Page 24 of Holy Sinner

“Listen, man. It was just a misunderstanding.” Aaron holds up his hands and stumbles back when I flick my sunglasses back up my nose and pull my knife out. “Fuck, oh shit.” he whispers.

“The woman that hired you. How did she contact you?”

“I-uh, she emailed me.”

“Open the email. Now,” I tell him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks and I take a step towards him.

“I’m just here for information. That’s all,” I lie and Aaron nods like he believes me. I know he doesn’t but we play the game all the same. He grabs a laptop off the cramped kitchen table and holds it up.

“I’ll show you.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, man.” He sits at the table and I go to stand right behind him. I’m not taking any chances and letting him email or message someone that I’m here. I point my blade at his back. The second he so much as hits the wrong fucking comma I’m going to slit his throat before he can make a sound. If I hear Rafe bitch about a thing with how I handle this, I’m going to beat his ass.

Aaron clicks on his screen and a few seconds later the email pops up. I frown when I see there’s at least a dozen emails in the thread he shows me.

“First email, when did she send it? Show me.” I nudge him with my knife and he whimpers but the email comes up almost immediately.

“It was three months ago,” he swears and I see it right there, February 5th is the first email. The same week we all got to Seattle for filming. That tracks with the photos and the frequency we’ve been getting them lately. When By The Way first started filming, it was huge news. Everyone was curious about the production and the fact that Rafe and I were finally working together. There were so many photos then that it was easy to miss any from Kit’s past.

I know that’s why she’s rattled. It’s not just the fact that we’re being watched everywhere we go or that this limp dick fucker thought he could photograph Kit in a private dining room. It’s that goddamn prom photo. There’s something to that night. This mystery bitch with a voice changer that’s been emailing Aaron James for three months has something to do with it. I know it. I can fucking feel it and my gut is never wrong.

My instincts have kept me safe when I should have been caught. Those same instincts told me Kit was the one for me. They’re screaming at me now that this woman has everything to do with Kit’s blast from the past photo surprise.

The first email is just an intro.

I have a local job for you. 500 a photo.

There’s a phone number and I tap my knife against Aaron’s shoulder while I think it over. It’s probably a burner but it’s more than we had before.

“You said she has a voice changer. You ever meet her in person or is it all phone calls and emails?” I ask and take my phone out to take a picture of the number.

“J-just phone calls. We email sometimes but she calls when she wants me to do something for her. I saw her once but it was too dark to know what she looked like.”

“What does she have you do? You follow Kit around?”

“No, of course not!” From the way he sounds you wouldn’t know that I caught him peeping on my woman getting eaten out by my boyfriend in our private dining room. “Mostly it’s just dropping off photos to the papers.”

I stop tapping my knife and press it into his shoulder. “You drop one off this week?”

“I-uh, yeah, earlier this week.”

Jackpot. The photos came from Aaron and the bitch cosplaying as Deep Throat. I knew it.

“Those photos ended up in the papers, didn’t they?”

He squirms and whimpers when I dig my knife into his shoulder. I know when I draw blood because he gasps and jerks forward like he thinks there’s a way out of this. I grab his shoulder and yank him back into his chair.

“No.”

“What were the photos of?”

“Just her out with her friends at brunch. That’s it. I swear!”

Two weeks ago Kit had gone out with Alana for brunch without us. Good to know those photos were coming.

---