I follow her gaze and then run my own light along the desk, stopping when I come to a bank of filing cabinets. “Do you guys want to look for the file cabinet key and I’ll start with his computer? I can try to work out his password.”
Amelia agrees and begins to search. Together she and Daryl look under books and papers, in drawers, and behind every photo frame, while I wake up the computer, the password prompt lighting up the screen.
I start with Brad’s name—first and last—then his wife’s, and every combination in between. I try his birthday, the number of Oscars his clients have won, even combinations of his name with his golf handicap. (Yes, we’ve all had to hear stories of his country-club valor over the years.) No luck.
“I think I found something!” Daryl says, stretching to feel along the bottom of a drawer. Having struck out so far, I turn to watch, practically jumping with joy when she comes away with a small brass key in her hand.
“What kind of person tapes a key to the underside of a drawer in their own house?” she whispers, moving to the filing cabinet and sliding the key into the lock.
“Someone who’s got a lot to hide,” Amelia says.
We hold our breath as Daryl turns the key, and the lock clicks in the silence. “And doesn’t think anyone has the balls to come looking,” she adds.
“Thank fuck,” Amelia says, flashlight in hand as she starts searching with renewed effort through files. “Anything that has to do with the names we found, tax ID numbers, web hosting companies, bank accounts, anything. If it looks shady, take a picture of it.”
I turn back to the computer, determined to get in. I try a few more random words and phrases I associate with Brad, and when nothing comes up, I think back. Brad is too big of an egomaniac to ever pick a password at random, so it would have to mean something . . .
A thought flashes like a thunderstorm through my brain, and I type the words together:
B R A D U P R I S I N G
It’s the film he worked on while I was an assistant—featuring the first client he flat-out stole.
Password accepted.
God, what a dick.
I search his hard drive for any of the companies that showed up in Eric’s program. I open his Google drive and search there, too. It takes a few tries but then bingo.
A spreadsheet with names of companies and tax ID numbers, next to column after column of billed amounts. And he had the nerve to lecture me about being a team player. Jesus Christ.
“Oh my God!”
I turn toward the sound of Daryl’s voice. She’s looking out the window with wide, horrified eyes. A set of headlights are working their way up from the bottom of the winding drive.
“Sh-shit!” I say, jamming my thumb drive into the USB port with shaking hands. “Hurry! Did you get anything?”
“I have some invoices,” Amelia answers, taking pictures of the invoices under her shirt to mute the flash. “This is a hot mess.”
Amelia and Daryl rush around the room, straightening photos and smoothing the rug, righting papers, and rubbing their sleeves to clear fingerprints from anything they might have touched.
I glance out the window again and then quickly back to the screen. How many times have I had to watch this in a goddamn movie and thought, Files transfer really fast, this is so unrealistic?
My file transfer is only seventy-three percent complete. But my panic is total.
Headlights move across the room and Brad’s yellow car pulls up alongside Eric’s truck. Come on come on come on.
“Are you done? Evie.” Daryl comes up and pulls on my arm, in the middle of a full-body freak-out behind me.
“Yeah, just . . . one sec.”
“Evie, we have to go!” Amelia says, looking out the window and to the driveway below.
“It’s at ninety-five . . . hurry upsss!” I hiss.
A car door closes outside. Voices carry from downstairs.
“Evie, come on!” Daryl says.
“It’s almost there—dammit! How does a rich person have such a slow computer? What’s he doing with all that money?”
“Eric!” We all freeze at the sound of Brad’s voice in the entryway below.
I look up to Daryl and Amelia, their faces illuminated in the light from the monitor, and for a horrifying second I realize that if I can see them, there’s a chance that Brad could have seen them from outside, too.
My attention snaps to a little ding that says the files have transferred, and I close the drive, clicking out of all the windows as fast as I can.
Daryl moves to the door, opening it just enough to hear what’s happening downstairs. “I think he’s in the kitchen,” she whispers, and we wait, just to be sure. When there’s nothing else, I hold open the door and tiptoe into the hall.
