2024
Their apartment had been trashed.
Days had passed since Melinda had left her message on that ancient answering machine, with no response from Wilmer Offutt or any possible replacement. Frustration gnawed at her. She still had enough material banked for the next couple episodes of Cetacean, maybe more if she broke the aircraft carrier incident and the raid on the hospital into two separate eps, but her gut told her that the memorably “intense” Mister Offutt was a lead worth pursuing. If nothing else, maybe his probing into the Strange Case of the Regrown Kidney had turned up something about Gillian that had eluded her so far. Dennis had yet to find any solid info about Offutt, despite long hours scouring the internet, which only heightened her curiosity.
C’mon, call me back already, she’d been thinking as they returned from a grocery run, lugging reusable shopping bags laden with their usual staples, only to discover the apartment door unlocked and their place ransacked. Whoever had tossed the apartment had not been subtle about it; every closet, cupboard, and drawer had been opened, the contents rifled through and often dumped on the nearest counter, bed, or available surface. Papers were strewn across the floor, boxes dragged out from beneath beds, and prescription bottles heaped in the bathroom sink. Even the grates over the heating vents had been pried off, the better to search behind them, she guessed. Personal memorabilia, of sentimental value, had been tossed onto her bed: an Erin Brockovich movie poster signed by its namesake; a framed copy of the front-page exposé that got Melinda kicked off her high school newspaper and made her very unpopular with some of her teachers and classmates; a vacation photo of her and her older brother, Eric, a screengrab of the time Cascade topped 250,000 subscribers… all manhandled and discarded like so much junk.
“Holy crap,” Dennis whispered as they numbly toured the premises, taking it all in. Their shopping bags, dropped to the floor at the first sight of the chaos left behind by the intruders, lay forgotten by the breached doorway. Putting away the perishables was the last thing on their minds right now. “They tore our place apart.”
“Tell me about it.” She wasn’t sure if she was angry or relieved that they hadn’t been home when their formerly secure nest had been pillaged. “Somebody really went to town here.”
And yet, at first glance, nothing was obviously missing. Their large-screen TV was still intact. Their assorted laptops and pads had not been stolen, although she worried that they might have been violated along with their apartment. Panic surged through her at the thought of losing all their work and research.
“Please tell me that everything for Cetacean is backed up on the cloud.”
“Of course.” Dennis looked and sounded understandably stunned by the break-in. “That goes without saying.”
“Thank God.” She was shaken as well, but that eased her mind some. “For a moment there, I was afraid we’d lost everything: the interviews, my edits, all of it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “I’m not an idiot.”
The fury in his voice startled her. “I never said you were.”
“But you didn’t listen to me!” He went from stunned to raging in seconds, angrily kicking a dislodged seat cushion across the living room. “I saw this coming! I knew it, but you didn’t want to hear it!”
She was taken aback by his outburst. “What are you talking about?”
“Look around! This wasn’t a burglary. This is because of Cetacean. All the poking around we’ve been doing, digging into some long-buried conspiracy? Well, congratulations! Somebody noticed… and then some!”
She started to protest, to insist that he was letting his paranoia get the better of him again, but hesitated. Could he be right? As much as she wanted to write this off as a random break-in, she found she couldn’t just dismiss Dennis’s theory out of hand. They had been delving into deep and murky waters: cover-ups, national security, even an alleged cure for missing kidneys. It wasn’t beyond reason that interested parties, possibly high up in the military and/or medical establishments, might want to search their apartment to find out just how much they did or didn’t know. Wouldn’t be the first time the Powers That Be raided a journalist’s home or office to keep tabs on their investigation, maybe uncover their sources.
“You know, you may be on to something.”
“You think?” He waded through the scattered papers littering the floor, then paused and looked over at her in surprise. “Wait. Did you just agree with me?”
“Possibly. I certainly can’t rule out that this is related to Cetacean, which is alarming, yes, but also kinda flattering when you think about it. Means we’re being taken seriously, possibly by the very people responsible for Gillian’s disappearance.” Her initial dismay over the break-in started to give way to a growing sense of excitement. “Don’t you see what this means? We’re on the right track, enough so that we’ve got your dreaded conspiracy worried about how far we’ve gotten already. This isn’t just a vintage true-crime investigation anymore. We’re Woodward and Bernstein, on the trail of a major news story that stretches all the way to… well, I have no idea at this point, but it’s got to be big to provoke this kind of reaction. And this is happening now, not forty years ago!”
