Page 90 of Wild Idol

Emily was silent for a long moment. “He never said he was going to kill her. Not in so many words. He just said he had an amazing opportunity for me. And when the time came, I would have the role of a lifetime.”

“He wasn’t lying about that,” JD snarked.

“Walk me through the night Sable was killed,” I said.

“She’d been drinking. They had gotten into a fight. She fired him. I didn’t get the full story. He said the less I knew, the better. He called me up. Told me to come to her house and act like I was her. It sounded like a dream.”

“Sure turned into a nightmare,” Jack said.

“Did he ever admit to you that he had her killed?” I asked.

Emily shook her head. “He just said everything had been taken care of. I guess I knew what he meant. Sable never came back.”

“Obviously, he talked to you about finances, performing, living arrangements, etc.”

She nodded. “He said I was supposed to go about living her life. He said I would make money from performances and royalties. His share would be 50%. That’s after what the label took.”

“Helluva deal for him,” Jack muttered.

“It was more money than I had ever seen in my life.”

“Did the record label know about this?” I asked.

Emily shook her head. “Not that I know of. I don’t think it was information that Everett wanted to broadcast to the world.”

“That’s why everyone was fired,” I said.

She nodded.

“Who else was involved? Kade?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask questions.”

“What about Sable’s friends?”

“Everett wanted me to cut ties with everyone that she knew. It wasn’t hard for me because I didn’t know those people to begin with. The hardest part was leaving my friends and family behind, but I had already left them behind. They didn’t understand what I was doing. Even before I met Everett, they were never supportive of my way of life.”

“Did Everett have you sign a contract?”

“You can’t really sign a contract for illegal shit, can you?”

I shook my head.

“But he had me sign stuff as Sable. And we re-negotiated our contract with the label.”

With her sworn affidavit, we had enough to get a warrant to arrest Everett on multiple charges—fraud, racketeering, money laundering, etc. It was enough to put him away for a long time, even if we couldn’t pin Sable’s murder on him. Everett didn’t seem like the type of guy that did the dirty work himself. Maybe with a little pressure, he’d give up his accomplices.

I texted Isabella while we waited for Echols to approve the warrant and asked her to look into Everett and track his current location.

The guy knew what was coming. Everett couldn’t possibly think Emily would keep her mouth shut. Every second we delayed was an opportunity for him to put Coconut Key in the rearview. The walls were closing in around him.

It didn’t take long for Isabella to find something. She called me back within 15 minutes. “You’re not going to like this.”

I stifled a groan.

“I looked into his bank accounts. Everett moved all of his funds to a crypto exchange. From there, it’s going to be hard to track and impossible to confiscate or freeze. From his cellular data, he’s on the move. He just left Sandpiper Point and is heading out to sea.”

“Great,” I moaned.