chapter nine

meghan

Could someone just rob a bank or something?

As much as I personally enjoyed talking to Owen and Mason that morning, writing their article almost put me to sleep. I could usually knock out a piece like that in thirty minutes, but I found myself staring at a blinking cursor a lot that day. I wasn’t finding it very easy to make interactive snap circuits sound exciting.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t the content of the story slowing me down. Maybe it was my own distracted mind. I kept thinking about Chase and his infuriating ability to make me smile without even trying. His charm actually irritated me–mostly because I hated that it still worked on me.

Shaking off every thought of him, I forced myself to focus on the STEAM article until it was finally finished. I normally bypassed Graham’s proofreading when it came to web content, so after integrating the video Chase uploaded, the article was officially out into the world. “Let the subscriptions come flooding in,” I mumbled to myself.

Over in the next cubicle, Xander was hammering away at his keyboard, likely transcribing something, judging from the speed in which he typed and the absence of pauses.

Graham held a typing contest for us once, and I’d beaten him by just a hair.

As much as I tried to concentrate on my own transcriptions and the phone calls I needed to make, my curiosity kept pulling my attention toward Xander. What was he working on over there? Was his article going to outperform mine? He had a knack for stirring the pot with his stories, which usually resulted in Graham having a total meltdown. But that controversial edge would probably give him the upper hand in our competition.

I had to know.

I stood up, grabbed my desk chair, and wheeled it into his cubicle, pulling up right beside him. Xander, sensing my presence, pulled his earbuds out and paused the voice memo he’d been listening to. With a slightly annoyed glance, he closed his laptop as if he were guarding some top-secret information. He blinked at me. “Can I help you?”

I couldn’t let him know I was scoping out the competition. “I was just wondering if you ever did that DNA kit I got you,” I said, propping my elbows up on his desk. Last Christmas, I gifted just about everyone I knew an ancestry kit, which—selfishly—might have been more of a present for me than it was for them. So far, Graham and Jillian had let me pore over their info with them. Graham connected with an uncle he never knew he had, which may have been even more exciting for me than it was for him.

Xander sighed, pulling his dark hair away from his eyes with his palm. “I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

I crossed my arms. “Xander! Don’t you want to know where you came from? I bet you’ve got some Italian in you.”

He inhaled, putting his earbuds back in their case. “You’re right, I do. I had Moretti’s for lunch.” As he spoke, I attempted to casually glance at the title of the voice memo on his phone, but he caught me. Tilting his head to the side, he swiped up on his screen to close out of the app. “You want to know what Jillian and I were up to this morning, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t care. Because Chase and I covered something really… exciting.” My mind flashed back to Owen and Mason playing a competitive game of Checkers on the big tablet at the library to demonstrate its features.

Maybe “exciting” wasn’t the right word.

Xander leaned back, mimicking my pose with his arms crossed. “Is it more exciting than a sweet little old lady with a parrot that can quote Forrest Gump by heart?”

I scowled at him. “Oh come on, that is not what you’re writing about.” Xander was above fluff pieces like that, always passing them on to me, Graham, or even Byron. If it was in any way heartwarming or uplifting, he considered it beneath him.

He just shrugged, examining his fingernails. “Cute pets sell subscriptions, Meghan. And Jillian and I just interviewed an African grey parrot named Reginald. Or Reggie, for short.”

“Shut the fuck up.” He wouldn’t really sell himself out just to win this competition, would he?

Xander lifted one hand, keeping the rest of his body still as he tapped his phone and pushed PLAY on his voice memo. I was not at all prepared for the immediate squawk, followed by a screeching, “Run, Forrest!”

No fucking way. “How did you keep a straight face?”

Xander paused the voice memo. “I just pictured myself at that conference in NYC.”

God, I hated him more than Chase at that moment. I shook my head, trying not to smile. He was taking this competition pretty seriously, which meant Chase and I would have to come up with something really special to blow him out of the water. Owen Gardner was cool, but not Forrest-Gump -quoting-parrot cool. “Keep picturing it, Xan,” I said, standing up to wheel my chair back to my own cubicle, “because that’s as close as you’re going to get.”

**

One of the most important things on my calendar each week was a standing appointment with Jillian. Location? Poppy’s Bar and Grill. Purpose? To bitch about our lives and indulge in whatever seasonal Thirsty Thursday special the place was currently offering. We rarely canceled, both of us understanding this ritual was our version of therapy.

“Whoever decided lavender should become a trendy drink flavor needs their head examined,” I said, wincing after taking a sip of my lavender lemon drop martini. “I’m glad I only paid four dollars for this.”

Jill, who had almost reached the bottom of her own glass, giggled as she flipped over the drink menu. “And I’m thinking of ordering a second one. But I wonder how many calories are in these things?”

Over the years, I’d watched Jill cycle through different diets and workout programs, feeling pressure from the constant scrutiny that came with being a newscaster. A viewer once told her they loved how she wasn’t “stick-skinny like other reporters,” and Jillian didn’t take it well.

That person had managed to both insult other women and ruin Jillian’s body image with that back-handed compliment, and I hated them for it.

