Whistleblower, page 1
Whistleblower
Also By Kate Marchant
Float
Whistleblower
Kate Marchant
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Float Sample Chapter
For my sister, Elizabeth,
and for anyone else who wants to burn it all down.
Chapter 1
I wish I could say it was the first time I’d put off an assignment until the day it was due, but my parents didn’t raise a liar.
It was only the first week of the semester. Hanna and I still hadn’t finished unpacking in our new off-campus apartment, and somehow I’d already managed to spend fifty-eight dollars on carne asada tacos and avoid all academic responsibility. But this morning, I’d had hope. I’d thought I’d pulled off another successful feat of procrastination—another last-minute lunge across the finish line. I hadn’t accounted for the rain.
Garland, California (population thirty thousand during the school year and half that in the summer), was an hour east of downtown Los Angeles. We were used to droughts. But by the time I’d made it to Buchanan, the main library on campus, I was soaked from the crown of my head to the chipped nail polish on my toes. I’d worn a sundress. I looked like an idiot.
A very damp idiot. And as I stood there, wrestling my USB drive into the slot on an ancient copy machine and dripping a puddle onto the baby poop–green carpet, my phone started to vibrate somewhere in the depths of my backpack.
I groaned and dropped it to the floor to begin a search and rescue mission. There were only four people who could realistically be calling me—Andre Shepherd, Hanna Pham, and either of my parents. It was Hanna.
“Why are there granola bars all over the bathroom floor?” she demanded in lieu of a greeting.
“I’m sorry. The bottom of the box gave out. I was in a rush.”
“Are you in class right now?”
“No, I’m at Buchanan. I have to print out my pitch.”
It was Thursday morning, and the editor in chief of Garland University’s school paper wanted a hard copy turned in to a box on her desk by noon. Joke’s on her, I thought. My pitch was going to suck no matter what format it was in. The abomination in question had started chugging out of the printer at a speed of approximately two lines an hour.
“Actually, never mind. I think I’m in hell.”
“At least you finished it, right?” Hanna said. “Ellison’s got to respect the bare minimum. And you did your best! That’s what counts.”
I barked out a bitter laugh. “I would hardly call this my best.”
“Don’t be modest. It’s gross.”
“I’m not being modest, Han. This might be the worst thing I’ve ever written.” And I’d authored One Direction fan fiction back in middle school, so the standards of judgment were pretty low. “And you know what? I’m mad at myself.
This story had so much potential. I should’ve started drafting it last week—”
“Yeah, but you spent half the summer in Mexico City. I think you get a free pass on this one. Visiting family is more important than a fluff piece about the football team.”
Except it’d turned out more like a celebrity gossip column than a fluff piece. I hadn’t started brainstorming until last weekend, when Hanna and I had arrived at our new place and I was forced to accept that school is an inevitable evil with which I must grapple for two more years. Speaking of—I had class in four and a half minutes. My article and I were both going to be late.
“Just push all the granola bars against the bathtub and I’ll take care of them after I get back from Intro to Dick Jokes,” I told Hanna.
It was the name Andre had given to the class we were taking. Human Sexuality—more commonly referred to as BIO 108 by kids relaying the details of their semester schedules to their parents—fulfilled the core requirement for a science-based course despite involving very little science other than reproductive anatomy. The roster was full of seniors and athletes who got to pick their classes before the rest of the student body, but I’d been lucky enough (or, rather, vigilant enough) to get a spot when someone dropped it less than twenty-four hours before the first lecture.
“Take your time,” Hanna told me. “I’ll be at figure drawing for a while.”
“Enjoy the penises.”
“You too.”
I shoved my phone into the pocket of my sundress—the one redeeming value of an otherwise useless garment—as a pair of footsteps thundered up the stairs. A girl with headphones shoved on over a mass of thick, dark curls stomped around the corner. I recognized her. Mehri Rajavi was another writer at the Daily—a junior, like me. She was also having about as great a morning as I was, if the way she was spitting out curses under her breath was any indication.
“Hi, Mehri,” I greeted her as she jammed a button on the copy machine next to mine.
She squinted hard at me, then said, “Hey, girl.”
She didn’t recognize me. It was fine. We’d only had that IR class together. And intermediate nonfiction. And a freshman seminar on journalism in the Middle East. Then, of course, there was the fact that she was friends with Hanna, so I’d once tagged along to Mehri’s art show and spent an hour staring at a collection of enormous watercolor flowers that blatantly resembled female genitalia.
“Guess this is what we get for waiting until the last minute to print,” I quipped, powering through the discomfort of having someone I’d met multiple times totally blank on my name.
“Ellison’s going to drop-kick me across the student union.”
Mehri humored me with the kind of tight, toothless smile one offers a relative when they’ve made a tasteless political joke and you’re not in the mood to start World War III at the dinner table. I smacked the side of my printer, willing it to have mercy on me. The third sheet of my rambling four-page pitch slid into the tray right as my phone buzzed with a text.
