Page 17 of Stripping Bare

Maybe something had happened with Davey and his new girlfriend. He’d been honest about how hard breakups were for him. Or maybe he’d quit attending meetings and started using again. His suicide could’ve been triggered by any number ofthings.

Suddenly, the lopsided fan in Tessa’s mind straightened its trajectory and sped up to high. Trigger. The e-mail she’d supposedly sent Carson had triggered his call to her. If someone had been blackmailing Davey with her account, too, wouldn’t thatmean—

Her hands were shaking so badly that it took her three mouse clicks to switch over to her e-mails and access the sent folder again. She typed “Sinchilla” into the searchbox.

Of course, a string of scheduling e-mails popped up, but one was grouped alone, having been sent within the past few weeks. The subject line was “Things to thinkabout.”

That was ridiculous. She never sent messages with such ambiguous subject lines. She used terms like “Upcoming appointment” and “Helpful resources” with herclients.

Her eyes narrowing as if it might make the words easier to read, she opened the sent e-mail addressed to Davey. Whoever had sent it wasn’t worried about varying his or her approach much. Change out Carson’s name with Davey’s and insert a sly insinuation about his addiction and they were essentially the sametext.

Whoever was doing this was efficient in their deceit. And if someone had sent two false e-mails from her account, what would’ve stopped him from sendingmore?

Her heart plummeted in her chest. She knew thatfeeling.

It wasdread.