Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 91840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“Then, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Because I know for a fact that Ava didn’t sell you out. She was set up, and I know exactly how, why, and who did it.”
My heart starts to beat erratically in my chest. But I keep my expression calm.
I remove my hand from the door and turn around to face Charly. “Is that so?” I lift a brow.
“Yep.” She folds her arms over her chest.
“Tell us then,” Julian says eagerly.
I shoot him a look.
“What?” he asks innocently. “I’m just keen to know—for your benefit, of course.”
“Of course.” I roll my eyes at him. “Okay, Charly, I’m listening.”
“Okay, so your cleaner Sadie—”
“Who?”
“Your cleaner. You have two of them. They come twice a week.”
“Yeah, I know that, but I don’t fucking know their names.”
Charly shakes her head at me. “Whatever. Well, aside from you, Ava, your brother, and your PA, they’re the only people who have regular access to your apartment.”
“And?”
“And the conversation that you and Ava had was recorded.”
“By Ava.”
“No. Not by Ava. I believe that one of your cleaners, Sadie—well, actually, she’s not called Sadie, but I’ll come back to that—bugged your apartment.”
“This is ludicrous.” I sigh.
“Just hear me out.” Charly frowns. “So, when Ava told me that she couldn’t understand how your conversation was recorded and how her signature got on that contract, it got me thinking. So, I asked Ava if she’d signed anything recently. She said no, and then, actually, yes, she did. The other day, your cleaner, Sadie, asked Ava to sign this new form that her boss had implemented to prove that she’d done the work. And Ava, being the lovely, trusting person she is, signed it. Sadie took the form, and off she went.
“But something just didn’t sound right to me. Why would a cleaning company have people sign a form to say they did the job? It just seemed weird. So, I called up the cleaning company because I wanted to ask about the form, and I made up some bullshit story about how I was looking for a new cleaner and that Sadie had been recommended to me when the lady on the phone told me that Sadie no longer worked for them. She quit a few days ago. Alarm bells started ringing in my head. So, I asked about the form, and the lady had no clue what I was talking about.
“So, we have Sadie, who had Ava sign a form that she never needed to sign, and Ava told me that she didn’t really look at the form when she signed it. This is days before Sadie quit her job, and then your story breaks. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me.”
“Me either,” Julian says.
I ignore him and look at Charly. “So, what? You think the form that Ava signed was actually the contract giving rights to the story?”
“Yep. And then I started thinking that maybe she was a journalist who bugged your apartment to get the story and then sold the tapes to the highest bidder.”
“But she would know that no news site would touch the tapes because it was obtained illegally, and if they printed anything, they’d be looking at a lawsuit,” Julian says.
“Exactly.” Charly nods. “But, if it appears that it was the girlfriend who taped the conversation and she signed over the story to Sadie, then she could sell the tapes and story, no problem.”
“And, if Gabe did sue, then it’d be Ava who got hit with the lawsuit because it was her signature on the contract.”
“You got it, baby.” She smiles at Vaughn before looking back at me. “So, I decided to Google Sadie, see what I could find out about her. The name the lady at the cleaning company gave me was Sadie Black, so I searched that but came up dry. So, we went to Digby’s website to see if we could find anything on there, but there was nothing. Then, I clicked on Gabe’s story and saw that it was written by someone called Sandy White.”
“Sadie Black and Sandy White.” Julian lifts a brow.
“Exactly.”
“So, I Google Sandy White and Digby’s Dirt, and a bunch of stories came up that she’d written about other celebs. So, I went onto Images and scrolled through the pictures. Ava stopped me, pointing at a picture, saying that it was Sadie, and in the picture with her was Bradford Digby.”
“Fucking Digby,” Vaughn growls.
Charly pulls her phone from her pocket, swipes the screen, and turns it around for me to see. “Look familiar?”
I take the phone from her and stare at the picture.
Holy fuck, she’s right.
It’s her—the chick who cleans my apartment. She looks a bit different in this picture to how I normally see her, but it’s definitely her.
“That’s her.” I grit my teeth. “That’s the chick who cleans here.”