“I suppose.”
“No one from the club has said anything to authorities about him?”
He shakes his head. “Gigi, there are probably a hundred people who’ve seen women come in and leave drugged every week who don’t say anything.”
It’s the one thing I haven’t been able to figure out—how this could be happening at the club on such a scale without someone getting caught.
“I’ve felt hopeless. Not wanting to push Sunny to come forward but worrying that this story will continually get buried if she doesn’t. I felt rather cynical about it all until I heard the fire in your voice at the hotel the other night.” Alec catches my gaze and holds it. “I assume you know where I’m going with this: the only thing I need you to do on the record is to keep pushing, keep looking into Josef Anders’s activity.”
My heart breaks for him. “I promise I will.”
He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, he tries to smile. “That’s all I know.”
“That’s a lot.” I reach forward, carefully sweeping his hair off his forehead. “You okay?”
Alec leans into my hand. “I won’t pretend that this hasn’t been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.”
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“Worrying about her, knowing what happened to her that night—all I want is to support her the way she needs. Are there videos out there? Who else was in the room? I’m glad she doesn’t remember what happened, but I also wonder if eventually she will.”
I gnaw my lip while I decide whether or not to tell him this next bit. Not because it’s a secret—it’ll be out in my story tomorrow anyway—but because I know it will hit him hard.
Alec reads it in my face. “Just say it.”
“Okay, well, one of the women who apparently was captured on video was approached with a financial offer to settle, and before that, she didn’t even know she’d been assaulted.” I wait while he processes this, eyes squeezed closed. “So even though the police confiscated all of the video footage from the club, someone on the inside is feeding information to these guys. Even if charges are eventually brought, the perpetrators are getting their hands on all the evidence first.”
“Shit.” He blows out a breath into the water. “So there probably is video out there with Sunny in it?”
“I honestly don’t know. But it’s possible.”
“These past several weeks I’ve worried about everything,” he says. “It’s one of the reasons I left a few days later on the trip than the rest of the cast. I wasn’t even sure I could leave her right now.”
“Is someone with her?” I ask.
“She’s with our parents, yes.”
“How is she doing?”
He tilts his head from side to side. “She’s okay. Obviously, she knows that I’m talking about it, off the record. That’s a huge step for her, letting me do this.”
Watching him struggle with all of this, I dog-paddle closer so that I can come right up against him. “I’m so sorry.”
He nods, adjusting the noodles so that he can pull me into his arms. Alec presses his face to my neck, and even when my legs wrap around his waist, it isn’t sexual. We hug, floating aimlessly in silence.
But then his lips move against my neck as he speaks. “Thank you for listening to all of that. I’m so glad we haven’t been eaten by sharks.”
I laugh. “Thank you for planting that thought in my head, but really, thank you for sharing this story with me. I hurt for you and Sunny.”
“I haven’t talked to anyone about it yet.”
I pull back to look at him. “No one?”
He shakes his head.
“Honey,” I say, cupping his face, “you can’t take this on by yourself.”
Alec pauses, and then a grin slowly breaks over his expression.