I hesitated for a moment. The rain outside picked up and started whipping against the windows.
“Breelyn, of course.”
Neither of us said anything for a while. We just stared at each other as the rain came down in a steady beat. I’m sure she was running back through the events of the past few months. She had a lot to go over.
“It was a good thing I found them before Tennet or anyone else noticed them,” I said. “Breelyn almost ruined everything by planting them. She had that dumbass Omar take the photos. After all the precise plans I’d made, she could have blown it all apart.”
Kayla was dumbstruck. “I don’t understand.”
“You were never meant to,” I said. “I just needed you to help keep the story alive in the press. From the moment I first met Breelyn, I saw what that idiot stepfather of hers couldn’t see: that she had major star potential. He wouldn’t cast her in his films, though—he was worried that she was too young and that acting would make her go Hollywood. So I had to find a way to get her into the media spotlight.”
Kayla slumped against the door and slowly slid to the floor.
“Sorry you had to find out this way,” I said. “I’d rather not have told you, but, well, you did snoop. If you’re going to do that, you have to be prepared to find something you might not like. Or might not want to know. Let’s call that Journalism 103.”
She stared bullets at me. “You killed Tennet.”
“Mmm, I may have nudged him in one of the directions his depression was leading him. But mostly I just staged the scene. Can’t believe I forgot to put his drink next to his body.”
Kayla put her hands up over her ears. I wanted to go to her, but it seemed best to let her digest for a while.
“Why?”
“The story was starting to die.” I shrugged. “Tennet hadn’t been prosecuted, which wasn’t surprising, since he’d never laid a hand on Breelyn. But he’d become too much of the story—I needed the focus back on Breelyn, my future client.”
I held up my phone. “And it all paid off this morning. Breelyn has just signed for the lead in a huge new sci-fi franchise at Warner Brothers. She’s going to be every bit as big as I told her she’d be! And my new firm is going to be the go-to PR destination for every rising young star.”
Kayla was just staring at the floor. I knew it was a lot for her to take in, but at some point she’d begin to see the big picture—how my success was great for her, too.
She finally looked up at me. “Why are you telling me all of this? I’m going straight to the police.”
“With what?” I asked. “You have no proof that I had anything to do with Tennet’s death—officially a suicide. No thanks to Breelyn. Even though we’d agreed to have no contact with each other, she kept trying to find ways to tell me to suggest a murder angle in the media. But for obvious reasons I didn’t really want the police on that track—until I found Valentina and Doyle’s texts! That was a gift from above.”
She slowly got up.
“I doubt they were serious about killing Tennet,” I said. “From what I know of them, it was some kind of kinky game. They’ll probably be cleared. By then the DA won’t want to go publicly chasing her tail on another potential dead end. Think about this, Kayla,” I said. “You don’t want your own involvement made public. You were smart to track down Omar Sabat. That interview started everything for you. But guess who fed him his lines?”
If possible, she grew even paler.
“Omar said what I told him to tell the press—and he’ll keep doing that. He gets that taking photos of an underage girl—even if she’s his girlfriend, even if she’s 18 now—could land him some serious jail time. That’s why I keep those photos. They also keep Breelyn in line. She knows that if these ever went public it could make her look a bit too complicit in her stepfather’s deeds. So she’ll deny their existence forever.”
Her whole body jolted as though she were hit with an invisible blow.
“Look, I know I owe you some apologies, Kayla. The Jag was supposed to just scare you, not actually hit you. I’m sorry, but I wanted you to have some suspicions about Valentina. You’ll come to see that it was all worth it.”
Kayla shook her head and opened the door.
“Oh, and the illegally obtained texts,” I said casually, turning over my final card. “You didn’t ask how I got them—you didn’t seem to want to know. You just saw a great ‘get,’ didn’t you? And, maybe, a chance to get back at Valentina while you were at it?”
As she walked into the hallway, I took her arm.
“Your whole success rides on this story, Kayla. Dreams—they’re my ace in the hole.”
Chapter 27
Kayla Ross
“The whole story was a lie. Not a word of it was true.”
Seated across from me, Breelyn somehow looked younger and more vulnerable than ever. I couldn’t tell if it was due to her minimal makeup or the cute juniors-department jacket she was wearing.
I glanced off-camera at Eddie, who looked very worried. I’d thrown this at him late in the afternoon—only an hour before my regular segment was to run. I felt guilty that I had counted on his trust in me to go on-air live without a game plan.
“My stepfather, Wayne Tennet, never, ever touched me in any inappropriate way,” Breelyn said softly to me, then turned directly to the camera. “He was always wonderful to me, and I’ll never forgive myself for saying what I did about him.”
“Then why did you?” I asked a little tersely, considering I still didn’t know if I wanted to hug her or slap her.
