Scandalized(48)

“Oh.” This piques his interest. “What’s going on?”

“Billy is all in,” I say. “He anticipated this blowing up and brought in our London correspondent to do the heavy lifting on the follow-ups, which means a shared byline, but I honestly couldn’t do it from here anyway. This guy, Ian, usually covers the politics desk, so he’s great. He went back and looked into guest logs and video footage and discovered what I actually knew already, which is that there is no record of who came into or left the club on the nights we know the chat-room videos were recorded. Or the night you went to get Sunny.”

Alec frowns. “Really?”

“Those records have been ‘misplaced,’?” I say with implied air quotes. “However”—I hold up my index finger, and grin proudly—“there is a hotel next door to the club, the Hotel Maxson. Well, the parking lot where nonhotel guests tend to park to access the club is not attached to the hotel. It’s a separate structure that is closer to the outdoor entrance of Jupiter. And the company that manages security there is independent of the club security, which you probably remember is run by the father of one of the owners. Turns out this other security outfit keeps footage for six months, and no one has bothered asking them for it.”

Sitting up, Alec turns to face me. His voice is quiet, but every letter is enunciated: “What does that mean, specifically?”

“It means that although we don’t have a guest log for Jupiter for the dates corresponding to the videos, Ian was able to get the footage from the parking lot that most club guests use to park their personal vehicles. It isn’t ideal—obviously, video of everyone entering or leaving the club itself would be better for time-stamp purposes, but if Josef—or any of the other owners or affiliated VIPs—parked in this structure, we’ll get a record of the dates and times they could feasibly have been inside the club.”

“This is great,” he breathes.

“And,” I add, beaming, “although things are sketchy with the club surveillance, the Hotel Maxson is cooperating so we can cross-reference their lobby footage with the parking structure surveillance footage so, for example, if we see Josef parking in the lot but do not see him in the Maxson, he can’t simply say he was visiting the hotel bar.”

“How many hours of footage is there to go through?”

I laugh. “So many hours.” Finger-combing his hair again, I say, “Welcome to journalism. But it helps that we have a number of dates to start with, and Ian has a few interns working on those. They’ll send us possible segments to review tomorrow and cross-check against names. I’m only going to be support from here on out so I can more quietly focus on the Josef Anders of it all.”

He looks up at me and nods. I know without having to ask what this means to him, that I can help like this. “So you’re done working for the night?”

“I am done working for the night.”

He sits up and reaches for me, coaxing me over into his lap so I’m straddling him. “Are you hungry?”

“Well, now I am.”

“Food hunger,” he says, laughing. “Since the coffee at your place this morning I’ve only had half a muffin. I could eat everything in the minibar right now.”

“Room service?”

“Read my mind.” Alec reaches past me to feel for the menu on the coffee table. Bringing it between us, he turns it to the side so that we can read it together, but I go in for his neck.

“Pick something salad-y for me,” I say.

“Like a Caesar or like… a grilled veggie platter with brown rice?”

“Yes. That.”

He hums and the sound vibrates against my lips as I kiss across his throat. “That does sound good. If I got the margherita pizza and gave you a slice would you give me some veggies?”

“Yes.”

“Done.” He shifts me back onto the cushion, walks over to the phone, and orders. “Okay if I shower?” When I nod, he tosses me the remote. “Pick a movie for us to watch.”



* * *



A movie. Dinner on the coffee table, sitting cross-legged on the floor, side by side and laughing at the same stupid parts of Office Space. With his eyes forward, mouth open in a laugh, Alec takes bites of food off my plate without asking and I love it. He refills my wineglass and distractedly kisses my shoulder when he’s done eating, like if it’s in kissing distance, it’s his damn job to do it.

And when that movie ends, we put on Spotlight—I can’t believe he’s never seen it—and scramble up onto the couch. Alec stretches out and pulls me over him, aligning our torsos, our legs, and wrapping his arms around my midsection.

“You’re the comfiest mattress,” I mumble against his chest.

He laughs. “Is that a compliment?”

“I like a firm bed.”

He kisses me, sweet and chaste, and I rest my head back on his chest, hearing the movie out of one ear and his heartbeat out of the other. Like this, I fall asleep.



* * *



I wake up in bed, with the remnants of a dream caught in my thoughts like a photo negative. I ran into Spence somewhere—a café, I was enjoying a scone and iced tea—and he was astonished that I wasn’t happy to see him. He had no idea what I was talking about; hurt, shock, and eventually anger bled into his voice until I started to feel like maybe I’d made it all up. Like I’d fabricated all the pain and isolation and betrayal.