friends and what a hard worker she was. She was a boss’s dream.
Her show was set to start in about thirty minutes, but the politician would be on a plane at that time, so the interview was done before the show and was being “cut and turned,” Ace told me, to run during the evening newscast.
I was in the studio with her, seated off-camera about twenty feet away. She was just hopping up from her chair behind the anchor desk when a man came into the studio, throwing his hands up animatedly.
“Bollocks!” the man yelled with a British accent. “ Anna , you did a phenomenal job interviewing that gobshite politician. I imagine the PR team is in a tizzy before this airs next hour. Good job. Wait . Who the hell are you?” he asked, turning to me, as if he just now realized I was in the room.
“Adam, this is Archer , the bodyguard I told you about,” Ace said and then turned to me. “ Archer , this is Adam Brink , my executive producer.”
Ahh, so this was the one she was cursing for making her wear the dinosaur costume.
“Nice to meet you.” I held out my hand to him. “ What’s a gobshite?”
“Ignore some of the weird British words he says. You get used to it,” Talia said as she walked into the studio.
“Just because you do not have the same refined vocabulary as us Brits does not make the words weird,” Adam chirped back. “ You’re just being a grumpy pisstrumpet, and you know it.”
Talia laughed and Ace rolled her eyes but smiled, which told me they enjoyed this teasing back and forth.
“My personal favorite is when he says shitgibbon,” Talia contributed, eliciting a small chuckle from Ace .
“I’m gonna go take a smoke break real quick before the show starts,” Dan said, walking into the newsroom to set his drink down on the desk.
“I thought you just took a smoke break,” Talia said as he walked toward the door.
“Semantics,” he yelled back, throwing one hand up in dismissal.
Both women just shook their heads and chuckled.
“Alright, kids,” Adam said, turning to depart from the studio. “ I’ll see you soon for showtime.”
Ace was walking toward me and was about to say something, but I cut her off. “ You’re incredible up there.”
The shocked look on her face let me know she was not expecting that to come out of my mouth.
“You handled yourself well but never softened to that woman’s bullshit,” I told her and saw a small smile and blush creeping out. “ You made your dream job come true. I’m proud of you.”
At my final words, her smile retreated, blush now gone, and in its place a mask of neutrality.
“I have to go to hair and makeup for a quick touch-up and then the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
I had been following her from desk to studio to hair and makeup and everything in between all day.
Mostly , it was to get a lay of the land here at her job so I would know her routine and could check security at all the spots because I didn’t want to follow her every moment of the day.
Security guards manned the front gate to the building, and you needed badges to access every point of entry.
Once she was inside, she was relatively safe.
I was just an added layer of protection.
I decided to hit the bathroom myself before the show started. I was nearly at the men’s room when Ace walked out of the women’s. She looked up at me as she walked from the end of the hallway and in my direction.
Something in her face told me she wasn’t right. “ You okay?” I asked her and reached out to put my hand on her upper arm.
“Archer, don’t,” she replied, her voice strained, and she wouldn’t make eye contact with me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Please stop being nice to me,” she said quietly.
I was taken aback by her words. Clearly , she didn’t like my compliments from earlier. “ You want me to be a jerk to you?”
She finally looked up and made eye contact with me, only for me to see her eyes welling up. Her voice, however, was strong. “ It’s easier to hate you when you’re a jerk.”
“I don’t want you to hate me, Ace ,” I told her honestly. In fact, I might as well make it very clear what I wanted. “ I want you to give me a second chance. I know you may not be ready yet, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help you get there. I don’t want you to hate me.”
“Archer, just…please don’t,” she said, holding up her hand to stop me from talking again. She walked by me and made her way down the hall back toward the hair and makeup room.
A few minutes later, I made my way back to the studio, all the while realizing it was going to be tougher than I thought to get her back. I certainly had my work cut out for me.
