Ink and Smoke

Chapter Two

By the time I made a move to leave the harbour, the rain had started again. Fine, cold needles that turned the streets into streaks of reflected neon. The city of New York at night always feels like it’s telling you two stories at once: the one in the open, and the one running just out of sight. I’ve learned to keep my ear tuned to the second.

The newsroom was nearly empty when I pushed through the glass doors. The hum of the fluorescents filled the space like a bad mood. Somewhere in the back, the printer coughed out a final page and fell silent. My desk sat beneath the far window, the only one with a half-decent view of the East River. Tonight, the water looked like black glass; it was enthralling to look at from this distance.

Cynthia Styles, the chief editor, leaned against my chair, with her arms crossed, her expression sharp enough to cut paper.

“Tell me you didn’t go down there,” she said.

I dropped my bag on the desk and plopped down on a couch. “I didn’t go down there.”

She didn’t blink. “Tessa,” she growled this time.

I sighed and threw my hands up. “Fine. I went down there.”

“You don’t have a death wish,” she said. “You have an Alexander Cole wish. Which is worse. I’m telling you, it’s way worse.”

The name sat between us like a loaded gun. She didn’t have to explain; everyone in the city’s undercurrent knew the rumours. Real estate deals that vanished from the books. People who did, too. Cole wasn’t the kind of man you stumbled into. He was the kind you circled from a safe distance, if you had any sense, that is.

“I actually met him at the pier,” I said while watching her.

That got her attention. Her eyes narrowed, then softened with something like reluctant curiosity. “And what happened?”

“And he warned me off.” I sighed.

She let out a dry laugh. “That’s practically a signed confession.”

I stood up then sat back down, flipping open my notebook containing the details of the deceased victim. The pages were damp at the edges from the harbour air. My handwriting was a jagged trail of thoughts: bruise patterns at the right-side ribs, wallet empty, watch intact, no public CCTV between 1:12 AM and 1:40 AM, a single bullet casing at the crime scene. I circled the last line twice.

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Cynthia asked rhetorically.

“No,” I said simply. “Timothy Cruze didn’t just drown. Someone put him in that water. And I want to know why… or who… or perhaps both, too.”

“Or who?” Her voice softened on the word. “Tess, you’re already in his sightline now. You know what that means.”

Yes. It meant I was marked. Maybe not in the way a hunter marks prey, but close enough. Cole had looked at me like he was memorizing my face for later. But I wasn’t afraid, at least not yet. Not so easily.

When Cynthia finally left me to my own devices, the newsroom felt too big. I stayed another hour, combing through archives for any public trace of Cole. The man was practically a ghost. Property in his name. yes, he owned several towers of glass and steel worth more than I’d ever see in a lifetime. But no interviews. No gala photographs. Just whispers in news briefs, his name always on the periphery, like a shadow that refused to be lit.

At some point, I realized the smoke smell still lingered in my coat. Not the acrid bite of cigarettes; this was something warmer, woodier and flavourful. Like the last tendrils of a fire that had burned slow and steady. I hated that I noticed.

By the time I got home, the rain had thickened. My apartment sat on the fourth floor of a pre-war walk-up, the kind with peeling paint and radiators that hissed like they had opinions. I hung my coat, set my recorder on the counter, and poured a glass of wine.

The city was quieter here. Or maybe it was just higher up. I pressed my forehead to the cool glass of the window and let myself think about him, not the rumours, not the danger, just the man I’d seen. The way he filled space without moving. The deliberate cadence of his voice, like every word was chosen in advance.

I hated that I was curious about him. Curiosity is the most dangerous kind of gravity; once you start falling, there’s no way to stop without breaking something.

I told myself I’d stay in tonight, work the case from my desk. That promise lasted until my phone buzzed.

It was a text from an unknown number.

“I hope you made it home dry.”

I stared at the screen. No name, but I didn’t need one; I already knew who it had to be. My fingers hovered over the keypad.

“You always check in on reporters you warn off?” I typed.

The reply came fast.

“Only the ones who don’t listen.”

I set the phone down with no intent to respond, pulse quickening. This wasn’t flirtation, not exactly. It was something else. A game. I just wasn’t sure yet who’d set the rules.

Outside, the rain turned to mist, and the city lights blurred into something almost beautiful.

Somewhere out there, Alexander Cole was deciding whether I was a problem to solve or a pr

oblem to end. And I couldn’t decide which option terrified me more.