How it Looks
“You have to defend him,” Spencer implores her mother. “He didn’t do this!”
“We can’t get anywhere near this,” Peter Hastings insists. “There’s already a news crew in the street reporting that the alleged culprit was arrested as he was leaving our house!”
Spencer ignores him, focusing solely on her mother. “If we don’t stand behind him, everyone will assume it’s because we think he’s guilty. No one will believe you didn’t know.”
“Caleb Rivers is obviously a disturbed and misguided young man,” Veronica responds. “I know you have feelings for him, Spencer - but he’s done more than throw the election results in doubt. If he hacked into those voting machines, all three of us could be watching the next election from adjoining cell blocks!”
“He didn’t do this!” Spencer insists. “He wouldn’t!”
“How does it look?” Peter asks sternly. “The same campaign worker who was fired for leaking that deplorable item about Yvonne Phillips, who had no scruples about hacking into our opponent’s campaign database - is now accused of tampering with the vote count! If the public thinks we knew about it, we look like crooks! If they believe we had no idea, we look like idiots!”
“Is that all you care about?” Spencer asks, scathingly. “The optics? You’re a lawyer, Dad! He’s innocent until proven guilty.”
“He is a petty criminal who wormed his way into your trust. How much do you know about his background? His extensive juvenile record? The car theft ring? The murder investigation?”
“He told me about all of that,” Spencer says, defiantly. “He had a rough life before he came here.”
“And now that rough life is going to come back to haunt us in the press,” Veronica says, rubbing her temples. “Given your personal relationship with him - we can hardly keep your name out of this, Spencer.”
“I don’t care about my name being dragged through the mud. I care about Caleb being in federal custody!”
“Then your priorities are misplaced!” Peter says, harshly. “We need to present a united front, as a family. This is the time for us to circle the wagons, not pin our hopes on your paramour’s unlikely vindication! There were irregularities with the votes! The machines were tampered with! These are the facts. Do you know of anyone else capable of engaging in a cyber crime of this magnitude? Because I’m afraid that my list starts and ends with Caleb Rivers!”
Spencer doesn’t respond, instead she storms out of the room, locking herself in the upstairs bathroom. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and punches hard at the contact information.
“What?!” Mona’s voice snaps, before she corrects herself, slipping smoothly back to her friendly and helpful tone. “Sorry. That was my low blood sugar talking. Hello, Spencer. What can I do for you?”
“Did you do this? Is this another one of your little games?”
“What exactly are you accusing me of this time?” Mona sighs dramatically. “It’s so hard to keep track anymore.”
“The election, Mona! They’re saying the vote was hacked and the FBI thinks they can trace it back to Caleb. He’s been arrested, and the press is going to crucify my entire family if we can’t prove that he didn’t do anything wrong! Did you build some kind of back door when Caleb accessed Yvonne’s phone? Was your eleventh hour conversion to our side just a ruse?”
“Slow down,” Mona says. “I could care less about Caleb being stuck in the slammer, but I’m on your side now, Spencer. Whoever’s behind this, it wasn’t me. I really did want your mother to win.”
“Well she’s about to be impeached before she even gets sworn in! They’re talking about invalidating the results!”
“One crisis at a time,” Mona replies, calmly. “Your folks are not going to want to go to bat for Caleb. He’s a toxic asset right now. But they can’t throw him under the bus, either, otherwise they’ll look culpable. He’ll need a good lawyer. Call Jason. See if Carissimi has any sharks on the payroll. You should make a brief personal statement to the press - you have complete faith in Caleb Rivers, the justice system, and the integrity of the electoral process, God Bless America - you get the idea.”
“Who died and made you Olivia Pope?” Spencer asks, with grudging respect.
“This is what I do,” Mona assures her. “Now, you go take care things on your end, and I’ll see about tracing the hack.”
“You can do that?”
“It won’t be easy. You’ll owe me a manicure - all that coding is murder on my nails.”
-----
Spencer finds Jason in the gymnasium of Rosewood Junior High, where he’s overseeing a pick up basketball game between two rag tag teams of students.
