Chapter One

“GO, GO, YOU CAN DO IT!” 

But Tess wasn’t sure she could. Her heart pounded and sweat dripped from every pore. The screen in front of her said that she was biking a mountain in the French Alps. But it didn’t smell like the French Alps. Forty-five women and five men, all sweating like crazy—no the smell was more along the lines of a high school locker room. 

“Come on! If I can do it, you can too!” 

There was no escaping the trainer’s voice, especially since Tess took the last bike and was right next to a loudspeaker. 

“Just a half mile left—TIME TO SPRINT!” 

Stop talking was the only thought that Tess could manage. Her legs pumped and her slippery hands held the handlebars.

“You still with us Tess? We’re almost there!” 

She peddled as fast as she could. 

“3, 2, 1…We did it!” 

Relief. Her legs were wobbly when she got off the bike. She showered, dressed, and stepped onto 8th Avenue. The traffic was terrible. 

“Wow, she’s brutal,” a voice beside her said. 

With just a glance, Tess recognized the red hair and pudgy frame—

“Hey, Jen is it?”

She nodded—

“She’s hard, but I want to lose some weight, so I’m going to keep coming.” Jen stopped at a diner. “I’m getting something here. You want to stop?” 

This wasn’t a thing that most New Yorkers did. You don’t just have dinner with people you don’t know. “No, thanks.” Tess gave her a smug smile and continued on her way. But as she walked, she thought about it—why wasn’t it a thing that New Yorkers did? Was she too cool for Jen, who had obviously just gotten there from a who-knows-where Podunk town… She stoped in the middle of the sidewalk and was immediately knocked from behind. 

“Watch it,” a man grumble and kept going. 

Jen sat in a booth and looked over the menu. She looked like the girl who was always alone in school. 

“You came back!” She was happy to see Tess, then her eyes went back to studying the menu. “I’m trying to decide which salad to get.” 

Tess slid onto the bench opposite her. “Salad? After that workout, I want meat.” 

The waitress put a menu on the table. Coffee?” 

“Water, please.” Tess glance at the menu, then set it down. 

“You know what you’re getting?” 

“Burger and fries.” Tess smiled. 

“God you’re lucky. Not to have to think about what you eat…” Jen looked at Tess in admiration. 

“How long have you been here?” 

“Three weeks. I just started a new job.” Jen said with excitement. 

“Really, what’s your new job?”

“Well, it’s actually an internship. But I’m pretty excited about it, it’s for a congressman.”

“Really…?” 

“Well, it’s actually for an assistant to an assistant. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a place to start, right?” 

“It’s a good place to start,” Tess said. “Congratulations.” 

“What do you do?” Jen asked with wide eyes.

“I work for the Times.” 

Jen’s jaw went slack. “The New York Times?”

Tess nodded. 

“Whoa…” 

Six Months Later

It was her phone’s jangling ringtone that nudged Tess from a deep sleep. The blackout shades were still drawn, and she stumbled over her suitcase, following the sound through the unknown terrain. Then, through blurry eyes, she spotted its dim glow in the bathroom. Elle’s picture lit the screen, and her breath was short when she asked—

“Where are you?”

The TV on Elle’s end of the line was distracting, and Tess fingered the sleep from her curls as she got her bearings. 

“What?” 

“Turn on the morning news.” Elle huffed. 

The remote was buried in a tangle of blankets that half covered the bed, and she had to whack it on her thigh to get it working. Then Tess saw the problem. Her brown face filled the television screen and stared back at her. She recognized the picture, it was cropped from a photo taken at a gala that she’d reported on. She was mid-word when the picture was snapped, and it gave her face an unpleasant distortion which could forgivingly be called unflattering. Tess cringed anytime she saw it. But the scroll under the terrible picture said it all— Using hacked information supplied by a foreign government.

Since she’d graduated and become a “real” reporter, “the script” that had been drilled into her was simple: Give the people blood. And now she was on the menu. She dug the inhaler out of her suitcase as her chest tightened—she knew the “information” that they were talking about. She took a breath from the inhaler, muted the show, and stood there chewing the skin off her lower lip. 

Elle brought her back to the moment.“You there?” 

“Yeah, I’ll call you back.” 

Two swipes away was Sebastian Knox’s phone number, but her boss didn’t pick up. The call went to voicemail. The Times usually stood by their reporters, but there was no head’s-up call, and now her boss wasn’t answering? She pressed two fingers into her solar plexus, which soothed what she feared might be the early signs of an ulcer. But Tess knew one thing for sure—she needed to get back to the city. 

The air taxi looked old, but it would be faster than waiting for the next flight or renting a car. The pilot was wearing a pair of well worn coveralls. He had on a beat up digital watch, a single leather glove covered his left hand, and his straw hat looked like it had been sat on. He introduced himself as Jub. 

“Tessa Bellwood,” she announced, hoping she came across more confident than she felt about getting on the little rattle trap.

