On most days Julia Longley felt like a passable fraud. But on Friday night, as she sat in the newspaper photography editing room next to her friend Graham while he ran through his day’s pictures, this belief slid under her skin like electricity. 

Static and garbled voices screeched from the police scanner and sent shards of pain through her head. A seed of a migraine flowered into exquisite pain and heralded the promise of more to follow. 

She shot her hand up to the dusty shelf above her and lowered the volume. The mechanical voices dropped to a murmur in the cramped editing room. She sighed and settled herself back onto the stool, nudging out of the way a 300mm telephoto lens next to her elbow. God, why did there have to be so much news in a newspaper? 

Graham turned from the computer monitor, his sky-blue eyes wide in mock surprise. “Why, Miss Julia, does the fact bother you that as we speak there’s a two-eleven happening behind the Payless Shoes Store?” 

“Absolutely not. Break-ins never bother me,” Julia said. “I was having a hard time hearing you, that’s all. Now go on. You were saying?” 

“Okay, oddball, if that’s your story, go ahead and stick with it. But if one of us comes into the lab and the scanner is only where dogs can hear it, then you’re on our short list of suspects.” 

Prickly warmth spread over Julia’s face. Considering how often she muted the scanner, she made a mental note to be more vigilant about cranking it back up when she left the room. 

“Fine.” She reached up with a sigh and increased the volume. “But how can you stand the thing? It’s all code this and code that.” 

“It won’t kill you to learn the police codes. You might actually get news pictures that way, in case no one’s told you this factoid.” Graham gave Julia a wry look. 

“I know the codes.” Julia paused. “Sort of.” 

Graham shook his head and a curl of blond hair fell from under his frayed brim cap. 

“You need a haircut.” 

“Don’t distract.” He smiled before turning back to the computer screen. 

“Anyway, here’s this shot of the kid hanging onto the pig for dear life. See how he has his leg wrapped around the porker’s belly?” 

Bathed in the silver glow of the computer screen, Julia leaned forward and drank in the image and remembered why she had become a photojournalist. A photograph filled the monitor of a determined five-year-old boy, dressed in cowboy hat, stiff new jeans, and scuffed cowboy boots. 

“Yeah, that’s cute.” 

“Well, we don’t stop at cute. Check out this next shot.” Graham clicked the mouse to the next frame. The kid’s expression had turned grim, his straw hat floated three inches behind his head, and he clung sideways to the galloping pig. 

“Oh, I like that one better. Why are you so good? Did I ever tell you it’s not fair you’re so good?” 

“Every day for the past two years. That’s what makes coming to work at this rag so much fun,” he deadpanned, his eyes never leaving the computer screen. 

“Now for the final shot.” He tapped the mouse and Julia laughed out loud. The little boy had hit the rodeo arena dirt with a look of surprise and shock that made O’s of his eyes and mouth. Only the back half of the pig was in the frame, its cloven hoof and corkscrew tail a blur. 

Graham swiveled toward her, his nose and cheekbones sunburned from covering the rodeo assignment that afternoon. “What’s the verdict?” 

“No brainer.” Julia nodded to the computer. “Tuckus in the dirt needs to run on a front section. Is it for metro? Please don’t say it’s for sports. They’ll bury it below the fold next to a basketball story.” 

“Hmm, you may be onto something, Longley.” He ran through his images from the day’s shoot again. “Let’s see what I have here of bull riding that should satisfy sport’s need for speed.” 

In the hallway approaching footsteps grew louder by the second. Julia turned around as the evening city editor appeared in the doorway, his mouth a tight line. He stared at them for a heartbeat as his face went from pink to red. “You’re just sitting there? Can’t you hear what’s going on?” he snapped and pointed to the police scanner. 

“Nope.” Graham bumped up the volume. “But now we can.” 

