But before I can dial him…
“Wait, wait, wait. Okay, I’ll talk. I just… there’s a lot.”
I stare at her a moment and then slip the phone back inside my pocket.
“I brought her back hoping it would fuck with your lives as much as the Goldens coming here fucked the rest of the team.”
It doesn’t surprise me that she sees our moving back here as a threat, but I didn’t expect her to ever own up to it.
“So, you thought telling the entire city I’m struggling to get pregnant was—”
“I don’t really control the content. Hell, I don’t even control her! Or…them.Or whoever the fuck is in charge.” She gets overwhelmed and takes slow steps away to keep from spiraling as more tears come. “Shit.”
What the hell is going on with her?
She takes a deep breath and tries to compose herself.
“I placed a vague ad online,” she says. “I just made it seem like I needed someone tech savvy who specialized in password recovery. Within a few days, someone reached out.”
“Do you have a name? Are they local?”
She’s already shaking her head before I even finish asking. “I don’t know anything about them. It was all done anonymously. Even the payments I send every month.”
Un-fucking-believable.
“It took a few weeks for them to finally get into the account.”
“How’d they do it?”
She shrugs. “I’m nowhere near smart enough to answer that question, but I gave them remote access to my laptop while they tried to hack into it. Then late one night, while I was sitting at this tiny coffee shop downtown, they did it.”
I’m breathless, realizing how this whole thing spiraled out of control because April couldn’t control her damn emotions.
“Once they were in, they logged out from my computer,” she goes on. “They disconnected from my screen, then from there, they did everything from their own devices. For all intents and purposes, they went dark.”
Went dark.
Perfect.
I turn away from April while I gather myself, remembering that Pandora’s minions are always watching, which means beating April’s ass in the middle of a parking lot is a really bad idea. But shit… when does this ever end?
“Can you still contact her?”
“Only through Pandora’s DM’s.”
I’m completely silent, trying to connect all the dots, trying to make sense of everything.
“You said you don’t control the content, but I’m guessing you’ve been feeding her information about us?”
She hesitates, but I think she knows lying is useless at this point.
“Yes, but most of what she posts is what her followers share.” She sighs, and I want to strangle her. “I… Tiffany also talks a lot.”
I didn’t ask about her, so I’m guessing April thinks offering unsolicited information will soften me up.
“Does Tiffany know what you’ve done? Is she a part of—”
“No,” April cuts in. “She’s just lonely and feels left out and… she was an easy target. So, I took advantage of that. And I’m sorry.”
