Ryan kissed the back of her hand again. “It really will be. You’ve done nothing wrong. Lucy is a fair journalist, and anything she reports won’t be gossip.”
Nora checked the small circular watch on her wrist. The segment was going to be posted around six p.m., the same time as the local news, and they had a few minutes until then. “Yes, but my interview isn’t the only part of her story. She’ll talk about Reid, and if she does, that means she’s going to go into my past.”
“Reporters have already done that,” Ryan reminded her.
Matisse drew his eyebrows together and nodded. “Yeah, they have.”
“And she’ll go into what’s known about the study, which means revisiting Tilly’s death. The shooting.”
Something crashed outside, and she jumped along with the guys.
“Are you okay?” Matisse had come to stand by the window behind them and yelled right next to her ear.
“Just the ladder!” came Apollo’s answer. “We’ll be right in.”
“Jesus Christ, that scared me. I need new pants.” Matisse winked at her, took her hand, and tugged her closer for a kiss. His lips were soft but demanding, just like him. He swept into her mouth, gathering her taste before he stepped away from her. When he met her gaze, he was serious. “All that stuff is in the past. It can’t hurt you anymore.”
Couldn’t it, though? Until her accident, she'd been having nightmares about Tilly. And the scars on her body weren’t just from the accident she had at Thanksgiving. Some of those scars were from bullets.
She wasn’t going to be the only one reminded of the shooting, and it was too soon not to expect people to react.
Lucy’s face appeared on the screen, and Matisse slid next to her, pushing her toward Ryan. “Really, Tisse?”
“Oh, you’re complaining about having her boobs mashed against your arm?”
Ryan stared at his friend before smiling. “Nah.”
“That’s what I thought.” Matisse shifted, placing his arm around her shoulders and then sighed. “Cai?”
“On it,” the other man said, standing from his chair to start the video.
Lucy’s voice filled the room as she described the shooting from October and Reid’s part in it. She went into a review of the articles about Nora in an almost clinical way.
Her stomach turned, and she swallowed hard. Anxiety and embarrassment were a shitty combination, and she found herself nibbling on the side of her thumb as she listened.
Ryan took her hand, threading his fingers between hers and squeezed.
His silent support meant the world, but it didn’t lessen the nervousness, especially when her face appeared on the screen.
“What did you think when you woke up in the hospital and were told you were a suspect in the shooting?” Lucy asked.
She shut her eyes as everything came back to her in a rush, but the Nora on the screen’s voice didn’t shake at all when she answered. “I was terrified and confused. My body hurt, and I was all alone. No one would tell me anything until Detective Vance visited me.”
Lucy’s voice filled the room as the scene cut away to her explanation. “Detective Vance refused to comment on this story since the court case against Dr. Daniel Murray hasn’t started yet, but a spokesperson for the Brownington Police Department reissued the release they made back in October when Nora was fully cleared of any suspicion. He did say, however, that Nora was a brave woman and had doubtless saved lives that day in the cafeteria. Which brings us to our next question—who was Reid Merchant, and how did he end up where he did? To understand that, we have to travel down a dark and twisted road. What I thought would be a simple story, has turned out to be anything but. Let’s go back to the time when Reid Merchant allegedly met Daniel Murray.”
Leaning forward, Nora listened with interest as Lucy filled in holes. Reid had taken one of Murray’s psychology classes and that was the start of the whole thing. He’d been on a scholarship and started with Dr. Murray in a work-study position.
“Did we miss anything?” Apollo asked. He came in smelling of fresh air and sat in front of Nora. He lifted her legs over one shoulder and leaned back against the chair. “How has it been so far?”
“Not bad,” Ryan answered, but she was the one Apollo pinned with a stare as he glanced over his shoulder.
“Not bad,” she agreed. “Interesting.”
“I’ve not been able to find evidence of other students who were part of Daniel Murray’s study before Reid, as most of the research is in possession of the district attorney, or property of Brownington College and the Department of Defense. But what we do have, suggests that only a handful of carefully selected people were chosen as participants.”
A hand touched the top of her head and she glanced back to see Seok. He smiled at her, popped the top on a soda, and walked around to sit on the couch.
Nora smiled back at him as Lucy began to speak again. “Tilly Mason’s family issued a statement: “We hope our daughter’s struggle with mental health and feelings of isolation will lead to the public better understanding the need for community support.”
“What does that mean?” Matisse asked.
“The things I do—like youth outreach and stuff—it needs to be more visible so people can access it,” Cai explained. “And other people, students and friends, need to know about what the signs of isolation and mental deterioration look like so they can let people like me know. Then we step in before things get bad.”
“Gotcha.”
Lucy had been speaking, but Nora was caught up in Cai’s explanation. “They want people to reach out, you mean.”
“Yeah,” Cai replied. “What Murray did was such a mind fuck. Tyler told him Tilly was acting irrationally, thinking that was the right person. He carries around so much guilt because of that.”
“It wasn’t his responsibility.” Nora pulled her hand away from Ryan’s to run it through her hair.
