29. Grace
Grace
I lock the front door behind me when my phone rings. I fish it out of my pocket and freeze.
Toby.
My heart does something complicated. We haven’t spoken in weeks—only texts, clipped and functional. The Vitale situation hasn’t moved, at least not that I’m aware of, and he gets daily updates on the feature. There’s no obvious reason for him to be calling.
Except… Blane’s back in the office.
The thought lands like a stone. I’d sent him packing with enough weight behind my words he shouldn’t dare—but Blane has always been better at nursing a grudge than letting one go. Would he walk back into the paper and say something? Use what he saw out here as leverage?
I press accept before I spiral.
“Toby.” I jog toward the car, already running the math on how late I can afford to be.
“Buchanan, did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Maybe.” I drop into the driver’s seat and hit the start button. “I’m on my way to the memorial for Hartley’s father.”
My last text to him had been about this and how I wasn’t sure it was a fit for the feature. It’s strange to say Hartley’s father the way I might say any other subject’s next of kin—clinical, professional.
But the words feel wrong now in a way I wouldn’t have predicted when I first arrived in Winslow Grove. Somewhere along the way, the story stopped being the only thing I could see.
That’s the problem, isn’t it. Or is it?
My journalist’s lens—the one I’ve honed and sharpened, the one that used to snap into focus the moment I walked into a room—is slipping. Not all at once, but in increments. Moments where I forget to take mental notes. A conversation with Maddox where I’m simply present, not compiling.
I still know what belongs in the feature and what belongs only to us, that line I hold carefully, but the effort it takes to hold it has changed.
It used to be instinct. Now, it’s a choice I have to make consciously, over and over, every time he looks at me in a way that has nothing to do with the feature.
I’m not sure when that shifted, and I’m not sure it matters anymore.
“I’ll keep it short.” Toby’s voice pulls me back. “Wickes and I have been talking.” His pause is deliberate, the kind he uses when he’s measuring what to give away. “About putting someone else on the Vitale story.”
I slam the brakes, and the car lurches to a stop in the middle of the empty street. My grip tightens on the wheel.
“What?” The word comes out harder than I intend. “Did something happen? Did Vitale—”
“No,” he cuts in cleanly. “We’re still in negotiations. Nothing has changed.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“It’s just a conversation, Buchanan. Nothing’s been decided.”
Just a conversation.
Toby doesn’t make calls like this for conversations. He makes calls like this when a decision is already half formed, and he’s giving you the courtesy of hearing it from him before the email lands in your inbox.
I ease the car onto the shoulder, engine idling, and stare out at the road ahead.
He isn’t giving me the full picture. I can feel the shape of what he’s leaving out—the careful phrasing, the things he’s choosing not to say—and I know better than to push too hard. Pushing will only make him close off entirely.
So I sit with it, the way I would in an interview, and let the silence do what silence does. This gets me nowhere because he doesn’t offer anything more.
“Okay.” My voice is steady even as something tightens in my chest. “Can we talk more about this later?”
“Of course. Go.”
The call ends, and I sit there for a moment, the phone warm in my hand, Ray’s service waiting, and the question of Vitale hanging in the air like something unfinished.
Except—and this is the part that surprises me—it doesn’t feel the way I expected it to.
A month ago, the thought of being pulled from the story would have wrecked me. Vitale was everything. The investigation I believed in down to my bones, the thing I was sure would give justice to Cary and many others.
Now I’m sitting on the side of a road in Winslow Grove on my way to stand beside a man I’m falling for as he remembers and honors his father, and what I feel isn’t devastation.
It’s something closer to clarity.
I’ve spent so long telling myself that the story—Vitale, Trintol, the byline, the next thing, and the thing after that—was the path.
The only one that made sense for someone like me, the one I owed it to myself to walk, to honor my brother.
I’ve been doing it for too many years, building my whole identity around the pursuit of it, around never standing still long enough to want something different.
But then there’s Maddox Hartley.
Warm and present in ways I didn’t expect. The kind of man who makes your heart swell to twice its size because he’s listening. Who makes a high school basketball game feel priceless. I didn’t come here looking for any of that. I wasn’t looking at all.
And yet here I am—pulled over on the side of a road, late to a memorial, heart doing things that make no sense for a woman with a one-way ticket back to LA—and all I can think about is getting to him.
I pull back onto the road, the engine steady beneath me, the town opening ahead in the last of the evening light.
Whatever Toby decides about Vitale, whatever comes next, I’m not sure it has the hold over me it once did. And for the first time, that thought doesn’t scare me.
Raymond Hartley’s service ends the way most things like this do—slowly, reluctantly, as if no one quite knows how to be the first to stand.
Raf and Eddie spoke about Ray, trading stories that made the room laugh and ache in equal measure.
There wasn’t a dry eye left by the time they finished.
Not even mine. My tears came quietly, without warning, as I saw how deeply one man shaped so many lives just by showing up and being kind-hearted.
Eventually, the crowd spills out onto the street, and I follow, letting the press of people guide me forward. When this evening started, I wasn’t sure if I’d capture any of this for the feature, and now, more than ever, it doesn’t feel right to do so.
Tonight isn’t about Maddox “The Mad One” Hartley and his racing career. This is about a man, his family, and the people who loved him.
The town square is alive. People drift in and out of the buildings to warm up, to grab something hot, to linger over shared memories. Bloom we’re good.”
“What about interviews? Video clips? I’ve got everything ready.” She gestures toward her gear tucked near the building. “Just say the word.”
“That’ll come. Just not tonight. I’ll reach out soon with next steps.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Thank you, Zoe. Have a good night.”
She nods and slips back into the crowd in the direction of Meri and Katie, who move through the gathering like beacons, stopping often, hands clasped, heads tipped close as stories are exchanged.
Ray’s name floats on the air, threaded through smiles and sighs, carried with affection rather than heaviness. Ten years have eased the sharpest edges, even if the loss itself remains.
I make my way toward Meri, catching her between conversations. She looks tired but steady, her smile genuine if a little worn.
“How are you doing? This is for you.” I hand her a steaming cup of tea. “To keep you warm.”
“Aw, thank you.” She wraps a gloved hand around the cup. “I’m fine, really, I am.”
I slide my hands into my jacket pockets. “Have you seen Maddox?”
She shakes her head. “No. I haven’t seen him all day.”
Something in her voice tells me she isn’t surprised.
“He was gone before I woke up this morning. I had a feeling he would be. This…” She gestures gently toward the square, the people, the easy togetherness. “He hasn’t been in a setting like this since the funeral.”
My chest tightens, though I keep my expression neutral.
“We might not see him tonight.” She sounds as though she’s speaking to herself, only just realizing this now. “He needs space. Always has.” Her hand comes to my arm and gives a gentle rub. “Thank you for being here, Grace.”
Before I can respond, someone approaches her, readying to talk, and Meri smiles and steps away. I stay where I am for a moment longer, still scanning the square.
Still no Maddox.
I dig my hands deep into my pockets, wondering where he is and whether giving him space is the same thing as leaving him alone.
Almost as if I can sense him, I glance toward the far end of the square. And there he is.