Your Guilty Secret

by Rebecca Thornton

  Ryans-world.com

  Entry: August 26th, 1730hrs

  Author: Ryan

  The cops – they’re still running all about the place. They’re everywhere. Stationed all over the road. Stopping cars, banging on the roofs. ‘Wind down your window, ma’am. We want to know where you were earlier, if you happened to have seen this little girl.’

  I can see heads shaking. ‘No, no I haven’t seen her.’ Nothing.

  Word has it that Matthew still hasn’t been to the house again. He didn’t speak to any of the paps like he normally does, or give his trademark wave when he left the police station; in fact, he gave the paps the runaround, so no one knows where he is now. He just got into a black sedan with this dude who looked like a plain-clothed police officer and drove back into the direction of Los Palisades.

  And now I’m wondering, if he’s not there, then who is looking after Lara? So let’s dissect things here and talk about what we do know. There’s that PA of hers, Lily. There’s Conor. Ava’s nanny, Joan. And a couple of her security. All those same faces that I recognise from the pap shots and the show. It’s good to know she’s got a loyal entourage. Those that have been with her since day one.

  But so far, I can tell you from a pap contact of mine that there’s been absolutely no one else going into her house apart from the detective running the case. And that’s what I’m finding so heartbreaking. Where is her family? Where are her friends? She’s lost her daughter and for all intents and purposes, she’s all alone. Seventeen million followers on Instagram. Sixteen million on Twitter. And not one person with her when she needs it the most.

  Here with the latest updates on missing Ava King, brought to you by Lara and Ava King’s number one fan.

  Twitter: @ryan_gosling_wannabe

  August 26th 2018

  1900hrs

  I thought about how much everyone knew of the ‘real me’. How much I knew of the real me. I certainly didn’t know that if my daughter ever disappeared into thin air, that I’d actually feel it in each and every cell of my body. That I’d be unable to sit still. That Conor would be talking to me about strategy, about public image, and all the while, I’d be twisting and turning, desperate for some relief from the searing pain.

  I didn’t know, either, that my thoughts would race faster than my heart. I didn’t know that I would be capable of conversation. But it seemed that I was. I well and truly was, because words were streaming out my mouth. I couldn’t make sense of them, though. It was like my body and mind had become two separate entities – trapped in those fleeting moments before an opioid painkiller sets to work.

  ‘What can we do, Conor?’ I pleaded. ‘We need to think of something. Anything.’

  ‘Look, Lara.’ He was so close I could smell the hot tang of his breath over the gum. ‘Firstly, I’ve bought you a laptop.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ he said as I loaded it up.

  ‘And what?’

  ‘I think we need to add a more real-life element to things. To keep the public engagement high. So perhaps we need to drip-feed a few pictures of you when you were younger. Not quite so manicured. Maybe just after you gave birth.’

  ‘Manicured?’ I started to tell him that I’d had my nails done only yesterday and then I almost laughed. He’s not talking about nails.

  ‘We just need to be totally authentic. Show you as a real person now. A mother who has lost her child.’

  ‘She’s coming back though,’ I told him, but the words sounded uncertain even to me.

  ‘You as in the real Lara King that no one else has access to. Not even your family,’ and then he shut up before he said too much. ‘I mean your family over here. So photos from your past. Not from when you were young, though. We don’t want them getting you confused with Ava. I mean you look so similar.’

  ‘No,’ I snapped. ‘That’s not happening.’

  ‘Look, Lara.’ He held up his hands. ‘No one will be looking at your past mistakes.’ In the years I’d been in LA, I’d told Conor bits about what had happened in England. Nothing close to the full story, though. ‘Believe me’ – the tone of his voice became more forceful – ‘your humility about everything that happened before you got here was what made people love you over here, so let’s keep to that narrative. And anyway’ – he waved his hand in the air – ‘no one remembers that. Look at you. Bad girl gone good. It’s how you built yourself. People saw you had to work at it. That you’ – he looked around again, pointing at the hi-tech music system and touch-screen controls in the corner of the room – ‘weren’t just some rich girl who never lifted a finger. You reinvented yourself after all that crap in England.’ I heard the tap of his fingers on the side of the desk. ‘So don’t worry. They’ll be right behind you. OK?’