It was from Andre: Did u die?
I replied, I wish!!!
The printer took pity on me and spat out the last page of my pitch. I snatched it, crinkling one corner by accident—usually I would’ve taken the time to reprint, but it wasn’t like I had a piece of groundbreaking journalism in my hands—and did a dorky jog toward the stairs, sandals squelching as I went.
“Good luck, Mehri!” I called over my shoulder, already knowing that our entire interaction was going to haunt me when I tried to fall asleep that night.
“Oh, thanks,” she replied, a bit bemused. “Hey, wait, do you—”
I was already too far to turn back. I hustled down the stairs—half expecting to slip and eat shit, because that seemed like it would fit in thematically with the rest of my morning—and comforted myself with the knowledge that Mehri probably wouldn’t remember our conversation by tomorrow.
I was forgettable. It was something I tried to think of as a party trick rather than a heroic flaw.
—
Outside of Buchanan, I tucked the pages of my pitch close to my chest and made a run for it through the rain. The tree-lined parkway that ran down the middle of campus was slick with puddles, and green and white confetti from orientation week floated among clumps of dead leaves. Most of Garland’s campus was composed of manicured rosebushes, paved walkways, and redbrick buildings, but the trio of newer constructions on the far edge of campus were modern steel and concrete monstrosities. I stumbled into the lobby of the nearest one. The stairs at that end of the building were caution-taped off and reeked of fresh paint, so I headed for the elevator, slipping and sliding in my sandals and breathing harder than I probably should’ve been after such mild exertion.
I smacked the call button before checking my phone again.
Professor’s here, Andre had texted two minutes ago. Then, a minute later: He’s calling attendance pls move ur ass.
I paced, leaving a trail of wet footprints in my wake as I cursed my last name, Cates, for beginning with the third letter of the alphabet.
The elevator was tucked away in a dim little alcove that someone had tried to make less like a scene out of a horror movie by sticking a potted shrub in the corner and hanging a corkboard on the wall. There were only two things pinned up: a torn scrap of paper advertising the sale of a used futon and a glossy green poster listing the dates of this season’s home football games. There were three faces on the poster. On the right was Kyle Fogarty, our star tight end. He and his blond undercut were shooting the camera an easy, confident smirk.
On the left was our quarterback, Bodie St. James, who could launch a football fifty yards down the field with pinpoint accuracy and shrug off guys who were built like boulders. It was a great photo of him. He looked like a stoic, fearsome gladiator.
I’d heard his friends thought he was more like a puppy.
Bodie and I had never spoken, but from what I’d gathered, he was a very nice person—polite to a fault, respectful of his elders, recycled his plastic bottles. The kind of nice that didn’t make a big deal about itself.
Between Fogarty and St. James was head coach Truman Vaughn, the father figure of Garland’s multimillion-dollar behemoth of a football program. I stuck my tongue out at his photo.
It was a well-known fact that Vaughn had been to rehab sometime in the ’90s for alcoholism. His comeback had been a huge deal. He’d convinced the president and board of trustees that his days of partying were over and he was ready to give his all to the program. As it turned out, that was a load of shit.
The pitch in my hands contained several firsthand accounts of a wild night out Vaughn had been spotted having over the summer break. It was the most scandalous story I’d ever attempted for the Daily. Half of me had hope that Ellison would recognize my growth and see that I’d tried to push myself out on a limb. The other half of me knew the quality was lacking and hoped she’d be so busy sorting through that week’s batch of pitches that she wouldn’t even glance at my name on the top—she’d just toss the thing in the trash and be done with it.
And no one else will ever know, I thought regretfully, that Vaughn’s lying about his sobriety.
The elevator arrived, announcing itself with a cheery ding that sounded borderline mocking. I threw myself inside and sighed with relief, now that I was, as Andre had so eloquently suggested, moving my ass.
“Hold the door!” someone called.
Any other morning, I would’ve.
“Sorry, buddy,” I muttered under my breath.
I was hidden in the corner of the elevator, so whoever was jogging down the hall couldn’t see the guilt on my face as I pressed the Close Doors button. But before they could shut, a hand appeared between them. A very large hand. I had just enough time to yank my arm back from the button panel and stand bolt upright before the doors bounced open again, revealing a face I’d seen not ten seconds earlier.
Dark, damp hair. Pink cheeks. Eyes dark as thunderclouds.
Puta madre, I thought.
“Going down?” Bodie St. James asked.
He didn’t look like the golden retriever his friends described. He looked like some kind of primordial warrior who could snap my arm in half with his bare hands. Of course, I’d just tried to close the doors in his face, so I was likely projecting.
“Are you going down?” Bodie repeated when all I did was stare at him.
His short, dark hair was dripping onto the wide shoulders of a matte black Nike jacket with a metallic Garland Lions logo on the left breast. The school bought the football team new ones every season. This year’s model appeared to be waterproof.
