He sags a little and runs his hands through his hair. “She’s obsessed with you. Wants to be you in so many ways. She thinks you’re so sophisticated and, how did she put it?” He taps his finger against his mouth. “Oh, yeah, she said you’re classy. A class act. She went on about how no matter the lengths she went to, she’d never command the respect you do because you were born into it. I thought she was young, naive, maybe a bit envious, and I’ll admit, I took advantage. She only wanted me because you had me. Haven’t you noticed how she’s taken on so many of the specific intern roles you used to do way back in the day? How she shows up on nights out where it’s the top brass, but she pushes her way in? Then hangs around you, being all creepy. The way she’s changed how she dresses?”

I did notice that one. Lexy has begun to copy my style, or what she thought was my style, which is to say the clothes I wear for work. I figured she simply thought it was the way to dress at the production studio.

“Someone took a photo of you the other day, and it was on some gossip site. All it said was you had your hair cut. She’s now cut her hair.”

He holds his hands up and glances at Samuel. “Just taking my phone out, alright?” Slowly, he takes his phone out, hands shaking slightly. “See?”

It’s a pic of Lexy with hair exactly like my new cut.

“I went to her apartment two nights ago because she was sending me some weird messages about you, and she asked me if I wanted a drink and something to eat. I said I needed the bathroom at one point, and walked past her bedroom and noticed a room at the end I hadn’t really paid attention to when I’d been there before. I went in on some weird inkling and … well. Look.”

He swipes again, and I almost faint. “Oh. My. God.”

The entire back wall of the room is nothing but my face. Cuttings of me. Paparazzi pictures. But also what are clearly stills from television appearances that she must have screenshot.

“Let me see.” Samuel grabs the phone and stares at the picture, his jaw working.

“You can leave now.” He shoves the phone back at Joseph and grabs him by the scruff of the neck as he walks him out of the room.

A moment later, I hear the front door go, and then Samuel stalks into the lounge.

“This whole thing just changed. There are two threats now. One is personal. That’s a whole new threat level. We aren’t leaving this house.”