It had been raining on and off since morning. The kind of rain that wasn’t heavy enough to justify an umbrella but was definitely too heavy to walk through without one.

The offices of The Queens Ledger were on the third floor of a narrow brick building, above a laundromat, next to a bodega. The stairs always smelled like fabric softener and old newspapers.

Inside, the newsroom was small—four desks crammed into a room that used to be an apartment. The window unit had been broken since last summer, and Marlie had taped a sticky note to it that said “DO NOT TOUCH - IT’S HOLDING ON.”