Her shoulders soften a little and she presses further into me, snaking her arms around my torso and holding me.
“It’s more like, what did you find,” Stuart says.
“What? I don’t understand.” Harley’s shoulders tighten again as her entire body stiffens beneath my arm.
“The idea you had, to ask Nina?” Stuart looks at Harley, and she sucks in a breath, fisting my shirt between her fingers.
“Did she… Did she find something helpful?” Her eyes remain fixed on Stuart’s as I look around the room at everyone’s faces.
“Am I the only one who doesn’t know what the fuck’s going on?”
Stuart and Harley remain locked in some unspoken communication with their eyes on each other. Griffin looks at me soberly. Maria gives me a small smile. And Suze shrugs her shoulders at me and says, “Pretty much. We had time to discuss it while you two were—”
Maria places her hand tactfully over Suze’s, and she stops talking.
I look at them all wondering what I’m missing. When we were at the hospital, I called Griffin. He knew about the interview with Tom. He said he and Maria would be watching it. The same with Suze when I called her and confessed why Harley was at the TV studios in the first place. And how she ended up almost being hit by a cab.
They all know about the assault now. The whole world does. But something tells me there’s more to the heavy air that’s filled the room.
I look down at Harley. She’s let go of my shirt and has her hand pressed to her mouth. She glances up at me, her eyes pinching at the corners.
“What’s wrong?”
“I asked Stuart to speak to Nina about the video. Just the beginning of it, the part with no people,” she adds, quickly.
“Why would you do that?” My brow creases in confusion.What’s it got to do with Stuart’s sister-in-law?
“Nina’s obsessed with interiors.” Stuart rolls his eyes. “What she doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing. She can tell you where Oprah’s second guest room bed linen comes from just from catching it on screen. Everything. People’s houses, beach houses, holiday homes… hotels…”
“Wow. Great memory,” Maria says.
“Exactly. That’s why I thought… It was stupid really, just an idea, but—”
“It was genius.” Stuart stops Harley mid-sentence.
“You mean, she recognized something?”
Harley’s pulse is fluttering in her neck as she chews on her bottom lip. I bring my hand to the back of her neck and stroke it gently with my thumb. She sighs quietly, her shoulders relaxing.
“She did.” He glances at Griffin.
“Well, come on then.” I look between the two of them. What are they waiting for? The next presidential election?
“It’s not you,” Griffin says, his voice clear and concise.
“What isn’t?”
Harley’s sharp intake of breath steals my attention, and I look at her. “Angel?”
“I’m fine.” She rubs my chest with her hand, her eyes on Griffin. “Are you saying…”
“It’s not you in the video,” Griffin says again, his attention fixed firmly on me. “It’s someone else. The quality is so bad, it’s hard to make out faces properly. But it’s not you, Reed.”
I screw my eyes shut as my head starts to pound. A dull, incessant drumming that’s attacking the base of my skull.
If it isn’t me, then who?
“Are you sure?”