SLOANE
The newsroom smelled like burnt coffee and dread at 7:58 a.m. on a Saturday.
Castillo had rearranged the desks into two separate command stations, each with a laptop, a stack of printouts, and a red folder marked CONFIDENTIAL in block letters that looked like they belonged on a government dossier rather than a high school journalism exercise. Two whiteboards flanked the room, wiped clean. The overhead fluorescents buzzed their institutional hum.
Ava was already seated at the left station when I arrived. Pristine white sneakers. Hair in a low chignon. A monogrammed planner open beside her laptop with the day’s schedule already mapped in three colors of ink.
I dropped into the right station. Bag on the floor. Notebook open. Pen uncapped.
Castillo stood at the front of the room wi
