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“What do you mean?” Russell asked. “Aren’t we done?”
“Almost,” C.J. said breezily. “Just a few more things to clarify and then we can all go our separate ways, as charming as this has been.” She looked from me to Russell, giving us a smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “So you two had quite a whirlwind tonight! Quite the sudden romance.”
I felt my face get hot. As embarrassing as it had been to go over everything that had happened with Russell in my head, I hadn’t realized how much worse it would be to have to talk about it with a stranger in a business suit. And her paralegal, on the phone. (And possibly the paralegal’s boyfriend.)
“Well,” Russell said, and his face was bright red now. He looked exactly how I felt, like he was willing the floor to open up and swallow him whole. “I’m not sure how that’s, um… relevant?”
“Well, your dad pays me to look at all the angles, kid,” she said, giving him a smile that seemed genuinely sympathetic for just a moment. But then she turned to me, and all kindness was gone. Even though it was quite cold in the Saturday Night Falls conference room, I could feel my palms start to sweat. All at once, I knew that this woman didn’t like me—and that she was not on my side. “Now, Darcy,” she said, emphasizing my name in a way I didn’t love. “You said you met Russell tonight at the bus station.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, glancing across the table at him. “I… That’s what happened.”
“You’d never met before?”
“No,” Russell said, sounding as baffled by this as I felt. “We hadn’t.”
“You’re both based in LA,” she said as she pulled something up on her laptop and scrolled down.
“No, we’re not. Russell’s in Ojai…” My voice trailed off as I looked over at him. He was staring down at his hands and I realized that he’d been lying about this, too. “You don’t live in Ojai,” I said, not phrasing it as a question.
“Let me see,” C.J. continued, scrolling on her laptop. “You live with your father, your mother is in England…”
My head snapped up at this, and I looked at Russell, suddenly realizing that he must have told Sarah the paralegal this when he was on the phone with her. For a second I thought about correcting this, but then I let it go. Why should I be setting the record straight when Russell was lying to me left and right? “You and Russell are both the same age, the same grade, and you do have a mutual friend in common, according to your social media accounts, Darcy—Willa Curtis.” I leaned forward to try and look at C.J.’s laptop screen. But the sides of buses are really long, which meant this table was too.
“How do you know Willa?” Russell asked me.
“We volunteered together.” An image of Willa—blue hair, quick laugh, septum piercing—flashed across my mind. It had been a beach-cleanup project, and we’d been paired together. She was from Harvard-Westlake, one of the private schools in LA. Which, I realized a second later, probably meant Russell went there too. Knowing that he was actually a lot closer to where I lived, to people I knew, was making me feel his deception all the more strongly.
“Oh,” Russell said. “Willa’s in my class. Or was, I guess.”
“So not total strangers,” C.J. said with a nod.
“But wait—why are you looking at my social media?”
“Your accounts are public, aren’t they?”
“Well… yes.” I swallowed hard. It had never occurred to me that what I put online would be of any interest to someone who didn’t already know me. It was all so personal and specific—pictures of Didi and Katy. A series in which I reviewed my daily lunch sandwich in a fake French accent, giving them a number grade with wildly shifting parameters. Way too many shots (according to Didi) of the jacaranda tree at the end of our street. Who else would care about these things?
But I truly got now what it meant for my accounts to be public. It meant all the stuff I’d put out there, intending it only for my friends, could be accessed by anyone with an internet connection and an interest in finding out about me. And this lawyer apparently had both.
“Why are you looking into Darcy?” Russell asked. “I thought you were just here about the hotel.”
“My job is to protect the interests—and mitigate the legal exposure of—Wylie Sanders,” C.J. said. “And, by extension, Russell here. And now,” she said, looking at me over her glasses, “we need to figure out where you fit into the picture.”
I blinked at her. “What… what is that supposed to mean?”
“You said you’d never met Russell before tonight. That you didn’t know who he was.”
“I didn’t! He didn’t tell me who he really was. In fact, he told me his dad was a structural engineer, he lived in Ojai, and his name was Russell Henrion.” As I spoke, I was getting mad all over again.
“And you believed this?” C.J. asked. She gave me a smile that clearly said, Nice try, kid. “Because I understand you’re a Nighthawks fan, right? According to a number of public comments you’ve made. As has your father, I believe. It seems like he’s also a fan—Edward Milligan.”
“Ted,” I corrected automatically, then felt my stomach plunge. It was like my dad had suddenly walked in here, which was honestly the last thing I wanted. It was one thing for C.J. to know basic facts about me—it was another for her to be digging up things about my father. Because I hadn’t ever told Russell my dad’s name. I was pretty sure about that.
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Russell said, staring at C.J. “What’s going on?”
C.J. took off her glasses and folded them, then turned to Russell. When she spoke, her voice was softer, like she was breaking bad news. “While we’ve done a good job of keeping you kids out of the public eye, you still can find information and pictures if you’re so motivated. And Darcy here is an admitted Nighthawks fan.” She turned and looked at me, her expression stony. “Which leads me to believe that she was not as in the dark as she claims.”
“What?” I still felt like I was a beat behind. “You think I knew who Russell was—and pretended not to?”
