by Rachel Kane
“I’m sorry, maybe I don’t understand. What exactly has Cam done to you?”
“—and now he brings in the lawyers! Typical maneuver. Well, you can tell Cameron Carlyle that I will not be silenced! The world is going to know!”
I had the oddest feeling of dislocation. Secret Reader’s conversation was as strange as her posting. “Okay, but could you back up a few steps? What has Cam allegedly done to you?”
Suddenly tears appeared in her eyes. “If only you understood the pain these people cause with their scams, their tricks.”
“I’m listening,” I said. “I came out here specifically to find out about that pain.”
Surely playing along would net me some kind of answer?
But now, even though her eyes were wet, they narrowed at me, and she shook her head. “No, he sent you here to silence me. But you tell him this: We will not be silenced. He’s a liar, a cheat, a schemer, and he’s not going to do it anymore!”
So much for attempting sympathy.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “So you can’t tell me what he actually did to you. Let me ask you, what’s this next revelation? What’s up next for Cam, can you tell me that?”
She wiped her eyes. “Justice. That’s what’s up next for him. You can’t go around copying passages of a book without expecting justice. It’s against the law. He could go to jail.”
Really? For accidentally repeating phrases he’d read in a book from a hundred and fifty years ago? Surely she couldn’t honestly think Cam had committed a crime. Did she think that Cam would be in prison by the end of her internet harassment campaign?
I didn’t say any of that, of course. Something told me that you didn’t ever want to argue with this person. Something in her eyes.
This had been a mistake. I’d known it coming in. I’d thought I could talk some sense into her, thought I could convince her—
No, that’s not true at all. You came over here because you were mad. You’re starting to take this case too personally. You felt Cam trembling in your arms…
…and admit it. You liked the way he felt.
That’s why you’re here. It’s exactly what happened when you represented David Black. You remember that, don’t you, Alex? The way he insisted he’d done nothing wrong, the way he acted like a victim, only for you to find—
Cam was nothing like David Black. And I’m not the man I was back then, either.
But I’d made a bad decision coming here, and I had to get out. Because I realized that Secret Reader was not someone to be reasoned with.
“So you just left?” asked Cam. “No dramatic parting lines?”
I rubbed my eyes. “No dramatic parting lines. I didn’t want to rile her up. She’s a dangerous woman, Cam.”
What was I doing back here? Why was I at his house? This was a conversation we could easily have had over the phone. Yet I had shown up to his door with a bottle of scotch.
Micah wouldn’t approve. In the old days, this had been our tradition. After a rough meeting, I’d bring a bottle to his office. We’d talk strategy as the bottle slowly emptied itself. It was the kind of talk you had with the rest of your team…not with your client.
Yet here I was, dropping ice cubes from Cam’s freezer into a tumbler, and pouring us a few fingers each, the cubes popping and cracking as the alcohol warmed them.
Cam took his glass and had a tentative sip. “So what’s she like?”
“Surprisingly normal,” I said. “Well put together. You would never know she was part of this…until she starts talking about you. She hates you.”
He brought the glass to his lips again, and this time it wasn’t a sip. He winced as he swallowed, and then coughed. “Damn. That burns. Why does she hate me? She doesn’t even know me.”
I took my own drink more slowly, savoring the way it etched a path down my throat. “I got the distinct impression she’s not alone.”
“Someone’s helping her?”
“I don’t think she’s digging up anything by herself. She kept saying we. ‘We will not be silenced.’”
I followed him back into the living room, carrying the bottle with me. His computer was open yet again.
“You haven’t been looking at that thing,” I said.
He shrugged. “It’s all I ever do anymore. I haven’t written a word in days. Can’t eat, can’t sleep.”
“We’re taking care of it—”
“I know,” he said. He took another swallow of his drink, and this time did not cough. “I know. But you’re not really taking care of it. Ugh, that came out more grouchily than I meant it. What I mean is, it’s still happening. You can’t stop it. Even if you could stop her from posting, she’s got a million followers all chiming in on how much they hate me. I can’t escape it. It’s on my computer, on my phone…”
As though the world were trying to prove his point, we heard the ping of a notification again.
Now he drained his glass, leaving behind only the ice. “Goddamn it,” he said, not looking at the computer. “You see? It never ends.”
“You can turn it off,” I said, refilling his glass, and mine.
“Turning it off doesn’t make it stop happening.”
“Of course not. But at least then you don’t have to hear it. You won’t be so surrounded by it. Delete the app off your phone. Unplug your computer.”
Cam laughed bitterly. “And then I’ll sit here in the dark, in the silence, imagining what they’re saying about me.”
I looked down at my drink and thought about that, thought about sitting in the dark with him, imagining.
Get your mind off that, right now.
“It leaves you feeling under siege,” I said. “I remember a client from a while back. Singer. You’ve heard of her, I’m sure. She came to us because she’d been getting threatening phone calls, ever since a gossip story came out about her. We went to her house to interview her, and the phones would not stop. She’d silence her phone, and then her assistant’s would start ringing. Or her make-up person’s. Or her manager’s. Someone managed to find out all these numbers, and was just relentless, never letting up, day or night. She’d get a new phone number, completely unlisted, and within the hour, someone would start calling her again.”
