by S. F. Kosa
She seemed so earnest. So real. “Listen—you seem great,” Christy said. “But…”
“You’re worried about my friends?” Eszter laughed. “They are seriously the nicest people in the world, and we’re all just trying to help each other. And if I hadn’t found them, I’m pretty sure I would have died under the Burnside Bridge last winter. So there’s that.”
Christy chuckled weakly. She’d slept under that bridge one of her first nights in Portland.
“You could just come for dinner. But if you want, I think there’s also an open cot.” Eszter grinned. “And probably a few more of those muffins. Ladonna makes a few batches every day.”
“It’s just a house?” asked Christy.
Eszter nodded. “A pretty crowded one, but a lot of us were on the street once. We take care of one another.”
“Okay, so, like, a crack house?”
“A crack house where we bake muffins? If you want to live with us, you have to be clean.” Eszter pushed herself to her feet. “Come on. Now I just need you to look at it so you can see that it’s not what you’re picturing. And if it looks like a crack house or if you don’t like the paint color, you can keep walking to whatever important appointment you’ve got happening next.” She held up one of her bags and gave Christy a playful wink. “I’ll even throw in a change of clothes and ten dollars for the trip.”
Christy slowly stood up, her limbs stiff with cold. The arms of the sweatshirt hung past her fingertips and thighs, and still she was freezing. But her thoughts pulsed with hope. She poked her fingers into the Starbucks cup and pulled out her two quarters. Tucked them into the back pocket of her ratty jeans. Eszter looked soft and slow and serious, like she desperately wanted to do good. If the worst that could happen was ten dollars and a change of clothes, it was worth the time.
And she couldn’t think of one thing she had left to lose.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m game.”
Chapter Two
Seattle, Washington
December 9, present day
It’s a little after seven when I sit down in front of my laptop with my coffee, but I’ve been awake since three, thrown from sleep by a scrum of crazy dreams, flooding culverts, wet earth, all the clouds on fire. It’s a relief to see my screen blink to life, to open up Facebook and see that other people still exist and the world isn’t falling apart—at least not literally. Outside my window, clumps of snow tumble down, melting before they even hit the ground. Running to work this morning is going to suck.
December is an unsettled month for me no matter where I am. I’d hoped this year would be different, but here we are. It always starts just after Thanksgiving: My sleep falls apart. I eat even less than I normally do, log more miles than usual. I’m relieved when the New Year arrives, solid evidence of the distance between me and the past. With two exceptions, there’s nothing I want to revisit.
Eric is one of those exceptions. I log in to my account. Well. Not my account. Dora Rodriguez has a few professional listings but doesn’t do social media.
Eric has so many friends that he hasn’t noticed that two of them are Tammy Deering. He was in a play with her in fourth grade. He probably accepted my friend request without noticing the duplication, just saw the familiar name and brought me into the fold. The real Tammy hasn’t noticed either, maybe because she’s long since become Tammy Horton. Or maybe because the fake Tammy Deering has never actually posted or otherwise called attention to herself. Her profile pic is of a cute dog—a Pembroke Welsh corgi—just like the pet the real Tammy once brought to school dressed up as a little hot dog, something nine-year-old Eric talked about for weeks.
Fake Tammy only has six friends, four of whom are randos who also like corgis and one of whom is someone Eric went to college with who also has a corgi. Her name is Liza Coates, and she friend-requested me about a year ago. I accepted because it lends me an air of legitimacy, but she actually turned out to be a cool person who I chat with from time to time.
And the sixth friend is him.
Eric turned thirty-four in October and seems to be having a pretty good life, thank god. He’s just posted pictures of his kids dressed up for a holiday party, in shorts and light jackets now that they live down in Texas. The boy, Nathan, just turned six, and the girl, Emma, is only three. Two fair-haired, cherub-cheeked bundles of nonstop energy—if Eric’s posts are to be believed—who seem to be living a very different childhood from the one their father endured.
