Page 33 of Hello, Summer
“I guess.” Conley took a seat across from her grandmother and poured a glass of iced tea from the pitcher in the center of the table.
Lorraine set aside her puzzle book and watched as Conley spooned salad onto her plate and began eating.
“Are you mad at me for making you work for your sister?”
Conley edged some of the shrimp salad onto a saltine cracker and chewed before answering. “A little bit. Yeah. Grayson resents me. She resents my success. I really think working for her is a terrible idea.”
“I know,” Lorraine said calmly.
“You do?”
“Yes. Your sister also resents the fact that she’s been stuck here in Silver Bay all these years, doing a job she never wanted, trying to keep a family business afloat and having to look after a cantankerous grandmother instead of having power lunches—whatever those are—and working for a white-shoe law firm anyplace but here.”
“Cantankerous? That’s putting it mildly,” Winnie remarked, joining them at the table.
“Hush,” Lorraine said. “Look,” she went on. “I didn’t want to burden you with this, but now that you’re here and between jobs, as it were, you might as well know. This is make-or-break time for theBeacon.For all of us in this business. We—that is, Grayson and I—could really use your help.”
“How bad is it?” Conley asked, shocked to hear her grandmother asking for help.
Lorraine nibbled at a bit of shrimp. “Our circulation has never been this low before. Ever. Grayson’s done everything she knows to do, but she tells me this new generation doesn’t read newspapers. That’s not how they get their news.”
“I know,” Conley said sadly. “Print journalism seems to be a dying form. Digital is the future. Or at least, it was supposed to be.”
“Advertising is the one thing that keeps us going,” Lorraine said. “Of course, it’s nowhere near what it used to be. Green’s is long gone, and wedon’t have the used-car advertising we used to get, thanks to that damn Craigslist, but we do have a few loyal longtime advertisers. The IGA, the hardware store, and there’s the new Dollar Holler, and they buy the occasional preprint ad inserts, so that helps.” She pointed a finger at her granddaughter. “Anyway, since you’re here, what’s the harm in writing a few stories for theBeacon?”
“You really think Grayson is going to like anything I write?” Conley asked, scowling.
“Yes. She may resent you, but your sister is a pragmatist. She’ll never admit it to your face, but she knows how good you are. She read every word of that series you did for the Atlanta paper.”
“She did?”
“We both did. We have an online subscription to theAJC.Or we did. Sarah, we were both so proud of the work you did, and winning that Polk Award, well, I kept wishing Pops were still alive.”
“Think he would have put it on the front page of theBeacon?”
Winnie scoffed. “That old man? You were always his little pet. He woulda put out a whole special edition.”
“Okay,” Conley said, resigned to her fate. “Enough with the flattery. I don’t really have a choice here. Since we don’t have Wi-Fi, and the word’s out about the congressman’s death, I guess I’d better get busy. I’m gonna run into town and use the Wi-Fi at the house. Okay?”
“That’s fine,” G’mama said. “Just promise you won’t stay out until three again.”
On the way into town, Conley made a detour to the Bronson County Sheriff’s Office.
Varnedoe, the county seat, was an even smaller town than Silver Bay, with two stoplights and a business district that consisted of a single block of stores and office buildings that clustered around a courthouse square dominated by a Civil War–era cannon and a marble plinth serving as a memorial to the county’s soldiers killed in the two world wars. The streetlights were on, bathing the empty landscape in a melancholy yellow glow.
The sheriff’s office was a single-story, tan-brick building on the east side of the courthouse square, dwarfed by a magnolia tree that seemed to have swallowed up half the building.
A lone police cruiser was parked on the street out front. Conley found the deputy on duty sitting behind a counter separated from the lobby entrance by a sheet of bulletproof glass.
He looked up from the computer monitor he’d been staring at. “Can I help you?”
He was in his early forties, with blond hair fading to gray. The nameplate fastened to his khaki uniform shirt said he was J. DuPuy.
“Yes,” she said, her manner crisply professional. “I’m Conley Hawkins, from theBeacon,and I’d like to see the incident report for Symmes Robinette’s accident yesterday.”
He tilted his head and frowned. “TheBeacon? What’s that?”
“The Silver Bay Beacon.”
