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“For the past month or so, they have been receiving notes… threats that have grown increasingly more frequent in nature.”
The hardness in her eyes turned dark with worry.
“That can’t be true. They would have told me.”
Even as she said the words, Lexi felt the lie in the pit of her stomach.
When Mandy had first received news that she had been nominated for her second Oscar, the news didn’t break for days. They’d kept it from her — the biggest news of her entire career — sure that Lexi would accidentally blurt it out at school. Then there was the time Stonewall had suffered a cancer scare. A mole on his chest had ended up benign, but they had hid the truth from her until they had gotten the opinion of three specialists.
Her parents kept things from her all the time.
“They didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily, but I think the time has come for you to know. I’m going against their wishes telling you this, but your life is at stake and I am not willing to risk anything happening to you.”
The world seemed to spin. She felt sluggish as she blinked at him, as if she hadn’t heard him correctly.
“This is about…me?”
He nodded, lips pressed into a thin white line. “That’s how it would appear.”
For the next twenty minutes he went over everything, from the first threatening note to the appearance of the man outside Verve. Lexi stayed mostly silent, listening as he explained and only asking the odd question for clarification.
“But how do you know that the person who is sending the notes is the same one who took those pictures of me?”
“I don’t have definitive proof, but it seems likely.” Kane gestured at his phone. “Clara just emailed me back to let me know what her sources have told her. I had her check to see who sent them those photographs. I knew it was a long shot but I was hoping we’d be able to find out who and where the payments were made out to.”
“And? What did she find out?”
“That the person never requested any form of payment.”
Lexi felt the wind had been knocked out of her.
“They weren’t paid for those pictures?”
“No. More importantly, they neverrequestedany money either, even when those shots could easily have commanded a six-figure payout. There are a lot of people out there wanting to know what you look like now, and, given the nature of those photographs… they would have generated a hefty price tag.”
Lexi tried to make sense of what he was saying, but there was a loud hornet-like hum in her head.
“I don’t understand, why would someone do that? If they’re not getting paid, what was it for?”
“They said they wanted to make you pay. I’m assuming they knew that the photographs would embarrass you.”
Her face turned stricken as an unwelcome thought came to her.
“Do you think they might actually know me?”
“The possibility has crossed my mind,” he revealed reluctantly. He didn’t want to scare her further, but as he’d already seen for this relationship to work, there couldn’t be any secrets between them.
“And keeping their identity secret is more important than money.”
Her eyes darted to his as the horror of the truth came. “They mean to do more than just embarrass me don’t they?”
“I can’t say for sure…”
“But that’s what you believe.”
“Yes.”
And now it made sense, why Kane kept refusing to let her out of his sight, how protective and careful he had been with her this whole time. It wasn’t to placate her parents as she had thought.
