Chapter 22
Ellory made her way to the building that housed the Warren Communiqué office that Friday.
Her phone was silent in her bag, undisturbed by messages or calls.
She had made no effort to reach out to Hudson, and he had made even less effort to reach out to her.
If he thought his silence would derail her investigation, she was excited to prove him wrong.
If he had abandoned her to protect Boone, she wanted to know why.
And if she had other reasons for her nerves as she approached the front doors, that was something she could keep to herself.
She had walked by this place many times on her way to one class or another, but she’d never allowed herself the luxury of slowing down to admire it in earnest. It was done in a Gothic style, with a single pointed arch that bore a stained glass rose window.
The black door in the gray-washed stone was decorated on either side by columns with two lions carved into them.
Inside, marbled hallways led to an elevator that declared the Communiqué was on the top floor.
The staircase was directly to the right, with a sign on the door that said ROOF ACCESS.
Ellory tugged her cropped hoodie down over her bare stomach as the elevator took her to the penthouse.
She buttoned and then unbuttoned her coat.
Her hands couldn’t decide whether they wanted to stay in her pockets or not.
The many times she had imagined coming here, it had been under such different circumstances.
Now she couldn’t even stand in an elevator without hearing the disappointed voice of her aunt Carol, chiding her for wasting her time on a money sieve like journalism. Even if she had a good reason.
Even if she wanted this.
Ding.
Ellory had expected the floor to be quiet, but people filled the area, sitting behind desks, laughing by the stained glass window, pushing a whiteboard from one glass-walled office to another.
A printer was running, loud and steady. The air smelled of coffee and excitement.
Eyes latched onto her as soon as she stepped out of the elevator, but when she tried to find the prying gazes, there didn’t seem to be a single person looking up from their computer.
To her left was a container full of the latest issue of the Warren Communiqué, a front-page story bragging about the victory of the soccer team at an away game. Ellory realized she was searching the crowd in the picture for Hudson and dragged her eyes away.
“Well, well, well,” said Boone, appearing from behind a column.
In defiance of the weather, he wore a short-sleeved black shirt with a deep V-neck that revealed a hint of the crow tattoo across his chest, and tan cargo pants.
Somewhere on his ink-covered arms was the alchemical symbol she was looking for, hiding in plain sight.
There was a marker behind his ear and a cap embroidered with TWC over his messy hair.
“They told me we had a novice, but I didn’t expect it to be Miss Ellory Morgan. ”
“Hi, Boone,” she said, ignoring the sudden kick of her pulse. “I didn’t know you were on the newspaper.”
“I run the newspaper,” he corrected. “I was made editor in chief this year. Walk with me.”
With his back to her, it became even more obvious how guileless he was in her presence, as if they were old friends. It was the performance of a lifetime if he was truly involved with the Old Masters.
Boone took her to one of the glass offices, which had a round table, several empty chairs, and a whiteboard that was half-full of what was labeled STORY PITCHES.
Without the label, Ellory never could have guessed, because all she saw was DUCKS, FOLLOW-UP, THAT ONE FUCKING DELI, and a picture of what looked like the Babadook.
He slid the door closed and threw himself down in one of the chairs. His booted feet found the table, lifting the front legs of his chair off the ground. “What can I do for you, Morgan?”
“I know it’s late into the semester, but I was wondering if you guys are looking for new reporters?
” Ellory settled into a chair of her own, but she couldn’t seem to get comfortable.
She crossed her feet at the ankles, right over left, then left over right.
A wayward pen had been left on the table.
She straightened it. “I have an idea for an article I’d like to write, if so. ”
Boone looked more curious than convinced. “Why the sudden interest in the paper? You don’t need to befriend all of us to date Blackwood, you know.”
“This isn’t about Liam,” she snapped. Then she swallowed. “I mean—”
“Don’t you dare fucking apologize. I like you more with your claws out.
” There was a twinkle in his eyes that would have put the stars to shame.
“I meant that you haven’t expressed an interest in the paper before now.
Hell, even when it comes to people who are majors, I always ask them the same questions: Why are you really here?
What do you want out of being a reporter? ”
“The truth.” Ellory was surprised by how easily the answer came.
How right it felt. How it didn’t feel like she was only talking about this tangled mystery.
“I know that newspapers control the conversation and that all of them have their own agenda to push. But I’m here because I want to find the truth.
I want to write stories that illuminate some dark corner of our knowledge of the world. I want that truth to be powerful.”
Her hands trembled on the table. That sense of déjà vu was back, like she had given this speech before, like she’d sat in this room before.
She looked around, trying to place the glass walls and the curious faces pretending not to watch them from the other side of it.
The muted bubble of the coffee machine making another round for the already-frazzled reporters.
The gorgeous prism of colors the glass window stretched across the floor.
The tapping of keys as people put the finishing touches on stories that could change the world—or at least the campus.
It felt familiar and unfamiliar.
It felt like magic.
Maybe Hudson’s logic professor had been right. Maybe believing in something was its own kind of magic.
Her eyes returned to Boone, who was watching her in silence. She straightened her shoulders. “I’m going to pitch you my story now.”
“The floor is yours,” said Boone, a smile buried in the corner of his mouth.
Ellory had devoted her weekend to cobbling this idea together, inspired by her endless recordings on the strange happenings on campus.
She’d practiced her casual, passionate tone, shaping the piece into something that was publishable, sensational, and a perfect excuse to be found in places she shouldn’t have been.
Now she told Boone the highlights of her research into Warren University history and the legacy families who had built it.
A feature on each of those families would not only expand their understanding of the school, she said, but it might also result in extra funding for the newspaper. After all, who didn’t love good press?
“Which is not to say that it would be a fluff piece,” she concluded.
“I plan to ask tough questions, then verify with interviews and independent research. But I looked at old articles here and in local papers, and it’s been a while since these names were spotlighted.
I think no matter how the story turns out, they’ll be flattered. ”
Boone’s chair hit the floor, and his feet joined it a moment later.
He walked over to the whiteboard, freeing the marker from behind his ear to write, FAMOUS FUCKERS.
She caught a flash of his tattoo and swallowed, silenced by an inexplicable hope that she was wrong, that Boone had nothing to do with the Old Masters at all.
“Welcome to the Communiqué, Morgan,” he said with a grin she had no idea how to interpret. “Let me start you on the merch closet.”
***
Even though Ellory was balancing a hat, two hoodies, a T-shirt, and a PopSocket on top of her bag, she was buoyant with joy.
It wasn’t a real assignment, and she wasn’t really on the paper, but her invigorated body hadn’t gotten the memo.
The usual clamor of Moneta Hall couldn’t hold her attention.
Instead, she ruminated on ways to approach the article.
Her favorite part of a story was all the legwork that came before writing it.
Research and sources. Leads and fact-checking.
She might have pitched Boone an excuse to do what she was already doing, prying her fingers into the history that Warren wanted to keep hidden, but she still wanted to impress.
Besides, she now had full access to a digitized archive of Communiqué issues, a budding list of families she wanted to interrogate about Malcolm Mayhew, and an excuse to spend more time with Boone until she could use him to get to the Old Masters.
Everything was connected. She had to figure out how—even if that meant working alone.
The elevator dinged open, and she shuffled out onto her floor.
An unusual tension seeped into her muscles, but she chalked it up to her expanding to-do list and the endless tasks that would fill her afternoon.
It wasn’t until she rearranged everything she was carrying to find her room key that she realized she was being watched.
A hooded figure stood in front of her dorm room, too short to be Stasie and too suspicious to be Tai.