“Then you admit this is worth finding.”
The hint of humor leaves his face.
“I admit you don’t know what you’re walking into.”
“And you do?”
For one second, something tired moves behind his eyes. Then it is gone.
“More than you.”
He steps past me, his shoulder brushing mine just firmly enough to prove he chose the contact.
Heat follows it, ridiculous and immediate. I do not move until it has passed because moving would admit it landed. Behind me, the locker-room door exhales another wash of cold air, and I stand there warm under my blazer, furious at physics.
He does not look back.
I stand there with my recorder cold in my hand and his warning still under my skin.
I have my hook.
I also have a problem.
Peyton
My father calls three times before sunrise.
I ignore all three.
By the fourth, my phone is face down beside a coffee mug, my laptop is open, and Ryan McAllister’s name sits at the top of a blank document like a bad decision wearing skates.
Dad does not leave a voicemail; he never does when silence can do the work for him.
At 6:12, a text appears.
Call me when you’re ready to be reasonable.
I turn the phone off.
Reasonable.
That word followed me through my entire career in California.
Please be reasonable and don’t jeopardize your career over a single source.
Access does matter.
That is the miserable part.
I bent once.
I softened a paragraph. Moved a quote lower. Let a powerful man sound less cornered than he was because my father’s name sat too close to the story and everyone in the room was pretending not to notice it.
Then I watched the story survive and the point die.
My editor called it nuance. The source who had trusted me called once, breathed through the line for ten seconds, and hung up. That silence has followed me farther than any headline.
The San Antonio Ledger newsroom smells like burnt grounds and toner. It does not have the glossy panic of my old office in California.