“Jesus Christ!” Dennis gaped at her. “Do you hear yourself? Our home is invaded, unknown entities are targeting us where we live, and you’re still obsessed with that frigging podcast? What about our personal safety? You ever think about that? Or is having a hit series all that matters to you?”
Ouch, she thought, stung by the accusation. “It’s not all that matters, but… it’s what we do. It’s our calling.”
“Your calling, maybe. I thought it was a cool side hustle that turned into a fairly profitable full-time gig, at least in the short term. But maybe I underestimated just how crazily ambitious you are.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” she said defensively. “It’s worked out pretty well for us so far. I didn’t hear you complaining about quitting our crummy day jobs.”
She wasn’t about to back down just yet, but was it possible he had a point, to some degree? Was she the one who had actually gotten carried away here, lost her perspective on what really mattered? Or were there bigger issues at stake?
“And what about Gillian? Don’t you want to find out what happened to her? Maybe even find some justice for her if she was the victim of foul play?”
“That was forever ago. Whatever became of Gillian, it’s ancient history at this point. And it’s not as though you actually knew her; she disappeared before we were even born. Anyway, has it ever occurred to you that maybe, if she is still alive, Gillian doesn’t want to be found?”
“Of course I’ve thought about that. I’ve wrestled with that question all the way back to Cascade and Eleanor. But what’s the alternative? Just let missing persons—missing women—be forgotten? Never try to find out what happened to them?”
“I’m not saying that,” Dennis said, now on the defensive himself. “But doesn’t this look like somebody’s sending us a message? Telling us we’ve gone too far on this particular case?”
“Could be, but think about that. Do you really want them to get away with this?” She threw his own preoccupations back at him. “What’s the point of obsessing over conspiracies if you’re afraid to confront them? To uncover and expose them? Or are you just talk?”
His gaze dropped to the floor, shame bleeding away his earlier indignation. “But it’s dangerous, and you don’t seem to realize that. This isn’t just about racking up more subscriptions to Cetacean. There are serious risks and consequences to consider.”
“Point taken,” she said, offering him an olive branch. She glanced around their ravaged domicile. “I get that now.”
“So ask yourself: Do you still think it’s worth it?”
She did him the courtesy of giving the question serious thought before answering. She examined her motives, finding a tangle of emotions fueling her: anger over the break-in, insatiable curiosity about where this was all leading and how it connected to Gillian, and yes, ambition and stubbornness. She had never liked being told to be a good girl, keep quiet, and not ask the “wrong” questions. Growing up in a conservative small town in Shasta County, raised by strict conservative parents, she had never quite fit in: always reading the wrong books, listening to the wrong music, and not keeping her mouth shut to avoid upsetting people. Exposing that high-school sports hazing scandal certainly hadn’t made her any friends back in her old hometown, but she had stuck to her guns—and moved to the city the first chance she got. Her whole life had been about speaking truth, no matter what. Could she really buckle under now? She’d already invested too much of herself into solving this mystery to just walk away now. She remembered Javy Valdez wishing he’d stuck around to find out who actually came through that glowing doorway in the park, and Briggs and Fulton and Halley and everyone else still haunted by unanswered questions from decades ago. If she backed off now, playing it safe, would she always regret it?
“Yes. Positively,” she told Dennis. “I’m not letting this go, no matter what.”
He nodded. “Okay then.” He seemed calmer now that they’d had it out and she’d actually listened to him. “But we’re going to be more careful from now on?”
“Absolutely. Within reason.”
He scowled. “What does that mean?”
Before she could answer, figures appeared at the door, which, in the shock of coming home to a crime scene, they had yet to close behind them. She recognized them as the neighbors from across the hall. Paul and Miley Something. Drawn by her and Dennis’s heated voices or just the obvious signs of disarray?
“Yikes, what happened here?” Miley peered from the doorway at the mess. “Is everything okay?”
“Just a break-in,” Melinda lied. “We’re fine.”
Maybe.