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Two hours later, Walt was sitting in his suite at the Hyatt with a second evidence box resting on the table in front of him. He paged through it for fifteen minutes, reading carefully until he found what he needed. Until he found what he hoped wasn’t there.
He picked up his phone. Avery hadn’t attempted to reach out to him. He typed a short text and sent it off to her.
Found something new in the Cameron Young file. Need to talk asap.
CHAPTER 43
Manhattan, NY Sunday, July 4, 2021
AVERY’S LAPTOP SAT OPEN ON THE DESK IN THE CORNER OF HER HOTEL room. The face of American Events executive producer and Avery’s best friend, Christine Swanson, was on the screen linked through an online meeting app.
“What’s going on?” Christine asked.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy, but you’re the only one I can share this with.”
Avery watched Christine on the monitor as she analyzed Avery’s hotel room. After her meeting with Livia Cutty, Avery had found a copy shop where she had each of Victoria Ford’s manuscripts printed. Now, organized stacks of computer paper occupied the king-sized bed. On top of each stack rested a single paperback book.
“I told you about Victoria Ford’s sister, Emma.”
“Right,” Christine said. “She had the recording of Victoria from the morning of 9/11. I can’t wait to get my hands on it. We could do a lot of great stuff with it.”
Throughout her time in New York, Avery had kept Christine up to date on her discoveries regarding Victoria Ford and Cameron Young. Great stuff meant Christine and her team would produce the hell out of the recordings, making them both chilling and suspenseful. Avery imagined a short clip of Victoria Ford’s voice playing just before a commercial break, anchoring fifteen million viewers to their televisions in stunned silence.
“I know you’ll make it amazing,” Avery said. “But in addition to the recordings, Emma Kind also shared all this with me. Well, accidentally shared it.” She motioned to the stacks of paper.
“What is all that?” Christine asked, leaning toward the computer camera so her face filled the entire screen.
“Victoria Ford’s manuscripts.”
“Meaning books?”
“Yes. Victoria was a writer.”
“My notes say she was a financial planner.”
“Financial planning was her day job. Emma told me Victoria always wanted to write books. It had been her passion since she was a young girl, and was probably what drew her to Cameron Young. But Victoria never found any success. She wrote all these manuscripts but never landed a publisher. I found them on an old flash drive in one of the dusty bins Emma gave me of Victoria’s yearbooks and memorabilia. I printed them out earlier today. To the best of my knowledge these manuscripts have sat untouched and unread on that flash drive in Emma Kind’s attic for the past two decades.”
Christine nodded on the screen. “Okay? How is this related to the Cameron Young case?”
“I’m not sure yet. But here, look at this.” Avery picked up one of the paper stacks.
“This is Victoria Ford’s first manuscript. The Word document indicates it was written in 1997. Working title is Hot Mess. Now look at this,” Avery said, placing the manuscript pages back onto the bed and picking up Natalie Ratcliff’s paperback novel. “This is a novel published by Hemingway Publishing in 2005 by an author named Natalie Ratcliff.”
“Baggage!” Christine said. “Peg Perugo. I love those books.”
“So you’re a fan. Then you’re going to love this next part. Baggage was published in 2005—the first in the Peg Perugo series, which, as you know, is amazingly successful. One of the most successful series in commercial fiction.”
Christine raised her eyebrows as she waited for Avery to continue.
“Hot Mess. Baggage. Similar titles, right?” Avery asked. “Similar meanings, anyway.”
“Sure.”
“So here’s the catch. Besides a change in title, the two stories are identical.”
There was silence as Christine stared from the computer screen.
