Year One by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online

for hard news.
    At thirty-two, she’d still had her eye on national news. She hadn’t expected to get it by default. The star of The Evening Spotlight , a steady, sober voice through two decades of world crises, went missing before the end of the first week of the pandemic. One by one, in the pecking order of replacements, came death, flight, or, in the case of her immediate predecessor, a sobbing breakdown on air.
    Every morning when Arlys woke—in her nearly empty low-rise only a few blocks from the studio—she took stock.
    No fever, no nausea, no cramping, no cough, no delusions. No—though she didn’t actually believe the rumors—strange abilities.
    She ate from her meager supplies. Usually dry cereal, as milk hadbecome nearly impossible to find unless you could stomach the powdered stuff. And she couldn’t.
    She dressed for a run, as she’d discovered running could be necessary, even in broad daylight, even for a handful of blocks. She strapped her briefcase cross-body. Inside, she kept a .32 she’d found on the street. She locked her door and hit the streets.
    Along the way, if she felt reasonably safe, she took pictures with her phone. Always something to document. Another body, another burned-out car, another broken shop window. Otherwise, she kept up a steady jog.
    She kept in good shape—always had—and could kick into a sprint if needed. Most mornings the streets remained eerily quiet, empty but for abandoned cars, wrecks. Those who roamed the nights looking for blood had crawled back into their holes with the sunlight like vampires.
    She used the side door, as Tim in security had given her a full set of keys and swipes before he’d disappeared. She always used the stairs, as they’d had a couple of power outages. The climb up five flights helped make up for missing her five-times-weekly hour at the gym.
    She’d stopped letting the echoing silence of the building bother her. The lunchroom and the commissary still had coffee. Before she started a pot, she ground extra beans for the plastic bag in her briefcase. Only a day’s supply at a time—after all, she wasn’t the only one still coming to work who needed that good jolt.
    Sometimes Little Fred—the enthusiastic intern who, like Arlys, continued to report to the TV station every day—restocked. Arlys never questioned where the bouncy little redhead acquired the coffee beans, the boxes of Snickers, or the Little Debbie snack cakes.
    She just enjoyed the largess.
    Today, she filled her thermos with coffee and decided on a Swiss Roll.
    Taking both, she wound her way to the newsroom. She could’ve taken an office—plenty of them available now—but preferred the open feel of the newsroom.
    She hit the lights, watched them blink on over empty desks, blank screens, silent computers.
    She tried not to worry about the day she hit the switches and nothing happened.
    As always, she settled down at the desk she’d chosen, crossed her fingers, and booted up the computer. The Wi-Fi in her apartment building had hit the dirt two weeks earlier, but the station still pulled it.
    It ran painfully slow, often hiccupped off and on, but it ran. She clicked to connect, poured her coffee, settled back to drink and wait—fingers still crossed.
    â€œAnd so we live another day,” she said aloud when the screen came up.
    She clicked on her e-mail, drank, and waited until it fluttered on-screen. As she did several times a day, she searched for an e-mail from her parents, her brother, the friends she had back in Ohio. She’d had no luck phoning or texting in more than a week. The last time she’d been able to reach her parents, her mother had told her they were fine. But her voice had sounded raw and weak.
    Then nothing. Calls didn’t go through, texts and e-mails went unanswered.
    She sent another group e-mail.
    Please contact me. I check my e-mail several times a day. You