I don’t know what I thought a news studio looked like or how I thought a show operated, but it was interesting to watch it all unfold. I sat off to the side, out of the way of all the cameras but still nearby in case I was needed.
The show had just gone to a commercial break, and Talia and Dan had walked into the studio.
“Anna, your boyfriend is emailing us again,” Talia told Ace and Dan as she walked over to the desk.
“The weirdo bird guy?” Dan asked, looking up from his spot at the desk.
Boyfriend? I knew Ace wasn’t dating anyone right now, so maybe Talia was referring to a weirdo ex.
If this were some stalker creep, then I needed to know more info to add him to my background search.
Axel had only found one previous ex named Phil Bach in his deep dive into her, but that man lived in Ohio , so I doubted he was involved. Still , I needed more information.
“Weirdo?” I asked, hoping one of them would give me details.
“She didn’t tell you about weirdo bird guy?
” Talia asked, almost offended on my behalf that Ace hadn’t filled me in.
“ His name is Ted —or so the email says. He emails us at least once a week, always to the attention of Anna here. He wants her to do a story on how birds aren’t real.
” She held up her hands to use air quotes.
“ Pigeons are really drones that the government set up back in the seventies to spy on us. So if you see a pigeon…it’s not real. ”
What did she just say?
“He’s just mad because Anna did a really good piece last year on the new bird sanctuary that opened up on the north side of town,” Dan explained.
“ The dumbass is upset because Anna wasted her time covering a sanctuary for drones . Now he emails the station every week, upset and demanding she correct her story.”
He’s mad. Great . Another person to keep an eye on.
Dan turned to Anna and pointed at her. “ You should let him read the emails. He’d get a kick out of them.”
Ace rolled her eyes and shook her head. “ It is entirely possible to read something you don’t agree with on the internet…and simply move on with your life . A sad fact that many people clearly do not understand.”
That was absolutely the truth. I was happy she wasn’t bothered all that much by this prick, but I was on her behalf. There were so many people out there in the world who just needed to mind their own business. This guy seemed like a piece of work.
“Oh, and don’t forget her boyfriend, Giovanni ,” Talia added. “ Though he mostly just emails to say she is beautiful and awesome and wants to marry her.”
Just because this Giovanni guy wasn’t angry like the other didn’t mean I didn’t need to keep an eye out for him. The last thing I needed while trying to keep her safe from a mafia hit was also dealing with a crazed stalker. I texted both names to Axel just to be sure.
The show went off without a hitch, as did the rest of her shift.
She had a dinner break but was busy catching up on work, so we just got food delivered. She worked on her show, and I worked on my laptop to get caught up on some invoices that Ruthie had sent me to fill out and approve.
Ace had just finished her final show later in the night, and we were about to head back to my place. She was packing up her bag when my phone buzzed with a text.
Vince:
Dad was able to dig up some interesting intel. Wade and I are on the way to your place.
Archer:
It’s almost midnight, you wanna just fill me in tomorrow morning?
Vince:
No. My dad and Jack will meet us there too. See you in 15.
Shit. Not only was it not a good sign that it couldn’t wait until the morning, but he was also bringing the cavalry.
Vince’s dad was a retired bounty hunter and former cop, but he still had a lot of friends in the business and had reached out to them on my behalf to find out what he could about the bounties placed on our heads.
I didn’t want to worry Ace , so I figured I would just tell her right before we arrived at my house.
We walked out of the building with Talia and Dan , my focus on scanning the parking lot, Ace behind me as we’d discussed.
“Ugh. It’s almost midnight and it’s still so hot,” Ace announced to the group. “ Fall is my favorite season, but it’s so hot lately I feel like I’m being cheated.”
“It’s supposed to cool down later this week, so don’t go complaining when the temperature drops by thirty degrees,” Talia informed us.
“Don’t you threaten me with a good time!” Dan shot back. “ I’m sweating in places I didn’t know I could sweat, and it’s October !”