Page 236 of The Doctors Will See You Now

A few weeks later…

“Thanks for coming down,” Detective Santos greeted us as we walked into his office.

“Not going to lie, this is always the very last place I want to be,” Scott muttered, but it was in a teasing tone.

Detective Santos chuckled softly and gestured for us to sit down in the chairs across from his desk. “I promise, it’s all good news from here on out,” he said, and Scott sighed.

“Even if it is good news, anything related to this always feels like bad news.”

He had a point. This entire situation had been one giant clusterfuck of awful since it began. And even though it had been made clear that the article was faked, there were still people in the public who believed the lies it had bled.

But no matter what, we still had each other. I put my hand on top of his thigh and squeezed gently in reassurance, and he offered a soft smile in return.

“You were right, Harlow,” Detective Santos stated simply. Unsure to what he was referring, I sat there dumbly while Scott nodded without understanding. I could tell by the creases at the corners of his eyes that he didn’t have any more clue what the detective was talking about than I did.

“About?” I finally asked. It felt like if I didn’t pipe up, Scott would just keep nodding forever.

“Well,” Detective Santos started, “after a lot of searching, we traced the initial tip-off call to the station and verified that it came from Pam Lockhead.”

“Are you fucking serious?” I blurted out. “It was her?”

I’d had a hunch, sure, but fuck if I thought I was going to be right. I didn’t have a degree in Criminal Justice.

He nodded. “Apparently, she made the call from a burner phone that had been bought with cash and had no name associated with the account. It wasn’t an easy trace, but thankfully, the computer system in the cell phone store along with their security cameras helped verify that it was her. We also have suspicions that she might be involved with the hack to Gossip’s email database. She was brought into custody this morning and is now being investigated.”

“So, what happens now?” Scott asked.

“Well, your name, as well as Harlow’s, has been officially cleared from this. We’ll be issuing a statement to the public this afternoon, along with an explanation of the evidence that we’ve found so far in this investigation.”

“Thank God,” I muttered. “I guess maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Scott rested his hand on top of mine and squeezed, practically begging me not to jinx this shit. “Is that all you need from us?”

“The only other thing we need to know is, once all of the facts are found, do you want to press charges against the people responsible?”

“Of course, he fucking does!” I shouted, and Detective Santos chuckled.

“Should I take her word for it?”

“Yes.” Scott grinned. Fucking grinned. For something that was almost unavoidable in the past, he’d done very little of it in the last few weeks. I was fucking thrilled to have it back. “I definitely want to press charges.”

Scott’s happiness only egged my craziness on. I didn’t want it to go away.

“We want to press charges and nail these fuckers into the ground! We’ll accept nothing less than a life sentence,” I added enthusiastically, and Scott laughed.

He fucking laughed.

My mind raced as I tried to come up with my next off-the-wall remark, but Scott was pretty well done with the whole scene, overtly amusing girlfriend or not.

“Yeah, if that’s all you need from us, I think we’ll be leaving now.”

Detective Santos smirked. “Have a good one.”

“You too,” Scott said and grabbed my hand to pull me to my feet. “Come on, Low. Let’s go get some lunch before you try to join the police force.”

“Oh! I’d be an awesome cop!” I said, basking in the glow of his willingness to joke. It’s so good to have him back. He all but dragged me out of the detective’s office.

“No,” he refuted as we wove our way through the bullpen. “You’re going to be an awesome pediatrician. You don’t have time to learn how to shoot a gun and put bad guys in handcuffs while you’re going through med school.”