The Harrow Media building rises over the harbor like it’s judging the fishing boats.
Glass and gray steel, all straight lines and reflective surfaces, it looks imported from a different coastline—one where the air doesn’t smell like fried clams and old money. From the sidewalk, I can see the cliffs in the distance, bleached white against a flat November sky. The same cliffs Juliet never should have gone near. The same cliffs now glued to my podcast cover and my custody papers.
The sliding doors whisper open, releasing a blast of cool air that smells like espresso, printer toner, and faint citrus. Inside, the lobby gleams. A long white reception desk, an enormous abstract seascape, chairs that look designed to discourage loitering. The echo of distant bass seeps through the glass from a waterfront bar, muffled by insulation and money.
“Hi,” I say, stepping up to the desk. “I’m here to see Elliot Harrow. Mara Lane.”
The receptionist, blowout-perfect hair and a blazer that probably costs more than my rent, brightens. “Of course. He said to send you right up.” She slides a visitor badge toward me. “Twelfth floor. The elevator’s to your left.”
I clip the badge to my thrift-store jacket, resisting the urge to hide the frayed cuff. The elevator hums quietly on the way up, its walls mirrored so I have no choice but to look at myself: sleep-creased face, under-eye shadows, hair in a clip I grabbed on the run. Not the image in the press write-ups, where I’m “the steely host of Glass Roses.”
When the doors open, an assistant is waiting, tablet in hand.
“Mara? I’m Paige,” she says. “Come on, Elliot wanted you to see the space.”
She leads me down a wide hallway lined with glass-walled studios. Through the glass, I catch slices of other people’s shows: a wellness host gesturing around a ring light, two guys in hoodies laughing into mics, a news podcaster leaning toward a guest with that practiced concerned nod. The air carries a faint undercurrent of hair spray and coffee, Crescent Bay’s unofficial perfume.
“We just did an acoustic treatment refresh,” Paige says. “The harbor noise was bleeding into the recordings on windy days. Authentic, but not ideal CPM-wise.”
“CPM-wise,” I repeat, filing away the reminder that here, stories are measured in cost per thousand impressions.
She turns a corner, and my breath catches.
One entire wall is covered in framed podcast cover art. Color, typography, faces, symbols, all arranged in careful grids. Some I recognize instantly from the charts; others are niche, their titles more inside baseball. In the center of the wall, slightly higher than eye level, a familiar black square hangs.
A glass rose, its petals catching imaginary light.
My stomach drops. “You printed mine,” I say.
“Elliot loves what you’re doing,” Paige says. “He had it rushed.” She smiles, oblivious to the way my skin goes tight. “You’re one of our breakout originals right now.”
“Your originals,” I say slowly. “I host through Harrow Media’s platform, sure, but—”
“You onboarded with HarborCast last year,” she reminds me. “Remember? Our free tier. Same infrastructure. Same upside for us.” She says it like we’re all teammates, like I’ve known this the whole time and not just clicked “Accept” on a terms-of-service when Theo had the flu and I was desperate.
I step closer to the wall. On one side of Glass Roses, a pop-culture recap show with neon fonts; on the other, a war-crimes deep dive with a stark black-and-white logo. My dead prom queen sits between entertainment and atrocity, quietly boosting some shareholder’s portfolio.
I reach out and touch the frame’s edge. The glass is cool under my fingertip. “I didn’t realize you had skin in the game,” I say.
“Oh, we do,” a voice says behind me. “And I’m very protective of my investments.”
I turn.
Elliot Harrow stands in the hallway, hands in the pockets of a navy suit that looks custom. He wears no tie, just an open-collar shirt and the confidence of a man used to keynote stages. His hair has some gray threaded through now, deliberate, like he paid a colorist to age him into gravitas.
“Mara,” he says, smiling in a way that feels curated. “Thank you for coming.”
I tug my hand away from the frame. “I figured if my face—or my glass rose—is going to be on your wall, I should see it up close.”
He laughs softly. “You’re making us both look good. Come on, let’s talk.”
Paige peels off with a polite nod, and Elliot guides me down the hall. His palm never touches my back, but he walks close enough that I feel his presence, a gentle steer toward his office.
Inside, his corner space feels more like a boutique hotel lounge than a workplace. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrap around two sides, overlooking the harbor. From here, I can see the regatta boats, masts like a forest of thin silver, and beyond them the cliffs, bright and treacherous. A glass-topped desk anchors the room, flanked by bookshelves and a credenza with a discreet espresso machine.
“Please, sit,” he says, gesturing to a low leather chair. “Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?”
“Coffee’s great,” I say, even though my stomach already buzzes too fast.
While he tinkers with the machine, I sink into the chair. The leather is buttery-soft, swallowing my tired posture. On a side table, I notice a framed photo of a younger Juliet in a prom dress, laughing at something off-camera. Her glass rose corsage glints against ivory fabric.