  I thought back to ‘all that crap in England’ and what Conor would say if he knew everything but at the same time felt a surge of pride at everything I’d achieved.

  ‘OK,’ I told him. ‘OK, fine. I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Good. And, Lara, is there anything you need to tell me? I don’t want any surprises in the press. All right? I like to think I know most of the skeletons in your closet, but if things are going to be leaked, I need to strategise in advance.’ He twisted a small gold ring on his little finger. I thought about the ways in which he’d ‘strategised’ before, and how inappropriate that would seem now.

  The time I’d been caught speeding. ‘Look, don’t do it again, please,’ he had warned me. ‘But I’ve got something that will distract the public.’ It’s when I’d first really seen how it all worked. ‘This one never fails, let me prove it to you.’ Conor had photographed me in front of a black and white marble bathroom top at a party, with a twenty-dollar note on the side. #crazytimes, he had captioned it and loaded it onto Instagram. The more eagle-eyed viewers had posted right away. They had circled the white threads of marble. ‘Is that DRUGS?’ they had written. ‘Jesus. I never had Lara down as a coke-head.’ And that’s where Conor had worked his magic. Zooming in on the detailed lines of marble. #thatsitalysfinestmarble #saynotodrugs. Bingo, everyone had forgotten about my brush with the law.

  ‘There’s really nothing to say,’ I told him. ‘You know everything.’

  ‘Good. Because if there was, it might fuck up the investigation.’ As he said this, I started to feel dizzy. ‘And,’ he went on, ‘how about we focus on the announcement too? I think the public will be even more receptive to helping find Ava. Don’t you? If they are reminded of how happy you were and how much you both had to look forward to?’ I thought back to this time three days ago and how much I had to lose if things went wrong. About the things I’d seen in the pool annexe, and how they had nothing to do with me. I wasn’t prepared to let other people’s lives get entwined with mine.

  ‘Wait, Conor.’ My hands shook and I blinked away the stinging liquid from my eyes. ‘No.’

  ‘Lara? Are you OK?’ Conor slid off the desk. ‘Lara? Is there something you need to tell me? We can sort it out. Whatever it is. Especially if it might impact the investigation. What is it? The announcement? England? Tell me. Whatever it is, I can help.’

  I thought of England. Me on the stage. The cheers of my name. Lara. Lara. The screams, the echoes, the whistling. My spine, infused with the blissed-out warmth of love being heaped upon me by the crowds.

  ‘No,’ I said, again. I noticed three lines of sweat trail down Conor’s forehead. I thought of the small silver statue in my study. The way it felt in my hands. Cold. But it made my blood feel hot. And then a flash of my daughter. ‘Mom. Tell me. Please. Tell me the story.’ Her face enraptured, her breath hot, as I went through the details over and over again.

  ‘There’s nothing I need to tell you. Release some more pictures from the announcement day,’ I told Conor. ‘The ones from backstage.’ If I gave him that much, he might stop snooping around. And as for what had happened in the pool annexe, I had made up my mind then and there
not to think of it again. I had to focus on finding Ava. What we saw on the day of the announcement had absolutely nothing to do with our lives. Nothing. That’s what I was telling myself, anyway.

  ‘Thanks. Listen. I’ve got to go and meet Detective Mcgraw now. You all right here now for a bit? I’m going to go and get Joan and then I’ll be right back later on.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I told him. In truth, I wanted a moment alone to unravel all the thoughts going on in my head.

  I knew that public scrutiny was going to be at full pace. That probably right about now, instead of helping me find Ava the press would be approaching people from my old life. Unearthing old friends from school. Offering money to those who needed it, for a kiss and tell.

  There was nothing I could do about that, though. Stuck here in my home. I thought of what Conor had told me when he’d first signed me.

  Control what you can. Leave what you can’t.

  I thought about what had happened in the past three days, since the announcement. The public reaction. How absolutely extraordinary it had been.

