The Girl From Summer Hill (Summer Hill 1)

Josh picked it up and flipped the lid back. Inside was a small 128GB flash drive. “I have never seen an emerald this big!”

“He’d better not—” When she saw what Josh was holding, she grimaced. “Cute.”

“Where’s your computer? You’re going to see whatever is on here now.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Casey,” Josh said, “I don’t know what happened, but I do know there are two sides to every argument, and from what I’ve seen, you and Tate aren’t sharing info. His sister gave me this in private. My guess is that her brother knows nothing about it.” He waited until Casey was looking at him. “Sometimes a man doesn’t defend himself because he wants to keep his honor. I know that’s an old-fashioned concept, and forgive us men, but we still feel it. I once had a girlfriend accuse me of something I didn’t do. I walked away and let her think the worst about me rather than put myself on trial. When she found out the truth, she begged me to forgive her, but I couldn’t do it. I don’t want that to happen to you and Tate.”

Casey took a breath. “I’m the one who can’t forgive.”

Josh went to the door. “I’m going back to the set and I’ll tell everyone that you’re sick, that for the rest of the day you can’t rehearse or cook dinner or even take calls. I want you to swear to me that you’ll stay here and see whatever is on that drive. Will you?”

She hesitated. Hearing what Rachael said had hurt a lot and she hadn’t yet come close to healing. To see more of the fight within that family, to get more involved, would deepen the wounds.

On the other hand, maybe Josh was right and there was another side to what she knew. And besides, wasn’t she already buried up to her neck in all of it?

“Okay. No pies, no tarts, no anything. I’ll watch all of it.”

“Thanks.” He kissed her cheek, then left the house.

As Casey wrapped the dough and put it in the fridge, she thought of half a dozen other things she could cook. Of course, she’d have to go to the grocery first. Maybe after that, she could look at the drive. But by then she’d need to…

“Oh, hell!” She grabbed the flash drive off the island, went into the living room, and opened her laptop.

At first she didn’t know what she was seeing. There were about twenty folders, each one containing documents, photos, and videos. She was glad they were numbered as to what order to open them.

The first folder was labeled DEATH POINT, the name of Devlin’s TV show that Tate had ruined. As she watched clips from the episodes, she saw Devlin pla

ying a police detective—but he wasn’t the handsome man Casey had met. His eyes were red and he was unsteady on his feet. She could believe that Devlin was drunk or on drugs. Great acting! she thought.

Rachael, playing his girlfriend, came into the scene and started talking to him earnestly, but it was as though she was unaware that he wasn’t at full capacity. Maybe that was part of the story, Casey thought.

In the next clip, Devlin looked worse. Bleary-eyed, distracted, pausing between lines.

It began to dawn on Casey that this was real. Devlin had played the role while he was high on something.

There were eight clips, each worse than the one before. The last one was for the season finale, and poor Rachael was killed in it. In Devlin’s scene, where he was supposed to show grief, he seemed like he couldn’t wait to get away. The tears rolling down his cheeks looked as if they were from a bottle of eyedrops.

Besides the clips from the TV shows, there were videos from the set. They appeared to have been taken on a cellphone. Three were of Devlin loudly arguing with crew members. One was of him groping Rachael’s backside and her telling him to go screw himself. It was clearly not a happy work environment.

The videos were followed by documents. There were four jeering, laughing newspaper articles about Devlin Haines on the set of Death Point. Two TV Guide articles speculated on the future of the show. Would it be picked up for season two? Then came a notice saying the show had been canceled and that Devlin was going into rehab.

The next documents were receipts for payments made to Long Meadow, a drug-rehabilitation clinic in Minnesota. They totaled a couple of hundred thousand dollars. The patient was Devlin Haines, and the man who paid the bill was Tate Landers.

Casey got up and walked around for a while, trying to let what she’d seen sink in. This was completely different from what she’d been told!

She sat back down and opened the next file. It contained papers from Nina and Devlin’s divorce. Casey felt that these things were none of her business, but she couldn’t stop. In return for hundreds of thousands of dollars, Devlin had agreed not to sue for custody of his daughter.

Next was a file labeled RACHAEL. In it was a video of her talking to someone off camera.

“It was the worst thing I ever did,” Rachael said. “And he wouldn’t even pay me! That night he came by the hotel and tried to get me to go to bed with him. I slammed the door on his hand and I hope I broke his fingers.”

Rachael looked at the camera. “Casey, if you’re seeing this, I’m sorry. I’ve never met Tate Landers and I lied about him. The gossip around L.A. is that he’s a really nice man. And as for that story about the publicity stunt, I don’t know anything about it. Haines gave me the photos and said he’d pay me to do some acting. I thought it was all a joke—until I saw your face. Devlin Haines is a real bastard.”

Rachael glanced over at the interviewer. “Sorry. I know you used to be married to him.”

“I’ve called him worse,” said a woman’s voice. “Anything else you want to say?”