Page 3 of Half Truths (Secret Society 1)
“Any association to Felipe Bastón?”
“Um.” I hesitated. “Maybe.”
“Maybe.” The woman smiled wryly. “That’s definitely a Bastón answer. Felipe was my boyfriend for a short time while we were here. Great human being, lousy boyfriend. He left me for his current wife and they’re still married, so I guess maybe he was just a lousy boyfriend to me.”
“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 stunning. The kind of beauty that made you stop and stare.”
“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 dinner with my daughter a few months ago. She was with one of your brothers, who looked like he was in bad shape, I’m assuming from the accident.”
“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.”
