Page 353 of The Doctors Will See You Now

Her breath was audible and shaky as she touched her lips to mine, once, twice, three times, and climbed into my lap.

“Thank God,” she mumbled as she buried her face in my neck and let a few tortured sobs bubble all the way out. I gave her a moment to compose herself before ripping off the comfort of her Band-Aid.

“But what are we going to do about all of this? I’m so fucking glad it wasn’t you, but it was someone. How am I supposed to handle that?”

“With your head high,” my mom interjected, reminding me she was there.

My face pinched in disbelief. “You want me to shrug this off? Act like it’s no big deal?” Steadily and with each word, my volume increased until I was nearly at a yell.

Harlow sensed how close I was to the edge and put her hands to either side of my jaw to turn my face back to her.

With soft green eyes—the softest she’d ever bestowed upon me—Harlow did her best to heal the hurt inside of me with nothing more than a look.

I wrapped her up as tight as I could manage.

I still didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but if she didn’t write it, when all was said and done, I knew I had at least one thing left to hold on to—her.

“You don’t shrug off anything. Gossip already did a press conference, admitting that because of a computer security issue, they’re uncertain of the source of the article or the validity of the statements within it. I know that doesn’t help much—”

“They already did a press conference?” I asked, mystified. “When?”

“This afternoon while you were still in police custody,” my mom offered helpfully.

Christ. Police custody. How was this my life?

At the thought of what my visit to the precinct had entailed, I shook my head. “Well, that’s good I guess. But that doesn’t clear me completely. According to the detective, they got an anonymous call from a woman claiming I’d assaulted her.”

“What?” Harlow shouted as my mom gasped.

I nodded, pulling back from Harlow enough to scrub a hand down my face. “I know. It’s not good.”

“Who the hell would do that?” my mom asked, distraught. I’d never seen Nicole Shepard distraught in my life, and I decided in that moment I never wanted to see it again.

Harlow just looked angry. The line of her eyes changed from a curve to a point, and her mouth set in a firm line. “I’ve got a fucking idea.”

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.