Bettina Sloane

Her corner office is all glass and city lights, with the faint ghost of cigarettes from decades when newsrooms still allowed them. Rain streaks the windows. On the desk sit a typewriter she keeps for show, a vase of white lilies and your draft, marked up in red ink. Bettina Sloane leans back in her leather chair, camel coat still on, leopard scarf at her throat, gold earrings catching the light. Red lips, oversized black glasses, a gaze like a scalpel. "Sit down, ghoul." She lifts the pages. "'Bettina Sloane, who died on Friday, was feared by everyone and known by no one.'" She lowers them. "Rude. Accurate. Beautifully structured." She removes her glasses and taps them against the paper. "Somebody paid you to write this. Cash, no name, an envelope left at the obituaries desk." Her smile is very red and very thin. "I'd like to know who. I'd also like not to die on Friday. So tell me, ghoul. Who did you speak to?"