Scandalized(57)

“Tell me.”

“Are you sure you have time?”

“Yeah. I have about fifteen minutes. Was just calling to check in.”

“Okay, well,” I say, and then take a huge steadying breath. “About a half hour ago, the Times received an email from an anonymous source. It was blank except for an attachment: a four-second but good-quality iPhone video of a couple having sex on a long bench seat.”

“Okay,” Alec says slowly, interested but cautious.

I tell him how it appears to have been taken covertly by someone in the room. The woman does not react at all in the short clip; her head is turned at a sharp awkward angle; her arms are passively bent near her head. Pulsing music covers most of the sound, but audio stripping indicates that no one in the room speaks during the brief recording. Someone with black polished shoes steps in at 0:02:53 on the far right of the frame, and a tumbler with clear liquid appears in the lower-left corner at 0:03:12; it seems this is in the free hand of the person recording the scene. Details that are consistent with Jupiter’s interiors can easily be made out in the background.

“But Alec—okay, are you ready for this?”

“Should I sit down?”

“It’s not about Sunny,” I reassure him quickly, and squeeze my eyes closed, pulse thundering. “But we have a face.”

“What? Who?”

“Josef Anders is clearly identifiable as the man engaging in the sex act.”

“Oh my God.”

“And a tattoo on his hip has been seen in a number of screen caps from videos in the chat forum. This is the first time it’s conclusively linked to a face.” I pause. “Do you get what I’m telling you? We’ve got him. We don’t know who she is, and don’t have proof that she’s been drugged, or whether this is consensual, but we now have proof that it’s Josef in all of these videos.” I pull the phone away to make sure I haven’t dropped the call. “Alec?”

“Write it up.”

“Oh, we will as soon as we get—”

“Sunny’s story, I mean,” he cuts in. “Include it.”

I freeze. “What? I thought she wanted it all off the record?”

“She let me know the other day that she’s okay with it coming out as long as we remain anonymous. I didn’t know if or how it would be helpful but this… Just—keep any identifying details out,” he says. “No names. Nothing about my friendship with Josef. Nothing about him and Sunny. Nothing about Lukas. Just write that a man was warned by a friend to come pick a mutual friend up. That she’d been drugged and assaulted. Write what I saw. Can you do that?”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable including information I got from a source I’m sleeping with.”

“It’s not illegal, though, is it?”

It isn’t, he’s right. But especially for something this big, it’s discouraged.

But maybe that’s the point: This is big. And with our new evidence that it’s Anders, Sunny’s story—even included without attribution—locks it down as potential assault in every video.

We ring off, and my heart scales up into my windpipe at the enormity of what we have in our hands. Ian and I send a copy of the video to the Met in London. I add Alec’s anonymous details to the article. It’s only maybe a hundred more words, but he’s right—it does lock it down. Ian and I FaceTime briefly to read the entire thing through.

It’s a terrible scandal—all centered around horrifying cruelty, really. As proud as I am to be the one unearthing it, it still doesn’t feel good at all to spend so much time thinking about what these women have gone through. So there is a tiny moment of relief at the end when Ian’s eyes meet mine and he nods, just slightly. This story is going to break wide open, and we did that.

Out of professional courtesy we send the article to Alec—it’s unusual but in this case I feel strongly that he should be allowed to give his okay on the wording before it goes to print. But even though it still needs to go through production, the piece is done, and it’s good.

I fall back on the bed, letting my laptop slide to the side and stare up at the ceiling. For the first time, I feel like a badass at my job; I feel like I’m finally getting my life moving in the right direction; and despite my anxiety about a long-distance romance, I am hopeful that Alec and I might be able to make something of this.

My regular phone rings, and I pull it up to see Billy’s face on the screen. “Are you calling to tell me I’m amazing?”

“No, I’m calling to ask what you’re doing tonight.”

I frown, thinking. I don’t remember Alec mentioning what he’s doing later, but I assume he’s gone because he didn’t specifically tell me to be here. “Probably either hanging out with my parents or going for a run. Or both.”

“Meredith isn’t feeling well, and she was my plus-one to the AP gala. Want to come?”

An Associated Press gala? With my boss? That is a hell and a yes. I bolt up. “Wait, seriously?”

“Do you have a formal dress?”

I stare blankly at the wall. The nicest thing I own is the red jersey dress Alec and I have dubbed The Naked Dress. “What time is the event?”

“I’ll swing by your place at six.”