by Zara Lisbon
Down the hall I could hear my mother’s phone ring, that upbeat synthetic steel drum jingle with a spring in its step.
“This is Dr. Nancy Childs,” she answered, the same way she’d been doing for as long as I could remember. “How can I help?”
For a moment, the weight of my hangover lifted. I knew how I’d get to Liza.
* * *
While she was on the phone, I snuck into my mom’s office. A part of me was expecting the file cabinet to be gone, but it was still there. I was expecting the combination would have been changed, but when I pressed it into the keypad, the drawers clicked open. The McKelvoy file was just where I’d left it. I opened it to the first page and sure enough, there on the intake form from Eva-Kate’s first session was an address: 55 Vanalden Ave, Reseda, California. I took a photo on my phone and stuffed the papers back into their drawer, then slammed it shut. I could only hope the McKelvoys hadn’t moved.
It was forty-eight hours later when I finally found the courage to go see Liza. I waited until my mom had three patients back to back, then used my mom’s hand-me-down iPhone 5 and my debit card to call an Uber. I put half a milligram of Xanax under my tongue to keep my nerves down on the long drive to Reseda.
The house on Vanalden Ave was the gray green of an old avocado’s insides, one story with a low-hanging gable roof and an overgrown oak tree casting shade over the whole property. The 101 freeway ran over the backyard. I forced myself up the front path, keeping my eyes down, watching my shadow pass over the cracks in the pavement, half hoping no one was home.
I rang the doorbell. When a minute went by without a response, I rang it again.
This time Liza came to the door, looking distraught and caught off guard. I was startled too; there’s no way to prepare yourself for seeing a dead girl’s face restored to life right before your eyes. Up close Liza was an almost identical replica of her sister, an alternate Eva-Kate Kelly with self-cut bangs, clear-framed glasses, and no makeup on. I knew I was staring but I couldn’t stop.
“Yes?” she asked, “Can I help you?” She wore jean shorts and a T-shirt. The room behind her smelled like cats and dust and maybe mold hidden deep in the walls.
“Hi,” I said, awkwardly extending my hand. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Justine. I was a friend of your sister’s.”
“Liza,” she said, shaking my hand. “Good to meet you.”
“I … I’m really sorry for your loss,” I said, getting quiet when I realized I hadn’t planned what I’d say.
“Yeah, well,” she said, looking me right in the eyes. “If you were her friend, then it was more your loss than mine. I lost her a very long time ago.”
I was disarmed by how she could look so much like her sister but act so differently. She was straightforward, without a motive or a mission slithering beneath her words. With no makeup and very little jewelry, she looked so wholesome, uncorrupted, like the kind of girl who’s into horses or science and has somehow, by some miracle, managed to develop a sense of self-worth independent of other people’s opinions. She wasn’t putting on a show, and I didn’t have to try to read her mind, because it was very clear just from her body language what she wanted: for me to leave and let her go back to grieving in peace. Or maybe I was projecting.
“Yeah,” I said, my head starting to hurt from clenching my jaw too tightly. “I’m sorry about that too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She smiled kindly. “That’s not your fault. Was there … something you wanted to talk about? You didn’t come all the way out here to give me your condolences, did you?”
“I wanted to ask you about the night Eva-Kate died,” I blurted before I could change my mind. I knew if I hesitated I’d lose my nerve and go home without anything I came for. “And about Rob.”
“Why?” She crossed her arms. Not defensively, but with genuine confusion.
“Why?” I didn’t understand the question. “I just want to know what happ—”
“Sorry, I didn’t say that right.” She put a soft, reassuring hand on my forearm. “Of course we all want to know what happened. But why you? This doesn’t have to be your job. Go home, take a nap; you look exhausted. And I can say that because I look exhausted too. I am exhausted. I haven’t slept since she died, and I haven’t gotten anyone to cover my shifts, so I’m basically running on coffee and anxiety. I’m gonna try to rest and I think you should too.”