I drink in the pictures of my brother, my niece and nephew, and read all the comments from a few people I once knew and many I never did. I linger over an image of Eric and his wife with the children, their smiles huge as they pose in their matching superhero Halloween costumes. He looks so, so happy. I know Facebook isn’t necessarily the place where people go to present the naked reality of their lives, but I hope the pictures he posts are at the very least a truth in and of themselves. I want to believe that in that one moment, they really were as happy as they look. I stare at his face in an attempt to overwrite the memory of how it looked the last time I saw him: rounded with youth, stricken with the pain I caused.
He looks like he’s gotten over it. And I’m glad.
His green dot appears, so I log out. I finish my coffee and scowl at the winter outside my window as the warm dopamine glow of my brother and his family fades, leaving me with my reality, lonely by necessity.
Remembering why I really hate December.
I never give myself more than thirty-eight minutes to run to work: four-point-four eight-minute miles plus a two-minute allowance for lights. Anything more and I force myself to make up the time. My weekday breakfast typically consists of this small victory: I haven’t yet been late.
Today might be the first time in the four months I’ve had the job—the editorial meeting is at nine instead of nine thirty. The heavy sky spits wet globs of snow into my face as I power my way over the Montlake Bridge. The app that tracks my pace pipes its unflappable AI voice through my earbuds, interrupting the electronica that primes my steps: “Activity time: ten minutes. Distance: one point two miles.” Damn.
I lengthen my stride, but the grinding ache in my back, the pain that first reared its head just after I moved to Seattle, begs me to take it easy. But I won’t. I’m still two years from forty, way too young to feel this old, and I plan to run until I die.
It’s saved me more than once.
My leggings are soaked through with puddle splash tossed by passing cars, and the melted snow has soaked through my beanie. If I don’t hurry, I’ll be walking into the conference room looking as pathetic as a cat that’s just been tossed into a bathtub. I’m glad, in this moment, that I no longer work at a fashion magazine. The women at Slice judged like it was the Olympics, only the scores came in the curl of a glossy lip and the arch of a perfectly threaded eyebrow, too ephemeral for this fact-checker to pin down with precision.
Four minutes late, I arrive at the gym, where I have a membership only so I can stow my stuff and clean up before work. After a lightning-fast shower, I brush out my damp hair, peering at myself in the mirror and considering for the millionth time whether to get it dyed, if only to stop the lingering looks and prying questions about why on earth someone my age has completely white hair.
The questions I really hate are the joking ones about whether it’s the result of some terrible scare. I always laugh. Of course not. It’s genetic.
Someday, I’ll answer truthfully.
I turn away from the mirror and yank my hair back into a ponytail. No time to blow-dry. No time for anything except a bit of powder and a swipe of mascara and tinted lip gloss. Valentina always starts the meeting on time.
I layer on my dry work clothes, gently pulling on fresh compression socks over the mottled, scarred skin of my calves. After hanging my gear in my locker, I shoulder my pack and bolt out of the locker room. Two minutes until
the meeting.
As soon as the elevator doors open to the fourth floor of the office co-op that houses the Hatchet, the reason I uprooted my life in St. Louis and moved to Seattle, I’m out and jogging toward the conference room, already shivering. I pause only to grab my heavy cardigan and the bottle of ibuprofen from my cubicle.
Valentina, wearing black slacks and a pink cashmere sweater, her ebony hair cornrowed on one side and falling in tight ringlets down the other, meets me in the hallway. She opens the glass door to the conference room while giving me a thorough once-over. “Already popping vitamin I, and the day’s barely begun. You okay, Dora?”
“Just a little sore.” I enter the room and realize we’re the first ones to arrive. “I was afraid I’d be late.”
Valentina rolls her eyes. “Apparently, my journalists don’t take any of their deadlines seriously.” Her four-inch heels click on the faux wood floor as she stalks across the room to the watercooler. She fills a paper cup and sets it in front of me. Out of habit, I’ve attempted to place myself as far from the seat of power as possible—near the back of the room—but still, that power seems to find me. Some things never change, I guess.
