Chapter 2
Sloane
Some mistakes you can apologize for. Others you just have to live with.
I'd chosen to live with mine by burying myself in work so deep I didn't have time to think about them.
Deadlines instead of memories. Bylines instead of regrets.
Most days, it even worked.
I'd been lying in the dark for twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling, running through the story I was chasing.
Housing discrimination in Sunset Park. A landlord was systematically evicting elderly tenants to flip units to market rate.
Three sources were willing to go on record, but I needed a fourth.
The city housing authority wasn't returning my calls.
Which meant I was getting close to something they didn't want me to find.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and reached for my phone. Overnight news alerts first. Twelve emails, three flagged as urgent. A text from my editor that just said Call me when you're in. Nothing that couldn't wait for coffee.
Coffee was the one indulgence I allowed myself. Expensive beans from a roaster in Red Hook, ground fresh every morning, brewed in a pour-over that took exactly four minutes and produced something close to a religious experience.
I drank it standing at my kitchen counter, scrolling through headlines, letting the caffeine hit my bloodstream like a key turning in a lock.
Six miles through Brooklyn, rain or shine. My body moved on autopilot while my brain worked.
The housing story needed another week, maybe two. A source in the comptroller's office had promised documents by the end of the day.
But sources promised a lot of things.
Mile four. The burn started in my calves and worked its way up. I pushed through it.
Pain was just information. Discomfort was just a signal that you were doing something hard.
I'd learned that lesson young. First in track. Then in journalism. Then, in the particular crucible of building a career in a field that didn't want women to succeed.
By mile six, my lungs were screaming, and my mind was finally, mercifully quiet.
I showered fast.
Hair pulled back. Minimal makeup—concealer for the circles under my eyes, mascara because my lashes were invisible without it, lip balm that was technically tinted but didn't count as lipstick.
I wanted to be taken seriously. Pretty was a liability in my industry. Pretty got you assigned to fluff pieces and morning show appearances while the men covered wars and corruption and everything that actually mattered.
My apartment was small, but mine.
A one-bedroom in Park Slope that ate half my salary but gave me a sliver of outdoor space and enough room for the bookshelves that lined every wall.
Journalism memoirs. Investigative deep-dives.
Dog-eared copies of All the President's Men and The Journalist and the Murderer—spines cracked from rereading.
A corkboard by my desk covered in index cards and colored string. Three stories in various stages of development. The kind of organized chaos that made sense only to me.
On the wall opposite my bed: framed front pages.
My biggest breaks. The foster care investigation that changed state policy. The Lang family exposé that put a councilman's son in prison.
Proof that what I did mattered.
I caught my reflection in the mirror by the door.
Thirty-two years old. Sharp features my mother always said would age well—high cheekbones, a jaw with definition, the kind of face that photographed severely unless I remembered to smile. The scar above my left eyebrow from a collision during college soccer. Freckles across my nose.
Twenty-two. The year everything started. The year I met a firefighter who thought my anger was magnificent and meant it.
That was ten years ago. I'd been without him for eight of them.
Green eyes that had learned, over the years, to give away nothing.
I looked like a woman who had her life together.
Most days, I even believed it.
The Times newsroom never slept.
That was the thing about a twenty-four-hour news cycle—always someone at a desk, always a phone ringing, always a story breaking somewhere that needed covering. The building hummed with it. That particular energy of people who believed what they wrote could change things.
Keyboards clacking. Editors calling across the floor. The smell of burnt coffee, ambition, and deadline pressure.
I walked through it like I belonged there.
My desk was in the investigative unit—a cluster of reporters who spent months or years on single stories, digging into systems and institutions and the powerful people who thought they were untouchable.
The desk itself was neat but lived-in. Stacks of folders organized by case. A corkboard with sources and leads pinned in a pattern only I understood. A coffee mug that said "Nevertheless, She Persisted"—gift from my sister, technically ironic, completely sincere.
The Pulitzer nomination plaque was in my bottom drawer. Face-down. The Vickers series — three parts that changed state policy and led me back into Engine 295's orbit for the first time since I'd left New York. Since I'd left him.
I didn't need to look at it. I knew what I'd done. And who I'd spent a decade circling without ever being brave enough to land.