She stands on the edge of the court, shifting her weight anxiously from one foot to another, feeling like she might jump out of her skin at any moment. Fortunately, her brother catches sight of her and blows his whistle, which seems to be the signal for the kids to pack it in for the night. He exchanges high fives with a couple of them, hands out some Gatorade, then grabs the basketball and heads over to Spencer.
“Hey,” he says, dribbling the ball a few times. He looks sweaty and happy to see her, grinning in a way that makes him look unmistakably like Alison’s brother, too.
“I need a favor,” Spencer tells him, without preamble. “A lawyer, a good one.”
Jason looks at her sharply, his demeanor serious. “What did you do, Spencer?”
“It’s not for me, it’s for Caleb Rivers.”
Now Jason looks puzzled. “Hanna’s boyfriend?”
“My boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. It’s complicated.”
“It always is, with you girls,” Jason says. “Some things never change.”
“He got taken into custody earlier tonight,” Spencer explains. “They think he hacked some of the voting machines, that he rigged the election so my mom would win.”
Jason studies her face carefully without answering.
“He didn’t!” Spencer says, throwing up her hands. “I swear. He didn’t. But my parents won’t help, they’re too worried about how it would look.”
Jason nods. “I get it. I’ll make a call, get my people on it.”
“Thank you,” Spencer says, almost sighing with relief. “And I’m - I’m sorry about Charlotte.”
Jason looks pensive, starts dribbling the ball again. “I saw you at the funeral,” he says. “I wanted to say something, but it was all pretty intense.”
“I didn’t know you were there,” Spencer says, surprised. “Alison said -”
“I stayed in the back, and ducked out during the last hymn. Ali knew how I felt about Charlotte being released. I didn’t want to make things worse for her.”
Spencer feels a bolt of worry shoot through her. “Have you talked to Alison lately?”
The sound of the ball bouncing against the gym floor gets louder. “She sent me a Just Married text. I’m gonna see if it lasts a month before I buy that blender they registered for.”
“I ordered monogrammed bath towels,” Spencer admits. “But the marriage might already be hung out to dry.”
Jason turns and shoots at the basket. The ball thunks hard against the backboard before falling through the net. It bounces back towards him and he jogs forward to pick it up.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” he says, finally. “Our parents weren’t exactly the gold standard for functional relationships.”
“Jason, did your mom ever say anything to you about having a sister named Mary Drake?”
Spencer watches his face twist, his mouth becoming a hard line. “No,” he tells her. “But considering everything else they lied about - nothing about my family would surprise me.”
The words that would tell him about Alison being in a mental hospital are on the tip of her tongue, but Spencer tamps down the urge to tell him everything - the text messages, Hanna, a woman running through the woods with his mother’s face. “It’s not my place to tell you this,” she starts, “but Alison might need your help soon.”
“You need my help,” Jason responds, dribbling the ball again, “Alison never needs anyone but herself.” He lopes out and shoots from the half court mark. The ball swooshes cleanly through the hoop, nothing but net.
----------
Hanna isn’t back yet when Spencer arrives back at the barn, but the moment she flips the lights on, she hears footsteps charging down the steps of the main house.
Both of her parents barge into her living room without so much as knocking, wearing identical expressions that hover somewhere between rage and disappointment.
“What now?” Spencer asks wearily.
Her father holds up a cell phone and starts to play a video message. Spencer’s heart nearly drops through the floor. It’s her sitting next to Caleb, right when he’d first arrived.
“I am really afraid that she’s gonna lose this election because of me,” Spencer’s voice says from the screen.
“Hey, don’t say that,” Caleb responds soothingly. “I’ll hack into the voting machines and make sure that she wins.”
The video cuts out. It’s less than ten seconds long. Ten very incriminating seconds.
“He was kidding!” Spencer protests. “He was trying to make me feel better! Where the hell did you even get this?”
“Someone sent it to me. Anonymously,” a disdainful voice informs her. Spencer turns to see Melissa standing in the doorway with her arms folded in front of her chest, and a bandage on her left cheek.