“How far is the back-and-forth every day? Six miles?” Valentina picks up a plate of cookies from beside the watercooler and slides it across the table. “Fuel up.”
I pretend not to see them as I type my password into the laptop. “Almost nine,” I admit.
Valentina whistles. “You got a race coming up? I’m doing a 10K in Tacoma in two weeks. One of those holiday things for charity. They even give you a Santa hat. Interested?”
“I don’t do races,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice friendly, because I know she only means well. “I never have. It’s not why I run.”
Valentina lets out a quiet ho-ho-ho and gives me a poke in the shoulder. “Come on, Rodriguez. You could come as my elf—”
“I need to pitch first today,” Miles announces as he bustles into the room and plops down where he always does, near the head of the table. I glance down at my fitness watch and see my heart rate go from sixty-two to almost eighty in about three seconds. His glasses are still half-fogged and he’s a little out of breath. His tousled, black hair is flecked with melting snowflakes. He runs a hand through it and dries his palm on the leg of his dark-wash jeans. “It’s gross out there.” He looks me up and down. “You look as cold as I feel.”
I pull my cardigan closer around my body. “I’m always cold.”
“I think Kieran was complaining about that just the other day,” he says with a smile.
“What?” Valentina’s eyes narrow. “Mr. Connover, are you implying—”
He holds up his hands. “I just meant that Dora showed no mercy when it came to calling out all his dangling modifiers!”
“I was pretty brutal,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “But he needs to learn at some point.”
Miles laughs, and this time, I don’t even bother to check the watch because I can feel my heart kicking against my ribs as if I’m midway up a hill.
“The almighty copy editor has spoken,” he says. His palms drum the table as a few other members of the investigative team file into the room. “I really do need to go first,” he says to Valentina. “It’s time sensitive. And you’re going to love it.”
“We’re reviewing stories in progress before pitches,” Valentina says firmly.
Miles’s eyes find mine again. “Valentina told me you’re from Bend.”
A hard shock courses through my body, instant and cold. I clear my throat. “Yeah?”
He leans forward. “Were you there when—”
“Miles,” Valentina snaps. Upon seeing that she’s silenced him, she lets Freya, her admin, start the meeting with a rundown of the stories already in the pipeline.
I take some notes, but I only speak up on the pieces that have already reached my inbox. On my first day, Valentina Jones swore up and down that copyediting and fact-checking for a twenty-four/seven outfit like the Hatchet would be the most intense experience I’ve ever had. I pretended to believe that could be true. In actuality, working with the concrete details of a story became my escape. Dealing with the facts that most consider white noise gives me a clear pathway—guidelines to follow. Tangible truth.
I try to limit my lies to myself, see.
Heidi’s story on the bestiality scandal at the Westhampton equestrian club was inconsistent on the timeline of threatening emails sent by the would-be “horse lover,” so I’m going through the timestamps and confirming the corrections with the club owner. Kieran’s piece on the con man who stole a tech titan’s identity to purchase drugs on a yacht in Bodega Bay is almost ready to go, save for date and name confirmations as well as numerous edits for passive voice. Kieran, only a year out of Northwestern, bristles a bit at the feedback until Miles tells him never to lose his “sophomore edge.” He’s quiet after that.
Of all the stuff I do at Hatchet, I enjoy the investigative team the most; the majority of my work week is taken up with short pieces: political news, pop culture, and vignettes gone viral that are considered click-worthy enough to merit positioning in the sidebar of the home page, interspersed with the curated, sponsored product promotion that helps keep us fiscally solvent. Only about six long-form pieces from the investigative team—subscription only, of course—come out every month, and those are meatier. Lurid stories occurring somewhere else, happening to someone else. My only job is to make sure the pieces are clear and corroborated. Real.
