Page 84 of Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)

“Xander come to you before he die, asking you to help him do exposé.”

“Right, and?”

“And I think we should do the exposé.”

“What are we exposing?” TJ says. “He didn’t tell me what his big secret was.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Vera says. “We do the exposé on what we know—that everything Xander do online is fake.” She turns toAimes and Qiang Wen, both of whom look like deer in headlights. “Will you tell them?”

They look down at their laps for a second, then Aimes says, “We weren’t really dating. We pretended to be a couple online, but it was purely business.”

“I am not his real grandfather,” Qiang Wen mumbles. “And when he come to me saying he wants to do exposé, I turn him away.”

“He wanted to come clean about our fake relationship,” Aimes says. “I told him no too.”

TJ’s insides squirm. He can’t be here, around these people, spilling his secrets. He’s told Vera, but that was under very different circumstances. But then he catches sight of Robin, who is watching him. His hands ball up into fists. He can’t lie in front of her. “I turned him away too. He wanted to do a live video telling people how fake he’d been and how our working relationship wasn’t actually as close as he’d made it sound, and I flipped out on him.”

“Dad,” Robin whispers. She walks over and wraps her arms around him, and TJ feels tears pricking his eyes. He hugs her back.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s all good.” She smiles at him before going back to her seat.

TJ takes in a long, deep breath. “So, why do you want to do the exposé right now? How’s that going to help us find Millie?”

“Because of theory,” Vera says, looking around proudly. “I have one.”

“Would you care to share?” Oliver says.

“Yes, yes, I’m getting there. I am doing the dramatic pause, don’t rush me, Oliver.”

“It’s just, you know, you think Millie might be in danger…”

“Oh yes, good point. Okay, here is quick theory: I think Millieand Thomas/Xander do some bad thing, maybe caught up in a cult or something. Yes, probably a cult. My guess is maybe one of those young people cult like a music festival—”

“You’re getting off track,” Sana says.

“Right, sorry. So. They are member of cult, and Xander maybe use social media as a form of escape. He create this perfect life, a life that he want for himself but can’t have because of cult, and then maybe after a while, he feeling a bit guilty, so he want to come clean. The cult find out and they kill him, make it look like suicide. Millie wants to report to police, but she is maybe too scared, so she hang around outside the station until I find her and save the day.”

“You haven’t saved the day yet,” TJ mutters.

“Aiya! Stop interrupting, all of you.”

There are murmurs of “Sorry, Vera.”

Vera humphs, then continues. “Millie tell me about Thomas, so I start looking into it, posting viral videos, becoming pop star and all that, and the cult take notice and get scared. ‘Oh no, this Vera is a brilliant investigator and rising pop star. We must stop her.’ They try to scare me off by splashing red paint on my shop, but I am not so easy to scare. So, they send bad guy after me, to give me warning. And they lock Millie up because they are angry because she get me involved.” She gives everyone a triumphant look.

There is a pause. Then Qiang Wen says, cautiously, “Er, Vera, you are done with theory?”

“Yes. Is good theory, right?”

They all nod slowly, digesting her words. TJ scans her theory for holes, and finds about fifteen of them, but when he tries to come up with a better explanation, all his mind spits up is a blank. “So, you’re going to say all that in your video?”

“Yes. And as my talent manager—”

“You’re not technically a client.”

“—your job is to make it go viral. Use all your contact to make it go viral, that’s what a good talent manager does.”

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