There’s a landing that looks down into the entryway, and when I peek over the rails, I see nothing but gleaming marble floors. No sign of Brad. The door is just at the bottom of the stairs and if we can get there, we’re home free. I don’t care if I have to walk back to my apartment.
Can we do this? I mouth, and while Amelia nods, Daryl is frantically shaking her head.
I’ve just taken my first step off the top landing when Eric’s voice echoes through the house. “Wait, Uncle Brad, I wanted to show you my scar!” he essentially yells.
I almost fall in an attempt to scramble back, arms and legs everywhere as we dart in different directions, each of us disappearing into a different room.
“Eric, what the hell is wrong with you?” Brad asks. “Are you taking drugs?”
“I’m . . . no . . . not drugs,” Eric babbles, his eyes widening when, behind Brad and on the landing, he sees my head peeking out from one of the doorways. He pulls Brad to him in a tight embrace, and motions for me to run. “I’ve just missed you!”
I slip across the hall to the guest room over the garage, slamming into the window when Daryl and Amelia sprint in behind and slide across the wood floor, right into me. I let out a grunted Oof.
Voices fall quiet downstairs.
“Who’s up there?” Brad asks.
“No one,” Maxine says. “It’s just us tonight.”
My heart is a hammer, my chest feels like glass.
“I know I heard something,” Brad says. “I’ll run up—”
“But we were just going to have something to eat!” Eric says. “You have to be hungry. Have you lost weight?”
“Brad, we never get a chance to visit. Come have dinner with us.”
There’s a moment of silence before footsteps retreat along the marble hallway and I squeeze my eyes closed in prayer as I slide open the window.
“What are you doing?” Daryl hisses.
“We’re going to have to climb out and shimmy down the trellis.”
“I’m so confused by the term shimmy down the trellis. How is that even po—”
Amelia ignores her. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?” she whispers in my direction.
I look out the window. It’s far, but I mean . . . it’s not like death far. And we need to get the hell out of here, now.
“Come on,” I say, throwing one leg over the windowsill. “Just do what I do.”
Crawling out, I step on the roof of the garage—gingerly at first, making sure my footing is secure—and then shuffle over to the vine-lined trellis. My greatest fear is allayed when I tug at the flimsy structure and it holds securely to the wall.
“Come on,” I urge again, returning to my downward climb when I see Daryl’s leg come over the side of the window, her body emerging onto the roof. Amelia follows right after.
Back in the bed of the truck, we lie flat, staring at the sky and silent but for our jagged, heaving breaths. I’m calmed by the warmth of Amelia on my left and Daryl on my right. Their hands come down, twining with mine.
“Thanks, you guys,” I whisper.
They squeeze my hands in unison as we struggle to catch our breath. Eventually, waiting for Eric to finish up his impromptu meal with his aunt
and uncle, we manage to contain our maniacal laughter.
• • •
Carter shows up at my front door a little jittery, like he thought it might be a good idea to toss back an espresso at ten p.m.
Pushing past me, he heads straight for the kitchen and opens the cabinet with the plates. “Where do you keep the booze?”
“Erm,” I say, following him, “above the stove, but don’t get your hopes up. I think your options are Bacardi, Captain Morgan, triple sec, and . . .” I trail off as he pulls down a bottle of vodka I didn’t know I had, grabs a glass, tosses some ice cubes in it, and pours himself a hefty shot.
His throat bobs distractingly as he swallows. I’ve only been home for about thirty minutes myself and want to tell him about our badass 9 to 5 adventure (Dolly Parton would be so proud!) and what we found, but he seems a little preoccupied.
“What’s going on?” I ask, walking over and stretching to kiss his boozy mouth.
“I quit.”
I pull back, shocked. “Pardon?”
“You heard me. I quit. I have no idea what comes tomorrow, but I told Brad that I was out.”