“I wish I could take a nap, believe me, but…”
“But what?”
“I can’t sleep either. Not knowing what happened to her.”
She took pity on me then.
“Okay.” She peered back into the house, then closed the door so that she was standing with me out on the front steps. “My stepdad is sleeping and if my mom knows I’m talking to anyone about Eva-Kate she’ll flip out. Let’s go to the tree house.”
I followed her to the corner of the yard where a red wooden box was nestled into the branches of an oak tree. Eva-Kate had never mentioned her stepdad. I wondered why, and if somehow it was relevant.
“I helped Billy build this when we were nine,” she said, resting her hand on the rope ladder that hung down from the tree house.
“Billy?”
“Oh, Billy McKelvoy, my stepdad.”
“You and Eva-Kate have your stepdad’s last name?” I asked, and regretted it immediately. “I’m sorry, that’s a stupid question. And none of my business. Ignore me.”
“Doesn’t seem like a stupid question to me,” she said. “Our birth father left the picture before we were born. I don’t even know who he is. Billy married my mom when we were three, so we all took his last name.”
“Got it.” I forced myself to smile. “But I interrupted you. You were saying you built this tree house…”
“Right, yeah. Billy and I built it one summer when Evelyn was away filming the Jennie and Jenny Halloween special in Santa Barbara. Do you remember that episode? The old bank was scheduled for demolition, and Jenny the grandmother spirit locked Jennie the girl in a vault to teach her a lesson about not taking life’s comforts for granted. Then of course it was Halloween so the vault was haunted by the ghosts of bank heist casualties. It was kinda fucked up for a kids’ show.”
“I remember it,” I said.
“Scared the living daylights out of me,” she said. “Especially the ghost with half his head blown off. But I guess kids are tougher these days.”
“It scared me too,” I told her. “I had nightmares that I was trapped down there by my parents. They just wanted to give me a quick time-out but then they forgot about me. They forgot the building was gonna blow up.”
“I had thousands of those nightmares,” she told me. “My entire life was that nightmare.”
She started climbing up the ladder, scurrying easily to the top. I didn’t particularly want to be in such a closed space with Liza McKelvoy. All I knew about her was that she’d stolen her sister’s boyfriend and was suspiciously sweet. She looked like she’d strolled right out of Sheltered Honor Student Magazine. Beautiful, Crushworthy, Sheltered Honor Student Magazine. But I climbed up after her, deciding I’d go much stranger places with her than a tree house if it meant I could get a better idea of what happened to Eva-Kate that night, or at least gain the confidence that Liza herself shouldn’t be a suspect.
“We carved our names into the wood here.” She traced the letters spelling Evelyn Kathleen with her finger. “Not together, though; we never came up here at the same time.”
“Does that make you sad?”
“It didn’t used to,” she said. “But now that she’s gone, yeah, it does a little.”
“What happened to make you … I mean, did you always … hate each other?”
“No, I didn’t hate her. She hated me.”
“Can I … ask you why?”
Liza hesitated. Then sighed and said, “You know, I’m not really sure when it started. She always felt that our mom loved me more than she loved her, and she resented me for it.”
> “Was she right? Did your mom really love you more?”
“Yes,” she said, without missing a beat. “And I’m not surprised Eva-Kate could tell. Mom was never good to her; they had an … unfortunate relationship.”
“Oh.”
“And the hardest part for her was that she did everything my mom wanted. Everything Eva-Kate did was to get our mom’s love. But I did things my own way and had her love without ever trying. My mom had wanted us to be on TV ever since we were four … maybe even three years old. Eva-Kate thrived in front of the camera, and I hated it more than anything. I fought it every step of the way, while she ate it all up, filled herself up with it until it was all she was. But still, she pursued my mom’s love while my mom gave it all to me. And of course, I didn’t want it. All I wanted was for her to love Eva-Kate, so that Eva-Kate would stop hating me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s really fucked up.”