“They’re totally zero calories,” I said, scooting my drink across the table to her. “Finish mine for me. Please.”

“Maybe I would if I hadn’t driven us here,” she said.

As it turned out, I was dealing with more than just a dead battery—it was a bad alternator caused by a wiring issue. Basically, my car was completely fucked, and they told me it would be several days before they could get to it. “So is Chase going to be your personal chauffeur for a while?”

Jillian, the little masochist, enjoyed seeing my discomfort over the mention of Chase. She giggled, swirling the ice around in her empty glass. “Keep laughing, Jill. I’m not the one who interviewed a parrot today.”

“Xander told you, huh?” She hid behind her face, laughing even harder. “You should’ve seen the way he dry-heaved when we stepped out of that lady’s house. It smelled like a zoo in there.”

“Funny, he left that part out.” I shook my head. “I’m anxious to see our stats in the morning. He’s going to be so cocky if he pulls more subscriptions than me.”

“You interviewed Owen Gardner, right? That should catch people’s attention.”

“I hope so,” I said, pausing our conversation when the server brought us our food; a burger for me, and a Caesar salad for her. I shook myhead, pouring ketchup onto my plate. “What else do you guys have scheduled? I want to know what Chase and I are up against.”

Jill shot me a sheepish grin. “You’ll just have to see.”

I laughed. “Whatever. Just tell me.”

But she shook her head, pretending to zip her lips. “I can’t spill our secrets. Xander would have mythroat. On second thought…” She slowly brought her hand to her neck, likely imagining Xander choking her.

“Oh my God. First of all, why are you like this? Second, are you my friend, or his?”

“Only one of you is promising me an interview with the elusive Pearl Town biker gang if we win, so…” With a nonchalant shrug, she popped a crouton into her mouth and smiled. “I have been trying to get an in with them for years. He’s got connections.”

“That dirty, manipulative, little snake,” I said. Of course he had connections with Pearl Town. It was one of those places you heard about but never really saw for yourself. Tucked away near the river on the south side of town, the community was practically a world of its own, run by a biker gang who was known for roughing up anyone who came into their territory. You’d have to be crazy to enter that neighborhood uninvited, which was why it didn’t surprise me Xander somehow had a connection there. “Should’ve known he’d get you to conspire against me.”

All Jill could do was laugh. “I’m sorry. He and I are just going to have fun with this. You and Chase could, too, you know.” She raised one eyebrow at me. “I mean, you used to with Woodvale Whispers ?”

I was surprised she remembered the name of the blog Chase and I shared. Of course we had fun together back then, sometimes spending an entire day scouting locations and committing mild acts of vandalism. Our initials were etched into more abandoned houses than I could count, usually inside a jagged heart Chase carved with his pocketknife. “Yeah, well, that was ages ago,” I said. “He still does his ghost thing, and I still do my gravestone thing. Just, you know, separately.”

“I still think you should revive it, but okay,” she said, not really conceding. “So what dead person are you writing about this month?”

I washed down a bite of my burger with a sip of water, and I began to tell her all about Fannie Decker, including what I’d learned that afternoon: Fannie was a vocal opponent of the town’s temperance movement. When they were trying to cut down on alcohol consumption in Woodvale, she was quoted in the Times saying, “The Temperance Society seems a bit overwrought; perhaps a sip of apple brandy would do wonders to calm their nerves.”

Jillian’s mouth dropped when I shared that little tidbit with her.

“If your nerdy ex-boyfriend ever invents time travel,” she said, “we are so going back to the eighteen hundreds and befriending this bad bitch.”

“Agreed.”

We toasted Fannie and wrapped up our meal, deciding to call it a night. Jillian waited until my door unlocked before driving off, the same I would for her. I clicked my tongue for Wanda, who was sitting just inside the kitchen next to her empty food dish, glaring at me like I’d just committed a heinous crime against her. “I don’t think you’re going to starve anytime soon,” I said, slipping my shoes off. She meowed when she saw me reaching for the plastic cereal container I kept her food in. But before I could pour it into her dish, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Chase: get that voodoo doll of Silas ready

Meghan: Why?

Chase: He’s shadowing me (us) tomorrow at that ribbon-cutting

Meghan: Whyyyyyyyyy?

Chase: He wants to see me in action, he said. I think he’s doubting my professionalism

Meghan: As he should.

Chase: Says the woman who giggled like a schoolgirl during her interview today.

Meghan: I never giggle.

Chase: You’re right, sinister cackling is more your style. I’m starting to think you’re a descendant of the Woodvale Witch.

Meghan: I fucking wish.

Deciding she was done waiting on me, Wanda headbutted my phone, knocking it out of my hand. “If I were a witch, would that make you my familiar?”

She let out a chirpy meow in response—but that probably had more to do with her impending death by starvation than my ridiculous question. But I took it as a yes, anyway. After filling her dish, I scratched her butt as she ate, and my phone lit up with another notification.

Chase: You’d probably put a curse on me

Meghan: Bold of you to assume I haven’t already.