Page 142 of Love on the Byline

They were gazing at each other, and he hoped she could seeall the words he was too afraid to say.

“Ohhhh,” a voice behind them said. “Ms. Dillon! Mr. Ollie!Y’all together?”

Blake grinned. “Micah, you know better than to ask personalquestions.”

“Yeah, but you’re standing in the middle of the auditoriumwith your arms around each other.”

“Kiss her, already,” Bran said walking over to them.

Ollie did, but not because a chant of kiss, kiss, kissbroke out from the gathered adults and teens.

“Alright, everyone. Let’s settle down.” Chuckling, Deannacalled the impromptu meeting to order.

He followed Blake to a row of chairs and took a seat next toher. There were members of the board in attendance, as well as a number of thevolunteer instructors.

Val Saunders-Newman walked in, followed closely by herhusband, Sam. The couple sat at the end of their row.

“Bran, hey.” Sam clasped Bran’s hand. “Glad to see youhere.”

“I wanted to meet with you all for two reasons,” Deannasaid. “One, to let those who haven’t heard the news know that I will be leavingPlay L.A. soon.”

“We’ll be sad to lose you,” Val said.

“I’m sad to leave, but I’ll stay in touch. I wanted you allto be aware of something I’ve been working on with Blake Dillon, a localjournalist.”

Blake waved.

“Is this about that agency targeting the kids?” a womanasked. Ollie didn’t know her, but assumed she was with the board.

“Yes,” Deanna replied. “Blake?”

“Hi, everyone. As Deanna said, I’ve been working on thisstory for a while, and it seems to be much bigger than what’s been happeninghere are your center.” She looked at Rory, who had been standing by the door.“Rory Skinner worked on a case at an agency in Philly that we think might belinked to this one.”

“It was the Yara Bujold incident,” Rory said. There was aseries of gasps and murmurs.

“My God,” Val said. “I remember that. Poor woman.”

“If this is true,” Deanna said, “then we need to get thepolice involved.”

“The minute we do that, we run the risk of any potentialwitnesses or victims refusing to cooperate,” Blake said.

“It’s true,” Micah agreed. “Some folks are scared to talk.”

“I propose you let me continue to gather evidence andtestimony, with the help of Rory here, and when we have everything, we’ll takeit to the police. This is going to take time and finesse,” she added.

“Will this be before or after you publish your article?”This was from a guy in the back. He stood with his arms folded, his expressionskeptical.

Blake took it in stride. “I’ll hand everything over to theauthorities the day the article is released. I’m afraid, if I turn it inprematurely, it won’t get the attention it deserves, and we have a lot ofpuzzle pieces to fit together first.”

“An article in a major newspaper would light a fire underthe department to act, if they’re reluctant,” Deanna agreed.

This seemed to mollify the man in the back.

“What do we do in the meantime?” Val asked. “We can’t justlet them continue to target the kids.”

“Absolutely not,” Deanna said. “We also don’t want to tipthem off.”

“I’ve already spoken to some of the others,” Micah said.“Everybody knows that company is bad news. They’re not the only ones sniffingaround. A few of us older kids told the younger ones to come to us if someonestarts promising stuff.”

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