Sebastian
The Prop
“Are you going to help me or what?” Glenn snapped.
I stepped forward but stopped when he turned to look up at Evie.
“You’re so fucking finished. And before you even got started. You think you lost the movie gig? Just wait. I’ll make sure your little podcast show is gone too. The courts will own your ass.” He swung his head to me. “What are you doing? If you don’t help me, you’ll be an accomplice. Getting blacklisted from Hollywood will be the least of your problems.”
“Are you threatening us?”
Glenn’s eyes bulged. “Is this a joke? Just because I said her mom was loose? Oh, come on. It’s not like I’m the first person to say it out loud.”
“I can’t.” Evie threw up her hands and stormed out of the room.
I followed quickly. She went to her old bedroom, and I shut the door behind us.
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
“Everything was fine, we were shelving my books, and then he started telling me about how his dad and my mom had an affair. I told him that wasn’t true, but he wouldn’t hear it.” She paced her room.
“Okay, but why was he bleeding?” I’d noticed blood on the collar of his shirt and the mark on his head. She stopped short, staring at me as if she’d just remembered I was there.
“I threw a book at his head. It was a hardcover. One of my Stephen King.”
I pressed my lips together. “I see. And he went down?”
“It wasIT!”
No wonder he’d been knocked out cold. That was a thick-ass book.
She sighed. “Yes, he went down hard, and I was trying to figure out what to do when you rang the doorbell. I knew the longer I kept you outside, the more suspicious it’d look, so I stuffed him in my closet. But then he woke up, so I had to put him in the chair.”
“Why, exactly? What is your plan?”
She shook her head. “I— I don’t know. I think he knows more about my mom’s murder, and I want him to tell me.”
“Has he told you anything?” I asked quickly. Most people knew the details around Lita Reyes’s death were odd, but asking questions often got you just where she was.
“No! And now I’ve got him tied up. What do I do?” She wiped away tears.
I reached for her, pulling her into an embrace.
“Let’s find out what he knows. Then we’ll figure out how to let him go—without him telling anyone we held him hostage.”
“This is such a mess. I’m so sorry, Sebastian. I made you an accessory to a crime.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Don’t apologize. So, things got a little out of hand. We’ll figure it out.”
This isn’t my first rodeo with a Thornton. If he’s anything like his dad, he’ll go down easy.
I took her hand and led her back to her mom’s room, where Glenn was jerking back and forth in the chair, trying to get free. I dug into my jeans and pulled out my switchblade, flipping it open.
“Let’s stay still,” I warned.
He stopped moving. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. What is this?” He looked from me to Evie.
Evie stepped ahead of me. “Five years ago, your dad was part of the group that took my mom to dinner. The next morning, she was foundmurdered, hanging on the set of her latest movie.”
