Chapter 21: Last Post

We reached the studio as the red light came on.

Rhys parked on the curb, and we ran through a lobby with its lamps still lit.

The clipboard girl met us at the studio door and put a finger to her lips.

"She's already on," she whispered. "I couldn't stop her. Nobody could."

The set was a white room with a pink couch, a ring light and two cameras.

Amber sat alone on the couch in a gray sweatshirt, with no makeup and her hair pulled back.

Eight people were behind the cameras, and not one of them was moving.

On the monitor, the viewer count read eighty-one thousand, and it kept climbing.

I stood against the back wall where the camera couldn't see me.

Rhys stood beside me with his hands at his sides.

"Good morning," Amber said into the lens, and her voice was flat and clear. "This is the last one."

The chat on the monitor ran so fast I couldn't read it.

"I scheduled something for this morning," she said. "I'm not going to do it. I want you to know why I'm telling you instead."

She looked at the floor.

"I did what you saw to Natalie Brennan," she said. "I planned it for two years. I told myself it was a test."

The camera did not move.

"It wasn't the first time. I picked people."

"Over a dozen people," she said. "I have every name and date in a file, and the file is in my car."

I felt Rhys go still.

"Dalton paid the men," Amber said. "I picked the people."

She breathed in.

"I chose each one because I wanted to see how much you would watch."

The chat on the monitor had slowed down.

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