Then he pulls off the man’s hood and his hat and the scarf covering the bottom half of his face, and I can’t believe my eyes.

“What the fuck?” I say.

And the man who smashed my window, the man standing like a shadow in the middle of my street, says, “I’m sorry, Jessica. You were never supposed to find out.”

Chapter 59

Michael the cameraman, the man I let into my bedroom every Monday morning, lies there, staring up at us, and says, “Could you lower the hammer?”

Jamie looks at me, and for a second, I imagine what would happen if he hit Michael in the face. But I reach out and touch his arm until it falls to his side, the hammer clanking on the pavement.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I know him.”

Jamie stares at me with his mouth open, and I shake my head, unsure what to do next.

“Whose idea was it?” I say at last.

Michael doesn’t answer. He stares at me in panic, his head turning left and right like he’s looking for a way out.

“Whose idea was it?” I say again, louder this time, and Michael’s eyes shoot back to me.

“It was mine,” he whispers.

“Does Danny know?”

I don’t think I want to hear the answer, but when Michael says, “No,” I feel a wave of relief.

“He has no idea,” Michael says. “I’m sorry, Jess. If this gets out, I’m fucked.”

“Then you’re fucked,” Jamie says.

He looks hyper, bouncing from one foot to the other, but I turn back to Michael and ask, “Why?”

“I wanted the three months,” he says. “We needed some peril.”

“So you made it up? It was you all along?”

“I’m sorry.”

His voice cracks, and for a moment, I think he’s going to cry, but he shakes his head and whispers, “Our month is almost up. I wanted to make sure you got more time. I wanted the best possible show. And when the real Magpie Man didn’t come…I thought I’d make it exciting.”

“Did you send the texts?”

He nods.

“What’s wrong with you? You scared the shit out of me. This isn’t a game. It’s my life.”

He opens his mouth to answer, then stops. He sits with his head down.

“I wasn’t even live today. Why bother when no one’s watching?”

“Authenticity,” Michael says. “It would have been too obvious if I’d only done it on Mondays. Someone would have thought we were faking it. I was relying on you filming. You’re getting good at it.”

I stare at the sky and wonder what the hell to do next.

My own cameraman betrayed me. We tried to make something real, and it was as fake as everything else.