Full Tilt. Rick Mofina

not because Reeka was ambitious and convinced she had superior news skills but rather, as the night editors held, because one of Newslead’s executives was her uncle and she could get away with it. Every newsroom Kate had ever worked in had at least one insufferable editor.

      “Yes, Reeka, there’s art. The story’s on the budget. I’ll file it today, as noted in the budget, and I’ll insert the new justice stats.”

      “Thank you.” Reeka pivoted while texting and left with Kate’s eyes drilling into the back of her head.

      Be careful with her. This is not the time to make enemies. Kate walked back to her desk amid the newsroom’s cluttered low-walled cubicles. A number of those desks were empty, grim reminders that staff had been cut in recent years as the news industry continued bleeding revenues.

      It was rumored Newslead would introduce a process to measure how many stories reporters produced and subscriber pickup rates of their work, against that of competitors like the AP, Reuters or Bloomberg.

      Bring it on. Kate could go toe-to-toe with anyone.

      She had proved that a year ago in a brutal job competition at Newslead’s Dallas bureau where she broke a story about a baby missing during a killer tornado. It’s why Chuck Laneer, a senior editor in Dallas, later offered her a job at Newslead’s world headquarters after he was transferred here to Manhattan.

      Since then, Kate had led Newslead’s reporting, often beating the competition on coverage of serial killings, mall shootings, corruption, kidnappings, every kind of chaos that unfolded across the country or around the world.

      Reporting was in Kate’s blood.

      And for as long as she remembered she’d always battled the odds.

      Her life had been a continual struggle for survival. She’d bounced through foster homes, spent her teen years on the street, taking any job she could get to put herself through college. She’d worked in newsrooms across the country and had a baby by a man who’d lied to her and written her off. Now here she was: a single mother who’d just turned thirty, and a national correspondent at one of the world’s largest news organizations.

      Settling back into her desk, Kate’s heart warmed as she looked at Grace, her seven-year-old daughter, smiling from the framed photograph next to her monitor.

      We’ve come a long way, baby. We’re survivors.

      Less than an hour later, she finished her feature and sent it to the desk.

      As she collected her things to leave, her phone rang.

      “Newslead, Kate Page.”

      “Kate, this is Anne Kelly, with the New York office of the Children’s Searchlight Network. Do you have a second?”

      “Sure.”

      “Fred Byfield, one of our investigators, said I should call. You’d asked that we alert you to any queries we get that may relate to your sister’s file, no matter how tenuous?”

      Kate’s pulse quickened. “Yes, go ahead.”

      “We wanted to give you a heads-up about a query we recently received from law enforcement.”

      It sounded like the woman was reading from a message.

      “All right,” Kate said.

      “We were asked to check our files for a piece of jewelry concerning missing white women in their twenties.”

      “But that’s routine.”

      “It is, but in this case, Fred said that they’re asking about a necklace with a guardian angel charm.”

      Kate froze.

      Shortly before her death, Kate’s mother had given her and Vanessa each a necklace bearing a guardian angel charm. Kate had described the necklace in the file she’d submitted with missing persons organizations.

      “Does it say anything about engraving or an inscription?”

      “No.”

      “Can you give me more details, Anne?”

      “I can have someone call you.”

      “Okay, but can you tell me anything more right now?”

      “Well, we just got a message that the query went to our national office in Washington to run a search on the item, and, Kate, I’m sorry but it concerns a homicide.”

      Kate slid down into her chair.

6

      New York City

      Kate’s express train barreled north out of Penn Station.

      As she stared into the darkness, her mind raced, absorbing the call about the necklace.

       Could it be Vanessa’s?

      Contending with the ramifications and questions, she felt a knocking in her heart that turned into apprehension.

       Stop it.

       Vanessa’s dead. She died twenty years ago. Why do I put myself through this? Why do I cling to the hope that she survived? And now this: a homicide.

      The subway platforms blurred by until Kate reached her stop. That’s when her phone rang. It was Nancy Clark, her neighbor, who watched her daughter.

      “Hi, Kate, is this a bad time?”

      “No. I’m just about home. Everything okay?”

      “Oh, yes, Grace really wanted to talk to you.”

      “All right, put her on.”

      The sound of the phone being passed to Grace was followed by “Hi, Mom?”

      “Hi hon. What’s up?”

      “Mom, can I get my own phone?”

      “Oh, sweetie.”

      “But all my friends have phones.”

      “I’ll think about it. I’ll be home soon. We’ll talk about it then.”

      “Okay, Mom, love you.”

      “Love you, too.”

      Kate touched her phone to her lips and smiled.

       What a kid.

      Grace was her sun, her moon and the stars in her life. She’d taken to New York City like she was born here. She loved her school, her new friends, Central Park, the museums, everything about the city.

      Kate treasured her job with Newslead, given her long road to get to this point. It had taken a little luck and a lot of hard work, but she’d turned a corner professionally and financially.

      We’ve got a good life here. They lived in Morningside Heights in a Victorian-era building where she’d sublet an affordable two-bedroom apartment from a Columbia University professor who’d taken a sabbatical in Europe. While walking the few blocks home from the station, Kate checked for any updates from Anne Kelly at the Children’s Searchlight Network.

      Nothing.

      Kate picked up her mail in the lobby, the place where she and Grace first met Nancy Clark, a retired and widowed nurse who lived alone on the floor above them.

      She was so kind and warm she had practically adopted Kate and Grace. They had each other over for coffee and Nancy quickly insisted she look after Grace whenever Kate worked or traveled. Now, outside Nancy’s apartment, Kate noticed the aroma of fresh baking before Grace opened the door.

      “Hi, Mom! We made cookies!” Grace hugged Kate then went back to the kitchen table and collected a small tin and her backpack. “Nancy says I can take them home.”

      “Okay,”