“Guilt and logic don’t always go hand in hand,” Seok said.
That was true.
“At this time, we’re unable to speak with the other subject of Dr. Murray’s study,” Lucy said.
“Does she mean Tyler?” Nora asked.
Cai nodded. “He’s under medical care still, so he has a bit of a buffer. He’ll also be called as a witness in the trial, and since he was further in it than you, he’s under… what’s it called, Ryan?”
“Gag order.”
“Same as me.” Sort of. Nora had more leeway than Tyler.
Lucy went on to talk about the study. “Dr. Murray’s study can be compared to other studies, so while he claims that his name is being smeared, and that such a thing could never happen—all we have to do is look at other famously questionable studies, like the Milgram Experiment where subjects were forced to ‘electrocute’ an—unknown to the subjects—actor. Or Project MKUltra—a government run project meant to investigate whether humans could be forced to confess by mind control. Yes, you heard me right, mind control.”
Matisse took his arm from around her shoulders and started typing on his phone. “Chére, this is messed up.” He dropped it. “MKUltra is a cool name, but that study is crazy. How could people think this was okay? You know, you think we live in a different time when shit like this couldn’t happen, but someone read his idea and decided it was science, and not torture.”
“Murray?” Nora asked.
“Yes.” Matisse’s face had paled, and he suddenly stood, pacing toward the window. “I need to get some air.” He stomped toward the front door and went outside. Nora watched him from her spot until he disappeared.
She made a move to get up, but Seok stood and gestured for her to stay. “I’ll check on him,” he said. “You finish.”
Nora could use a break from all this as well, but she didn’t get up. It felt important to finish it, since she was a part of it. Whether she liked it or not.
Chapter 14
Seok
“Tisse!”
Matisse strode do
wn the street, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched against the wind. He paused at the stop sign, looking back and waiting for Seok to catch up.
“Sorry,” he said as soon as Seok was at his side. He pointed back at the house. “It fucking…” Spinning on his heel, he stared across the street before continuing. “It fucking pisses me off that there are people in the world who would take advantage of someone like Nora. I want to think that it’s only a one-time thing, you know? Murray was a weird outlier, but seeing that it’s happened before just—it’s too much, man.”
He got it. “I know.”
“I want to find Murray and rip his fucking intestines out with my bare hands. That girl has been through too fucking much, Seok. Too much. If he comes after her—”
“He won’t—”
“If anyone comes after her,” Matisse’s pale face was even paler, and his lips were bloodless. He clenched his fists as his shoulders heaved, and he looked up to the sky. “Reporters, police, pissed off idiots who read the bullshit that was published months ago—I’ll ruin all of them.”
When Matisse got worked up like this, he wouldn’t hear anything Seok had to say, so he let him rant. Eventually, he’d chill out, but right now, he needed to get everything out. In the beginning days of their friendship, Matisse would get so angry, he’d take off on his motorcycle and speed through Montreal. But the motorcycle was gone, and he’d shown no interest in getting another one. Without an outlet, the only thing to do was breathe.
Seok stood there, waiting, and eventually, Matisse stopped pacing and pulling at his hair. “I haven’t thought about what it was like to be in the papers for a long time, but this brings it all back. I think about Nora, and I think about you, and how much you have in common when it comes to this shit.”
Yeah. He was reminded of it, too. It didn’t help that his mother and father were emailing and calling him, wanting to bring him right back to the center of chaos. They would argue with his word choice. They’d call it business and responsibility; he’d call it a shit show.
“It used to be you and me who had the most in common,” Matisse went on. Color had returned to his face, and he hooked his thumbs into his pockets. “Families who took advantage of us. Being outcast.”
“I’m not an outcast,” Seok argued.
“Come on.” Matisse tilted his head to the side, studying him. “How many times has your father visited when you’ve had an opening? The barns are famous, and he didn’t even take your calls. He and my dad should get together,” he muttered. “Selfish dads who use their sons—they could start a club.”
“My dad didn’t use me.”
“Yeah, he did,” Matisse argued. “Like Murray used Nora, and like my dad used me to take the fall for his company. We were set up, and then when we didn’t like what was happening, they called us selfish and disloyal.”
There was a common thread between the three of them, Matisse was right, even though he didn’t like it. Seok had always understood his father’s intentions—maybe that’s why he hadn’t looked at them the way Matisse did. Selfish.
Yeah. He was right on with that one.
Seok: Nineteen Years Old
It was his birthday and what should have been a celebration was quietly forgotten. In the past, his family had always been generous on his birthday. There was a special dinner with his grandparents—when he was home—and gifts. But not this year.
“We can’t be seen making a big deal over you,” his mother told him—or something like that. Seok had tuned her out, let her voice go in one ear and out the other.
It was fine with him. He hated the attention, but the intentions behind the decision bothered him. Had his mother said, “Baek’s situation is the one that needs our focus right now,” he would have been fine.