Cam leaned back on the sofa, resting his glass on his chest. “I would die,” he said. “This is bad enough. If someone were actually calling me? I’d just move. Pack a bag and move forever. What did you tell her to do? Did you tell her to lie low?”
“We figured someone on her staff was giving out the number. Maybe selling it. The intensity of it bothered me. I worried about her. We ended up hiring her a bodyguard, someone we knew well, someone she had no connection with…and told him to leave his phone at home.”
At the mention of a bodyguard, Cam lifted his head and looked at me. “She was in physical danger?”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t rule it out. But eventually the calls…just…stopped. Like they’d gotten bored with it, like it had been a prank all along. In a way, the silence was even scarier. She’d gotten so used to the sound that when it stopped, she felt worse. It was scarier, somehow, because you didn’t know what might happen next.”
“What did happen next?”
“She got on with her life. Had a few more hits. She still sends me a Christmas card every year. More than I deserve, since I was never able to help.” I glanced back at his computer. “I don’t think I’m helping much here, either.”
He peered at me. “What do you mean? Who else is going to bring me alcohol in the middle of the night?”
I looked down at my glass. “That part isn’t actually my job, you know.”
“Then you can be my bodyguard.”
“That part isn’t my job either.”
“But do you think I need one?” A note of seriousness had come back into his voice.
I shook my head. “Secret Reader might be insane, but I don’t get the feeling that she’s violent.”
“But she came to my house, wi
th the spray-paint. Or…you said she’s not working alone. Maybe that was one of her friends…”
Before I could say anything, I was interrupted by his computer.
All the time we had been talking, there had been that soft ping of occasional notifications. You almost got used to it, after a while. It faded into the background.
Now they were coming so rapidly that it was unmistakable. Something was happening. I drained my glass and stood up, turning to the computer. Cam sat up on the couch and looked in the direction of the screen.
One hundred thirty-two new notifications. One hundred fifty. They were coming in so fast.
> I can’t believe they did that to you SR
> you should sue them or call the fbi
> that is so scary did you call the police?
Cam joined me at the computer. I scrolled back, trying to find what happened, what had set off this latest round. I had the sick feeling that she had revealed something else about Cam, something damaging, something we hadn’t foreseen.
Except it wasn’t about Cam at all. Of course it wasn’t.
“Oh great,” Cam said, reading the screen. “Now you’re in it too.”
13
Cam
“What in the hell did you think you were doing, going over there?” said Micah, slamming a stack of papers down on the conference table in front of Alex.
The papers were printed screenshots from last night. Alex didn’t look down at them…but he wouldn’t make eye contact with Micah, either.
I’d insisted on coming (”This is my life, Alex, I deserve to be included!”) but was suddenly wishing I’d stayed home. Micah was a little scary when he was mad.
“It was a mistake,” said Alex.
“A mistake? No, a mistake is forgetting to log a phone call so you can bill a client. A mistake is forgetting to pick up the receipt at a business dinner. What you did was worse than that, it was stupid! Do you realize what you’ve exposed us to?”
He fanned the papers out on the table, as though Alex hadn’t seen the posts. As though he and I hadn’t spent an hour last night going over every word, wondering how deep was the hole he’d dug for himself.
BREAKING NEWS, said Secret Reader’s post last night. This has officially gotten BIG, people! Cameron Car-Liar has sent his THUGS INTO MY HOME to threaten me! But I will not be silenced!
“I mean, Alex isn’t a thug,” I offered, then shut my mouth when Micah glared at me.
Page after page of support for Secret Reader. Pledges to never read my books again. Suggestions that I should be arrested…or worse. How dare I send armed men breaking into her house.
Her followers were as crazy as she was.
But back in the real world: “I expected better out of you,” Micah said to Alex.
“It was a calculated risk,” Alex said. The effort to keep his composure was visible on his face.
Color came into his cheeks, but I don’t think it was just Micah’s onslaught that embarrassed him.
What had he been thinking?
I thought I knew.
He had been defending me. Secret Reader was trying to destroy my life, and it had made Alex mad, and he’d gone off to defend my honor.
This wasn’t a professional thing. This wasn’t one of his client services.
He feels something for you, I thought.
That’s impossible. Guys like Alex don’t fall for guys like me.
The scotch last night…that wasn’t exactly a professional service either, was it? It throbbed in my temples this morning, even after a handful of ibuprofen and vitamin B. He’d come to my house to talk about the case.
He could have called. He could have texted. Instead…he came over. He drank with me. He gave me someone to talk to.
Was it impossible for someone like him to be attracted to me? Was I attracted to him?
I mean, I know I shouldn’t be. But that wasn’t the question, it wasn’t a matter of should or shouldn’t.
I could still remember how his arms felt when he held me. How strong he was. How safe I’d felt, if only for one brief moment.
