Chapter 7 - The Price of a Lie
I watched the clip again.
Not because I needed convincing.
Because my mind kept resisting the shape of what I was seeing.
The wine had been cover.
The tear had been the plan.
Valerie had paid a man to dig into my past, learned where I had been shot, and decided the best use of that information was to expose my body at her birthday party.
Anton stepped away from the table.
He put both hands against the wall and lowered his head.
“Anton.”
“I’m here.”
“Look at me.”
He turned.
“I’m not going out there,” he said. “I know that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m worried you’re carrying this like you did it.”
“I brought you into her life.”
“No. She brought this to ours.”
Reyes had the supervisor preserve the original footage and prepare a copy for investigators.
Nina watched with her arms wrapped around herself.
“I can show you the payment.”
She opened her work email.
An invoice from Shaw’s consulting business.
The description read: REPUTATIONAL RISK REVIEW.
Twenty-five thousand dollars.
Below it was a message from Valerie.
I don’t need her résumé. I need the part Anton won’t forgive.
Nina scrolled.
Shaw had replied the next morning.
There is a concealed history. I recommend a public setting so she cannot control the account.
Reyes read it twice.
Then he asked Nina to stop scrolling and wait for the detective to document the messages properly.
She nodded.
Someone started pounding on the door.
“Anton!”
Valerie.
“Open this door.”
Nobody moved.
“You’re seriously hiding back here with her?”
Reyes opened the door.
Valerie stood outside with two security contractors.
Both hesitated when they saw him.
“I want those documents back,” she said.
“They’re being preserved as evidence.”
“Of what?”
“My assault,” I said.
Her eyes moved over the borrowed dress.
For an instant, she looked satisfied again.
Then she remembered who was watching.
“It was an accident.”
“We have the video.”
Something flickered across her face.
“Then you have a video of me falling.”
“We also have the conversation before it.”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Anton stepped beside me.
“You knew about her scar.”
Valerie looked at him with sudden, desperate intensity.
“I was trying to show you who she was.”
“You showed me who you are.”
Her eyes filled.
Not with regret.
With fury.
“You’ll lose every project my family ever sent you.”
Anton reached for my hand.
“Then send the cancellations.”
Behind Valerie, one of the contractors checked his phone.
May you like
He leaned toward the other.
“Shaw’s gone.”