  And so with that in mind, I went online to Media Spy, where I could get all the latest information on every celebrity. And that’s when I first saw people talking. Just a few discussion threads at first. One entitled England. One entitled Ava’s dad. I felt sick. Neither thread had gained much traction. After all, there were more pressing topics that were at play but I could sense that something might stick and that it’d multiply like a virus.

  Unable to bring myself to open any of the threads, I slammed my computer shut. Surely there was something more useful I could do to help find Ava, than trawling through useless gossip forums?

  So I set to work calling people in high-profile places; heads of missing people charities and other celebrities who had been ambassadors in that field. If people were surprised to hear from me, they didn’t show it. A couple of times I had to hang up, because it all got too much, and I couldn’t stop thinking about England and the things Conor had said to me. That if I didn’t tell him everything, it’d fuck up the investigation. How could it? From back then. From all those years ago? On top of that, I couldn’t shake the sense that there was something else I could be doing to help find my daughter. Something that was much closer to home.

  England, July 2004

  I didn’t see him at first; the man who would change my life. My senses had been elsewhere: the tang of sweat, citrus aftershave and bubble-gum perfume, the bitter smell of chemicals in the air. The floor had pulsed to the sound of Shapeshifters’ ‘Lola’s Theme’, juddering up and down as though it might suddenly give way, and we’d drop into nothingness. A great drunken heap of us mangled and bloodied on the concrete below. Just as I’d been thinking about the news story – how my friends and family would react to the headlines – I saw him next to me, haloed by a bright white light behind him, like I was staring right into the tunnel of my own death. The crowd parted and there he was, hands in his pockets, white, flashy trainers on, like he’s king of the fucking world.

  ‘All right?’

  Of course, I couldn’t hear him over the music, so he had come up close.

  ‘All right? These guys giving you trouble?’ He was covered in a rich, wooded scent. He looked around the room, and then settled his gaze back on to me.

  ‘No,’ I told him, willing him to go away. ‘I’m fine,’ I shouted again.

  ‘New to London?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I lied, wondering how he could tell.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Lara,’ I told him. ‘I’m with someone.’

  He watched as I peered around him through the red curtain, trying to make out the bodies inside. We’d had a heads-up earlier from a mate of Hannah’s who worked on Dancing Buddha’s guest list.

  ‘They’re all going to be there,’ she had told me, swaying her hips side to side. ‘All of them. Straight from the match. You in?’

  I hadn’t even bothered to reply and we’d spent the day preparing – me, watching Hannah put on make-up and then both of us getting dressed. Her in a bodycon dress, pink with white stripes, me in a black strapless number with a sweetheart neckline.

  ‘What?’ I said to him. ‘Please—’ I turned to look for Hannah but she was already at the bar. I pulled the top of my dress up, my hands flat against my chest, so my skin was fully covered. ‘My mates, they’re all over there,’ I told him again. I pointed over to Hannah, who was standing, elbows right back against the bar top, right leg kicked out, and the glint of gold as the taller of the two men gestured to the bar staff.

  ‘I’ve got to—’

  He took my hand and I felt the lights, the heat burning me up.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ he said. ‘I don’t . . .’

  ‘You don’t what?’

  ‘Look, I’ve got a girlfriend. A fiancée, rather. Her name’s Kaycee.’ He started to rummage around in his coat pocket. ‘Here.’ He opened his wallet. ‘She’s beautiful. Anyway, see, there’s this thing’ – he sounded more animated now – ‘this competition. Idolz. I thought that you . . .’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about? Idolz?’ The name rang a bell, I just couldn’t think where from. ‘If you’re so set on building your life together with this Kaycee chick, then stop following me.’ I had been bolstered by Hannah, waving me over. Competition. I’d been warned about men like him. Probably wanting to charge me the earth for some seedy shots in my underwear, with the promise he could make me a model. I thought of Hannah’s earlier insistence that she put some more make-up on me. I’d told her no. I looked over as she pointed to a green bottle with a bright orange label. He slipped his wallet away and grabbed at my arm again. ‘Wait. I need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘I heard you.’

