[MAX]
"Tinsley is being manipulated." Harper looked me dead in the eyes as she uttered that sentence; both her tone and her expression conveyed the utmost of certainty. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap atop her small notebook. She had one leg crossed over the other in her little corner of the couch, and she leaned into the armrest.
Alexei's brow furrowed the moment she made her declaration, then his gaze skipped from her to me in order to cast me an inquisitive look. He was seated on the opposite side of the couch, one of his ankles propped up on the opposite knee, and his foot bounced to some unheard rhythm.
He went ignored.
"Explain," I prompted Harper before I leaned forward on my knees. I was seated on the coffee table across from the both of them, and after Harper made her declaration, the pocketknife I had been fiddling with was flipped shut and tucked into my right fist.
She leaned back, and the shift of posture almost gave off the appearance of her being relaxed, but I could see that her shoulders were still tense and her eyes were still steeled. "First off, like I mentioned earlier today, she didn't do anywhere near the amount of socializing that she normally does," she began. Her fingers played together in an absent-minded manner. "She went straight to the museum ... then straight to lunch ... then off to that photoshoot on the beach, and then pretty much went straight back to the hotel. No parties. No shopping. Nada." She shrugged. "That's nothing like the Tinsley de Loughrey that I or the public know."
"Fair," I acknowledged with a curt nod.
"Secondly," Harper continued as she unclasped her hands and reached up to twist a stray red curl around her index finger, "after she met with that one really handsome guy, she wasn't hardly interested in anything else. I mean sure, she performed pretty darn well in front of the cameras, and she was a total ham when she had to be, but she didn't post anything on social media—" She released the stray hair to tick off fingers on other hand. "—she didn't put on an extra show for the paparazzi ... and she didn't even try to drive that fancy car that she had! She let her bodyguard, Breaker, do all the driving. She was just kind of ... stuck in her phone."
"But no posting on social media," Alexei said.
"No, none," Harper confirmed. "I checked. 'Cause you know, I can do that sort of thing on my own." She gave me a pointed look.
"Okay, so she was acting out of character," I interrupted in effort to keep the conversation on track. "Which was my suspicion."
"Obviously," Harper scoffed, "otherwise why would I be here?"
Alexei snickered at that, but when I shot him a warning glare he went silent. His amused smile, however, did not fade.
I faced Harper again with a mirthless expression. "Which part of this makes you think she's being manipulated?" I asked. I leaned back off of my knees. "And don't say it's obvious. Just unload your elaborate psych-talk on me."
"Okay, so, specifically," Harper said, "her incredible interest in the attractive guy, for one. Also, as lunch progressed, I figured out that she was really just checking her phone out of habit — it's an addiction, which makes it a habit that never leaves, right? — and honestly, that guy had more of her attention than anyone else today. That I've seen, anyway." She paused thoughtfully before she shook her head, as though she was clearing her thoughts. "So, right, she was really interested in whatever it was he had to say. I'm wording it that way on purpose — I still think he was probably a messenger. I don't think he was there long enough to actually be the important person, for one, and for another she didn't seem overly distressed when he left.
