“Don’t be a sick fuck right now. Don’t. That doesn’t help anything. And no, she doesn’t know.” He exhales heavily. “I hope. You have any idea what the hell this email is about?”
“No.” I’m trying not to talk too quickly, but God, it’s hard. The minute my control slips, all my impulses froth to the surface and I end up saying things I shouldn’t. “Isn’t that your area? You were the one who said I should stay away—”
“I meant it. And then this shit gets coughed out of the ether. Is there any truth to this? What have we got on our hands here?”
He might as well have shook his finger at me and bleated, Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do! This is the thing about useful people, grasshoppers; they’re always looking to move up the food chain, and the minute you stop being helpful to them, you turn into a threat. Best hope your damage control skills are up to scratch because in this scenario, normal tactics won’t cover it. Hunt or be hunted. Fuck or be fucked.
“Rachel was never even my girlfriend. We fooled around a little in high school, that’s all. I had no idea…I mean, it makes me sick.” I pause for breath. Let that be evidence of my disgust, and not my panic. “She was Leo’s girlfriend for a long time. Leo…Leo will be heartbroken.” I’m doing my best here, but chances are, I just played right into his grubby little hands. He’s feeling something out, testing a theory, and I don’t even have the headspace to contemplate it. Bile heats the back of my throat.
“This has gone to all major news outlets, Aeron. Jesus, it’s gone to the White House—not that I can see they’ll do anything, but that’s not the point.”
“Nowhere with any credibility is going to publish this,” I say, though I’m not sure I believe it myself.
“Yeah, but give it an hour, and it’ll be all over those dirty gossip websites people actually read. Then my office gets the pleasure of a zillion phone calls from Cindy and Bob Dumbass about how one time, you looked at their goldfish funny, and they know it isn’t much but they just couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t share.” He groans. “Our only hope is that it might force the FBI to come out and say they have the bastard’s ID anyways.”
“Wait—what?” I sit straight up. The iPad clatters to the floor beside me. “They have an ID on Blood Honey? You’re serious?”
“I don’t have details, but they’ve got something. There’s even an e-fit from the Perkins motel staff, though they won’t release it to the public—they actually want to catch him. Of course they don’t want him to know what they have.”
“Have you seen the e-fit?”
“No.” A pause. “And don’t you dare go releasing this info, or so help me—”
“I appear to have more pressing concerns.”
“You think?”
“I need to call off,” I manage. “Need to push through the world’s fastest gag order.”
“I’ll see you on the other side, then. Assuming you get there.”
He hangs up.
Posner teeters on the edge of not believing me. One gust of wind and the fucker’s going to fall. He also let that Blood Honey titbit slip entirely on purpose; either he harbors his own vile curiosities, or it’s a thinly veiled threat…because if there’s no other ID for Blood Honey, well, people are desperate to nail someone to a cross.
Leo still hasn’t replied to my email. Her cell goes to answerphone again—Jesus Christ, for one moment, could she stop being so goddamn productive?
Carson, on the other hand, has been primed by Harvey and is already expecting my call.
“You’re fucked,” he says in his overbearing NY accent.
I swallow. “How fucked, exactly?”
“Somewhere between it doesn’t matter if this is horse shit and you should probably leave the country.”
“Get a gag order. Immediately. We can still tone down the impact of—”
“Is it true?” he demands. “Did you or did you not assault Miss Fordham in this manner, on this date?”