Who would keep their job?

Who would be doing the job of two people?

And could the paper stay in business for another year?

There was a new gunslinger in town: Lisa Greening, who had come in as managing editor under the publisher. Lisa had eight years of management experience, two years at the New York Times, three at the Chicago Tribune, and three at the L.A. Times.

Her claim to fame had been an investigative report for the latter on the PC Killer, a smooth con man with a foot fetish who’d terrorized the Pacific Coast, luring women, killing them, and keeping their feet in his freezer as trophies.

Greening had won a Pulitzer for that story and had parlayed it into her new post at the Chronicle.

Since Cindy was the Chronicle’s crime desk reporter, she felt particularly vulnerable. Lisa Greening knew the crime beat as well as Cindy did — probably better — and if she failed to live up to a very high standard, Cindy knew she could become a budget cut. Greening would pick up her territory, and Cindy would become a freelancer working for scraps.

Half the editors in the room had given status reports, and Abadaya Premawardena, the travel editor, was up.

Prem was talking about cruise ship packages and discounts on Fiji and Samoa when Cindy got up and went to the back of the room and refilled her mug at the coffee urn.

Her last big story, which was about Hello Kitty, a jewel thief who preyed on the rich and famous, had been a huge and splashy success. The thief had either skipped town or retired, probably due to the work Cindy had done. But that was old news now, and the next big story, the kind that sold newspapers, had yet to appear.