Jub spit a gooey wad of brown saliva onto the tarmac before asking—

“Ready ma’am?” 

She nodded, and tried to be inconspicuous with the deep breathing exercises she was doing to calm herself. He cocked his head and squinted at her, then climbed on board. The low-hanging fog, and Jub’s southern drawl didn’t help her anxiety. She buckled the belt to her rumbling seat, slipped on the dirty ear muffs, and tried to ignore the vague smell of gasoline. “I should have rented a car,” she thought. 

The motor roared, missed several times, and backfired with startling explosions. They sped down the bumpy tarmac, Tess gripping the sides of her seat in fear, as Jub worked nonstop to keep the unwieldily plane steady. Then, miraculously, the ride smoothed out. They were off the ground and cutting through the thinning fog. 

Rolling green hills stretched for miles; there were horse ranches, and men working on farms; there were school buses parked on rural roads, and police cars at the local diner; rivers and creeks with kids sloshing around, and a group of girls rode their bikes down an empty road. She paid attention to everything—it was a trick her father taught her to control her anxiety. Then she noticed that the odor of gasoline had been taken over by the incredible aroma of a excellent restaurant. Jub had flipped the lid of his workman style lunchbox, and Tess peeked in. 

“My wife,” he said, “she cooks real good.” He pointed at the lunch box. “It’s part of the price. We’re not going to let you go hungry.” 

She decided to try a little. Then a lot. A little metal container held fried chicken and biscuits, another had corn and coleslaw, and another was filled with two large brownies, the likes of which she’d never tasted. Tess ate all of it, including both brownies. She had to loosen her seat belt. 

Then she saw it—the spiky New York skyline. Jub landed the plane gently at a small airstrip just across the Hudson. He grabbed Tess’ bag and offered his hand to help her off the plane. She handed him a $20 tip. His head gracefully nodded in gratitude.

“The flight was magnificent,” she said.  

“Thank you, ma’am. We appreciate your business.” Jub gave Tess a yellow-toothed smile, got back on the plane, and flew off towards home. She pulled out her work phone, but it was dead, roaming must have killed it. And only 10% on her personal phone—just enough to call a car, and try her fiancé. Voicemail. She immediately hit end, relieved he was still out of town. 

In the grey evening light of Manhattan, Tess turned the key of her two-hundred-and-nine square foot basement apartment. She dropped her bags in the little rectangle that she generously thought of as her living room, and called work again. The only person who would pick up was the on-call weekend editor. He was distracted, and typed as they talked. 

“Plan on an early morning meeting,” he grumbled, before hitting end. 

 She checked the back porch and the cat food bowl was empty. It was the neighbor’s cat, she liked to imagine, and she was happy to give it an extra snack. She showered, threw on sweats, and walked to the bodega. 

Ali, the owner of the store, was an overweight man who sat perched on a tall stool. His eyes glanced from the paper he was reading, to the news show he watched. Tess looked at the TV and was glad they had moved on from her. But when he saw her, he turned the volume down. He knew. 

“It doesn’t matter, Ali.” 

“Screw them!” Ali lit up. “They’re always trying to knock people down. You a good person. I know. You always pay your bill on time,” he defended her honor. 

Tess walked to the back, got cat food, a half dozen eggs, some milk, and a box of chocolate chip cookies. 

“You want me to put it on the tab?” 

Tess nodded. “Thanks.” 

The neighborhood used to be working class. Not anymore. The Meatpacking District was now dimly lit and self consciously cool. She pulled over her hoodie, feeling like she’d gone incognito, and walked home. Her partially charged phone rang. Unknown caller. Could be someone from the Times. She picked up.

“Tessa Bellwood?” The voice asked. 

“Who’s this?” 

“Paul Stokes, I’m an attorney.”

Tess hit end and tore open the box of cookies. She brought the cat food out to the back landing and did her best imitation of a cat meow. No cat came. She emptied the can in the bowl. On fast-forward, she sped through the opening titles to the scene that she’d always loved —the banter between Bogart and Bacall. But it wasn’t long until her compulsions got the better of her—she knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help checking her phones. Her work phone, the number all of her colleagues had, was filled with texts. “How’s it going?” “Wanted to see if you had any comment?” “Did you resign before they got the chance to fire you?” All the things she would have asked, if someone else had been on the firing line. 

Her personal phone was quiet, only Elle, who was sending her emojis, and another college friend, Jackson, who spent most of his time traveling around the world. Nothing from Tyler, her fiancé. She could forgive Tyler; he was still in Europe and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. At least that’s what she told herself. But deep down she feared that he knew.  

Absently, she turned the channel to a news show and immediately wished she hadn’t—there was her boss, Sebastian Knox, mid- sentence: “I put myself on the line for her, as I do for all journalists under me, but blatant plagiarism, lying to those at the paper…she’s not only fired, but unless there are extenuating circumstances, her career in journalism should be over.” 

Open-mouthed, Tess stared at the screen and could feel her forehead break out into a sweat.