“I . . . I. Wow.”
“I love you, but I didn’t do it for you,” he says, eyes wild. “I did it because I can’t work there one more fucking second. Brad is scum.”
“Well, yes,” I say, stepping back and watching curiously as he reaches for the bottle again.
“I went to Brad to talk about how things went down with you and him.”
I groan. “Carter, you don’t have to fight my battles for me.”
“I know this. If there’s one thing I definitely know, it’s that Evil Abbey can take care of herself. But . . . I had to say something. I couldn’t not. The way he acted was completely unacceptable.”
Well. He gets a kiss for this. It seems to calm him a little, too. I can’t blame him for the vodka now; his adrenaline must be up to eleven.
“Anyway, he wasn’t very receptive to the conversation—”
“I don’t imagine.”
“And it hit me,” he says, shaking his head, “I hate it there. I love what I do—I love you—but I hate P&D. It’s like trying to work in the middle of a dodgeball game.”
This makes me laugh, and I pull him out of the kitchen and into the living room. He sits on the couch, and I follow him, straddling his lap.
“So we’ve made a fucking mess of things,” he says, leaning to kiss my neck. “But I did hear from Dan today.”
He pulls out his phone, showing me a string of texts from Dan Printz.
Hey man.
Sorry I haven’t been around today.
I talked to Ted at Variety, he said the announcement came from some PR firm called Roar?
Who fucking knows. Bottom line: I don’t care what the agency is, I just want to work with you.
I have a press party I have to go to tonight so give me a call in the morning.
Let’s get some papers signed and make some movies.
Roar PR. I freeze. “Brad was the one who spilled?”
Carter’s eyes narrow. “What?”
I stretch across the couch, reaching for my laptop bag.
“Well . . . I had a bit of an adventure tonight.” I slide the computer onto the coffee table, boot it up, open Jess’s spreadsheet, and then turn the screen to face him.
“Okay?” he says, glancing from it to me again. “What’s all this?”
“Have I got a story for you.”
• • •
Former Price & Dickle talent agency executive Brad Kingman was arrested Tuesday in Los Angeles on charges of wire fraud, embezzlement, and identity theft.
According to prosecutors, Kingman set up a network of bogus companies, which he then used to submit fraudulent invoices to his agency for work that was never done. These bogus companies ranged from hair and makeup services to dog walkers and nanny agencies.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Emery Ridge said, “The FBI obtained emails and vendor contracts showing that Kingman used these stolen identities and tax ID numbers to submit fraudulent invoices and conceal his crimes. This isn’t a matter of an employee taking a few extra dollars from petty cash. So far Kingman is accused of skimming upwards of two million dollars.”
The print copy of the Hollywood Vine is laid out flat in front of us, and Daryl, Amelia, and Steph fall silent around the bar table. We’re all here for the Super Bowl, and television sets overhead broadcast commercials that make the assembled mass fall into a reverent hush, but none of us are able to look anywhere but at the article in front of us.
“Two million dollars,” Steph says quietly. “Guess it wasn’t just expenses under your name.”
“Just mine most recently—everyone else he used is gone.”
“And now bye-bye, Brad,” Daryl says.
The morning after our trip to Brad’s home, Eric walked casually into Brad’s empty office, drafted a new email to the FBI, and attached all the files I transferred to the thumb drive. The FBI would never know I had anything to do with this, but Brad would.
I’ve had dozens of pretty amazing orgasms with Carter, but I won’t deny that one of the most euphoric feelings I’ve ever had was watching the FBI emerge onto our floor amid a deathly hush and move like a mob of righteous justice toward Brad’s office.
They knocked on his door, ignoring Kylie’s anxious yipping that he was busy. In fact, two agents quickly identified Kylie, pulled her aside, and took her into the conference room for questioning.
Brad opened the door, face stark, and looked right at me. I lifted my chin and smiled.