How I’d had the absurd thought that he might have kissed me, right then.
What would I have done if he had?
“Calculated risk? What you’ve done is neutered the case,” said Micah, pacing to the other end of the room. “Now Secret Reader knows Cam has a team. Now she knows we’re able to play defense.”
“There was a good chance I could have shut her down, then and there,” insisted Alex. “Convinced her that continuing to attack Cam wasn’t in her best interest.”
Micah returned to our side of the table, and snatched up one of the pages. “That’s not your job,” he hissed through his teeth. “You are here to advise. To suggest. To walk Cam through all this.”
“Can I just say something?” I asked.
“No, you cannot,” said Micah. “You probably told Alex to do this, against his better judgment. I can’t think of any other reason he would destroy our case.”
What happened next would probably not earn me sainthood. Nobody was ever going to make a documentary of my life and call this the high point, my most moral moment. But damn it, this was my life, and I wasn’t going to be told that I couldn’t speak about it. (The irony that I was bristling at being silenced, much as Secret Reader had, was lost on me at that moment.)
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said. “With what I’m paying you—”
“You’re not paying me,” said Micah. “Your publisher is. And they’re not particularly happy about it.”
“Well, I am not particularly happy that you would accuse me of setting Alex on Secret Reader like he was my personal attack dog. That’s not fair to me, and it’s sure as hell not fair to Alex, who has been working his ass off to help us. I don’t see you showing up at my house in the middle of the night to help me through all this, and—”
Micah turned back to Alex. “His house? The middle of the night?”
Uh oh.
“I needed to discuss some things with him,” said Alex.
“Did phones stop existing? Could you not text him?”
Micah was mirroring the very same questions that had been rumbling through my head.
“In my professional opinion, I felt it needed to be face-to-face,” Alex answered.
Now Micah turned back to me, looking like he was about to ask a question…but he closed his mouth and shook his head.
As he gathered up his papers, I got the sinking feeling I’d wrecked the meeting. Alex wouldn’t look at me.
“Alex, could I see you in my office?” Micah asked, his tone neutral. “Privately?”
They left me alone in the conference room. Alone with my worries, and my guilt.
I didn’t want to go home after the meeting. Home was scary. My computer was there, and I didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to have the temptation of looking up the latest accusations against me. It made me so tired.
The tiredness wasn’t metaphorical. It was real, an exhaustion that had worked itself bone-deep. It left me feeling raw and open, unable to hide from my emotions, unable to control them.
Not a great state to be in.
I wanted to rush into Micah’s office, demand that he lay off Alex. Alex had done nothing wrong, in my eyes. Anything we did was going to be weaponized by Secret Reader. Anything. That wasn’t Alex’s fault.
Alex had been there for me when I needed him. He’d come straight over. He’d sat with me, he’d…
See, the problem with being unable to hide from your emotions is, sometimes you see an emotion you don’t want to see.
I wanted Alex.
No, no, no. Impossible and wrong.
I walked past the storefronts, angrily looking into the windows, not seeing what they displayed, just my own reflection.
Micah was right. It was a mistake for Alex to come over, because you’re not allowed to have feelings for him. Are you stupid, Cam? Nobody wants you.
Nobody could want me, no
t if they really knew me. Not if they knew my past.
It was the basic rule of my life. So it was foolish to even pretend my feelings towards Alex could matter.
Besides, it’s not like we’d even flirted. There had been no signals between us whatsoever.
Except he held you. And he brought you scotch. And—
I was passing by a bookstore, just one of the little hole-in-the-wall places downtown. By instinct, and feeling the need for the safety of the familiar, I ducked inside.
The musty scent of old paper greeted me, and I inhaled deeply.
These were the kinds of stores I’d grown up in. Hiding from the world, escaping from the pain of my life, I would try to lose myself in whatever old books I could.
At least until the owners would run me out for not having any money.
I walked down the tight, claustrophobic aisles until I found the mystery section. My home. Thin paperbacks with their spines cracked from repeated reads, stacked haphazardly so that you might be afraid to take the one from the bottom of the stack.
By instinct I looked for my name. Force of habit. No Cameron Carlyle books here. I’d like to think that’s because people love my books so much, they don’t sell them back to used shops.
If mystery novels teach us anything, it’s that relationships don’t work. Someone is always poisoning their lover, or tossing them off a cliff, or having them framed for crimes they didn’t commit. It’s a rule of nature.
Better to be alone. Better never to admit you feel anything for anyone, than give up control, and be a victim again.
That’s why Miss Katie Clemmons, heroine of my series, had no boyfriends. No man in her past. She was happily unattached, aside from her friendship with Roger, who was just as committed to being alone.
I didn’t want anyone in my life. I didn’t need the complication. What was wrong with growing up into a crabby old queen who hated everybody and always wanted to be alone?
You’re just scared you’ll lose control, if he shows any interest at all.
Well, yes. If you want to get psychological about it, I suppose that’s true. There have been enough times in my life where my fate has been out of my hands, and I’d had enough of that.
