I don’t care that Yael is listening to every word, I am frantic; panic eats my oxygen. “Alec,” I say in a final plea to his voicemail. “Call me. Let me help you get in front of this.”
Hanging up, I drop my phone onto the seat and lean my head back, exhaling a quiet “Shit.” Desperate now, I look over at her, willing to grovel. “Can you call him on his regular phone for me?”
Yael finally takes her attention off the road again to glance at me. Her eyes are beautiful; they’re the same reddish brown as her hair. “Georgia, he could have controlled the message had you included his account in the piece. In that case, he would have simply come out as the anonymous source and said he was helping a good friend, that of course he wouldn’t be cooperating with the story if he were one of the people committing the crimes. But we’re behind the momentum now; now it’s about damage control.”
This speech includes more words than I’ve ever heard Yael use at once, and all I can think to say in response is, “We can still fix this.”
“Perhaps, but Alec wouldn’t possibly give Sunny’s name if in the end no one believes him anyway and it tarnishes them both.”
“Why wouldn’t anyone believe him?”
“Revealing that Sunny was assaulted may be no big deal to the American press but it isn’t like that in the UK. And I am not sure how the news would be handled elsewhere. More often than not, the victim is blamed. Given these circumstances, given how this looks, he won’t force her into that position.”
“But—”
“He won’t force her into that position,” she repeats, adamant.
“So he would rather be seen as a criminal?”
“Where Sunny is concerned, yes.”
“Can you drop me at the Times? I need to go into the office.”
She nods, changing lanes.
Two fists come around my organs, twisting. “What now?”
“For you? Hope that no one associates you with Alec.”
I clench my jaw, angry and hurt. “I mean what’s next for Alec, but okay.”
Yael glances over, and I sense the slightest softening of her posture next to me. “For what it’s worth, he’s trying to protect you, too. You work for the Times. It will look very bad for you if anyone discovers you were staying at the hotel with him. You’re beautiful and friendly. One makes you noticeable, both make you memorable. For everyone’s sake, I truly hope no one remembers you.”
“We cannot use his account,” I say to Billy as soon as I burst into his fourth-floor office. I feel a hundred pairs of eyes on me and close the door even though everything is glass and there is no such thing as privacy here. My suitcase falls heavily over where I’ve left it, but I ignore it. “Do not add it.”
My editor lets out a booming “Fuck!” into the air and stands, rounding his desk to stare out his office door in frustrated silence for several aggravated moments. “You can’t talk him out of it? It would clear his name.”
“I can’t even get ahold of him anymore.” I don’t bother hiding the sob, and my knees buckle so that I sit gracelessly onto the couch against one wall. Out of the car, away from Yael, I feel my composure slipping. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve been completely cut off.”
Across the room, Billy goes silent. Long enough for me to count to ten, and I know now he’s noticed my suitcase. “Shit, Georgia. You two?”
“I tried to tell you last night and chickened out.” I cover my face. I’m too devastated to be ashamed. “I’ve known him since I was seven, Billy. We ran into each other in Seattle, and I didn’t know he was involved until after we…”
“Shit. Shit.”
“Billy, it was my call to pull his account—he didn’t know,” I admit, keeping my voice as steady as possible. “I was trying to protect him and also not rely on information I obtained from someone I was sleeping with. And now that he’s being ripped to shreds online, his team worries that if he comes forward, it looks like he’s just covering his ass unless he gives a name, and he doesn’t want to come out and say that Sunny was drugged and assaulted.”
Billy’s seething anger ripples across the distance separating us. “You’re telling me you decided to cut this? Without my input, and without asking your source?”
God, this is such a mess. I swallow a sob because Billy doesn’t want to see me cry right now. “Yes, I did.”
“This story is too big, and you are too green to make that call.” The disappointment in Billy’s voice is gutting. “Your relationship to a primary source in a story like this is the kind of stuff you disclose to me, George. I can help you if you tell me—I can’t help you if you don’t.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Billy moves back around his desk, falling into his chair and gripping his forehead.
“He’s not a creep,” I say. I feel sick. My insides swim.