But that wasn’t what she meant. She meant their company was being viewed in a negative light. It was splashed across headlines and on the news—the Jheon heir spending money that wasn’t his—showing no consideration for the employees at the company or the investors. Seok must have seen the story about Baek’s partying a thousand times. What made it all worse—and made Father fly off the handle—was the photo they’d found of Baek drinking champagne with Seok in the background.
“Both of my sons!” Father said, his voice booming, “Both of my sons pissed money away. Did you never think of how this would reflect on me? Or your grandfather?”
He hadn’t, because he hadn’t really participated. That was no excuse, of course. He should have been thinking about public perception.
Well, he was fully aware of it now. They barely left the house because each time they did, reporters or angry bystanders surrounded them. It seemed like they’d offended the entire country.
His father came into the dining room. He was dressed impeccably in a gray suit and frowned when he saw Seok in his jeans and runners. He’d dyed his hair back to black, but it did nothing to appease Father. Every step, Seok aggravated him.
“I told you to be ready this morning.”
He did a quick check of his memory. No. That definitely hadn’t happened. He hadn’t seen Father in days.
But it wasn’t worth arguing. “I’ll be ready in five minutes.” He drank the rest of his tea and set it down before sprinting out of the dining room and upstairs. Trousers, dress-shirt, jacket, loafers, belt. Studying himself in the mirror, he saw a bland version of himself. A version that wouldn’t stand out among the thousands of other people heading to the office in the morning.
Father would be pleased.
He came downstairs and his father immediately went to the door. They had an underground garage and could have had a driver meet them there, but for some reason, his father walked out into the throng every single day.
Reporters shouted at him while cameras clicked. Their bodies crushed against the privacy fence, but his father pushed through to the car, with Seok struggling to keep up.
Inside the car, his father let out a breath. “Go,” he told the driver.
“Why are you going out the front door?” he asked as he buckled his belt.
Father stared at him and shook his head. “Surely, you know the answer.”
He didn’t. Why would he put himself through that? The questions themselves weren’t bad, but the people beyond the reporters, the things they yelled… Most of what he heard was a variation on selfish liar, but that wasn’t his father at all. The man worked his life away for his family. He wasn’t a demonstrative man, or what Seok would even call a loving man, but all the effort and hours away from home were—ultimately—for his family.
Father wanted his business to last well after he was gone, to go to his sons and then Seok and Baek’s sons.
They rode to the office in silence with Seok contemplating his father’s statement. You should know the answer.
The same crowd that had greeted them when they left their home greeted them at his father’s office building, and they ran the same gamut of questions and comments as before. Inside, though, it was silent, with people speaking in hushed tones and hurrying place to place.
“What do you want me to do?” Seok asked.
“Your job is to be at my side today.” The elevator arrived, and they stepped inside.
Okay.
They rode to the top floor, the glass fronted elevator giving them a view of Seoul in the early morning. It was a beautiful spot and one he knew his father was proud of. His grandfather had worked out of small, street level offices for a long time, and this place was the evidence of all their hard work.
The elevator doors opened, and his father stepped out, accepting the bow of a man Seok knew was the communications manager. Next to him was a man with a camera who immediately took a picture of Seok as he stood behind his father.
The four of them walked into Father’s office and waited while he sat himself behind his desk.
“Seok, you know my communications manager?”
Seok bowed. “Yes.”
“Today he
will be photographing us as we go out about our business before our public apologies.”
What?
Was this what his mother had meant by his brother not going to prison?
Not daring to ask any questions in front of his communications manager, he only nodded.
Seok sat across from his father and accepted the piece of paper the manager handed him. He read through it, feeling anger build in his gut. Yes, he had benefited from his business, but he’d not taken anything that didn’t belong to him. If he had gone to clubs with Baek, it was at his brother’s insistence.
Now he was going to apologize to the entire nation for something he hadn’t done? How was that fair?
His father finished speaking with the manager while Seok fumed. He knew better than to challenge his father in front of strangers, but surely, he couldn’t be serious.
The photographer took another picture of him. “You’re concentrating very hard,” he explained.
He was concentrating on not having a tantrum.
“It will show how serious you are about your family business,” the manager elaborated before turning his attention back to Father.
Seok spent his morning that way, breathing through his anger, trying to pay attention but ending up distracted by the idea of going in front of cameras and lying.
It wasn’t until hours later that he had five minutes with his father when the photographer and manager went to lunch.
“Why am I apologizing?” He went right for it. “I didn’t embezzle money. In fact, my money was taken.”
His father had been typing, but he stopped and pulled his glasses off to stare at Seok. When he didn’t say anything, Seok went on. “It’s not fair.”
Father shook his head. Disappointment was etched on every feature of his face, but he was too far in it now to backtrack.
“People can’t expect me to take responsibility for something my brother did.”
His father slammed his hand on his desk so hard the pencils and frames jumped. “He is your responsibility. His failure is your failure.” Face red, Father hit the desk again. “As his failure is mine.”
Finding Unity Page 6