“We?”
I manage to smile. “I’ll help you find something. Those assholes don’t know what they’re missing, giving everything to Bill. I’ve watched the news, and you are far, far more watchable than that expensive haircut in a suit.”
“You’re just saying that because you want to get in my pants.”
“If you remember,” I say softly. “I already got in your panties tonight. I’m completely and wholly telling the truth.”
“Sure.”
“It’s true.” Slowly, I pull her in for a kiss, because I can’t resist her and I want more of her. She tastes sweet, like wine. “Promise me, Sadie. That you won’t look into him. That you’ll forget I even said his name.”
She smiles softly, but she looks genuine. “Okay.”
“Thank you.”
Leaning away from me, she grabs the small bag that she brought with her and looks through it for a moment before giving me a mischievous look. “You may not have come prepared,” she says, “but I did.”
“What do you mean?”
She holds up a small foil packet. “I wasn’t sure what would happen, and I didn’t want to stop before, but now, let’s do this properly.”
I’ve never cleaned up food so fast in my life, and she laughs. The sun is truly setting now, golden light catching in the glass in the pavilion and lighting her up. This is perfect, and when I pull her to me, there’s still desperate urgency, but we also want to take our time.
But the thought of her looking into Jack Singleton still shakes me to the core. I don’t like the thought of her in danger. I especially don’t like that I’m the one who put that little seed in her head. So if I hold her a little bit too tight, and kiss her a little bit too long, hopefully she won’t think too much of it.
Because I can’t imagine letting Sadie Crawford get hurt, and life has taught me that the harder you hold onto something, the faster it slips away.
7
Sadie
“And we’re out.”
“That was really amazing,” Alan says, coming up to me. “Really great stuff, Sadie. I hope to see more from you.”
I smile, grateful that he thinks that and knowing that I well and truly nailed the story, just like I wanted. Though I do feel a little bit guilty. Tonight was the second part of a two day investigative report the station ran on Jack Singleton.
I told Jon that I wouldn’t look up Singleton, but I did as soon as I got to work the next morning. When he asked me to promise him, I deliberately didn’t. I just said ‘okay,’ which is a reporter’s way of avoiding a question, because I couldn’t let it go. Not until I knew who he is and why he would be a subject worth perusing. The journalist’s curiosity in me needed to know, even if I didn’t do anything about it.
As it turns out, Jack Singleton is a really bad guy. He has a rap sheet longer than my arm, in and out of jail regularly, ties to organized crime, and the kind of person that shouldn’t be allowed to own animals even though I found records of him buying a property with kennels attached.
I dug deeper, and was shocked to find out the connection that maybe Jon was afraid I would discover. Singleton and Jon had been foster brothers at one point. But they were split up after an incident where the police had been called to their home after what was labelled a domestic incident. Jon went to juvie shortly after.
But the more I learned about Jack Singleton, the more I realized that he is exactly the kind of subject that I’ve been looking for. The big story that I’ve been trying to break. He’s flown under the radar for years in spite of doing some really shady shit. And people need to know. Especially if he is planning on starting up dog fighting again.
There isn’t any proof that I could dig up that Jon’s dogs came from Jack’s last fighting ring, but I have my suspicions.
I went into deep investigation mode and drove by the property that is listed under his name. There was barking coming from the back of the house. And I put out feelers into the local community. It wasn’t hard to find what I was looking for once I made it clear I was looking for high-stakes betting opportunities. Even if they weren’t legal.
Jack Singleton was planning a dog fight, and he needed to be exposed no matter what Jon said. When I brought the idea to Alan, he looked at me like I’d gone crazy.
“Are you sure?”
“Dead to rights.”
He brushed a hand over his face. “This is good. I think Bill would be the best face for this. People don’t want to see a beautiful woman talking about something as disturbing as dogfighting.”
“No,” I said. “I’ve done all the work, and I’m the only one who can get the story. I’ve already set up the groundwork, and the fight is happening too soon for Bill to make his own inroads. If someone is going to do it, it has to be me.”
I straightened my shoulders and met his eyes, then I stood my ground. Slowly, he relented. “Fine. But it needs to be good, Sadie.”
“It will be.”
And it’s going exactly as I planned. Calls are coming in quickly about the story from local activists. There was a protest in front of Jack’s property by nightfall after the first part, and there was no way in hell the dogfights could continue with that kind of scrutiny on them. Not to mention that the dogfight that I got wind of was raided, thanks to my tip, and all the dogs were rescued by the county. I left Jon’s involvement with Singleton completely out of the story. That wasn’t something that anyone needed to know.
Alan is thrilled with the entire story, and he’s urging me to find more of the same. He thinks I can find a niche at our station in exposing injustices just like the dogfighting ring. And stories that attract activist organizations give the station a huge boost. We don’t just tap into our normal viewership, but an entire group of people who care about the issues.
It’s been a week since my date with Jon, and we’ve texted back and forth, but we’ve both been busier than we expected and haven’t been able to see each other. I wanted to see him again, but honestly I wasn’t completely sure if he was going to want to see me after I did this.
I know that I needed to follow this story because it is going to absolutely make the difference that I want in my career. But at the same time, as I drive home, there is some anxiety in my gut about it. Will he think that I betrayed him? Will he think it was worth it? Will he be grateful that I took the chance on the lead anyway because Jack Singleton is a bad guy that needed to be locked away, no matter who did it?
That’s what I’m hoping for. That he will think I am strong and a badass and brave. Not a liar.
But fuck, I’m tired. I’ll talk to him in the morning about it. This week, tracking everything down, making the connections, and finally infiltrating the dogfight to take pictures and videos has me exhausted. All I want to do is collapse into my bed and sleep for about twelve hours. Which I can do if I go to bed now.
Now that the story is out there in the world, I feel like I’m dragging on my feet. I drop my bag on a chair in the hallway as I walk in the door. I like my little townhouse. It doesn’t feel like home yet, but I’m working on it. At the very least I’ve got all the boxes unpacked. That’s step one of moving, I’ve found. If you let boxes just sit, your mind never settles and you’re constantly on edge.