“My boyfriend—or the guy I thought was my boyfriend—made me,” she said softly. “He threatened me—all the time. He—he sort of brainwashed me into doing anything he said. I was so afraid of him. But I didn’t know who I could tell about it. My stepfather was so far away in Australia and my mother…well…”
“But why make such a horrible charge if it wasn’t true?” I pressed.
“It was part of his plan to get me away from my parents,” she said with a small sob. “He wanted to control everything about my life.”
“And who are you talking about, Breelyn?” I asked. “Omar Sabat?”
“No,” she replied, now full-on crying. “His name is Eric Logan. I met him last fall at an awards dinner honoring my stepfather. He kept telling me that I should be an actress and that my stepfather should put me in his movies.”
“Is that what you wanted?”
“Not really.” She shook her head. “I just wanted to get asked to prom and keep my GPA high enough to go to USC. But—but after he…raped me…I didn’t even care about anything anymore. I was just so ashamed.”
Was that true? Was she telling the real story now or was she acting, improvising a new plot line? I couldn’t tell. I wondered if she even knew at this point.
I turned to address the camera.
“I can’t corroborate Breelyn’s story,” I said. “But I can and must state that I have had dealings with Eric Logan related to this story. In fact, it was Mr. Logan who supplied this station with the incriminating text messages between Valentina and Gregg Doyle.”
Eddie’s eyes were bugging out of his head. I wasn’t sure if he was going to keep the cameras going or cut to a commercial. Breelyn was looking down, weeping. My hands were shaking and I could feel my own tears just below the surface. But I was determined to keep it together.
“I used the texts without questioning how they had been obtained, and for that I would like to offer my apologies to my employer and to my viewers,” I said, choking back any hint of emotion. This was the hardest thing I had ever done.
“Furthermore, I have reason to believe that Mr. Logan coached the statements given by Omar Sabat in my interview with him in February. For these reasons and…because I developed a personal relationship with Mr. Logan that now makes me question everything I have reported about this story”—I took a deep breath—“I am resigning from this station. This will be my last appearance. Go
od night and good-bye.”
Chapter 28
Kayla Ross
The tears couldn’t be held back anymore. I jumped down from the platform without even making sure that Eddie had cut to commercial. As I staggered off the set, everyone was whispering in confusion. Breelyn started to say something to me, but I went right past her. Whatever she had to say—even if it was just “See ya!”—I wouldn’t believe a word of it.
I all but ran across the sound stage and out one of the side doors into an alley. I fell apart. All the stress, excitement, tension, and confusion of the last few months came pouring out. It took a long time to pull myself together. And then I had to come to terms with the fact that I’d actually done it—thrown away everything I’d worked for. The job, the fame, the dreams. I was trembling and crying and devastated and yet…on some level I felt immeasurable relief.
Taking a deep breath, I finally walked around the side of the building to the front entrance.
And there he was.
He was giving me a strange look. I couldn’t tell if it was anger or admiration. Maybe both.
“Why? Why did you do that to yourself? To me, to us?” he asked, sounding more exasperated than anything else. “Do you have any idea how big I could have made you?”
I stopped in front of him and looked into his eyes. I had no idea what I was looking at.
“That’s the point, Eric,” I said. “This whole time, the bigger I got, the smaller I felt. I’ve decided I like the normal-sized Kayla Ross best.”
“So what—you’re going back to Omaha to cover mall openings and city council meetings?” he asked incredulously.
I paused and nodded. “Yeah, actually, that sounds pretty good right about now. If they’ll have me, that is.”
I started to walk away, but he grabbed my arm. Too late, I remembered Wayne Tennet’s body, splayed out and still.
“Okay, that’s fine for you,” he said. “But how did you get Breelyn to agree to this—to throw away her own career just as it’s beginning?”
He seemed genuinely puzzled. Maybe he wasn’t quite the smartest guy in the room after all.
“You really don’t get it, do you, Eric?” I said. “You’ve underestimated your own creation. Breelyn doesn’t ever want the story to end. So tonight was just the latest episode of her hit show. You were an important supporting character. But now…you’ve been written out.”
As I turned away, a police car pulled up. An officer and a man in a suit—a detective?—got out and quickly approached Logan, who backed away with his hands innocently up. I turned away. I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or glad or angry or what. But it didn’t matter. It was no longer my concern.
A few feet away from the cop car sat a beat-up 1998 Honda Civic, the trunk and backseat filled with boxes and suitcases.
“You look awful,” Zoe said as I got in the passenger side. “Guess I’d better drive the first hundred miles, huh?”
“That would be great, best friend,” I said, as I let my head fall onto her shoulder. “I’m going to take a nap. I have some dream adjustments to get to.”
About the Authors
James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.
A graduate of UCLA, Scott Slaven is both a writer and an accomplished portrait painter.
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Kill and Tell Page 8