That night, Clara called. Not called, summoned. She didn’t just read me the riot act; she read me the I can’t do my job if you won’t let me riot act, the kind that came preloaded with the sort of clipped enunciation and scalpel-precise pauses that made every word feel like a personal indictment.
I couldn’t even get in a “but” without being steamrolled.
When she finally hung up..with a terse “good night” that carried the same warmth as a weather warning…it felt less like closure and more like a promise of future retribution.
I sat down at my desk, fingers hovering over my laptop keyboard.
“How bad is it?” I asked the empty room.
The answer hit the moment my browser loaded:
The leading story on every major site is bad.
Lachlan Heiress Keeping Secrets.
What Does Hailey Vale Know?
The