“Mr. Kingman, we have some questions.” The voice of the lead agent carried easily down the hall. “If you don’t mind coming with us, we can ask them in a more private setting.”
I wanted Brad to refuse. I wanted them to question him right there, right in front of me. But it was also nice to watch him leave under the wide-eyed rubbernecking of everyone in the office. He moved, surrounded by the law, down the hall.
The elevator doors sealed around him, and then he was gone.
Bye, Brad.
I left P&D by choice that same day.
“So now I need to figure out what I’m going to do,” I tell my friends, folding up the newspaper and tucking it back in my purse.
“You could come back to Alterman,” Steph says with a hopeful smile.
“You could come work with me.” The voice comes from behind me and we all turn. Carter has materialized, and looks . . . stunning. Flushed with some exuberant emotion, he’s clearly just come from a meeting: neatly pressed suit, dress shirt open at the collar, tie loosened around his neck. I feel all of us exhale in a swoon in unison.
A swoonison.
“Or,” he says, grinning as he walks toward us, “I could work with you.” Pulling out the barstool beside me, he adds, “Or, I don’t know, we could figure out how the hell to work together.”
Carter sits down and pulls out a piece of paper folded into thirds. He carefully opens it, flattening it against the table for us to read. It’s an agent contract between Dan Printz and Carter Aaron—just Dan, just Carter.
“I’ve secured twenty percent of fifteen million,” he says with a casual grin. “If I did this on my own I could only take on one, maybe two more clients. It would help me out a lot if you could join me, show me the ropes?”
I stare at him, feeling my eyes fill, and he reaches up, pretending to be shocked by the presence of tears.
“Is that a yes? Are we going rogue?”
I surprise the hell out of my friends by launching myself into Carter’s lap, but no one seems to mind. I think we all realize in this moment that I’ve worked my entire career so far for this—the opportunity of a lifetime.
chapter twenty-six
carter
As it turns out, you can’t manage the career of the Next Big Thing from the kitchen of your tiny, one-bedroom Beverly Hills apartment.
It took approximately two weeks to come to t
his conclusion. Two weeks in which Evie and I shared the pantsless joy of not having an actual office to go to every morning or an actual boss checking in on us, and being able to have sex on the kitchen table whenever we want and not even have to close the door.
It was a beautiful time.
But eventually the pants had to go back on and we had to decide how we were going to do this. I had Dan and a handful of other clients but needed somewhere I could take meetings and . . . well, work.
Evie had toyed with the idea of going back to Alterman, but had already come to the conclusion that while she loved the people and the job, she could no longer stomach the games that seemed to inevitably dominate big-firm work. Luckily, Adam Elliott and Sarah Hill had signed on with Evie at P&D for project-by-project contracts only, and those two would follow her anywhere, it would seem.
And boom—we had an agency.
So going rogue meant we needed an office.
This is when I realized exactly how connected Evie was. Having already helped me find a great legal adviser, she found us a screaming deal on a handful of vacant offices . . . in a very nice building next to P&D.
• • •
There isn’t any sort of official grand opening at Abbey & Aaron, but the Wi-Fi is connected on a Tuesday, and I get the password to the security system the day after that, which is good enough for us. We have the entire space repainted, line the lobby walls with Jonah’s new black-and-white prints, and install the best Keurig machine money can buy. There isn’t a need for a row of sixteen well-groomed and neatly arranged assistants, but there’s more than enough need for Becca and Jess.
Becca and Evie spend thirty minutes on the phone—during which they immediately bond and become best friends forever through a rousing version of Carter Aaron’s Top Ten Most Embarrassing Moments. Evie offers her a job and Becca—thank God—accepts. I am ecstatic. I will be surrounded by the two women who call me out the most, but I will never be disorganized or undercaffeinated again.
That first morning at the official office is fucking surreal. The sky looks exactly like it did my first day in LA—powder blue with just a trace of haze along the edge—and I make the familiar turn into the parking garage.