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My hackles immediately went up. “There’s nothing to think about. She lied to me. Used me. And now she’s gone. It’s a no-brainer.”
“She’s gone because you ripped her a new one in front of half the town and then went all ice zombie on her. You didn’t even give her a chance to explain or defend herself.”
I started to ask how she knew what went down, but then I remembered about the microphone. “You heard that, huh?”
“And saw it,” Paul chimed in. “I’ve got coverage from four different angles thanks to everyone who filmed it.”
“Jesus, this town.” I ran my hand down my face. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to relive it. I was there.”
“No,” Paul said. “You were up here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Now, I’m not saying you have to watch it again, if that’s too much for you. But you need to sit down for a minute and listen to us, because you’re making a big mistake.”
“The mistake was letting her in to begin with.”
“Nonsense,” Val countered. “Look where that got you.”
I snapped my eyes toward her in disbelief. “What? With bruised knuckles and down a fifth of scotch?”
“No.” She waved her hands toward the stacks of boxes. “Finally climbing out of your…den of despair.”
“Den of despair?I wasn’t that bad.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “And I was definitely better off before she wrote all that shit about me. And about the Everetts.”
“Unh-uh. I call bullshit, baby brother. Those articles were messed up—I’ll give you that. But over the last few weeks, you’ve been the closest thing I’ve seen in years to resembling your old self.” She gave me a meaningful look. “A fact we have Sadie to thank for.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. She screwed me. She screwed all of us.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Paul said.
I huffed out a humorless laugh. “Yeah? How so?”
“She didn’t write those articles.”
Something twisted inside my chest at the certainty in his tone. “How could you know that?”
“You’re going to want to sit down.” He gestured toward the living room.
I looked back and forth between them again. Paul’s expression was serious. Val’s pleading.
“You’ve got five minutes.” I pointed at each of them. “And then you’re out of here.”
We all headed into the living room, where I flopped down in an armchair. I still couldn’t bring myself to sit on the couch.
“What makes you think she didn’t write those articles?” I asked with a healthy dose of skepticism. It was necessary, in the name of self-preservation.
“Have you read any of her other articles?” Paul countered.
I ran a hand through my hair and blew out a breath, already not liking where this was going. “No.”
“Well, I have. I read all three hundred and twenty-seven of the articles that had her name attached to them the minute I found out who she worked for and that she was sniffing around Axel Everett.”
I grimaced as a weird pang of guilt shot through me. Why hadn’t I bothered to read any of her articles before the one Brody thrust in front of me?
Because you didn’t want to admit she had a life to go back to after she was done here.
“And?” I asked. “What’s that got to do with the ones she wrote this week?”
“There are two distinct voices in almost all of her articles. Hers and someone else’s—I’m assuming whoever edits her work.”
“How can you tell which one is hers from reading the articles?” Val asked.
