The text from Ellison was (as her messages usually were) concise and ominous in equal measures.

Media center ASAP

That was it.

No explanations. No reassurances.

Not even an emoji.

It might've been the most stress-inducing thing I'd ever woken up to on a Tuesday morning, if it weren't for the fact that the last time Ellison had sent me a cryptic text requesting my presence at the media center it'd been for free pizza and cheap champagne.

So I wasn't about to get all worked up for nothing again.

I took my sweet time picking out a sundress and smothering concealer under my eyes to mask the fact that, between the lack of air conditioning in our apartment and the flood of caffeine in my system from all the Vietnamese iced coffee I'd chugged yesterday afternoon, I'd gotten all of two and a half hours of sleep. When I was ready to face the world, I slapped a Post-it on the fridge reminding Hanna to take compressed charcoal sticks to the studio for figure drawing (and to have a great day, kiddo!!!), grabbed my backpack, and headed onto campus.

I was halfway across the quad in front of the student union when a middle-aged white guy in a neatly pressed button-down shirt and charcoal slacks stood from where he'd been perched on the ledge around the fountain and called my name.

"Excuse me, Miss Cates?"

I really didn't care for this new trend of people recognizing me and approaching me on campus—especially since yesterday's incident had ruined one of my favorite shirts.

So I ducked my head and tried to pretend I hadn't heard him.

But he was quick. Just before I made it to the doors of the student union, he launched himself in front of me, blocking my path with one outstretched arm. In his other hand was a cell phone. It took me a moment to realize why the angle he was holding it at looked so awkward.

He was recording me.

"Sorry," I rasped, my voice betraying my panic at the intrusion. "I've really gotta—"

"Adam Whittaker for Fox News," the man interrupted. "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the Vaughn profile."

Ellison had prepped me for this kind of thing. She'd given me some long statement packed with legal jargon and told me to recite it—verbatim—if anyone tried to ambush me with an interview.

What came out was, "Lawyer! I get a lawyer. It's the rule."

"This won't take long," Whittaker continued, unfazed by the fact that I sounded like a child playing a board game. "Did you or anyone at the Daily receive money from another university to sabotage Garland's team?"

"We didn't—" I began, then remembered I wasn't supposed to engage and huffed in annoyance. "If you'll excuse me, I really—"

I tried to side-step Whittaker.

He mirrored my movements, blocking the doors.

"Who made the executive call to weaponize the Me Too movement?" he asked. "Was it you, or your editor-in-chief?"

One of the glass double doors behind Whittaker flew open. Ellison Michaels appeared as if the fact he'd spoken her title was enough to summon her from thin air. Her platinum blonde hair was slicked back into a tight French braid, and her glare was cold as ice.

"This is private property," Ellison said, so quietly and calmly that a prickle of unease rolled down my spine. "If I see you harassing my writers again, I'm calling the police."

"And telling them what? That I'm trespassing?" Whittaker asked, eyes narrowing and the corners of his mouth twisting up in a self-satisfied smile. "The university offers public access to this campus between the hours of 6 AM and 10 PM. I'm not breaking any laws."

"I have the number for President Sterling's direct line," Ellison countered. "He has the authority to kick you out of here. You have five minutes before I make the call."

Whittaker's lips pressed into a thin, grim line.

Ellison looked to me and tipped her head, motioning for me to get inside. I scrambled around Whittaker and into the lobby of the student union.

I heard the glass door thud closed behind me.

And then Ellison was at my side, shepherding me past the curious looks of students who'd stopped to watch the confrontation and into the elevator. When those doors slid shut and she and I were alone, I went to tuck my hair behind my ears and realized my arms were shaking.

"Deep breath," Ellison instructed.

I didn't understand how she could be so unruffled, but I was glad for her calm and commanding presence as we hurried across the media center, students looking up from their computers and bean bag chairs to watch us with shameless curiosity.

Ellison led me into her office, which smelled of overpriced scented candles and herbal tea, and apologized for the mess—by which she meant a J Crew blazer tossed over the back of her seat (instead of hung on the hook mounted to the back of the door) and a few piles of papers that she hadn't, like, alphabetized.

We clearly had very different concepts of what a mess looked like.

I sunk into the chair across from her desk, my knees wobblier than Jell-O shots.

"You look rough, Cates," Ellison observed.

She'd never been one to sugarcoat.