“That wasn’t even the bad part. That came later, when we’d been on Jennie and Jenny for a year and the producers decided they only needed to use one of us to play the role now that we were old enough to work extra hours.”
“So then you dropped out, right?”
“Wasn’t as simple as that. They wanted me to stay and her to leave.”
“Oh God.” I felt a twinge of sympathy pain for Eva-Kate, a sour edge cutting into my sternum. “Poor Eva-Kate.”
“She was the one who wanted it, and I was the one who wanted out. I had to beg them to choose her over me. I had to tell them I refused, so that their only options were her or nobody. They gave her the role, but she could never forget that they’d wanted me instead. It drove her crazy. I don’t think she ever got over it.”
“Do you think … I mean, could she have … done this to herself?”
“Suicide? Doubtful. She was the anti-suicide poster girl, remember?”
“Sure. But … when Rob left her … could it have triggered something … dark?”
Liza looked out the tree house window and was quiet for a moment. When she looked back at me her eyes were wet.
“Maybe.” She shifted her position. “Maybe she was doing drugs again. Was she?”
“Was she doing drugs?” I repeated the question, not understanding how she could be that naive. It was Hollywood. And Eva-Kate was a teenage millionaire.
“I’m not an idiot.” She read my mind. “I know she, like, did drugs. But I mean, was she back on painkillers? Opiates.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t know she had a problem with those.”
“She was always able to keep it out of the news. I just assumed she told you.”
“No, she didn’t. But she died from a knife wound, not an overdose.”
“Yeah, but maybe it was drug related. Like, maybe she was caught up in something. Something that went wrong.” She laughed sadly. “Listen to me, I watch too many movies.”
“I talked to Rob after the funeral,” I told her. “He said he was with you the night she died. Is that true?”
Her left eye twitched slightly.
“Yeah,” she said. “He was.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure! We were together almost all the time. We were at his condo all night, you can probably confirm that with the doorman. Why do you think he would kill her? It doesn’t even make sense.”
“Because of the texts.” I took a chance. “She wanted to break you up, so she showed them to you and you dumped him. He was furious. So he killed her.”
“Excuse me?” she laughed. “That’s your theory?”
“Kind of. Maybe.” I shrugged, second-guessing.
“You’re talking about the texts between him and Carolyn?”
“Is that the girl he—”
“Got pregnant. Yes. Carolyn Carr. I’ve known about those texts for a long time, Justine. I’ve known the whole story.”
“You have? How? Eva-Kate said if you ever found out you’d leave him. She said you would never be okay with it.”
“Goes to show how much she knew about me. Rob told me what happened even before we started dating. He didn’t want me to find out from someone else. Of course I was upset, but honesty means everything to me.”
“So then why did you break up with him?”
“Because he hurt Eva-Kate, and I love her. He didn’t kill her, but he broke her heart, and I hate that I was a part of that in any way. When she died I just looked at him and realized he’d never stop making me feel guilty. I still love him, but … it’s hard to explain. It has to be over, at least for now.”
“Okay, okay, right.” I thought quickly, my mind working overtime for answers. “So you knew about the texts, but Eva-Kate was going to release them to the public, and that would ruin his career. That’s a motive right there.”
“Justine.” She wiped her eyes. “He wanted his career to be over. He’s wanted a way out forever.”
“Sure, but it’s not just his career; if the story got out it would ruin his reputation. For life. Even after life … it would fuck with his legacy. Forever.”
“Would it really? They were both under eighteen. Celebrities have been forgiven for a lot worse.”
“Maybe…” She had a point.
“It doesn’t really matter,” she said. “Because he was with me. All night. The detectives will clear him as a suspect as soon as they confirm that with the building. If they haven’t already.”
“Okay,” I sighed, conceding. “Yeah, okay. I’m sorry I took up so much of your time. Thanks for your help.”
“I wish I had more to tell you,” she said, climbing back out onto the rope ladder. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”
“No,” I said, following her down. “It helps to know Rob was telling the truth. And it helps to know you didn’t hate your sister.”
