Page 20 of Drunk In Love

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I lean down to whisper into her ear.

“We’ve come this far. Might as well get some information out of him,” she says back.

I sigh, hoping this isn’t a terrible idea and we weren’t swindled into joining Harry’s protest. We face the cameras along with Harry and the crowd before Kamaya begins questioning him.

“We were told that you have been helping students by giving out access to the FJ site,” Kamaya says and only gets a blank stare from Harry.

“Did my mother put you up to this?”

“Who is your mother?” Kamaya asks, meeting my equally confused glance.

“Well, she’s never been a mother to me. My egg donor and cause of my therapy is Cecily van Zandt. She’s why you’re asking me these questions, right?”

Cecily is his mother. In all the searches, we never found any hits about Cecily having a son named Harry, not to mention her apparent sour attitude towards the very school that stole from her publication.

“No—no, we had no idea she even had a son. She’s never mentioned you,” Kamaya says.

“Figures,” Harry says. “Shipped me off to boarding school at the age of five, and when I returned after high school finished and decided to come here and not go to Columbia, she cut me off and disowned me. Too bad for her, the money my father put away for me couldn’t be touched. Got my inheritance last year when I turned eighteen and changed my name to Harry Cooper.”

“So you’re working against your own family business?” I ask.

Harry only snorts his derision. “No, those people are not my family. Never have been. Also, I don’t believe in gatekeeping and elitism when it comes to journalism. Why should the rich kids get access to everything while everyone else has to pay or go without?”

The irony of that coming from someone who was the former heir of a rich family.

“How were you able to give out so many student access log ins?” Kamaya ask. “Where did the credentials come from?”

Harry shrugs. “I don’t know. I got a message from a blocked sender who said they knew who I was and what I was doing with the End Elitism protests,” he says, pointing to his website on the corner of the posters we’re holding. “They said they wanted to help out, and I took the bait and started offering up log ins to kids who I figured would need it.”

“Do you still have the message?” Kamaya asks Harry.

“Yeah, I’m sure I do, but I don’t have time to look for that now,” he says. “I gotta go.”

“Wait,” Kamaya calls to the young man, who taps his foot impatiently while she digs through her blazer pocket.

NYPD vans and more news cameras have started to gather and are now approaching, causing the crowd of protesters to disperse.

“Kamaya, we need to get out of here!” The last thing we need is to get detained or arrested. “We’re technically trespassing on this campus.”

“Just a second,” she says, finally digging out her business card and placing it in Harry’s hand. “When you find that email, please forward it to me. If you get anything else, my email and number are on the card.”

Harry glances at it and nods. “We’ll see.”

“Come on, Kamaya,” I say, taking her sign and dropping it where the protesters have the others. Then we make a run for it back to the car before the police close in.

CHAPTER 7

Kamaya

“I can’t believe you back there,” Max says as soon as we’re securely back in the car. “We nearly got detained and for nothing!”

“For nothing!” I exclaim, clicking my seatbelt into place. “I think our time at CU was not for nothing. Sam and Harry gave us a lot to go on. When we get back to the office, I’m going to see what I can trace based on the text Sam received. And hopefully Harry can forward the original email sent to him.”

“Yeah,” Max says sarcastically. “Because he was so helpful. We can’t depend on him to help, seeing as he hates his mother and the business his family built. Not to mention if he keeps up his current activities, he’ll probably get himself arrested before we can get anything else out of him.”

Why was Max acting like this? Like it was my fault.

“I think we received plenty to go off of. I’m betting it’s Franco who sent that email.”

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