That journal and the fact that we've been warned (and have experienced in Tif's bad ending) that Drew is very manipulative makes me feel there's something fishy about those e-mails. I think that whole thing is a set up.
That's an interesting possibility, despite it being based on suspicion and not hard facts.
In order for that to work it'd have to be a pretty long con, as the emails go back years. Or Kevin might be a co-conspirator, since he provided the emails to Sterling. Given Kevin's and Drew's apparent lack of sophisticated computer skills (per the "class" in chapter 10) I think this would've been difficult for them to pull off.
I've also considered that the emails might be taken out of context somehow, and that Sterling is misinterpreting them, but the various contents of those emails give a fairly clear takeaway.
If David
was set up, was it before or after he died? (I don't see what Drew would gain by a posthumous character assassination.) What would Drew's endgame have been, merely to separate David and Ophelia... so Drew could have Ophelia? It seems like a lot of work, and so far Drew comes across as more of an opportunist who doesn't have to try
that hard (unlike Hunter).
I'm not arguing your theory, just trying to test its viability.
