Making his way past scattered tables, reams of paper, and cartons of ink, Gabriel didn’t spare a glance for the warehouse that was now the home of the Ledger. The cavernous space had seen better days, most of them before the turn of the century. Exposed red brick trickled with oxidization and age. Metal pipes vibrated with the sound of the tugs approaching the river. Thousands had been spent to remove, rewire, and refurbish.

Gabriel poked his head into the office next door to his. There Peter hunched over a computer in the makeshift managing editor’s office. Dreadlocks bound in a leather thong fell from a high forehead. Eyes the color of chocolate and with all the warmth of a glacier shifted swiftly across the screen. A black mustache slashed across the rough-hewn face, dividing a pirate’s nose from a perpetual sneer. Peter Cameron had been a reporter for more than two decades. He could track a rat through the sewers, beat the rodent to the other side, and never get dirty. And he never stopped working.

“Did you hear me?” Gabriel asked, his tone rough.

“The whole staff heard you,” Peter said mildly. “Erin Abbott. Got it. Want to tell me what I’m looking for?” Before taking on the project of starting up the Ledger, Peter Cameron had been the best investigative reporter in the Southeast.

From anyone else, such insolence would be unthinkable. But Peter didn’t have to worry. He’d trained Gabriel as a cub reporter at the Chronicle, helped get him his first job as a foreign correspondent. “I’ve had a long day,” Gabriel said. “She’s part of a story I’m thinking about.”

“Good enough.” Peter pulled up a new screen on his computer. Gabriel Moss, like his father, had a sharp eye for hidden headlines. “I’ll see what I can find.”

With a nod, Gabriel walked next door to his office. Swinging inside, Gabriel surveyed the neat stacks on the desk he’d left behind for more than a month. Correspondence. Copy. Bills. Contracts.

He lifted the first stack of bills, took a seat, and started reading. When the words “Past Due” morphed into “Find me,” he dropped the letter. To distract himself, he dialed his business manager.

“Yeah, boss?” she answered on the first ring. The hour was late, but the staff of the Ledger, twenty in all, understood the nature of a start-up. They worked long hours for meager pay and little recognition.

Gabriel had plans to change all that. “I’ve seen the past due notices,” he drawled.

“Be right there.”

A few moments later, a gangly woman in torn jeans and a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt rushed into his office and dropped a folder on the teak desk. She moved quickly, not out of concern but because her body had no other speed. Neither did her mouth.