On camera, it looked like a dramatic pause—a beat of solemn gravitas before the close.
But I had to physically brace my weight against the desk, my hands flat on the wood, my arms locked to keep myself from trembling.My heart was hammering against my ribs, loud enough that I was terrified the lapel mic would pick it up.
I delivered the close and held for three seconds.
The red light on the camera died.
I didn't wait.I yanked the earpiece out, my fingers trembling as I set the small, warm piece of plastic on the desk.My skin was tingling where it had been.
Marla was looking at me, her eyebrow raised."Good show," she said, gathering her things."You sounded different tonight."
"Different how?"I croaked, my jaw still aching from how hard I’d been clenching my teeth.
She considered this."Warmer," she said."More...intensely present."
She left.I stayed seated behind the desk, clutching my water glass like a lifeline, waiting while the studio cleared.The freezing air conditioning finally began to cool the sweat on my neck, but beneath the desk, the heavy wool of my trousers still felt like a cage, my body taking its sweet, agonizing time to release me.
When I finally rose, my thighs felt weak, the friction of my clothes a lingering, maddening reminder of the last hour.Harry approached and I waved him away with a curt goodnight.
Ten minutes later, I closed my dressing room door and locked it.Then I stood in front of the vanity mirror, staring at myself.My collar was damp.The skin of my throat was flushed a deep, telltale pink, creeping up from beneath my tie.
I reached up, my fingers shaking as I finally loosened the silk knot, pulling it free like a man escaping a noose.
I’d spent thirteen years building myself into an anchor who felt nothing.Tonight, in front of millions of viewers, Jimmy Goodman had reached through a piece of molded plastic and dismantled me without a single touch.
“What the hell is happening?”
ChapterFourteen
Jimmy
The story broke at 7:22 p.m., twenty-two minutes into a broadcast that had been, until that moment, unremarkable.
We were in the B-block.Nelson was wrapping a panel on immigration policy — three guests, mild disagreement, the kind of segment that required competence but not brilliance.I was half-watching Monitor Three and half-reviewing the C-block rundown when Ray said, "Holy shit."
Ray never said holy shit.Ray said "copy" and "standing by" and, occasionally, when something genuinely impressed him, "not bad."Holy shit was not in Ray's vocabulary.
I looked up.The AP wire on the secondary monitor was scrolling red.I read the first line and my hands went cold.
A federal building in Chicago had been evacuated.Reports of an explosion on the fourteenth floor.Multiple casualties.First responders on scene.No confirmation yet on cause — could be gas, could be structural, could be something worse.The Chicago bureau was scrambling.CNN, MSNBC, and Fox were all going live within minutes.
The panel on immigration policy had about forty-five seconds left to live.
"Ray."My voice came out flat and fast, the voice I'd used in Aleppo when the shelling started and we had ninety seconds to pack the gear."Get Chicago on the satellite.I need a live shot in three minutes.Graphics, build me a lower-third: 'Breaking News — Explosion at Federal Building, Chicago.'Go.Now."
The control room snapped into motion.Ray's hands flew across the board.The graphics operator started building.An intern grabbed a phone to coordinate with the Chicago bureau.The energy in the room shifted from cruise control to combat, and I was in the center of it, making calls, routing feeds, assembling a broadcast out of fragments that were still arriving.
I pressed the earpiece button.
"Nelson.We have breaking news out of Chicago.Explosion at a federal building, multiple casualties reported.I'm pulling the panel.When I say go, you cut to the breaking graphic and I'll feed you copy in real time.Chicago bureau is going live in three minutes."
On Monitor Three, Nelson's face didn't change.Not a flicker.He was mid-sentence with the immigration panel, wrapping a question about border policy, and he finished it — finished it cleanly, with the kind of grace that would have been invisible to anyone who didn't know what he'd just heard in his ear.
He gave the panel a two-sentence close.Smooth, professional, no indication that the entire broadcast was about to pivot.
"Go," I said.
Nelson turned to Camera One.His voice dropped into the register he used for breaking news — lower, steadier, stripped of everything ornamental."We're interrupting our scheduled programming to bring you a developing story out of Chicago, where an explosion has been reported at a federal office building in the city's downtown Loop district."