The man glanced up next to the window over the sink where he’d taped the column that Susan Ward had written, and wondered if she’d found what he’d left in her purse.

Chapter 18

CHAPTER

18

Susan hunched over her computer at the Herald, yawned, and tried to focus on her monitor. Never take Chinese uppers on an empty stomach. This was what Susan’s mother, Bliss, had told her. It wasn’t even real speed. It was just some herb in gel caps in a bottle with Chinese characters on it. Bliss had gotten it from her acupuncturist, and given it to Susan before she’d gone on her yoga cruise. It was just like Bliss to head off on a three-week yoga cruise through the Caribbean days before the flood of the century. She was lucky that way. The ship had a media blackout policy, for “cleansing” purposes. Bliss had no idea what was going on back in Portland. This left Susan in charge of the goat and the compost pile and the leaky basement.

Susan had moved back into her childhood home eight months before. It was supposed to be temporary. Then it was supposed to be just until she saved up enough for a down payment on a loft in one of those redeveloped warehouses in the Pearl District.

Living with Bliss had its pros and cons. Susan’s mother wore her hair bleached and dreadlocked, boycotted anything plastic, and had recently gotten a medical marijuana card for unspecified “anxiety.” But Susan could live there for free. And if you liked brown rice, a lot, Bliss made a pretty good meal. What Susan didn’t like to admit was that, after what she’d been through over the last year, as crazy as it was, home felt safe.

She shouldn’t have taken the Chinese uppers. But it was two in the morning. And Ian was demanding copy. He’d already gone ballistic on her for staying at the hospital with Henry and Archie rather than hightailing it back to the paper. She had really pissed him off this time. He wouldn’t even pay for the cab.

“That’s it?” Ian blustered. He’d been eating sour-cream-and-onion potato chips from the vending machine. Susan could smell them on his breath. He sat down on the edge of her desk, nearly knocking her purse onto the floor. She emphatically moved the purse to the other side of her keyboard. “You write a two-thousand-word column on some old skeleton they found at a dog park, and I get three hundred words on a half-murdered cop?” Ian said.

“Derek already wrote the news story.”

“You were there when he was found. I want to know what he looked like. I want to feel him dying on the page.”

“He’s my friend,” Susan said.

“You’re a journalist. Act like one. I want a rewrite in twenty minutes.”

“No.”

“I can fire you.”

Susan ignored him.