On the other hand, Harvey looks confident and well put together. He's in his forties and steeped in confidence. His dark hair is cut to frame his face and wide deep eyes.
I catch him up on everything that has happened. There's no need to hide anything since both articles are out there and they contain almost all of the details of what happened.
I consider that fact for a moment as I tell him the story. The articles contain facts, but they don't capture the essence of what it was like to be there. They don't capture my emotions, or his, or those sparks that bounced between us and made it impossible for us to pull away.
If I had written any of that down, they would have probably not been published, which would mean that Liam would still be here. The irony of that is not lost on me.
As I go through the story, I watch the way that Harvey nods, leaning closer to the screen. He's dressed in a leather jacket and the office around him looks sparse and nondescript. There's a window to one side, but the back wall has absolutely no decorations. Just files and papers and metal bookcases. He takes notes and listens carefully and then reads over them before asking me about Matt.
I had buried the story about Matt Lipinski, making him something of a throwaway line, but he immediately jumps on it and challenges it.
“I don't agree. That was just the name of someone on the forum. I doubt that it's real.”
“Yes, me, too, but I'll check it out anyway.” He also asks for the web address and I send it over. “Let me go through everything that you have given me and I'll be in touch.”
7
Emma
I get up early the following Monday to endure the two hour commute to downtown LA. Without traffic, the drive can take thirty minutes, but given the fact that I have to be there at the same time that everyone else does, I have to give myself a lot of time.
There is a collision on the 405, shutting down one of the lanes, but this is to be expected. There are always accidents and that's part of what makes the traffic so treacherous. I am armed with an audiobook and a collection of podcasts that I have been meaning to listen to for a while. Usually I do that at work, but today they keep me occupied on the drive.
I leave my things at my parents’ house and I plan on coming back this evening, after enduring another difficult commute.
I planned on talking to my parents about their financial situation this weekend, but I chickened out. It has always been somewhat of a difficult topic but when things improved with their financial situation and they bought that house in Calabasas, they started being a lot more open about it. Now, however, I know that something is off and that they don't want to talk about it.
I decide that I'm going to do it sometime this week after my mom and I have a few more heart-to-heart conversations. It was so nice to connect with her on that level and again when we went out to lunch on Sunday. It seemed like, for the first time in a long time, she stopped putting on airs and really became the real person that I know she is.
As soon as I get to the office, Corrin's assistant calls me and tells me that she wants to see me. I try to get out of it by saying that I have some work to do and I'd like to reschedule for later in the morning, but she doesn't take no for an answer.
“You wanted to see me?” I ask, knocking on the door. Corrin looks up from her computer screen and tells me to close the door behind me.
“We have a problem,” she says, folding her hands.
“What are you talking about?”
“Bad news,” she says, raising one eyebrow, staring daggers at my eyes. “Have you seen the story in the papers?”
“Which story?” I ask.
“The one about you,” she says without blinking.
I want to point out the fact that I never published the second story or rather that she published it without my consent, but I let it go.
She brings the stories up on her computer and waves me over. That's when I see the headlines and I stare at the text.
My mouth drops open. This can't be true.
“They are wrong,” I say when I finally regain the ability to speak. “Everything that I wrote is true. Everything that I found out about him and everything that happened. I have my notes.”
“You’re going to need them,” Corrin says, shaking her head.
I know that she's doubting me. The Washington Post and the Boston Globe are serious newspapers. They have fact checkers, meaning that they have people going through every single fact to make sure that it is true and accurate. If someone is quoted as saying something, then those words are checked and double checked.
“All I have is my notes.”
“Did you make any recordings?” Corrin asks.
“No.” I shake my head. “He didn't want to be recorded. He never wanted to be written about. That's why I didn't want that second article to go out.”
“I have a feeling that you didn’t want it to go out because nothing about it is true.”
I shake my head vigorously from side to side.
“This is very serious, Emma. I don't think you're grasping what is really going on here.”
I open my mouth to say something, but she puts her finger up in the air and I let her continue.
“The real D. B. Carter has talked to these two separate journalists at these two separate very well established newspapers and told them that you made the whole thing up. They're exposing you as a liar and they're exposing this magazine as something that is nothing more than a gossip rag. That's the exact opposite of that rebranding that I wanted to do. Now, with all of this being out, they are never going to take us seriously.”
“I don't know what to say. I have no idea where this is coming from.”
“You lied to me about D. B. Carter,” she announces. “My question is how did you get Harvey to go along with it?”
I look at the floor and then pick at my cuticles.
“Emma?” she says, tilting her head.
“I didn’t talk to Harvey,” I say quietly, my voice breaking.
“What are you talking about? Did you double-check your story?”
“I just reached out to him now, but I haven't before then.”
“So, you just trusted this guy who said that he was this writer? I can't believe you would do that, Emma.”
“He wasn’t lying,” I say. “This is wrong. This is untrue.”
“It is true. The real D. B. Carter came out of hiding and gave interviews to these journalists and told them that you made the whole thing up. He showed them his manuscripts. He showed them his work. You either got played or you are the one playing games.”
My head starts to buzz. A loud thumping sound of blood moving in between my temples makes it difficult to hear.
“I'm not sure what to do. I don't know how to make any of this go away. I don't know where to go from here. All I know is that D. B. Carter did not lie to me and that everything in those articles is true.”
“This is why you never wanted me to publish the second one? Because you knew you were lying and that you were going to get caught?”
“Everything in the articles is true,” I say slowly. “I didn't want you to publish it because it was going to put his life in danger.”