My pulse stutters. “You still keep that out,” I say.
Elliot follows my gaze as he hands me a mug. “I keep her everywhere,” he says. “She’s the reason this place exists, in a way.”
I wrap both hands around the mug. The coffee smells rich, dark, with a hint of something nutty. Heat seeps into my fingers.
“I thought podcasts existed because tech bros got bored,” I say.
He smiles again, a little more genuine. “That too. But Juliet… She was the first person who told me stories could change everything. Senior year, she dragged me to the journalism lab and made me help with this ridiculous zine about dress codes and double standards. I thought we’d get detention. She said, ‘What are they going to do, take away our stapler?’”
I can hear Juliet in that line, in the easy defiance. My chest tightens.
“She was like that with everyone,” I say quietly. “Even with freshmen who cried in the girls’ bathroom.”
His eyes flick to my face. “You remember that?”
“I was the freshman,” I say. “You brought her your boutonniere after the prom pictures. She pinned it to my cardigan.”
Something crosses his expression—a flicker of recognition, then nostalgia. “Right. Mara Lane. You were tiny. Scared of the gym floor.”
“It was waxed,” I say. “I didn’t trust it not to swallow me.”
He laughs, then sobers. “She would have been proud of you. Of this work. But she also would have hated some of the noise around it.”
“Noise?”
He sits on the edge of his desk, coffee in hand. “The trolls. The obsession. The way people treat her like a puzzle, not a person. You’ve seen the Discord screenshots. Oracle. The fan art. The merch. It has to be surreal.”
“It is,” I say. I don’t mention the photo of Theo at the bus stop, the color of his hoodie turned into a lyric.
“I worry about you,” he says. “And about Theo. That local piece with the death threat… It scared me. Which is part of why I asked you here.”
“Part?” I ask.
He nods toward the window. “Look out there.”
I stand, still holding my mug, and move toward the glass. From this angle, the cliffs look postcard-perfect, the treacherous rock shelf invisible under the crashing foam. Crescent Bay’s pretty story, with the lethal part edited out.
“Since the podcast took off,” Elliot says behind me, “our analytics team has been watching your show. The growth has been, frankly, insane. Glass Roses is now one of Harrow Media’s top five properties, ad-wise. You’re paying my engineers’ salaries and then some.”
“Good to know I can afford your espresso,” I say.
“You can afford more than that,” he says. “Which is where the partnership conversation comes in.”
I turn back toward him. “I thought we already had a partnership. I upload. You host. You take your cut.”
“Right now you’re a talented creator on a standard revenue share,” he says. “Which means when things go sideways—death threats, legal complaints, defamation claims—you’re mostly alone. I’d like to change that.”
My fingers tighten around the mug. “Go on.”
“I knew Juliet,” he says. “Not just the prom queen version. The private one. She trusted me to watch her back. I didn’t do a good enough job.” His jaw tightens. “I live with that. So when I see another woman taking on this story—in this town—mostly on her own, I start thinking about safeguards.”
“Safeguards,” I repeat. “Like… lawyers.”
“Like an entire legal department,” he says. “Pre-publication review. Crisis comms. Security consultations. You shouldn’t be forwarding threats to one overworked local detective and hoping for the best.”
“Detective Navarro is not—”
“I respect her,” he says quickly. “I sit on the same boards as her chief. I know how thin their resources are. What I’m proposing is a content delay system for you. You send us episodes forty-eight to seventy-two hours before release. Our team flags anything that could expose you—or us—to unnecessary risk.”
“Unnecessary risk,” I say. “Define ‘unnecessary.’ Because from where I sit, leaving Juliet’s real story buried is a risk.”
He lifts a shoulder. “We’re aligned on the goal. Truth matters. But there’s a difference between truth and speculation. Between naming a powerful family as hosting some rumored off-campus after-party and saying, ‘There were whispers about something that night we’re still investigating.’ Words are weapons, Mara. I want to help you sharpen them, not accidentally stab yourself—or my company.”
The phrase “off-campus after-party” hangs in the air like smoke.
“Interesting you chose that example,” I say. “Is there a particular off-campus location you’re worried about?”
His smile tightens by a millimeter. “There’s chatter online,” he says. “Oracle, Reddit, people dredging up every yacht and island and basement that ever hosted a teenager with a Solo cup. Some of those properties belong to families who keep this town’s schools funded and the cliffs roped off. If you name and shame without ironclad proof, they’ll come after you. And through you, Juliet’s memory.”
“Or they’ll come after you as my distributor,” I say.
“We’re in this together,” he says smoothly. “That’s the point. Right now, if you publish something that crosses a line, my lawyers could theoretically say, ‘We just provide the pipes.’ With a real partnership, we stand with you. Publicly. Legally. That matters for judges, by the way.”
