"Already got the headline: 'Deidre Morton's Escort Scandal.' Yeah, those photos we took at the club. Pick the worst angles. The more damning she looks, the better."
He paused. Then laughed.
"She won't suspect a thing. Don't worry about it."
The voice on the other end said something.
Clyde laughed again, clearly in high spirits, then added one more thing.
"Oh—the kidnapping. That all cleaned up?"
"Keep those guys' mouths shut tight. Nobody finds out I arranged it. Not that a fool like Deidre could ever dig that deep, but better safe than sorry."
Everything went still.
The kidnapping. He arranged that too.
Part of me had already suspected it was Clyde's handiwork, but hearing him say it himself—casually, like he was checking off a list—something in my chest caved in, and I couldn't breathe.
They kept me in that pitch-black basement for three days and three nights. Pumped me full of some brutal aphrodisiac, left me screaming into nothing, and nobody came.
I'd told myself it was random—some enemy who grabbed the wrong person, a case of mistaken identity.
But Clyde Gilbert had been pulling the strings from the very beginning.