Why can't they do this at noon? Betty thought sleepily as she stood amidst a crowd of onlookers at five freaking a.m. The whole street was sealed off by police tape but she could still make out the two burned out vans. Or what was left of them, anyway. To her horror, she could also see a few human shaped forms, as coal black as the vehicles they were sticking out of. That would certainly haunt her dreams, as burning alive was one of her biggest fears.
She got a call from Ned, earlier that something major happened a block from Hudson River and he asked her to have a look. Her excitement of having an opportunity to spend time with her crush was quickly expunged as it turned out that he would go to another scene, some kind of collapsed theater. Since he couldn't be in two places at once, he called her, about which she had mixed feelings. On the one hand she was happy that Ned trusted her so much but on the other, she started to think that trust was the only thing he felt for her, which she thought she didn't deserve. And not surprisingly, considering what she had done the last couple of days.
After Ned's not so subtle reference to having a girlfriend, she started an ethically questionable investigation. Okay, maybe not just questionable since she borrowed (pretty much stole) Ned's Osberry for a few hours, looking through his texts. She was aware how crazy it was but knew herself enough to suspect that if she let this whole 'possible love rival' thing keep nagging her, she would do something even crazier. That wouldn't be good for anybody. Plus, I work at a news company. I'm used to doing shady things.
It turned out she didn't have to worry about a possible love rival. Because there were more. She read conversations with four different women before she couldn't anymore, but there were other numbers with feminine names attached to them. I didn't know so many others found Asian guys attractive, too. Or, maybe it's just Ned. He wasn't in a relationship with any of them, judging from the texts, so he technically wasn't cheating on anyone, although it didn't seem like the girls knew about the others. They were just having occasional fun which is perfectly normal for people in their mid-twenties but it still made Betty scowl throughout the whole 'investigation'.
After she'd smuggled his phone back, she had given him the cold shoulder through the entire day. Only when she went home and drank a whole glass of wine did she realize how completely pathetic she was. A line was crossed so much, it was barely visible anymore. She had breached his privacy, which, granted, is kinda part of her profession. But she had done it to a friend, someone she deeply cares about and worse, she had blamed him for something she had no business with, whatsoever. It was despicable and she felt completely ashamed of it. She was a twenty-one year old woman, building her future career and not some stupid narcissistic high-school girl. I was way over the line. I won't let something like this happen again! She vowed guiltily when she fell asleep around midnight.
That brought her to this morning, looking at incinerated vehicles and people, asking questions about the situation and still fighting guilt over her previous actions. Expecting coherent answers from people this early in the morning was borderline crazy but she had a job and it had to be done. Fortunately, she was getting better at it, keeping her questions simple and direct.
She thought she had gathered as much as possible and decided to leave the scene when she caught a flicker of movement in the air. Even though there were countless possibilities about what that could have been, she still felt her heart starting to beat faster as she began to follow it. Betty ran for a few blocks but it appeared that she already lost the track when she saw some shadows move in an alley.
Slowly, she crept over there, sneaking up on the entrance. But when she jumped in, ready to take a picture, it was empty apart from a dumpster. She walked over to it to check if anyone was behind it but this, apparently, wasn't her lucky day. She sighed and let herself catch her breath. It was probably just a bird.
