Page 91 of The Sound of Us

“Dante talked to him earlier this afternoon and he said this was exactly what indie radio is all about.” Dante had been uncharacteristically quiet since he’d gone to talk to Noah about my plan and I’d had a niggle of worry that Noah wasn’t doing as well as we’d hoped.

“How do you feel about it?” Haley asked Isla. “The most important thing is that you get justice.”

“I’ll go to the police tomorrow after the story goes live,” Isla said. “I didn’t go earlier this week because I didn’t want to take the risk that they would make Skye shut down her investigation. Once the story is out there, it will be more difficult to cover anything up. Best-case scenario, Ethan will face criminal charges and the university will be exposed, which will hopefully force them to change their policy with respect to sexual assaults on campus.”

“That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard,” Chad said. “I’m all in. Whatever you need. If you need a face for the station when the television crews roll in, I’m your man.” He smiled wide, showing his pearly-white teeth. “New veneers.”

“I’m in, too,” Haley said. “For Isla and for making the campus a safer place.”

We didn’t have to ask about Nick. He hadn’t left Isla’s side since she’d told him about Ethan. He’d slept on our couch, walked her to and from class, and made sure she was never alone.

“I’m in,” Siobhan said. “Especially if it’s got Noah’s stamp of approval. Why don’t you come in first thing tomorrow and I can set you up to tape it?”

“Why not do it live tonight?” Derek said. “I’ve got a show in an hour. You can come with me and take my slot. It’s in the primetime window so you’ll have good numbers. The university already knows about your story. They’ll be covering their tracks. The sooner you get it out there, the better.”

“Because my first live experience wasn’t a good one,” I pointed out. “It’s one thing doing the show with Dante when all I have to do is talk about music, and he handles everything else. It’s another to fly solo with something that is too important to mess up. I don’t want a single word lost to stutters or microphone squeaks or a finger on a wrong button that means I cut out. I don’t want to lose the audience by going off on a rant again.”

“You won’t have to fly solo,” Derek assured me. “I’ll be there. I can handle the board, deal with any sound or mechanical issues and fill in the time if there is any dead air. And once you’re done, I can go back to my regular programming.”

I liked the idea of getting the story out there right away. The university had already shut down Professor Stanton. What else were they prepared to do? “I thought you made someone sound like Mickey Mouse,” I said, considering.

“It was just a few squeaks,” he protested.

“We’ll all come,” Haley offered. “You might need more bodies around if they try to stop you.”

“Whoa.” Chad held up his hands. “I’m not in if this is going to get violent. I can’t risk any damage to this face. It’s the key to my future.”

“I was thinking witnesses, not a throw-down.” Haley couldn’thide the sarcasm in her tone as we packed up to leave. “But don’t worry. If it comes to that, you can just run away.”

“Is something wrong?” I asked Dante as we walked across the campus, our boots squeaking in the snow. The wind had picked up and even with my thick jacket, hat, scarf, and mittens, I could still feel the chill.

“I expected the old Noah when I went to tell him what had happened,” he said quietly. “I thought he’d jump out of his chair and drive himself to the station because he was so incensed he just had to be in the thick of the action. And he was incensed. He said this is exactly why we need independent radio, but then he said it was up to me to carry his torch. I don’t think he plans to come back.”

“His cancer is terminal,” I said gently. “Maybe he doesn’t want to spend his last days fixing broken microphones and juggling programming schedules. Maybe he could put that burden aside because he knows that the station is in good hands with someone who loves it as much as he does.”

“I can’t run the station. I’m going into law,” Dante protested. “I owe it to my family. They need justice.”

“What do you need?” I stepped back as Dante pulled open the door to the student center. “Or maybe the better question is, what do you really want? It took me a long time to answer that question for myself, and it was only when I really got my teeth into a story that I realized journalism was what I really wanted to do.”

We trooped down the stairs, but our conversation faded into silence when we saw chains on the station door and a huge yellow sign that read “Closed.”

“How can they do this?” Haley tugged on the door handle, ratting the chains. “Doesn’t it violate some kind of law?”

Nick shook his head. “It’s their building. Their property.”

“Did they find out Skye was going to broadcast the story instead of going to print?” she persisted. “Did someone rat us out?”

“Professor Stanton hinted to me that there was another wayof going public, but he wouldn’t have done that and then turned around and betrayed us. I got the feeling he really wanted this story to get out. Other than him, no one knew the plan except us.”

“What are the permanent employees going to do?” Siobhan asked. “They have families and mortgages. They can’t just be terminated with no notice or severance. And you have course credits riding on your internships. I think we need to get a lawyer involved.”

“And in the meantime, they find a way to bury the story.” I looked over at Dante. “Can you pick the lock?”

“You could be charged with trespassing,” he warned. “And I could be charged with breaking and entering.”

“Not if I tell them I was in the station when they locked the door.” My mind raced as I considered all the possibilities. “Open the door and let me in, then lock it behind me. I’ll say I was asleep in the lounge and woke up only to discover I couldn’t get out.”

A maelstrom of emotions flickered across Dante’s face. “What happened to good Skye who didn’t like to break the rules?”

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