Page 22 of Slow Hands Cowboy

“Where is she?”

Bob Carey moved over to where Walker was standing, intensity blazing from his eyes, and Walker couldn’t blame him. If something like that had happened to his daughter – if he ever had a daughter, and he wouldn’t, but still he got it — he’d be fit to commit a crime. But Walker also wasn’t his enemy.

“I didn’t figure cleaning any of this up was her responsibility. It’s too bad that Alan didn’t stick around to explain himself.”

Her father regarded Walker with what appeared to be reluctant respect. “Right. That is true.”

“She’s safe and away from prying eyes, no need to worry.”

Her bridesmaids were in tears, but the one that served as her campaign manager was angrier than the rest.

“I am going to kill him. How dare he do this to her? How dare he do this to the campaign?”

“You worry about the campaign,” Walker said. “She shouldn’t have to.”

“I agree,” Anna said. “But practically, there is some worrying to be done.”

“There will be time for that,” Walker said. “What I need you to do right now is get her purse, so that she can have her phone, and any change of clothes that she might’ve left in the staging area.”

Denisha stepped forward. “I’ll do that,” she said. “Anna can do campaign things. But where is she?”

“I’ve got her somewhere private. And no offense to any of you, but I’ll wait to say where that is until she gets her phone back, and then she can let you know herself.”

“Oh no,” said Lydia, looking down at her own phone. “I don’t know… I don’t know if she should get her phone back.”

“Why not?”

“The video is… the video of all that… It’s viral.”

“What?” he asked.

“Somebody posted it online. On several different platforms. It has millions of views already. Oh God. This is going to be on the news. Not just the local news, like… the news everywhere.”

“You’re kidding me,” he said, taking his own phone out of his pocket.

And he didn’t have to go searching, because his algorithm served the video right up to him, and why wouldn’t it? He was local. He was right there at the scene of the crime.

But in the space of forty-five minutes, the video had five million views. And that was just one video on one social media platform.

“Shit,” he said.

“Oh no,” Anna said. “Oh no. We’re going to have to… Oh no. This is… This is really bad. Or… it’s really good. And I need to figure that out. But this is PR on a scale that I don’t…”

“I know a little bit about that,” he said. “And you’re right. It could be really good. But let me go back and talk to her.”

“No offense,” Lydia said, eyeing him with deep suspicion. “But you’re not her friend.”

“I know. Don’t you see why that’s a good thing?”

Lydia stared at him, her expression full of steel.

And he decided he was going to leave that alone.

Denisha returned with the phone and the purse, along with a little bag.

“Here’s what I need from you,” he said to the bridesmaids. “You contact everybody she knows, you explain that she had nothing to do with this, and that she was completely blindsided. Make sure that most of this communication isn’t put on her, he ought to answer for himself. Ask people not to contact her. Make sure you start pushing the story that he did this.”

That seemed to galvanize them. Seemed to make them all a little bit more agreeable to his commands, because they had a job to do.