I nodded and said, “Basement.”
He’s so tall up close was the only coherent thought my brain seemed capable of composing as he stepped into the elevator.
Then the doors slid shut, and we were alone. A part of me wanted desperately to apologize—to explain myself, and why I was in such a rush—but pinching my mouth shut and frowning down at my phone felt so much more comfortable.
The elevator began its descent to the basement. The agonizing quiet seemed to drag on for a small eternity.
And then, abruptly, Bodie spoke.
“Weather’s nice today, huh?”
It took me a moment to accept that I was the only person he could possibly be talking to, and that I should therefore look up and acknowledge him. I’d never been very comfortable bearing the weight of someone’s full attention, but making eye contact with Bodie made my stomach twist in a way it hadn’t since I’d been forced to take the stage at my third-grade talent show.
Oh my god, I thought. He’s trying to make small talk.
“Yeah, it’s lovely,” I said, like I wasn’t tragically under-dressed and dripping wet. The corner of Bodie’s mouth twitched.
“Essay due already?” he asked.
“It’s for the school paper, actually.”
“You’re a writer?”
“Only on a deadline,” I said.
Maybe he was just indulging me, but Bodie smiled. He had a sharp, sullen face—high cheekbones, pointy nose—but an honest, boyish smile. He opened his mouth to speak again, but the elevator lurched to a stop and the electronic display over the doors flickered to B before he could.
The doors dinged and slid open, catapulting me back into reality.
“Stay dry out there,” I advised, sounding startlingly like my nana.
I turned and skittered into the hall, fleeing the scene of the second failed social interaction I’d had that morning. And then it got worse. So much worse—because the sounds of my tiny, wet footsteps were echoed by a heavier, steadier pair.
Bodie St. James and I were heading in the same direction.
I was acutely aware of my dress sticking to my legs as I approached the nearest of two sets of double doors that led into the lecture hall. It occurred to me that I was about to walk into a crowded room both late and dripping wet, which meant that people were going to stare. I paused to pull my hair over one shoulder and fidget with my backpack straps. And, because the morning could in fact get worse, Bodie stopped at my side.
“You in this class too?” he asked.
I nodded in defeat.
Bodie smiled like we had some kind of inside joke.
“C’mon,” he told me conspiratorially, “we’ll go together.”
Before I could respond, he’d shouldered open the classroom door and marched in with all the confidence of someone who was either blissfully dumb or very fond of being the center of attention. I hesitated for a moment before following him, my shoulders hunched and my heart hammering.
But nobody was looking at me. They were all watching Bodie.
On stage at the front of the lecture hall, standing behind a podium under dual projection screens, our professor glanced up from the stack of papers he was shuffling through.
Nick, who’d insisted during Tuesday’s class that we all call him exclusively by his first name, was the type of guy who prided himself on being cool: midthirties, wore graphic tees under blazers, read a lot of classic literature, and made a point of quoting it so you’d know. He had trendy grandpa-style glasses perched on the end of his hooked nose, and his hair was just long enough to fit in a tiny ponytail.
His stern frown softened when he recognized Garland’s starting quarterback.
“I’m so sorry, Nick,” Bodie said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “I sprinted here, I swear. Did you call attendance already?”
Nick reshuffled the papers on his podium.
“Don’t worry about it, Bodie,” he said, smiling as he checked St. James off on the list. “I’m still setting up the PowerPoint. You didn’t really miss anything, technically, so I’ll mark you present. Excited to have you in our class—I’m glad your schedule moved around.”
It was like watching a guy pull a dove out of a hat. Bodie just had to smile in that humble, slightly self-deprecating way of his and people tripped over themselves to do favors for him.
“Thanks so much, Nick,” he said, beaming. “Happy to be here.”
Then, still facing the podium, Bodie reached his hand behind his back and curled his fingers as if to say Come here.
It took me a second to realize he was signaling me. I was still standing a good two thirds of the way up the aisle, so I saw people turn in their chairs out of the corner of my eye as I hurried down to the stage.
Nick’s face dropped when he noticed me, and I realized what Bodie had just orchestrated. Nick couldn’t play favorites now. Not when the whole class was watching. He’d marked Bodie present, and he’d have to mark me the same.
“Hey there,” Nick said, his smile tight. “Your name?”
“Laurel Cates,” I answered, my voice high-pitched in that way it always seemed to get when I was trying to be polite.
Nick shuffled through the pages and jotted down another check mark.
“I’ll let it slide this time,” he told me.
“Thank you,” I gushed.
Nick nodded and went back to his laptop.
I spun around and flinched a little at the sight of the crowded auditorium. There were so many people. Granted, most of them were staring down at their phones in their laps or scribbling mindlessly in notebooks, but still. I turned to Bodie, knowing I should say thank you but a little horrified that I might blurt out something either offensive or too affectionate by accident. But before I could even open my mouth, he tucked his thumb under the strap of his backpack and gave me a knowing smile.
