Half truth

“Yep. That’s my dad. Sorry. The Bastón men can be real bastards.” A weak laugh escaped me.

“So you’re Amelia.” She assessed me a little longer, tilting her head as she looked at me, as if trying to decide what to do with me. “You do resemble your mother when she was young. I only met her briefly when we were here. As much as it killed me to admit back then, she was stu

“Uh. Thanks?”

“You’re here for a job,” she said. “We should get to that.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ella Valentine.” She waved me off. “Call me Ella or Elle. Definitely not ma’am.”

“Ella then.”

“Follow me to my office. I’ll see what we can do.”

I let out a breath, walking down the corridor and past the students walking in and out of cubicles. There was a constant chatter here that I was used to. In my old university’s newsroom, it was the kind of thing that made chasing a story worthwhile. It was the buzz that made my palms sweat and blood pump a little faster. When we reached her office, Ella shut the door behind us. I looked around and took in the plaques on the wall hanging beside her degrees. When she sat behind her desk, I helped myself to the seat across from her.

“What year are you?”

“Senior.”

Her brows rose. “And you just transferred in?”

“Yes, I know how that looks,” I said. “My goal was to start last spring, but I had to wait until this fall. I was accepted and was supposed to attend here originally, but decided to follow my boyfriend to Duke instead.”

“Your father must have been thrilled.”

“That’s an understatement.” I bit back a smile. “He was definitely a lot happier when I told him I would come here.”

“And you’re closer to home.”

“Yeah.”

“How’s he doing? I hope you don’t mind me asking. I can’t remember the last time I saw him.” She pursed her lips as she thought it over. “I did see your mother while I was out to di

“He’s doing well. They’re all doing well,” I said quickly.

If I liked the idea of being a reporter, it was because I didn’t want to be reported on. Years of my older brothers appearing on Page Six headlines and getting reprimanded for it ruined that for me.

“Please send them my regards.” She put her elbows on the desk and clasped her hands together. “I take it there’s no longer a boyfriend in the picture?”

“No. We broke up.”

“And you said you were working in the paper down in Carolina? What kind of stories were you working on?”

“Mostly events and student life. We had a lot of marches and organizations getting together for protests, so I covered those. I would really love to get into more investigative stuff, but to be honest, I’m not sure what’s allowed.”

“Investigative like what?”

“Like for instance, Lana Ly. I searched and noticed the paper hasn’t written much on her disappearance.”

“That’s because we tried and were quickly shut down.” She raised an eyebrow. “There’s money, and then there’s money. Le’s parents have the latter. They don’t want us spewing untrue things, even though we were doing thorough investigations on everything.”

“Oh.” I sat back slightly.

“Did you know her?”

“We went to high school together. We weren’t friends, per se, but friendly.”

“I’m sorry. The whole town is shaken up about it, but alas, I can’t print anything about it.”

“That’s understandable, I guess.” I felt myself frown. What was the point of freedom of speech if we couldn’t even keep a student’s memory alive?

“What about sports?”

“What about them?”

“We need someone in sports right now. Our guy graduated and the one who was supposed to take his place runs a full-time college sports blog now. He’s still working with us part-time as a favor to me, but he needs to be replaced.”

“I . . . ” I paused, trying to figure out how to verbalize this. “I don’t really know much about sports. I mean, I know basketball since my boyfriend played and I know soccer, since I played in high school, but that’s the extent of my sports knowledge.”

“Do you know hockey?”

“Not really.”

“Football?”

“I can learn.”

“Wow. Three older brothers and none of them bothered to teach you the rules of football or hockey?”

“The older ones are too far apart in age and the closest to me tried and failed.” I paused, smiling sheepishly. “Like I said, I know basketball.”

“Well, it’s something.” She frowned. “The one closest to you in age was the one who played here, right?”

“Yeah. Lincoln.”

“My daughter had such a crush on him.” She smiled, shaking her head. “Like mother like daughter, I guess. Thankfully, he never found out she existed and she moved on and was spared the Bastón heartache.”

I pressed my lips together in what I hoped was a smile. What was I supposed to say to a woman who thirty-plus years later, clearly wasn’t over the fact that my father dumped her? Especially one I was hoping to get a job from? Silence really was the best answer to most things. I broke after it stretched for a moment too long.

She cleared her throat before she spoke. “Do you take good photographs?”

“I’ve been told I do.”

“Would you be willing to photograph sports and write about other things? Maybe student relations or dating life as a college student? Something we’ve been lacking is a column on things to do outside of campus, though I’m not sure this is the right timing for that after what happened to Lana.” She sighed heavily.

“Did you find anything? I mean, when you were allowed to investigate?” I sat up straighter.

“We got as far as finding out that she was trailing some secret societies, but they won’t talk. Hell, we don’t even know who’s in all of these little secret cults.” She sat back in her chair. It squeaked and bounced back with the force of the movement. “One of the organizations has agreed to let us list them by name every year so that people know who the members are, but the rest are still hiding beneath their red and black cloaks.”

“Oh.”

“Well, it’s settled. I’ll provide you with a camera and paperwork. There’s a sports event happening on Friday night. Some sort of mixer. Your assignment starts then.”

“Thank you so much.” I stood up and shook her hand. “I’ll take the best pictures I can.”

“And please, if you have anything you’d like to write about, shoot me an email and we’ll talk. I don’t want to discourage you from doing something more.” She gave me another sweep. “Maybe you can write about fashion around campus.”

“Um . . . maybe. Yeah.”

I let go of her hand and walked back to the main campus, where the human resources department for the paper was and spent the next hour filling out paperwork and thinking about the kind of secrets people must have in order to be involved in a secret group. Then, I called my brother and filled him in on the last few days of my life.

“Why would she put you in charge of sports? You don’t even like sports.”

Lincoln sounded tired. He always sounded tired, whether it was from the lack of sleep or the meds he was on, I wasn’t sure, but his voice was always drowsy.

“I’m just taking pictures of the sports things.”

“You’re a senior. Shouldn’t you be in charge of that paper?”

“I just got here, remember?”

“So? Tell them who your father is.”

“Seriously?” I rolled my eyes. “I refuse to fall into that bullshit.”