My Instagram account, which I only intermittently remembered to update, had been a lot more lively since @i_hate_ellery had started tagging me. But I woke to find it was going notify-crazy, with no intervention from her at all. Which, given that my last post had been a suggestive butternut squash I’d seen at the farmers’ market down on Bute Street, meant that something else was going on.
Cringing, I opened Google and fed it my own name.
Not a bean, beyond my usual stuff, social media accounts I’d forgotten about, and some of the articles I’d written.
With an increasing swallowed-live-lizard feeling in my stomach, I tried: Eleanor Hart.
And boom.
In every afternoon tea-and-gossip magazine from Hello! to goodbye, there we were: me with my head in Ellery’s lap as she fed me a strawberry in a fashion that, to those unfamiliar with the inherent sensuality of my strawberry-eating technique, probably looked a bit intimate. The byline was mostly something like “Notorious Wild Child Eleanor Hart Spotted with New Mystery Man at Proms” because the internet murdered brevity the way video killed the radio star.
For a few minutes, I just stared. Tried to figure how I was feeling—if I was scared or angry or violated or confused or all of them. Because if my Instagram was anything to go by, the mystery man ship had sailed. Had way sailed.
What the hell was I supposed to do? Only one thing for it, really. I rang Bellerose.
He picked up as swiftly as ever. “Arden.”
“Um, I don’t know if this is something I should be bothering you with.”
“Well, neither will I unless you tell me.”
“It’s on the internet. Google Ellery.”
Then came the tap of his keyboard. And a thoughtful silence. Followed by, “Are you at the apartment?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
I wasn’t sure that made me feel better or worse. In any case, it called for trousers. Unfortunately getting dressed couldn’t last me sixty minutes and so, by the time Bellerose turned up, I was in knots.
“Am I in trouble?” I blurted out, the moment he was over the threshold.
“Of course not. I wanted you to meet someone.” He stepped aside to reveal a slight, elegant, stiletto of man. “This is Alexander Finesilver, of Gisbourne, Finesilver & King. He’s the Harts’ lawyer.”
In all honesty, I didn’t find this very reassuring. “Okay?”
“Among other things, he specializes in media litigation and reputation management.”
Finesilver smiled at me. And, wow, he was good at smiling. It was positively bounteous—warm, genuine, everything you could possibly want in a friendly baring of teeth. “I hope you’ll contact me directly if you have any concerns like this again.”
And the next thing I knew, he was holding his business card, which was pearl gray and gold, at once opulent and discreet.
“I’m actually pretty concerned right now,” I said.
“Understandably, Mr. St. Ives.” Another smile.
It was hard to get the measure of him, probably because most people seemed ordinary when Bellerose was standing there like the ridiculous golden Ganymede he was. But Finesilver practically courted it. To shuck your curiosity like water. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
A few minutes later, they were huddled around a laptop on the dining table while I hovered anxiously nearby.
“I don’t suppose”—Finesilver glanced up—“you remember anything about when or where these photographs were taken. Or by whom?”
“We were waiting for the Proms. And it was only the one guy. He was sleazy. And…uh…wearing a leather jacket.” Arden St. Ives: Witness of the Year. “I think he had brown hair?”
“Sounds like Boyle.”
I snapped my fingers. “Yes! That was what Ellery called him.”
