Finley’s brows shot up. “Who gets to decide if it’s deserved?”
“I get what you’re asking. As a reporter, freedom of speech is important to me, but so is telling the truth. When former mayor Levine was trying to undermine Omar, I wanted the truth exposed. The fact that it tanked his chances of getting reelected was his own doing. He was trying to ruin Omar’s reputation with half-truths and blatant lies. I’m going to report on that. I didn’t go after him for a vendetta. I went after whoever was twisting things to take down someone who’d done nothing wrong. It led to someone who hid behind the reporter he fed information to. That’s not what I signed up for when I decided to be a reporter. Just like we don’t have to reveal our sources, we also shouldn’t print things without verifying their truth. My former colleague didn’t do that.”
“No, he didn’t. And he ended up losing his job for it,” Natalie said from the center of the group that had already gathered. “Thanks to you wanting to print the actual truth.”
“There have been a lot of times people have printed things about Trent and his family that just weren’t true. There’s a fine line from his experience, and now mine. I struggle with a lot of it,” Finley said, reclaiming her seat.
“Would you feel more comfortable if I weren’t here?” I asked her. If she was worried about me reporting anything I overheard, she wouldn’t be comfortable in her own shop. That wasn’t fair.
“No,” Finley was quick to say. “I know you’re not going to deceive any of us. That’s never been something I’ve worried about.”
“Okay. Thank you.” It meant more than she knew to hear that. It gave me the security to take a seat in the circle arranged toward the back of the romance-only bookstore. Finley said she always wanted to read romance novels and couldn’t find many in town, so she opened her own store to cater to the others who felt the same way.
“Casey is on the right side of things,” Natalie said. “If Omar was dirty, she would expose it. She’s not going to pull punches, but she’s also not going to dig up stuff that doesn’t need to be unearthed. Unlike her boss.”
“That’s what Casey was saying when they walked in. She’s always out for blood,” Finley told the group.
“It’s a newspaper thing,” I said with a sigh. “It’s the part of the job that gets you ahead when you work in a city. First to get a scoop. First to find out someone is cheating. First to expose a scandal. I think it’s important to report on what’s actually happening and to expose people who aren’t doing the things they should be doing, but is it anyone’s business if Omar’s ex-wife ended the marriage or if he did?”
“She wants to know that?” Natalie breathed.
I nodded. “She asked me about it when we talked the first time. Before I came to you. I don’t see what that has to do with anything, and I told her so.”
“She really does want to stir shit up,” Finley said. “I don’t like that. It makes me feel like people don’t have a right to privacy and a personal life. If Trent had an affair, I would be crushed. I wouldn’t want to read about it in the newspaper. Just because he is a business owner, it doesn’t mean everyone should have access to every minute of our lives.”
“I agree,” I told her. “I wanted to write about Natalie and Omar’s wedding because I think it’s a great story. A feel-good kind of thing. The town’s mayor is getting married. In a place like MacKellar Cove, we don’t have a lot of scandals or major news stories, which I like, and a personal interest kind of thing is what people want to read about. Gretchen doesn’t really get it.”
“Gretchen? Oh, I think I know her,” Blake said, her eyes going wide. “Mid-fifties, white. Brunette bob with zero gray. Clear-frame glasses, perfectly arched eyebrows, red lipstick, and always dressed like she’s ready for a business meeting?”
I nodded. “Sounds like her.”
“She comes into Cracked every week. Sits in my section most of the time. I tried to introduce myself and get to know her, but never got past her first name. I don’t think she likes me,” Blake said with a wince.
“She doesn’t like anyone,” I told her. “She is good at her job, but I think she sees coming here as a punishment. At first, with everything going on around Omar and Levine and Erik publishing stories without fact-checking, I think she thought it would be a good assignment, but she’s bored.”
“She needs to get laid,” Elise said. Known as the one who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, Elise always said people needed to get laid.
I couldn’t really argue with her on that one, though. Gretchen didn’t talk to people, so my guess was she hadn’t had sex in even longer than me. Which was saying something.
“Ooh, Casey, you should tell her Omar and I were matched on Book Boyfriends Wanted. That we didn’t like each other, but we were matched. I ran away from him,” Natalie confessed.
“No, you didn’t,” I gasped.
Natalie nodded and looked at Daisy, her best friend.
“She did. We came here for book club the next night. That was when she realized he’d messaged her… how many times?” Daisy asked with a smirk that said she knew the answer.
“Thirteen times,” Natalie said with a wince. “I freaked out, okay. He was sort of my boss, and I knew he didn’t like me, and when he was the one I was matched with, I just ran.”
“What did he say?” I asked, knowing I was the only one who didn’t know the story.
“Well, before we met, I made him promise he wouldn’t walk out as soon as I got there. Then I did that, and he called me out on it.”
“Wow. Listen, none of this is on the record, but that would make a great story about how you two met. It would be good to put with the article about you being the woman in the picture.”
The collective gasp around the room said no one else knew Natalie told me to run that in a story.
“I told her about it,” Natalie defended. “Omar is sick of people asking if I’m jealous of the woman in the photo and if that woman is going to come back and cause problems for us. I told Casey to do a story about it.”