I settled into my chair, powered on my laptop, and was three emails deep when Mira appeared at my desk.
"Charlton wants you." She jerked her thumb toward the corner office. "Now."
Marianne Charlton had been at the Times for thirty years. Covered Watergate as a cub reporter. Broken stories that brought down senators and CEOs. Survived every wave of layoffs, buyouts, and digital pivots that had decimated the industry.
At sixty-two, she had silver hair she refused to dye, reading glasses she refused to admit she needed, and a gaze sharp enough to cut through bullshit at fifty paces.
She was the best editor I'd ever worked for.
"Close the door." She didn't look up from the file in front of her. "Sit."
I sat.
"We have a situation." She finally met my eyes and slid a folder across the desk. "Serial arson. Five fires in the last three months, all suspicious, all matching a particular MO. Fire marshal thinks they're connected, but FDNY isn't sharing details with the press."
I opened the folder.
Crime scene photos. Incident reports. A map with pins marking each location. Buildings scattered across different neighborhoods, different boroughs. At first glance, nothing obvious connected them—different owners, different property types, different tenant demographics.
But serial arsonists didn't pick targets at random. There was always a pattern.
Always a reason.
I flipped through the photos.
Charred interiors. Collapsed ceilings. The particular devastation fire leaves behind—not just destruction but erasure. Everything that made a place someone's home was reduced to ash and memory.
"What's the MO?" I asked.
"That's exactly what they won't say." Marianne's mouth thinned. "Accelerant type, ignition method, timing—they're keeping it locked down. No press briefings, no official statements beyond 'investigation ongoing.' Which means they're either protecting something or they have nothing."
"And you want me to find out which."
"I want you to get inside." She leaned forward. "You've built relationships with the FDNY before. The Vickers case. The Lang investigation."
My stomach dropped.
Shane Briggs, who'd reached out about the Vickers story and become something like a friend. Brian Torres and Ava Rothwell, who'd trusted me with the Lang investigation. I'd managed to work with Engine 295 twice without dealing directly with Garrett. Shane for Vickers. Brian and Ava for Lang.
Careful. Strategic. Professional.
But a case this big, this complex, requiring this much access—
"Use whatever connections you have," Marianne said. "Get me inside this investigation."
I closed the folder. "I'll see what I can do."
The apartment was dark when I got home, but the kitchen light was on.
Pierce.
I'd forgotten he was coming over. Or maybe I hadn't forgotten so much as pushed it to the back of my mind, where I'd been pushing a lot of things lately.
The case files in my bag felt heavy. My brain was still churning through leads and angles and the particular dread of knowing I couldn't avoid Garrett Stone forever.
"Hey, babe." Pierce emerged from the kitchen, dish towel over his shoulder, and kissed my cheek. "Rough day?"
"Just long." I dropped my bag by the door. "Something smells good."
"Salmon. Roasted vegetables. That quinoa you like."
Pierce Harrison was, by any objective measure, a catch. Thirty-five. Finance. Good-looking in that clean-cut, gym-membership, tailored-suit way that photographed well at charity galas. Kind eyes. Nice smile. A 401(k) that would make my mother weep with joy.
We'd been dating for two years. He had a drawer in my apartment. I had a key to his.
It should have been enough.
Dinner was pleasant. It was always pleasant.
Pierce talked about his quarterly reports, a deal he was closing, and the vacation he wanted to take in December. I talked about the new case—serial arson, complicated, going to require long hours.
His smile flickered.
"That sounds dangerous."
"It's journalism, Pierce. It's all a little dangerous."
"I just worry about you." He reached across the table, covered my hand with his. "You know that."
I did know that. Pierce worried about everything—my hours, my sources, the neighborhoods I went into chasing stories. He worried when I was late, when I forgot to text, and when I came home smelling like smoke from a ride-along.
His worry was constant. Comprehensive. Suffocating in a way I'd never figured out how to name.
"I know," I said.
We finished dinner. Cleared the plates.
The comfortable rhythm of two people who'd learned each other's patterns. Who could move around a kitchen without colliding. Who knew how to fill silence without saying anything that mattered.
Pierce was loading the dishwasher when he said, casually, "I've been thinking."