“I didn’t,” she said, shielding her eyes from the sun. “I miss her a lot.”
As her hand rose up over her eyes, I caught a flash of the inside of her upper arm, smooth white flesh that peeked out when her sleeve fell back. There was a design tattooed onto it, delicate lines forming a brief squiggle. I wouldn’t have known what it was if I hadn’t seen it before on both Rob and Zander: VWWL.
“Can I ask you one more question?”
“Sure.” She squinted.
“What’s that tattoo on your arm? I saw it on Rob. Does it mean anything?”
“No,” she said quickly, blushing. “It’s just a design.”
“You got matching tattoos?”
“Yep.”
“Then why does Zander have it too?”
“You know Zander?” Her blush darkened.
“I’ve met him,” I said. “So are you three in some kind of polyamorous triad?”
“I really can’t talk about this,” she said. “You should probably go now.”
“Liza, please,” I begged, “help me find out who did this. If the tattoo has nothing to do with it, just tell me. Just tell me I’m wrong.”
She adjusted her glasses, eyes roving the sky, then the browning blades of grass.
“Fine,” she agreed finally. “The athame, did Eva-Kate ever tell you who gave it to her?”
“She said your mom did. That she had a penchant for the occult, and—”
“My mom?” she laughed. “Eva-Kate really said that? God, she was something else. No, it was a gift from Ruby.”
“Ruby Jones? The crystal healer?”
“Crystal healer by day,” she corrected me. “Something else entirely by night.”
“What is she by night?”
“She’s a hustler, that’s what. She rules her own little kingdom and she’s ruthless about it.”
“How so? What do you mean by—”
“Justine, you cannot tell anyone you heard this from me, okay?”
“Yes, yes, okay, of course. What is it?”
“The tattoo is a ticket into a very exclusive club. With membership you have access to the best parties in Los Angeles,
you get to mingle with the best agents and casting directors, you get the best drugs if you want them. When you’re in with Underworld, you’re in the center of everything. You’re as elite as it can get.”
“Underworld? Why have I never heard of it?”
She laughed. “Underworld Wonderland. Nobody’s heard of it who isn’t in it.”
“So, like, the first rule of Underworld Wonderland is don’t talk about Underworld Wonderland?” I joked.
“Pretty much,” she replied with a straight face, not joking.
“Oh.” I was lost and that old feeling was coming back, the feeling of being hopelessly on the outside. “And Eva-Kate was a member?”
Liza nodded. “Ruby’s dad was an original member from 1979 and now she’s in charge of who’s in and who’s out.”
And why were you in? She was the girl who supposedly wanted nothing to do with the Hollywood scene.
“And you think … what exactly?”
“I think Ruby is psycho,” she said. “And if you’ve met Zander and her other boys then you know there’s something really off there.”
“So, you mean—”
“I’ve already said way too much, Justine.” She put her hands up apologetically. “If you want more, you’ll have to talk to Ruby herself.”
CHAPTER 6
JUSTINE CHILDS SEARCHES FOR ANSWERS
The next day, a Tuesday, was pleasantly drizzly. My Uber driver’s name was Fabrina and she blasted Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne as we headed back down the 405 and onto the 5, riding along the beach. Yes, that’s Fabrina, like Sabrina but with an F. The digital clock in her silver Honda Civic said it was noon.
I’d briefly considered going to the police with my new information, but I knew all along that I wouldn’t. What would I have told them? That I thought Rob Donovan might have murdered Eva-Kate Kelly because she was blackmailing him with text screenshots? Or that maybe it was the resentful sister who shot the messenger when Eva-Kate showed her said screenshots? Both were semi-decent theories, but I had nothing to back either up, and according to Liza there was proof to corroborate their alibis. So I’d move on to Ruby. What did it mean to be a hustler? A ruthless ruler of her own kingdom? Had she really given that athame to Eva-Kate? When they tested it for fingerprints, would they find hers?