“Nothing to eat today?”
She’s scrabbling down the front of her shirt, digging for her phone, but then stops, smiles at the young man standing nearby. His name is Ethan; she doesn’t know his last name, doesn’t know much about him except that he works at one of the restaurants in the food court, a deli that serves sandwiches and coffee, fresh cookies. He’s dating one of the girls she works with—Kelly, who has big hips and a bigger mouth, the kind of girl who thinks the world owes her a favor, the kind of girl who constantly sticks her foot in her mouth and doesn’t realize it but just keeps on yapping—and he comes into the store a lot to visit his girlfriend, brings her drinks and snacks. A nice kid. A few years out of high school, trying to figure out what he wants to do. He’d recognized her from her photo they’d printed in the Post beside her articles, and it was flattering when he was so excited to meet her, he told her he always wanted to write, he has plans to go back to college and get a degree in journalism. He’s always asking her questions, about the newsroom, the crime desk, all the pieces she’d written. He’s like a kid, always wanting to know more. And she’s told him a lot, shared more than she probably should’ve, because no one else ever wanted to hear her talk about her time at the Post, they wanted her to live in the present and look toward the future. Move on. But Ethan, he ate it up and begged for more.
“Not today.”
“I can grab you a sandwich, if you’d like. It’s no problem.”
“No, that’s okay.”
He’d asked Sammie out a few weeks before, and then reneged the offer before she had the chance to say a word. He hadn’t meant for it to sound like a date, he said, because that wasn’t it. He had Kelly. He just wanted to pick Sammie’s brain about writing, about making it a career. He might end up taking a few classes at the community college. He’d never managed to succeed at anything, he’d said, except making one hell of a pastrami sandwich, and that wasn’t going to fill his mother with pride.
“I’m a loser,” he’d told her once. “I can’t do anything right.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. Sometimes I think you’re my only friend.”
“You have Kelly.”
“And you have your husband.” Ethan laughed. He didn’t laugh often, and she liked the way he looked when he did. If she’d been ten years younger and single, she would’ve taken him to bed, Kelly or no Kelly. Maybe in spite of Kelly. “And here we are.”
Her cell phone is vibrating again.
“Sorry, I need to see who it is,” she says, digging down her shirt again. Ethan takes a few steps away, and stops. Waits, like he wants to talk more when she’s done. It’s probably Dean, calling to check on her, see how her day is going, and it’s a 303 area code, but it’s not her husband. It’s the Denver Post. It’s Dan Corbin, her old editor.
“Sammie, thank God you answered.”
“What?” she says. She’d never thought she’d hear from Corbin again, even though she’d sent him several emails letting him know she’d be interested in coming back to the paper if the budget got better, but he’d never responded. There’s something especially cold about being ignored by email.
“It’s Corbin,” he says slowly, and she realizes he misunderstood, he thought she couldn’t hear him. “From the Post.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Okay.” He pauses. Any normal person would ask how she’d been, if she’d enjoyed her Thanksgiving. But that wasn’t how Corbin operated. He’s one of the smartest people she’d ever met, but his social skills have always been shit. “Listen, the seven-year anniversary of Seever’s arrest is coming up.”
He pauses for dramatic effect. Corbin always did like some flair, but this time it’s deserved. This is the phone call she’s been waiting for, she’s spent more than half a year wondering when Corbin was going to pick up the damn phone and dial, and now here it is.
“Okay.”
“And his execution date is coming up. What is it—a year from now?”
“Thirteen months, I think.” It’s not a guess. She knows the exact date Seever is scheduled to die—January 13, 2017. Friday the thirteenth.
“Well, with these things coming up, there’s been a renewed interest in Seever.”
“Okay.” She nods, smiles, because that’s what she’d learned years before, that people could hear a smile in your voice, once she’d had a boss who stuck a mirror to the side of her computer so she could watch herself when she was on the phone. She’s still smiling, but she wishes Corbin would cut the shit and ask her to come back. To resurrect her career with what started it—Jacky Seever.
“Our subscriptions were higher than they’d ever been when you were writing about Seever, and I think rehashing his crimes in some new pieces could be a good thing. Help generate business, get us back to where we used to be.”
It’s all too good to be true.