The room filled with the urgent voices of dispatchers, EMS, and police. The words, “… motorcyclist… massive head wounds” echoed in the editing room. Dread sluiced through Julia’s veins. I turned the volume down too much, so it’s my fault we missed that. 

“Who’s on tonight?” the editor said, his hands balled at his hips. 

“That would be me.” Julia winced, then grabbed her camera bag and turned to the editor. Even though her heart hammered in her chest, she kept her voice level. “What size hole am I shooting for?”

“If it’s good, give me a vertical. If it’s average, I’ll need a horizontal for the lower right corner,” he growled over his shoulder as he left. 

Julia rubbed the back of her neck and turned to Graham. “Thanks for not busting me.” 

Graham shrugged. “No one likes the scanner, but it’s where the news is. Take my raincoat, ’cuz this storm isn’t supposed to pass for another hour or so. Now be a pal and shoot something crappy so you can save tuckus in the dirt here.” He nodded at his picture. “I want it to run above the fold, big and bold.” 

“I’ll do my best to be mediocre.” Julia slipped on the raincoat, which swallowed her since Graham, at well over six feet, was twelve inches taller. 

She squinted as she walked from the dimmed lights of the photo lab into the fluorescent glare of the main newsroom. Nearing deadline, editors and reporters sat hunched and focused over their keyboards. To her left was a desk covered with discarded reporter’s notepads and newspapers, and across the back of the empty chair hung Nick’s suit jacket. He was the only reporter who wore a suit to the office, which stood in stark contrast to the rest of the staffers who sported variations of rumpled khakis and button-down shirts. The sandwich she had made for him this morning sat half-eaten by his keyboard. 

“Nick covering the accident?” Julia said to the editor, her voice casual. 

His face had returned to its normal pasty color and he didn’t bother to look up from the story on the screen. “Yep. Your boyfriend should be there by now.” 

Of course. Nick was always five minutes ahead of her. Fueled by this image, she rushed out of the building into a steady rainfall toward her seven-year-old Honda Civic. Fat raindrops drummed the roof as she glanced into the rearview mirror and her pale triangular face stared back, framed by chestnut-brown hair plastered against her forehead. Julia rubbed between her eyebrows and felt a t-shaped worry line. She was sure she didn’t have this particular wrinkle when she started as an intern with the paper her senior year of college. 

After pulling out on the street away from the squat, two-story, beige-brick newspaper office, Julia drove the route she assumed Nick had traveled minutes before. The windshield wipers slashed the bulleting rain in front of her and left momentary clear swaths on the glass. She pressed down harder on the accelerator. 

“Damn motorcyclists,” she muttered. “What fool rides in a storm?” 

A lanyard and identification badge, with her name and headshot printed above The Elston Daily News logo, swayed back and forth from the rearview mirror in large drunken circles. She snapped it off and looped it over her head to reduce at least one distraction. 

A signal light ahead turned yellow. Did she dare run it? Glancing left and right, she determined the cross streets looked clear, inhaled, and gunned it. The light turned red as she sped through the intersection. Her heart drummed in her chest and she barked a laugh. It would be ironic if she, a newspaper photographer, got into a bigger accident than the one she was chasing. 

Why hadn’t Nick told her about the accident? 

“Stop being such a girl!” she said out loud. 

As a journalist, he owed her no special favors. But as her boyfriend, would a heads-up be that out of line? She swallowed a lump in her throat and tried to push away the sly voice in her head that whispered, while she was a competent photographer, she wasn’t an exceptional reporter like Nick. His drive for the story was breathtaking, and intoxicating, which drew her to him. At the same time she hoped his passion would rub off on her and bless her with the same glow. 

Julia shook her head to dislodge the sticky thought, like melted gum on the bottom of a shoe, cranked up the mobile police scanner on her dash, and sped to catch up to a news story happening without her. 

Enjoy more the rest of The Headshrinker’s Brigade by purchasing the paperback or audio book on Amazon. You can learn more about Leslie’s current projects on her blog.