I let my head dip, offering a peaceful expression to him. I wasn’t sure why he had me stay here, but I was certain I wasn’t going to be lectured the way Laruen had been in front of everyone. “It’s okay, sir.”
He reached for the bottle of water sitting on the table in front of him and screwed the lid off, taking a few sips and replacing the lid. As he set it back down he said, “Now, there is a matter I need to discuss with you.”
His words piqued my interest. I had no idea why he’d want to speak to me directly. He had David in the room too, which meant it was related to my job for sure, but concerning what I couldn’t tell. The blue in his eyes seemed to brighten now that he wasn’t shouting, and he made eye contact with me more than I was used to. I had nothing to say, so I waited for him to continue.
“Ms. Spencer, we have a unique opportunity for you. There is a story brewing. A corporation out of Houston, Texas is being investigated for illegal offshore drilling.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. I’ve done a bit of digging, and I think there is more to the story.” I straightened in my seat. Now he was talking my language. This job hit me right in the sweet spot, where my passion for truth and love of journalism met. I hated big corporations full of greed and hunger for power that did unethical things and covered them up.
“I knew you’d be interested.” He nodded appreciatively. “You’re one of the best we have, especially in this department. We can’t have any screw-ups on this one because if we do our job right, we’ll expose a host of environmental disasters just waiting to blow up.”
David leaned forward and shook his head. “Sir, don’t you think Jack would be better for this story? He came out of our Environmental Reports section only a few months ago when Yolanda got fired.”
Mr. Danvers turned his scowl back toward my editor. “David, if I wanted your input, I’d have asked for it. Now,” he said, turning back to me, “Ms. Spencer.”
“Yes, Mr. Danvers?”
“Please, call me Parker… And from now on, you will meet with me, Mr. Green, and Mr. Wright here. All of our facts have to be triple-checked for accuracy. The EPA and the FBI are both doing their own investigation, but you never know. We may turn up facts that are actually evidence. Do you think you can handle this?”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Danvers—I mean, Parker.” I couldn’t believe the sense of excitement building inside my chest, coupled with the immense pressure of what this story could do for my career. “I can do this.”
He rose, leaving me and David seated. “Good. Get to work on it, and I’ll check back with you later this week. In the meantime, I need to go. I have a tee time in twenty minutes.” He started for the door and said, “David,” then nodded and left.
His temperament changed at the drop of a hat. He’d gone from enraged to engaged in a matter of seconds and left my head spinning.
“He only treats you like that because you’re his poster child.” David shook his head. “You know that, right?”
I watched Mr. Danvers walk past the windows of the conference room until he vanished down the hallway, then addressed Mr. Wright. “You think so?” I couldn’t help but think it wasn’t just the job, not with the way he asked me to call him by his first name, and that look he gave me? Those piercing blue eyes… “Has he ever asked you to call him Parker?” I smirked and rose with David.
“No, but I also don’t produce award-winning stories for him personally.”
“No,” I said, smiling at him, “but you manage a team that does. You’re too hard on yourself, Dave. Don’t worry. I’ve got this one in the bag. Okay?” I smoothed my skirt and headed for the door, saying over my shoulder, “And when I win a Pulitzer, you’ll be the first person I thank.”
2
PARKER
Tom’s fingers drummed on the corner of my desk. His drawn eyebrows and pursed lips were indicative of his frustration. It had been a week since the decision to terminate Gretchen Kilpatrick following the revelation of her relationship with Jack Williams. The following investigation by Tom showed misconduct between the two—revealing their sources’ identities, fabricating facts to pad stories, and most recently, instigating sexual relations during the workday on company property.
“And you made it clear that it was due to the misconduct as a journalist?” I crossed my arms over my chest and sat back in my chair. Tom rolled his eyes at me. It was probably the fifth time I’d asked him to confirm this fact for me, all worded in different ways. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Yes, Parker. For the last time. I did not bring up the fraternization as the chief reason for her termination. Though I did remind them that the policy exists. Ms. Kilpatrick is just furious.” His finger drumming grew more intense. “She is stirring the pot now. There is talk that she will file a defamation suit, or worse, a wrongful termination suit.”
I waved my hand in the air at him and shook my head. “She has nothing to stand on. I’m not really worried about that. I just don’t want her causing a fuss with our staff. We don’t need polarization in here when we’re already taking a hit.”
A few staff members walked past the office, peeking in. The large window that divided my corner office from the newsroom was soundproof but allowed me to keep an eye on what was happening on the floor. My eyes trained on Jack, the second party in the forbidden office romance. He’d had a stick up his ass from the moment we called them out. Sex on the copy machine had irritated me, but it had been the least of my worries. If we had run the story Gretchen conflated, it would have destroyed the paper’s credibility. And with the retraction we already had to print thanks to Lauren Evans’ mistake, there was no telling how hard of a hit this was likely to be.
I turned back to Tom, peeling my eyes off Jack, and cleared my throat. The threatened lawsuit by a former employee had to be tabled. We had bigger issues to deal with, and Tom knew that. He must have deduced that I was about to switch gears because he sat straighter in his seat, folding his hands in his lap.
“So, the dip in sales. How bad is it?” The leather chair I sat on squeaked as I leaned forward and opened the manila folder lying in front of me on my desk, hundred-year-old wood salvaged from a shipwreck off the Grecian coast and polished to a shine. It was a treasure of immeasurable worth to me, mingling history with present-day practicality. In and of itself, it was a story for the front pages.
“Well, you’ll see the figures on page one. It’s not bad yet, but if we don’t correct Lauren’s blunder, we’ll tank.The Postis already calling us out. The headlines hit this morning. Luckily,The Postlikes to report facts, not opinions. But now that it’s out, the criticism will follow. We have the retraction in print now, already being delivered to doorsteps everywhere.”
I was pleased to hear that the retraction had been printed and sent, but I was steamed that it even had to happen. Still, Lauren’s blunder of not double-checking her facts wasn’t half as bad as Gretchen’s blatant lies about things that never happened. I scoured the report, seeing that sales had dipped even as early as last month, probably due to the new tabloid that started a few months ago. We were battling for the headlines and the bottom lines. I dropped the file and closed the folder.
“What do you think about these numbers?” I pushed the folder toward Tom, and he shook his head. His eyes trailed across the room to the only solid wall in my office which boasted a painting done by a local artist who rose to fame due to an exposé we’d done. The painting was a gift from the artist for providing her such great publicity.
I stared at the painting too. It portrayed Prometheus on the side of Olympus, descending the rocky terrain with a torch of the gods’ fire in hand. I loved the painting because it was not only a powerful metaphor symbolizing the desire for knowledge and progress but also challenging established power structures and defying tradition. Prometheus stole the gods’ fire and gave it to the world to benefit. I believed our position of delivering news to the masses uniquely positioned us to influence millions of people the way Prometheus’s fire did. A very fitting painting, indeed.
