Page 8 of Love at First Sighting
“Toby.”
“Damn.”
“You’re getting closer,” I offer. Yesterday he thought Toby’s name was Josh.
Marcus’s desk is astonishingly sparse, and the most characteristic thing on it is the ashtray sitting on the corner. He’s been single as long as I’ve known him, with no wife or kids, which meant no pseudo family for me after losing mine. Even if he did have one, Marcus has never been the sappy type.
Sappy or not, he’s the closest thing I have to family. My childhood went from movie nights and playing Secret Agent with my dad to quiet takeout dinners and uneventful Christmases and Thanksgivings. I know there’s a part of Marcus that loves and cares for me, but he’s never been great at showing it. If he didn’t care, there’s no way I’d have made it to twenty-four.
Besides, I know there’s nothing he’ll ever love as much as his job.
“Oh, this one,” he mumbles. He reaches into his desk and pulls out a cigarette. “She’s famous or something, so it keeps getting reposted.”
“Yeah, this one came from a fan account.”
“I also called in favors at a few outlets to run some hit pieces. I don’t think we have much to worry about. It’ll blow over by the time she posts her next bikini shot, right?”
Logistically, we can’t silence and discredit every sighting, but sightings with bigger names can cause problems. Those are the cases where intimidation doesn’t always work best. Censoring someone can say more than ignoring them or pivoting the narrative.
“I…”
Marcus sits back in his chair and raises his brows. “What? I know that look.”
“I’m not giving you a look.”
“Yes, you are. It’s the same look you gave me when you wanted to go to that party on the West Side—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” I grumble. You’re not really a teen until you have at least one bad run-in with jungle juice. “I think we’ve got to do more than just keep taking it down.”
“Sounds like there’s a suggestion buried in there somewhere.”
“I think you should letmelook into this.”
It comes out faster than I can stop myself, even though I already know what the answer is going to be. Marcus lets out a conflicted sigh and folds his hands behind his head. This is the first time I’ve had any kind of tangible proof of what happened to my dad. I’ve spent fifteen years waiting for a string of hope to grab on to for answers, and this one has fallen right into my lap. Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice.
“Carter, really? She’s just some model. You think she’s going to be that much of a problem? Or are you…you know…?”
I don’t know if he means that to be a weird sex thing, but Ihope it’s not. Marcus and I do not talk about sex things. When I was fourteen, he brought home some weird brochure about how my body was supposed to change, slid it under the door, and we never spoke about it again. I was fine, though. I had Urban Dictionary.
“Oh god,no,” I scoff, leaning against his desk. “I’m on duty. I’m not desperate enough to use PIS to get myself dates.”
Marcus sighs, cracks the window behind him, and lights the cigarette. “Then what is it? This is probably some kid with a drone that freaked her out.”
I bite down on my molars as a waft of cigarette smoke hits my nose. “I just…I have a feeling about this one. I don’t think it’ll take too long. Toby’s doing well on his own, so I could make some time to look into it.”
“I think we all remember what happened last time.”
My first—and only—job had been confronting the host of a conspiracy theories podcast over an episode he did on a recent flap—what we call strings of connected UFO sightings—in Colorado that was getting a lot of traction. It was my job to shut him up and get him to take the episode down. He did not take it down and askedwaytoo many questions. I panicked and told him I had the wrong person, when clearly I didn’t.
“That was two years ago, Marcus. I’m not the same person I was then. I can handle this. Like you said—it could be nothing. I just…want to be sure.”
I understand why he’s hesitant. But Ineedthis. Marcus and I lock eyes across his desk. A sharp pain shoots up my arm and to the right side of my head. I’m leaning too hard on the desk. Beneath my white button-down and suspenders, there are scars running up and down my arm, and on my face, a gash that’s long healed curving around my eye socket.
What I leave out of the conversation is the tie to my dad. I’ve pushed before, and I know it’s one area Marcus refuses to budge on. Dredging up the past about the partner he lost never goes well. But Marcus doesn’t know about what I saw. He doesn’t know about my photographic proof, and he doesn’t need to.
“Okay,” he begins. Before I let out a relieved sigh, Marcus holds up a hand. “I’ll let you look into it. I want you to report tomedirectly. Don’t tell anyone what you’re working on yet, just…do your digging.”
“Totally,” I spit out. “I’ll dig small. Like with a spoon. Nothing messy, nothing risky, just a little investigating.”