The word judges hits low, where my fear lives.
He sees it. Of course he does.
“Your custody situation,” he says gently. “I read the filings. They become public once they’re submitted. I’m sorry.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “Did you just ‘incidentally’ stumble across those, or does Harrow Media have a dedicated Google Alert for my humiliation?”
“My comms team flagged it,” he says. “Any threat to the stability of one of our biggest shows is a business concern. But on a human level, I’m a father too. If an expert legal team backing you, plus a documented commitment to ‘responsible storytelling,’ helps a judge see you as careful rather than reckless… I’d like to offer that.”
I sit back down, because my knees waver. “And what do you want in return?” I ask.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Formalize what we’re already doing. Harrow Media becomes your production partner, not just your host. We broker ad deals that match your audience. We have a say—not a veto, a say—in how certain sensitive topics are handled. We don’t name donors’ kids without multiple sources. We don’t platform wild guesses about, say, a rumored island party unless we can corroborate.”
“A rumored island party,” I repeat. “You mean Harrow Island.”
He holds my gaze. “We own property there, yes. So do several other families. The ‘secret after-party’ has turned into a local horror story parents use to scare kids into coming home on time. Juliet’s case deserves better than campfire stories.”
My pulse thuds against my throat. “Did Juliet go to an after-party there?”
His eyes don’t flicker. “Not that I ever saw,” he says. “She left early. You’ve heard everyone say that.”
“I’ve heard plenty of people repeat the official story,” I say. “That doesn’t make it true.”
He smiles, but there’s no warmth in it now. “That’s exactly why I admire your work,” he says. “You question. You dig. Let me help you do that in a way that doesn’t give my father’s golf partners an easy defamation suit—or hand your ex more ammunition.”
He straightens and walks to his desk, picking up a sleek black folder. He brings it back and sets it gently on the coffee table in front of me.
“This is a draft proposal,” he says. “Revenue share, legal support terms, editorial guidelines. Read it. Show it to your lawyer. Think about the fact that right now, a stalker has a better plan for your next season than you do, because terror is a kind of plan. I’m offering an alternative.”
I run my hand over the folder’s cover. The Harrow Media logo is embossed at the top: a stylized wave cresting into a microphone. Below it, in smaller letters, Glass Roses Partnership Framework.
“You know,” I say, “for someone talking about responsible storytelling, you’re asking me to hand you the pause button.”
“I’m asking you to use it,” he says. “Together. There’s a difference.”
For a second, I let myself imagine it: a team behind me instead of a kitchen table piled with cords and guilt. Lawyers vetting every risky sentence. An email Nisha could wave in front of a judge: Look, your honor, this mother takes safeguards. She works with professionals.
Then I imagine another scenario: an email from Elliot’s people suggesting I “soften” a description of a certain donor family. A nudge to “delay” an episode that names an island. An off-the-record call reminding me who pays for my RSS feed.
“You don’t have to decide today,” he says, reading my silence. “Take the week. In the meantime, if more threats come in, forward them to my team too. Whether you sign or not, we can offer advice.”
“Altruistic tech founder,” I say. “That’s a good brand.”
“Man trying not to fail Juliet twice,” he replies quietly. “That’s the real one.”
The sincerity in his voice scrapes against something inside me. I stand, tucking the folder under my arm so my hands have something to do.
“I’ll read it,” I say. “I’ll have my lawyer read it.”
He walks me back toward the hallway. “That’s all I ask.”
On the way to the elevator, we pass another photo display—this one black-and-white, candid shots from Crescent Bay’s 1997 prom. Juliet, mid-laugh. The gym floor, glossy under cheap lights. A line of chaperones along the back wall, some faces turned to the camera, others in profile.
One man stands slightly apart, shoulders hunched, eyes down. His name is printed in tiny type beneath the frame, along with a list of other faculty. The name barely registers before the elevator dings and the doors slide open.
“You were there that night too,” Elliot says, nodding toward the photo. “Funny, isn’t it, how small the world gets when you press record?”
I step into the elevator, heart tapping faster. “I remember,” I say. “My mom did hair in the locker room. I brought bobby pins. Everyone was too busy to notice me.”
“People notice you now,” he says. “Make sure they’re seeing what you want them to.”
The doors begin to close. His last expression is pleasant, professional, concerned.
I ride down clutching the folder and the image of that prom photo, the line of chaperones, the one man half-turned away. By the time I step onto the sidewalk, I’ve already decided to scroll the shot from memory later, to see if I can match that name to any gaps in the story.
If Elliot wants to vet my episodes before they air, he can get in line.
I have my own consultation plan: a paralegal with too much time, a Discord full of obsessives, and a story that keeps rewriting who gets to call themselves a protector in this town.