Page 15 of In This Moment

“I’ll need access to the website server.” She gave him back the laptop. “It needs updating. I’ll ask permission before doing anything.”

She just jumped right in, didn’t she? What a relief. “You got it. Installing now.”

Setting her paperwork aside, she leaned back in her seat. “Do we have a list of emails for current and former subscribers?”

“Yes.” He’d planned on doing an e-print version of the Gazette before she’d suggested it, but with content as it stood, it hadn’t been worth it yet. “It’s in a csv file. I’ll put it on your desktop.” He tapped a few keys, then inserted a thumb drive. “Done. What else?”

“Where are the physical archives?”

“Upstairs.” There was a small storage space above the newsroom. He hadn’t been up there since his interview. “Why?”

She looked over her shoulder at the newsroom. “Why wait? Gunner gave you six months, and if you’re down to four, we should get going.”

It would kind of help to know what she had in mind, but at this point, whatever ideas she had floating around couldn’t be worse than how things currently stood.

A nod, and he rose. He stuck his head out his office door, sending Joan and Jefferson home for the day. He’d discuss consignment with them tomorrow instead.

Once they’d left, he crossed his arms. “Okay, Obi-Wan. I’m all yours.” Newspaper run files for tomorrow were already at the printers, so he had nothing else pressing.

She smiled at the nickname and stood, setting her bag on the chair, then strolled into the newsroom. She locked the door, flipped the sign to Closed, and eyed the room once again.

He followed, waiting on her. Sadly, this was the most exciting day he’d had in the office since he’d moved to Vallantine.

The room was divided into two sides, three desks on each. There were two empty chairs up front. That was about it, besides a small closet and the unisex half bathroom. The walls were old brick, which he found neat, but they were bare, and the floor was a solid ivory tile pattern. Overall, it was roughly a thousand square feet. The big bay front window had a large sill and room for displays, but nothing was there. Just as it had been when he’d started the job.

After an excruciatingly long pause, she made a humming noise in her throat. “Can we look upstairs?”

He huffed a laugh. “Sure.”

The door to the second floor was in his office, so they backtracked. He pulled the keys from his desk, unlocked the door, and flipped on a light.

He gestured for her to go first. “After you.”

The staircase was narrow and steep with dull lighting, making it seem grungy.

Once at the top, she set her hands on her hips, eyes wide. “Holy crap.”

Following her gaze, he grunted, using the switch on the wall to turn on the fluorescent overheads. “Yeah.”

One large open space. Wooden floorboards. Unfinished walls. Low seven-foot ceilings. Rafter beams. A thousand years of dust. Boxes were stacked in haphazard piles along the street-facing wall, and mismatched furniture pieces toward the back.

She made her way to the boxes, crouching to examine them. “These go back to 1948? The first year in print?”

“Yes, and I don’t know what you’re thinking, but they’re more organized than they look. There are dates written on the boxes, and from what Gunner says, there’s one copy of each paper since first run. He had someone come in ages ago to sort them. I have a box in my office that has copies since I was hired.”

“So much history,” she whispered. “This is amazing. The library didn’t keep files of the Vallantine Gazette. Which can work to our favor.”

He didn’t see how.

She shifted to the other side of the room, looking at the furniture. A few desks, one of them a tall podium counter. A couple wingback chairs. A bureau. There was a glass display case and a few bookshelves. At one point, the newsroom must’ve been set up with cubicles because there were divider walls in varying heights, folded and leaning against several large empty poster frames.

The weird thing? There was a huge birdcage, which she paused in front of, smiling.

“When I was a little girl, Mr. Forester, the old editor, had a yellow canary he’d keep in this cage in the display window. His name was Plucky, and everyone loved him. He became this strange sort of staple to the town. Even tourists would stop by the window to say hello.” She laughed. “He’d chirp when the door opened.”

Interesting. “We should do that again. Get another bird.” They were noisy and he didn’t care for them, but if ole Plucky had been that memorable, why not?

She set her gaze on him, and there it was again. That click between them, like time had narrowed through a vacuum. Nostalgia softened her otherwise determined features, a gentle smile curving her lips. If he wasn’t mistaken, respect shone in her eyes as if he’d done something worthy to warrant it.

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