Dirty Secrets by Evelyn Glass Read Free Book Online Page A

everything,” Helen said, before Zoey even got a chance to say hello.
     
    “Everything about how I just blew the one chance I had at making my career something other than a lifetime of regurgitating trending news?”
     
    “Well fuck,” Helen said, “Give me a second.”
     
    There was quiet for a moment while Helen wrapped up something, and then she came back on the line. Zoey had collapsed into a corner of the couch, pulling a pillow into her lap and squeezing it tightly.
     
    “I was talking about last night,” Helen said, “but you sound like you’ve got something else on your mind.”
     
    “It’s all a big clusterfuck, sha,” Zoey said, not even caring about her accent. “The guy last night—he was amazing, it was everything I wanted, and he seemed to enjoy himself too, but then this morning.”
     
    “Did you stay there all night? Or go home with him?”
     
    “Neither. I came back to my place. But I got a call from Devin this morning, and he had scheduled an interview with Alexander Blankenship.”
     
    “Wait, from AEGIS.”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    Zoey couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Helen was quick on the update, though, and it only took a moment.
     
    “Holy fuck, Zoey, it wasn’t—”
     
    “It was.”
     
    Helen let out a bit of rhyming slang that Zoey didn’t catch. “How did you handle it?”
     
    “I blew it. I utterly blew it. I—things got out of hand, and then I started talking about his father, and it all went to hell.”
     
    Helen was quiet for a bit, and Zoey waited. Helen had about five years on her, and she’d spent all of them in publishing. She was one of the lead editors for a major national website, and she knew her stuff. “Love, I’m not trying to minimize how wretched that must have been, walking in and seeing him, but for that rag of yours, I’m sorry, but you can make up the quote and no one will care. Am I right?”
     
    “Yeah,” Zoey said. “About the gossip piece for the Voice , yes. But there’s something else going on at AEGIS. And I can’t write about it, because of last night. I have no credibility at all.”
     
    “What do you think is going on?”
     
    Zoey laid out what she’d seen conducting the background research for the interview with Alex. Stocks being bought and sold in weird patterns by companies that seemed to only exist on paper. Oddness about the company products, specifically in the weapons division. Production numbers that didn’t seem to match sales. And the strange wording that some people, privy to the information, had reported about Philip Blankenship’s will.
     
    Helen listened to all of it, and Zoey could hear the moment when her friend’s brain crossed over from “listen to friend’s frustrations” to “listen to a writer pitch.” The quality of her really and her shut up changed. When Zoey had spun herself out, Helen was quiet again, for several minutes. Zoey could hear the clacking of a keyboard, and assumed Helen was checking out a few of the facts Zoey had mentioned on her own.
     
    “I want you to write this, Zoey,” Helen said.
     
    “But—”
     
    “No. It was just the one time, and Marie will ban anyone who ever breathes a word of it. I’ve got a guy on staff here who has connections within some of AEGIS’ competition. If you’re willing to work with him, give him a co-author, I think we can protect you and get the piece written.”
     
    Zoey took a long look around the shitty studio, with its cracked walls, the perpetually leaking faucet, and the windows that didn’t close properly, letting in frigid gusts in winter, and rivers of rain in summer. A serious byline on an investigative piece, sold to Helen Maxwell, or through her contacts—that would be a coup. It wouldn’t give her a step up, not right away, but it would open doors. It would put her name in the minds of editors for something more than the train perv. A co-author byline was still a byline. “Okay,” she said. “That