“It’s a no onBeast Hunt,” Victor told me after my latest.
“That’s the third no this week,” I groaned.Beast Huntwas a seven-book series for kids, and I’d read every tedious one of them. What a waste of my time.
Worse, it was Harper’s voice in my head, in the woods, telling me that working for it doesn’t mean I deserve it. That there’s a point where hard work doesn’t make up for a lack of talent …
“It’s a new direction for you,” Victor said—but there was a strain there that told me it wasn’t the whole story.
“And?”
He groaned. “Look, it’s just rumors I’ve heard. But apparently some of the big funders of those sorts of franchises don’t want you in the pictures. They think you’re bad press waiting to happen.”
“What?” How was that even possible? My spat with Harper was superficial, and the car crash was the only bad press I’d had since my breakup with Oisín.
“The investors aren’t in the arts, Nadine. They’re businessmen. They’re contemporaries of …”
“Of?”
“Of Declan Moore.”
Harper’s father. I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at the hunk of plastic. This was new. It had to be, otherwise I wouldn’t have got this far.
Which meant this was Harper’s response to me winning the Oscar.
Oh, that bitch. And me—so very stupid to think the worst she’d do in retaliation was thatSNLsketch mocking my apparently desperate need to win awards. Was it not enough to go on national TV and imitate me while shaking manuscripts and screaming:“Will this get me a trophy?”
No, she was trying to blacklist me from roles.
She’d broken whatever line we’d drawn of what we would and wouldn’t do to each other. I thanked Victor and got Lana on the phone.
“Send Harper a bouquet of tansy. I have war to declare.”
———
I couldn’t bring Ruchi into this, not like I had with the spinning rumor mill. Not when the things I was currently considering for Harper included hiding stolen possessions on her and tipping off the police or spiking her and letting her drive under the influence. Though both of those wouldinvolve me doing something illegal in the first instance and, in the case of the latter, putting others at risk.
For now, I decided to follow in her footsteps—literally. I hired a private investigator.
It didn’t take long for a scandal to present itself.
“She’s cheating on that guy she’s seeing,” he said, sending over pictures. I’d gone through Lana, but I think he suspected I was his real employer. Our rivalry was not subtle.
Harper was supposedly dating her costar Ralph Gaunt. But here were pictures with her and Abel Griffin, lead singer of The Different. The only issue is, the pictures were too dark, the exposure low. There was deniability.
Something in this scandal pleased me greatly, and I think it was the fact she had based our whole rivalry off an accusation of cheating. Well, well. Time to expose her for the hypocrite she was.
Harper had to suspect, just as I did, people stalking her movements. But the paparazzi left it at observation. I could go further. I could set a trap.
I’ll admit I became obsessive. I researched Abel, read his every interview, found out he was an avid astronomer. There was a hill he ventured to often and some lunar event that, if I knew men as I thought I did, I was certain he’d consider the perfect romantic thing to bring Harper to so he could explain it all to her, the sky above and its movements through his intellect.
Such a shame about the car park installing floodlights—there’dbeen complaints, apparently, and a sudden donation to get it fixed. Such especially bad luck for them to flick on just as my investigator took that shot of them making out in his car.
Not my finest work, I’ll admit, but I was just getting started with truly getting my hands dirty.
Harper was in my driveway a few hours after the news broke.
“You know Ralph and I are just for promo, right? We aren’t actually dating?”
“Apparently. How’s explaining that going down with the public?”
