Page 18 of Personal Disaster

Two of them don’t have regular work lined up. Others are working in restaurants or for private outfitters.

Kaden comes back and sits down just as one of his friends finishes a rant. He scrubs his hand over his face. “Tell me aboutit.”

“How about you, Kaden?” I turn my recorder in his direction.

He screws up his face and shakes his head. “I don’t have a job yet. Doing this, living in my van. I’ll pick up more hours in the fall when I go back to school. And my girlfriend’s pretty understanding.”

“Brianne was one of the lucky ones,” another climbersays.

“My girlfriend got hired on early this year,” Kaden explains. “She’s one of the few who started work in January and so far, hasn’t been let go. But that’s precarious, too, youknow?”

I nod. “So this has affected your entire community.”

“For sure. Even those that have jobs this summer, like Brianne—she’s stressed. I’m telling you, you want to see the next generation of political outrage? That’s my girlfriend right there. She’s pissed. And with good reason.”

“Yeah, she’s on Twitter all the time, isn’t she?” another climberasks.

I didn’t get that guy’s name, and I suddenly, blindingly, realize it doesn’t matter.

Brianne. Someone on the inside, fired up, but in real danger of losing herjob.

Someone who might not know enough about technology to not leave a few breadcrumbs for a reporter.

A young person who a good guy might feel protectiveof.

I ask a few more questions, take a few more pictures, but my brain is now officially occupied with a different story all together.

When Marcus comes to pick me up, I wait until we’re back at the hotel to ask him the opening question I’ve decided on. I’m not going to beat around the bush. After what we’ve shared, that wouldn’t befair.

He comes out around to my side of his truck to help me out, but I hop down on my own and pace away from him. When I turn back, he’s giving me a wary look. Good. He should have some warning that this is coming. “Do you have one of Toby Hunt’s masking devices?”

“No,” he says carefully.

“Did you?” My pulse hammers in my neck. “At one point? And maybe you gave it to someone else? Someone who couldn’t carry two cell phones on her without being too obvious?”

His face tightens up. “What are you talking about?”

“Someone named Brianne?”

“How thehell—”

“She’s dating that climber. Kaden. Good kid. But he doesn’t know what his girlfriend is upto.”

“And neither do you. Neither do I, frankly.” But his tone changed on the last point. Like he only didn’t know the whole picture because maybe he was deliberately keeping himself in the dark—now.

“I bet if I go through the followers for Alt Nat Park Service, I’ll find a relatively anonymous account in the early follows. Someone who doesn’t participate on Twitter a lot, someone who sits back and watches what’s being said—particularly about his own corner of the country.”

“Don’t writethat.”

“I can’t—”

“Write about anythingelse.”

“That’s not how this works. I’m not going to kill a story that is worth writing.”

He gives me a thunderous look of disapproval, and I realize too late, he’s not talking about himself. “She’ll be fired.”

I press my lips together and think. I could change the details. Mask her identity. Maybe…

---