Vicki Pettersson - The Given

Mr. Allen stopped before a door that barely obscured the sound of a blaring television, and rapped loudly. Room 238. The same one Grif had texted to Kit as soon as Erin had relayed it to him. Head tilted, Allen shot Grif a calm, closed-mouthed smile as he listened at the door for movement. There was nothing beyond the voice of a female news anchor.

Allen rapped again. “Mr. Z? You got a visitor. I’m gonna come on in now, okay?”

He palmed the handle as he whispered to Grif, “We keep all the residents’ doors unlocked so the caregivers can respond quickly to emergency calls, with medicines, bath times . . . that sort of stuff.”

Grif barely contained his shudder. At least in the Everlast he could pretend he had some semblance of independence and privacy. This sort of care indicated a sort of demoralizing dependency, and the Al Zicaro he’d known—bespectacled and suspicious and high-strung—would absolutely feel the same.

“Well, that’s strange,” Mr. Allen said, his mask of politeness turning to a frown. “He usually answers immediately.”

“He probably can’t hear you above the TV,” Grif said, as Allen twisted the door handle and poked his head inside. His surprised grunt confirmed Zicaro wasn’t in the room, and Grif plastered a look of mild confusion on his face. If there was ever a woman who could draw a man out of his shell, it was Kit.

“Maybe you should check the can,” Grif said helpfully as Allen swung the door wide, already heading into the second room of the small suite.

“I don’t understand,” he called back loudly. “We usually have to beg him to come out. He’s always in here watching the news, taking notes, talking to himself.”

Grif could see that. A large-screen television took up an entire wall, angled in the corner to face a room that was empty but for one wide lounge chair. That was flanked by a floor lamp and an unimpressive, if sturdy, side table. A command center for one, thought Grif, noting the yellow notepads and sticky notes, dozens of pens in a coffee cup bearing the Sunset Retirement Community’s logo: WHERE FRIENDS BECOME FAMILY.

Though not readily apparent, Grif sensed a sort of order to the papers mounded everywhere. A nondescript desk sat beneath the room’s only, curtainless window, the slats of the cheap metal blinds cutting across the stacked papers in harsh blades of light. Copies of the Trib, Kit’s family’s paper, and the one Zicaro had worked at for so many years, were stacked beneath the desk and along the wall in tottering stacks.

Curious, Grif reached for the edition lying on top. It was dated two years back. He didn’t know what was going on with Al Zicaro’s body, but he clearly still had a very busy mind.

“He’s not here,” Mr. Allen said, returning to the room. Grif dropped the paper back atop its stack, and gave Allen an amiable smile. He could afford it, since a quick glimpse out the window had revealed another couple making their way along a path with a sign pointing toward the gardens. The woman was pushing the man in a wheelchair, but their heads were bent close together, one with thick, dark hair sporting a bright pink rose, and the other completely bald.

“That’s okay.” Grif leaned against the desk, blocking Allen’s view. “I’m more than happy to wait.”

Despite the news broadcast blaring from Al Zicaro’s room, the man had responded to Kit’s gentle knock with surprising alacrity. The image that popped into her mind when she first saw him was of a plucked chicken, one with a few strands of gray hair sprouting atop a freckled pate, and an assessing dark gaze that pierced his bifocals. He took one look at Kit, leaned his full weight on his walker, and scowled. “If you’ve come to offer me my old job back, I don’t want it.”

“You recognize me,” Kit said, placing a hand on the door when he moved to shut it.

“Of course I do.”

She wasn’t surprised. Though they’d never met before, she could see a vast expanse of hard-copy clippings sprawling over the walls of the room behind him. He obviously kept up with the news. Besides, as the heiress to the town’s largest newspaper—no longer the jewel it once was but still a respected voice in the community—she’d be recognizable to anyone in the Trib ’s extended journalistic family.

“But you don’t seem surprised to see me, Uncle Al.” She used his pet name intentionally, though he was no uncle to her. She was hoping it would calm him.

Zicaro’s thin top lip raised in a snarl instead. “I always knew that someday a representative of the Wilson family dynasty would end up crawling to my doorstep on hands and knees.”

Kit laughed brightly. “Oh no, honey. Not in this outfit.” She whirled, showing off her fit-and-flare skirt. “Besides, these gloves are vintage. They don’t touch the floor.”

Zicaro just growled. “Wanna hear the spiel I’ve been practicing for just this day?”

Kit shrugged and crossed her arms. “If you feel you must.”

“Go to hell!” he yelled, and tried to slam the door.

Kit’s arms shot out, more firmly this time, and her lashes fluttered as Zicaro’s wiry eyebrows almost lifted to where his hairline used to be. “I wasn’t the one who fired you, Zicaro. I’m a different kind of reporter. And I aim to be a different kind of editor one day, too.”

Zicaro refused to be appeased. Eyes bulging, he leaned close, his hot breath washing over Kit’s face. “The world doesn’t need a different kind of reporter! I was the best that paper had! I brought readers rock-solid reportage and exciting news angles.”

“You claimed the Nevada Test Site was building robotic soldiers, financed by the U.S. Treasury.”

“And nobody ever proved me wrong!” Zicaro shouted, pumping one fist into the air. He began to topple and righted himself by grabbing at his walker. It didn’t slow him down any. “Yet my own paper, the one I’d given thirty-one years of service to, never a deadline missed, gave my beat to some uppity, backstabbing cub and then threw me out like trash!”

Kit bit her lip and mentally recalibrated the situation. Clearly, she wasn’t going to talk Zicaro out of his memories. She didn’t have time to argue over whether artificial intelligence really existed, either. So she decided to appeal to his ego instead.

“You obviously haven’t been doing your homework,” she said, causing his dentures to grind. She hurried on before he could move to slam the door again. “If you had, then you’d know that when I say I’m different, I mean that I’m different like you . I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. I go after the truth, no matter where it might lead. And I’ve had more brushes with danger than an entire robotic army could dish out . . . not that you’d know anything about it.”

She turned to leave, and got just as far as she’d expected. Zicaro’s reedy voice chased her into the hall. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t know, missy! I was penning bylines before you were ever born. You’re Katherine Craig, daughter of the doomed paper-princess, Shirley Wilson Craig, and of the man who was killed as much for the knowledge in his head as the badge on his chest.”

Kit whirled, and sharp-eyed Zicaro caught her flinch and laughed. “That’s right, I know all about you. From your rocky start at your own paper to the way you shut down a kiddie prostitution ring. I know about the way you got yourself mixed up with those drug cartels last year, too. You do have a knack for getting in trouble, Craig . . . and I admire that. Question is, can you get out of it, too?”

She held out her arms, palms up. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

She meant that she’d survived both those stories, but Zicaro snorted as he tapped at his freckled scalp. “Yeah, and my Scooby senses tell me you’re getting into more trouble . . . and aim to take me with you.”