He’s not breathing. “You’re saying she?—”
“I’m saying I don’t put verbs in other people’s mouths without paperwork.”
He goes quiet long enough to make me glance at him.
“Georgina texted me,” he says finally. “If this turns ‘litigious,’ we pull back on the gray. Make it sunshine. Charity. Crooked crosses, not crooked timelines.”
“Georgina sells absolution by the episode,” I say. “She’s allergic to nuance unless it trends.”
“Is there a world where we stop?”
“Stop cutting?”
“Stop telling her story.”
I swivel to face him fully.
“Do you want to?” I ask.
He opens his mouth, closes it. “I want to not get used.”
“You already are,” I say. “By Shae, by the network, by the audience. Me too. The trick is deciding what we get in exchange.”
He watches Shae on the screen lift a crate like it weighs nothing. The muscle in his jaw ticks.
“Stop flirting with your subject,” I say, too clean to be mean. “It reads like sex on camera.”
Color rises in his face. “You saw us do nothing at a donor dinner.”
“I heard you worship at the Church of Banter,” I say. “It’s enough.”
He stands like he has to or he’ll drown. “I’ll check in with Harper. Sweep her place in Ojai. You want the jail audio if she dumps it?”
“I want everything that makes me less blind,” I say. “And bring coffee that isn’t a hate crime.”
He’s at the door when he stops. “If she did this—if she touched The Watcher?—”
“Then the country will give us a season three,” I say. “And I’ll hate us for taking it.”
He leaves, and I open a new timeline and label it: EP4_ALT: COUNTERPOINT. If the world decides to jump the tracks, I’ll already have built the bridge.
The footage runs; I pull. Shae in the pantry. Shae with Lila. I mark Lila’s micro-interruptions—the way she steps closer when someone else gets too much of Shae’s attention; the way she touches Shae’s elbow like she’s anchoring a balloon.
I drag Lila into the foreground for the first time and my stomach registers the shift. What story does it tell if the helper becomes a character? I stitch a small sequence: Lila loading a shelf with a labeler, then adjusting Shae’s mic, then slipping a USB into my bag when she thinks the camera is bored. I save that last shot for later. Everyone gets one secret per act.
My phone buzzes: unknown number, local area code. I let it go to voicemail because I still practice self-preservation like a hobby. A minute later, a transcription pings.
VOICE MAIL: 0:23.Evelyn. It’s Robert Hale. Retired Carmel PD. I heard you were… telling a story. The girl you’re telling it about—she has a way of… disappearing the people who disagree. Call me back.
I delete the preview and save the audio, a reflex that tastes like guilt. Carmel. The case. The body. My hands do the work while my head makes a list of the people who call me when they want absolution via editing.
The door opens again, softer.
Lila slides in with the practiced quiet of someone who doesn’t trip alarms. “Harper’s downstairs,” she says. “She looks… wrecked.”
“What’s new?”
“Do you want me to?—?”
