Page 34 of Charmed by You

ChapterTwelve

He should have gone with her. That was the bottom line. Foryears, Simon had been living perfectly fine on his own. Now the woman he wasfalling in love with was gone for about forty-seven seconds, and he was alreadygoing batshit crazy.

He paced her living room, then saw the diary. He picked itup. They’d already gone over it in such detail, he doubted that he would seeanything else, but the truth was he needed something to occupy his mind. Heflipped pages, pausing at those odd Vs, wondering who it could be.

Frannie didn’t remember anybody with a first or last namethat started with a V, but memory wasn’t always reliable. Maybe he should geton the Bright Eyes IMDB page and see if there was somebody in the crewwhose name began with the letter V. He was seriously considering doing thatwhen the phone rang, and he snapped it up the moment he saw it was Matthew.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked.

“I called Frannie, but she’s not answering her cell. Is shewith you? Ryan said you two were an item now. Congratulations. But I need amoment to run something by her.”

“Sorry. I’m at her place, but she’s out working on someproject with Aaron.”

“What new project?”

“Spiraling.”

“Spiraling? Are you sure?”

“All I know is what Aaron said. He wanted to go over somerevision notes.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Matthew said.

“Why not?” Simon’s entire body had gone tense.

“Because we haven’t gotten the new pages yet. In fact, Italked to the writer not an hour ago, and she said that she’d have themtomorrow.”

His blood felt like ice. “Maybe she got an advance read fromAaron before she runs them by you?”

“No. I’ve worked with this writer dozens of times. Thatwould never happen.”

“Why would he tell her that if it wasn’t the case? Is theresomething else in the works?”

“A PR nightmare. Another damn article about that hot tubincident came out today,” Matthew said. “But I can’t see why that would requirea meeting between the two of them.”

Simon silently agreed. He glanced down and saw the diarysitting open. From his perspective now, it was upside down, and for a moment, thatodd V looked like an A.

Oh, fuck.

“Matthew, did Aaron know Carolyn?”

“Carolyn Pruitt? Of course. They met on Bright Eyes.”

“Do you have his address?”

“What’s going on?” Matthew asked after rattling it off.

“Something horrible. Just meet me there.”

Twenty minutes later, Simon, Mario, Matthew, Trevor, Jasper,and Leah were all converging on Aaron’s property.

“We’re going in fast,” Simon said as they coordinated byphone. “I called, but she didn’t answer her phone. Something’s going on. Idon’t know what it is, but I’m not waiting to find out. No politeness, just inand fast. Understood?”

They all assented, and the next thing he knew, they were atthe house, each taking their particular entry point as Mario hacked in anddisabled the security system.

Simon chose to go in through the back. He remembered whatMatthew had said on the phone. About the hot tub article. Surely it wasn’t asetup.

Except of course it was a setup, and the moment Simon wasthrough the back gate, his entire body started to shake. She was there. In thehot tub. Her hair floating on the water. Her face completely submerged.