  ‘You heard me?’ The inside of my lips had caught on my teeth, and I licked my lips. ‘No you didn’t. You can’t hear a thing in this place. Now please—’ I swivelled around as best I could and was about to grab the hand of a total stranger for help, when he leaned in close to my ear and started to hum so I could almost feel the tickle of small hairs deep down in my ear canal.

  ‘Recognise that?’ he said. And he did it again, this time a bit louder, faster. He was smiling, clicking his fingers and nodding his head as though he’d been proven right about something – but I didn’t know what.

  ‘No idea.’ My ribcage clamped around my heart.

  ‘You do.’ He had sung again. ‘See?’ And I listened to the song. The lyrics.

  ‘If only, if only I could . . .’

  And I’d thought back to three hours earlier. On the graffitied bench outside Hannah’s one-bed in Greenford, an old raincoat covering the wooden slats, vodka bottle being passed from hand to hand. Hannah, blowing smoke rings and me singing, ‘If only, if only I could,’ and I wanted to shout for help but I was frozen to the spot.

  ‘Did you follow me?’ I walked off as I was shouting. I could feel the thud of my pulse right through my neck. ‘What the fuck.’ I was flooded with anger, ‘You followed me. You freak.’

  ‘Look, I’m not here to hurt you.’ He grabbed at my arm again. ‘I’m really not. I want to help you. Seriously, I want to, look, wait—’ but over the sound of his voice, my words, my song, echoed right through me and before I knew it, I’d pushed my way into the crowd.

  ‘Lara,’ said Hannah, ‘who’s that guy?’

  ‘No one,’ I told her. If I ignore the fact he’d followed me, he’d disappear. We managed to get rid of him soon after. Hannah had worked us closer to the VIP lounge. And it was there that we’d been waved right in behind the hallowed red curtain. The players, they were all there. Frank. John. Didier. All of them from Hannah’s favourite team. And as the night wore on, I forgot about the man who had been following me. Despite the players whistling me over, I stood back, still feeling uncomfortable from my earlier exchange. I watched Hannah down drinks until the whites of her eyes skimmed her lids. She’d been taken by one of the guys into the very back of the
VIP lounge into a dark corner that had been cordoned off completely. I saw limbs of strangers, shifting, shaping; heads bent right close to the table top, one nostril shut tight with a rigid finger. I had gone after her, but had been pushed back by another guy in a suit. ‘She’s fucking hot, mate. But she’s jailbait.’ He had pointed at me and then there was a gust of cold air as a back door to the club had opened, and all I could see was a dark alleyway, a hem of pink. And then, the slam of a car door, red lights glowing in the dark, the sound of splattering road-water and Hannah had gone.

  I was alone, wondering if I was safer here without my friend, or whether I should go back into the other room where the guy had a chance of finding me.

  Then I wondered how I was going to get home. I had precisely one pound in my pocket, no wingman in Hannah, and my bedsit was at least a four-mile walk from here. I picked up a drink from the table next to me, the warm dregs of a flat Red Bull and vodka and sipped it as a slow, black emptiness swallowed me whole. Perhaps the guy wasn’t such a bad bet after all.

  I took another sip, the liquid tasted soapy on my tongue. I had no choice really, but to sit and wait.

  Wait for someone to come and save me.

  August 23rd 2018

  1045hrs

  La, I’ll be there soon xxx

  Matthew had texted five minutes earlier. At that point, I had almost laughed and gone hysterical with relief. If I just managed to put the pool annexe to the back of my mind until we finished, everything would be fine.

  ‘So.’ I twirled my hair around my fingers. ‘Manny, given you’ve been kept waiting, you have carte blanche to ask me anything you like.’ I wanted him to take away a good feeling from the day. I tilted my head as we both leaned against the side of the baby grand. ‘What’s the thing you most want to know about me? We can have a nice, cosy chat whilst we wait for Matthew.’ Although I felt anything but cosy, at least I knew there was soon going to be an end to the discussion if Matthew kept to his word.