We’ll talk later or send me a quick e-mail.”

I turned and my eyes swept the newsroom. It was as long as a football field. I didn’t know where Angela Cook’s cubicle was located but I knew it would be close. The newer you were, the closer they kept you to the raft. The far reaches of the newsroom were for the veterans who supposedly needed less supervision. The south side was called Baja Metro and was inhabited by veteran reporters who still produced. The north side was the Deadwood Forest. This was where the reporters who did little reporting and even less writing were located. Some of them had sacrosanct positions by virtue of political connections or Pulitzer Prizes, and others were just incredibly skilled at keeping their heads down so they wouldn’t draw the attention of the assignment editors or the corporate cutters.

Over the top edge of one of the nearby pods I saw Angela’s blond hair. I went over.

“Howzit going?”

She jumped, startled.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“That’s okay. I was just so absorbed in reading this.”

I pointed to her computer screen.

“Is that the story?”

Her face colored. I noticed she had tied her hair behind her head and stuck an editing pencil through the knot. It made her look even sexier than usual.

“No, actually, it’s from archives. It’s the story about you and that killer they called the Poet. That was creepy as hell.”

I checked the screen more closely. She had pulled out of archives a story from twelve years before. From when I was with the Rocky Mountain News and in competition with the Times on a story that had stretched from Denver to the East Coast and then all the way back to L.A. It was the biggest story I had ever chased. It had been the high point of my journalistic life—no, check that, it had been the apex of my entire life—and I didn’t want to be reminded that I had crossed that point so long ago.

“Yeah, it was pretty creepy. Are you finished with today’s story?”

“What happened to that FBI agent you teamed up with? Rachel Walling. One of the other stories said she was disciplined for crossing ethical lines with you.”

“She’s still around. Here in L.A., in fact. Can we look at today’s story? Prendo wants us to get it in so he can put it on the web.”

“Sure. I have it done. I was just waiting for you to see it before I sent it to the desk.”

“Let me get a chair.”

I pulled a chair away from an empty cubicle. Angela made room for me next to her and I read the twelve-inch story she had written. The news budget had slugged it in at ten inches, which meant it would likely be cut to eight, but you could always write long for the web edition because there were no space restrictions. Any reporter worth his or her salt would naturally go over budget.