By the time stories in progress have wrapped and it’s time to pitch, Miles looks ready to leap out of his seat. His manner, loose and joking, makes him seem younger, but he’s one of the more senior journalists at Hatchet. He was at the Seattle Times for almost a decade until Valentina lured him away with a promise of more freedom to follow his interests. We work well together; the only time he’s ever gotten snappish with me was when I suggested a few rewrites to address what Valentina calls “default whiteness” from his last piece on the racist hazing rituals at an exclusive prep school in Southern California. But after snarling at me in the lounge, he emailed a revision within an hour, then showed up at my desk with a “muffin of apology” from the bakery next door.
I kept the muffin on my desk the rest of the day, smiling every time I glanced at it. Then I quietly tucked it into my trash bin before I left to run home.
“I need to go to Oregon,” Miles announces. “Tip came in this morning, and it’s gold. Five nights ago, Bend authorities were called to a trailer park—one had gone up in flames. They found a guy inside.”
Valentina arches one eyebrow. “Okay…”
Miles grins. “He wasn’t burned. His body was in the bathtub. It had been covered in some sort of flame retardant.”
Heidi sets down the massive chocolate chip cookie she’s been making a project of for the last five minutes. “So he was dead but not from fire? Was it smoke inhalation?”
Miles shakes his head. “Stabbed.” He pokes at his chest. “And police found some sort of rock in his mouth. That part was leaked online by someone at the medical examiner’s office. Apparently, police aren’t too happy about that, if my call to the chief just now is any indication.”
“A rock in his mouth,” I murmur.
“I know,” says Miles, peering at me with an intensity that makes me reach for my bottle of ibuprofen. I dole out four pills into my palm and toss them back, trying not to think about how much they feel like little pebbles sliding down my throat.
Valentina is less affected. “Okay. Guy stabbed, killer wants him to be found intact, leaves a calling card, but sets the trailer on fire to cover his or her tracks. What’s the angle here? We don’t do local one-off murders unless there’s a real hook. You think this is a serial thing?”
“I don’t know yet,” says Miles. “But that’s not the angle.” He looks down at his phone. “Guy’s nam
e was Arnold Moore. ‘Arnie’ to his friends.”
It feels like the pills have lodged in my esophagus. I reach for my water and take a sip, reminding myself that it’s a common name. A common nickname.
“Is that supposed to ring a bell?” asks Valentina.
Miles gestures around the room. “Anyone here remember the Oracles of Innocence massacre, or were you all in diapers then? Dora, help me out. If you’re from Bend, you have to know what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t think—” My voice breaks. I gulp at my water, which immediately heads down the wrong pipe. “Sorry,” I say between coughs. I gesture for them to go on without me.
“Anyone?” Miles frowns. “This was a huge story at the time. I mean, I was studying abroad in Spain that semester, and it was even on the news there.”
“I remember it,” says Valentina. “Cult massacre. Big fire, something like thirty people died. Lots of speculation about whether the victims committed suicide on purpose or were part of some crazy sacrifice ritual and whether the fire was accidental or on purpose.”
It almost feels as if I’m floating above the room, watching this unfold from outside my body. We can’t really be talking about this. A haze of unreality limns the room, softening and blurring the edge of the table, the sharp line of Miles’s profile, and the ferocious curiosity in his voice. As my ears start to ring, I try to focus on each word coming out of his mouth, parsing each phrase, mentally bracketing them with commas, dividing them from their meaning.
It doesn’t make anything normal again.
“Right,” Miles is saying. “A big fire. And the three adult survivors all went to jail—one was charged with second-degree murder because she actually barred the door to the meeting hall to keep anyone from escaping. And two other people, one man and one woman, were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter because they didn’t try to help anyone get out. The three of them just let it burn, with all their fellow cult members inside. Twenty years ago this month. You know cult anniversaries, right? Brings out all the crazies. And this one’s in less than a week. The fifteenth.”