36. James
JAMES
On my way to buy coffee and donuts—a surprise for Will—I stopped to check on Theo.
He was asleep, but bolted upright when I entered his room.
“Oh my god, you’re not gonna believe what I discovered last night.
Donna was giving me voice lessons, and apparently I really do have a tendency to sing behind the beat, just like Will said.
But it’s not because I don’t have rhythm.
It’s because I don’t trust myself. I’m holding all my shorter notes too long because I’m constantly checking to make sure I hit the right pitches, which is throwing everything—”
“That’s great, bud, but I just—”
“I’m getting to the good part, chill.”
I glanced at the clock. It was almost nine, and I wanted to get back before Will woke up. “Go on.”
Theo was like a riptide. The only hope for escape was to go with the flow and slowly angle your way out.
He grabbed his glasses off the nightstand. “Okay, like I was saying, Donna was giving me voice lessons, but then she passed out, which is not surprising, given how much she had to drink. I think we might need to have an intervention for her and Will.
“Anyway, someone was blowing up her phone big time, and I was like, ‘What if it’s about Will? What if there’s another story?
’ So I looked. Her phone was locked, but I remembered her passcode from a couple of weeks ago, when she asked me to download SoundCloud so she could listen to my music.
Anyway, guess who she was texting all night? ”
I wasn’t in the mood for guessing games, so I said nothing.
“Derek’s manager, Tony. She accused him of leaking those stories about Will and said if he pulled anything like that again, she’d fire Derek.”
My chest tightened. Donna knows? Is she in on Robert’s plan?
“And that’s not all.” Theo reached over and grabbed his phone. “Check out the video Tony sent her in response.”
He opened his Photos app and tapped on the most recent clip.
“I thought about forwarding the message to myself, but then I got scared, thinking Donna might trace it, so I just recorded her screen with my phone. The quality isn’t the greatest, but it’s about the audio anyway.
And I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry, I didn’t open any of the new messages, even though I really wanted to.
They were all from Michelle and Robert, so I figured they were just boring stuff about the movie. Still, you should be proud of me.”
I wanted to point out that only half-spying on someone who’d only ever done nice things for him wasn’t something to be proud of, but I was too stunned by what I saw to speak.
The video showed a fancy hotel hallway, and when I glanced at the timestamp—ten years ago—the hairs on my arms stood on end. Holy shit!
“You fucked my mother?” Will’s voice reverberated down the corridor. “No, you’re just making this up because you’re mad I won. Is this some kind of sick joke?”
“I ended it months ago,” a deep voice answered—Derek’s voice. “And it didn’t mean anything. You have to understand. I had her poster on my wall growing up. I used to beat off to her like twice a—”
“Shut up. You’re talking about my fucking mother. How could you do that and then kiss me?”
The video ended and started again. I watched it seven times before tearing my eyes away. “Holy shit.”
Theo nodded, wide-eyed. “I know, right?”
Half an hour later, I stepped into Robert Chapman’s palatial suite.
“Was it you? Did you sell William out to your little friend in the fishnets?” he asked. Somehow, his room was even nicer than ours, practically an entire fucking apartment.
“I would never do that.”
“Except you already did.”
After watching Robert embody my father for weeks, it was hard not to recoil at his sharp words. I wasn’t a kid anymore, though, and I wasn’t about to swallow this shit from a man who’d benched his own son for a decade, terrified his reputation might cost him an Oscar.
I strode over to the sitting area and made myself comfortable on the small loveseat. “Did you know Donna and Derek were having an affair?”
“What?” Robert was a great actor, but there was no doubting the genuine shock in his widened eyes.
“Yeah, ten years ago. Now, be straight with me. What’s really going on with Tony? Is he blackmailing Donna? You? Is that why you threw Will over for Derek and Ryan?”
He didn’t answer, brows pinched in concentration. “Are you sure? How’d you come by this information?”
I couldn’t invent a lie fast enough, so I came clean.
“Theo broke into Donna’s phone last night and opened a text from Tony.
He’s the one who leaked those stories, not me.
Donna must’ve figured it out because she threatened to fire Derek if Tony pulled anything like that again.
His response was to send her this video. ”
I handed him my phone and stepped away, not wanting to listen to the devastation in Will’s voice ever again.
“And that’s all he sent?” Robert asked a minute later.
“As far as I know. Why? You think there’s more?”
“Oh, I know there’s more.” Robert crossed to the window overlooking the Montreal skyline and just stood there, as if in a trance.
Then, with surprising agility, he spun back to me.
“Isn’t there some kind of spyware you can install on Tony’s phone?
You know, like they did with Brittany? I need to see the rest of that video. ”
“Yeah, but installing it would be next to impossible. Tony has an iPhone, which means Face ID. He’d have to stare at the screen for a few seconds just to unlock it.”
Robert snorted like a bull. But, like his son, he didn’t give up. He just went quiet. “We’ll do it at the wedding,” he said a moment later. “Everyone has to turn in their phones, so that will give you hours to break into it.”
“Yeah? And how do you propose I do that?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
I took a breath, knowing my next words might not go over well. “I have a friend who might be able to help, if you’re willing to pay.”
Esther answered on the third ring. “What up, bitch?”
I slumped against the brick wall outside Tim Hortons. “I have a job for you, and it pays really well.”
“How many laws will I have to break?” Esther was nothing if not to the point.
“Check your email. There’s an NDA for you to DocuSign before I say anything else.”
The rapid click of computer keys sounded in the background. “Ooh, from Robert Chapman, your new father-in-law. Don’t think I didn’t recognize you lurking in the background. Nice mustache, by the way.”
“Are you gonna sign the NDA or not?”
“Already did. What’s up?”
After hanging up and checking with Robert that she had, in fact, signed the NDA, I called her back and told her what I needed.
“Don’t worry, I got you. I’m gonna need a flight to Vermont—first class, of course—and a hotel suite with a balcony and a couch. I hate watching TV in bed. Oh, and a job as one of the wedding photographers.”
Getting Esther involved was almost certainly a mistake, especially since the video we were trying to steal proved Will had a motive to attack Derek. Yet, for the first time since I’d seen the video, I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe there was a way out of this.