I frowned, and he added, “This room still has all the last old editions that haven’t been turned into pictures and ones and zeros. And the ones that are too rare to throw out.”
Around the walls of the long room were cabinets that went all the way to the low ceiling. They did in fact look like every line of morgue drawers I’d seen in movies or cop shows.
“You’re sure there are no bodies?” I asked.
“Bodies? Nah, the obits were the first things we digitized, don’t worry,” he said. “This place is part of history. That’s why we thought it was perfect for the Scoop, you know? A past-meets-future kind of thing.”
The cabinets appeared to be labeled with dates instead of names or random numbers. So the odds were good that he was telling the truth about the place being corpse-free. Still, when I raised my eyebrows, he admitted, “And we were out of space upstairs. Come on over and meet everyone. I was just telling them about you.”
Uh-oh. The other three were frowning, and he’d been talking about me?
“Go on,” Perry said, “introduce yourselves.”
He gave a pointed look to Maddy. She’d added a layer of dark eyeliner and bright pink lipstick since class.
“Lois and I already met,” she said. “I’m style editor. Not by choice. Mr. White here thought a girl would be better at style than these two. I wanted to be the music critic.”
“Perry,” he corrected her. “I told you to call me Perry. And you’re . . . stylish.”
Maddy regarded him.
Nice try, Perry. “Hi again,” I said.
“Too bad your sister wasn’t interested,” said a lanky boy in a crisp button down. He was the one on the edge of his desk rather than sitting in the chair behind it. He had a glossy crown of brown hair and blinding white teeth, like he’d been bred for them.
“I needed a job; the perfect one didn’t,” Maddy said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
Aha.
The preppy boy with the posh enunciation might think Maddy was being sarcastic, but she wasn’t. The makeup she’d added before work was one giveaway, but so was the complete sincerity of her tone and how she looked at him when she said it, waiting for him to look back. He didn’t.
Maddy truly was disappointed—that the boy would rather work side by side with her sister than her.
“Maddy has a twin sister,” the guy said to me. “You’d never know they were identical.”
There probably were things worse than the guy you had a crush on saying that kind of thing about your sister, but not many. Maddy could do way better than teeth-and-hair guy.
Teeth-and-Hair extended his hand, and I had no choice but to take it.
“James Worthington,” he said. “News writer.”
Over the years, my dad had dragged the family unit to tons of social functions, and I had met enough silver-spoon scions in tow of their politician parents that I could easily spot a seriously rich boy. And all of the seriously rich boys were dead ringers for James.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” I said. His name was familiar. “Your dad’s a . . . state senator?”
James released my hand and his frown returned. “No!” He sounded like I’d implied he worshipped Satan by the light of a full moon or, worse, was from new money. “He’s—he was the mayor. He’s . . . taking a break. To decide what his next move is.”
The remaining staffer, a cute boy with a short afro and an air of casual cool, failed to hide a low snort. His desk had two giant monitors and several other gadgets scattered on it.
James was scowling. Yet somehow he managed to throw off an “I’m superior” vibe while doing it.
“Remember, Lois is new to town,” Perry put in dryly.
“Your dad is that James Worthington?” I asked, before I could think better of it. I’d read about the charges against the ex-mayor of Metropolis. Multiple charges, including embezzlement. He’d gone to jail, but the family fortune supposedly remained. Why would his son work here, especially if he didn’t have to work, period? “Didn’t the Planet cover the scandal?”
The boy who’d snorted before spoke up. “Perry here was nominated for a Pulitzer for breaking the story.”
James gritted his teeth as he answered. “Dad was editor of the Crimson in college. Wants me to follow in his footsteps.”
“Probably not exactly. Not all of them,” I said. “He’s James Worthington Jr., right? So that makes you the Third?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Yes.”
But he’d held on to his manners, more or less, which I couldn’t help but respect. Even if he was a “the Third.”
“I’m Devin, master of all things computronic,” the last staffer said. “Also on the news staff, and web designer. James will let us know when his dad’s back in office.” He added a word silently, mouthing to me: NEVER.
“People come back from worse all the time,” Maddy said.