"I was up late working on this Writing 301 paper," I lied.

In my defense, I'd tried to work on my paper.

Then, somehow, I'd ended up scrolling through tagged pictures of Bodie on Facebook at one o'clock in the morning, terrified I'd accidentally like one but unable to stop my sleuthing.

He'd been sort of husky in high school. Still incredibly popular, judging by the abundance of classmates and friends grinning and making duck-lips in almost every photo, but decidedly chubbier and more awkward—at least until the summer before his senior year, when he'd dropped thirty pounds during football camp (at which all the boys in attendance had shaved their heads in what I guessed was some kind of weird male bonding ritual).

I liked the endearingly dorky pictures, but, I mean, jeez.

What a glow up.

And then there was the picture of him sitting at a table, Garland baseball cap on his head, grinning at the camera as he signed his National Letter of Intent.

Coach Vaughn stood behind him, one hand braced on Bodie's shoulder.

His smile was haughty. Triumphant.

"I'm sorry I had to call you in like this," Ellison said. "But I wanted you to hear it from me."

Nothing good could follow that kind of statement.

I knew that, and still, I wasn't quite ready for the blow.

"Vaughn's claiming an alibi for the weekend Josefina Rodriguez went missing."

It took me a moment to come up with a thought that wasn't oh fuck.

"What—what's his alibi?" I finally croaked.

"He says he wasn't at the Alvarado Resort. He says he was out with a friend, and he's got credit card statements that prove he ordered about four hundred dollars of alcohol at a club somewhere in downtown Cabo about fifteen minutes after Rodriguez was last seen."

My eyebrows pinched.

"How far is the resort from the club?" I asked.

"I mapped it this morning," Ellison said, the corner of her mouth twitching with pride in a way that told me she'd been hoping I'd ask this very question. "Ten minutes in traffic."

"So he could've just gone to the club after—after whatever happened at the resort," I concluded.

Ellison nodded.

"It's not much of an alibi unless they can recover CCTV footage from the club's security cameras that places Vaughn there earlier. But you can tell where they're steering this, right? Your sources saw Vaughn with two men. He's saying he only took one to the club. They're setting themselves up to pin Josefina's disappearance on the third, if that's what it takes to save Vaughn's career."

"But what about the tips we got?" I asked. "All those stories—"

"Won't mean much," Ellison finished for me, "until the university can track down who sent them and assess how seriously they need to take the allegations."

I groaned in frustration.

Ellison glanced out through the window. I could tell, from the way her eyes narrowed, that Whittaker was still down there, waiting outside the front doors of the student union.

"This is the United States," she murmured as an afterthought. "One man's word carries more weight than the voices of a hundred women."

A very bleak few moments of silence followed this observation.

But then Ellison took a bolstering breath and turned to face me.

"I'm sorry about the Fox News asshole," she said. "That's part of the reason why I wanted to talk to you, actually. I wanted to let you know that this is probably your last chance to hop off this train. The Daily is going to keep up with the investigation, and whoever's involved is going to risk getting harassed by the media. I need you, Cates. And I want you as my lead writer. But I can't force you into this, so I have to ask if you're in or out."

There was no question about it.

"I'm in."

Ellison's stern expression dissolved into perhaps the giddiest and most relieved smile I'd ever seen on her face. I beamed back at her. This somewhat touching moment was interrupted when Ellison's cell phone vibrated on her desk, clattering loudly against the wood surface.

She glanced down at the screen and sighed, though her smile didn't fade.

"I need to take this call," she told me. "Why don't you swing by tomorrow afternoon? We can discuss your next assignment. I've got some ideas."

_________________

Good news! I decided to divide Chapter 18 into two. It was getting close to 3k words, and I could see so many opportunities for me to make the second half better if I let it be longer and combined it with what was going to be the first little bit of the next chapter. So this is it for tonight, but (and here's why it's good news and you shouldn't egg my house for shortening a chapter) I'll be posting the ~new~ Chapter 19 this weekend! No need to wait a whole week.

Also, not to be dramatic, but this month has been one of the best months of my life. I wish I could communicate how much happier I am today than I was in mid-October. And I only wrote about 8.5k words for NaNoWriMo, but I really like those 8.5k words, so we're calling November 2018 a win!

On a chapter-specific note, I've missed Ellison a lot.

Your friendly author,

Kate