His voice was all sweetness and reason, but his eyes were about to roll out of his head. Nell gave him a questioning eyebrow. He responded by curling his fingers and making a slow tugging motion just above his lap. She flashed two thumbs-up and went back to her own work. She had an open laptop, a scattering of manila folders—without labels, arranged more by feng shui than logic—and half a cup of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago. Most people kept a picture of their spouse and kids close at hand, a reminder of what all their hard work was for. The small brass frame on Nell’s desk, just left of her bulky office phone, cradled a restored photograph from 1889 capturing a young woman in her prime. Chin up, eyes bright but made of steel.
She couldn’t claim blood relations with Nellie Bly—even Nell’s name was a happy accident of birth—but the pioneering muckraker and around-the-world traveler was her patron saint. Nell had been raised Catholic but gave up on religion by her early teens and hadn’t darkened a church’s doorstep since. She wouldn’t pray to heaven but she might, in a pinch, pray to Nellie Bly. She figured the odds of getting an answer had to be about even.
She checked the time and dialed a long-distance number. The phone rang in her ear, an electronic purr kissed with static.
“Houston comptroller’s office, how may I direct your call?”
“Nell Bluth, from the Brooklyn Standard. May I speak to Boris Meyer, please? He’s expecting my call.”
There was a pause on the other end, just long enough for a hitch of breath.
“I’m sorry, he’s not going to be in today, maybe—maybe not for a little while. He’s had an accident.”
Nell’s chair was an old wooden swivel model, hard as a prison bunk. She’d turned down offers to upgrade her to something ergonomic with a cushion; the last thing a reporter should ever be, she felt, was comfortable sitting behind a desk. She scooted closer to the chair’s lacquered rim and her toes dug against the floor.
“An accident? I’m sorry, is he all right?”
“He’ll be fine,” the receptionist said, a southern twang in her voice. “It was raining this morning, and his car went off a muddy embankment. They rushed him to Houston Methodist and he’s banged up, but he’s already awake and talking. We just don’t know if he’ll be back soon or if we’ll need to bring someone in to cover his desk for a few days. It’s all kind of touch-and-go right now.”
“Of course,” Nell said. “Could someone give me a call back when you know for certain?”
She could. The receptionist took down Nell’s information and promised her a follow-up tomorrow. She hung up at the same time Tyler did.
“Unbelievable,” he said.
“They still dancing around the FOIA request?”
“Not that. I mean, yes, they are, but not that.” He gestured to the desk phone. “You know that leaky spot in my bathroom ceiling?”
“Wasn’t your landlord going to fix that?”
“Was. Thanks to the new Loom Upgrade Act, all renovations past a certain dollar amount have to be accompanied by a ‘Loom-readiness inspection’ to get the building ready for fiber-optic wiring. So sorry, his hands are tied, but he can’t possibly bring the repair crew in until…whenever that happens.”
“It’s your ceiling,” Nell said. “You’re on the top floor. I’m not an expert, but I don’t think that’s where they put the cable.”
“So sorry, hands tied. How’d the presser go?”
“They gave away branded swag.”
“Called it,” he said.
“You did. It wasn’t all hot air and wasted time. I got a NYCEM rep going on the record to confirm the bid-approval date.”
“And your mystery man on the inside?” he asked.
“Coming with the receipts.”
He wasn’t much of a mystery man, at least not after Nell dug her claws in. Arthur Wendt, forty-six, wed twice but mostly married to his job in Barron’s accounting division. His company had barely escaped getting nailed to the wall when the Buffalo Billion scandals broke, and his finely developed sense of self-preservation made him turn whistleblower.
“You think he can deliver?” Tyler asked.
“I can’t lock it down, not yet, but all the evidence says Barron Equity got in bed with the Weaver Group and started making disbursements a week before the mayor’s office blessed the deal. There never was a bid process. The fix was in from day one. Wendt’s our best shot at figuring out exactly who got bribed, how much they took, and who made the payoffs to open New York’s doors for business.”
Tyler’s chair slid closer to hers. He held out his knuckles.
“City desk wonder-twin powers—”
“—activate,” she said, gliding over on the chair’s casters and meeting him with a fist-bump.
“Hear from your guy in Houston?”
Her good mood faded, just a little. The comptroller had been a lone holdout amid the city’s decision-makers, digging his heels deep in the way of the Weaver Group’s arrival. In the end, Houston got the Loom, and he got frozen out. He had been stirring up trouble and kicking stray bits of dirty laundry her way ever since.
“Car accident,” she said, scooting her chair back over. “He’s okay.”
“You sure it was just an accident?”
She flashed a lopsided smile. “You’re starting to sound like Wendt.”
“He’s a whistleblower. Can’t be too careful.”
“Like I told him,” she said, “this is real life, not the movies. Scumbag corporations don’t send hit men to silence the opposition. They send lawyers.”
Speaking of Arthur Wendt, it was time to check in. She didn’t use the desk phone for that. They had a protocol. Her personal cell, his burner, one he’d bought with cash. No in-person contact, ever.
It had been two days since he had last returned her calls, with nothing but a terse “I’m working on it.” She was getting close to breaking the no-personal-contact rule and showing up on his doorstep. Still, there was an art to handling an informant. You had to be a little pushy, ride them to get results, but never too hard or you’d lose them completely. Nell was still figuring out Arthur’s pressure points.
While she dialed and listened to the robotic voicemail message, a commotion was breaking out at the front of the newsroom. Loud voices, people in motion. She figured it was the sports desk guys having a conniption over today’s Yankees game. Then Tyler snapped his fingers and drew her eye.
“Uh, Nell?”
A wall of a woman steamed her way through the bullpen, cutting down the middle aisle like a battleship. She had a shovel-flat face and a strangler’s hands. Nell couldn’t quite place her, not at first, not until she came to a dead stop on the far side of her desk.
“You murdering bitch.”
Noah Sellers’s wife, then. Widow. Whatever. Nell hung up the phone, folded her hands, and tried for a conciliatory tone.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Sellers.”
“He named you. In the suicide note. Did you know that?”
She knew. Everybody knew. The morning Noah Sellers was found hanging from a knotted bedsheet, Nell ended up behind closed doors with the Standard’s editor-in-chief, the owner, and a trio of stone-faced lawyers for a two-hour interrogation.