B is for Bad Girls (Malibu Mystery Book 2)

by Rebecca Cantrell

  Polly patted Monaco’s knee. “Go ahead, dear.”

  “I’d like to welcome you to the morning support group here at Waves.” Monaco beamed at everyone. She looked so manic that Sofia glanced over her shoulder for a camera crew. Hard to believe that she overacted off-camera, too.

  “Remember that whatever you say is kept in the strictest of confidence, and likewise don’t blab anything that anyone else says either.” Monaco flipped her long black hair behind her shoulder, and one manicured hand floated to her lap. “Or put it on the Internet.”

  It sounded as if she’d gotten the rote speech a little wrong, but Sofia nodded with everyone else. She wanted Drug Addict Sofia to stay under the radar, and keeping everything off the Internet sounded good.

  “Amber, do you have anything to share?” Monaco smiled at the blond girl next to her.

  Sofia recognized her, too. Amber Lindberg was Monaco’s sidekick. Amber’s parents owned a couple of restaurants, but she wasn’t anywhere near Monaco’s league financially. Her only role on the TV show seemed to be to agree with Monaco about everything. Oh, and to help her decide what to buy while shopping. She was blond where Monaco was dark, short where Monaco was tall, and meek where Monaco was outspoken.

  “Thanks, Monaco.” Amber looked down at her hands. “My name is Amber, and I’m an addict.”

  The way she avoided eye contact made Sofia wonder. Either she wasn’t comfortable talking in the group, or she wasn’t an addict. There was a secret there.

  “Good morning, Amber,” everyone chorused. Sofia knew to join in this time. She was getting the hang of this meeting thing. She’d taken lessons on choral speaking for her old job.

  Sofia crossed one leg over the other and starting swinging it. Restlessness. Check. She thought about biting her nails, but decided against it. It would make her look anxious, but then she’d have to grow them back. Plus she might need them to scratch someone, although she couldn’t picture anyone here attacking her. But Brendan always said never to let your guard down.

  “I’ve been thinking about how drugs and parties can dim your light.” Amber wasn’t the brightest bulb, at least not on the TV show, so dimming probably wouldn’t do her any favors. “How different our lives would be if we weren’t addicts.”

  “Please don’t use ‘we’ language,” Polly admonished her. “Use ‘I’ statements.”

  “I guess I’m thinking about life is all.” Amber fell silent. “And how we should get off drugs.”

  “I should get off drugs,” Polly corrected. “Remember how Monaco took responsibility with ‘I’ words? That’s what you need to do.”

  “I’m sorry,” Amber said, which sounded like an ‘I’ statement to Sofia, but maybe there was something she wasn’t getting. “I think this partying hasn’t really helped us.”

  “Helped you,” said Monaco.

  “Helped me,” Amber repeated. “Or anyone.”

  She really didn’t have the hang of the ‘I’ statements, but at least she seemed sincere. On the show, she seemed like the innocent one, more strait-laced than Monaco. Maybe she’d come to rehab to support her friend. Or maybe she was different in real life than she was on TV. Just about everyone was.

  “That’s why it’s important we stay clean,” Amber said. “Really important.”

  “Important that I stay clean,” Monaco gave her a dirty look. “‘I’ statements.”

  “I should work hard to stay clean when I get out tomorrow.” The words sounded like a threat.

  The two of them were getting out the next day. Sofia would have to talk to them today.

  Monaco moved on to the other woman in the group, the most famous of all of them—Brandi Basher. She was a bona fide rock star. She’d recorded a couple of platinum albums, won a Grammy, sold out stadiums, and was known for her no-bullshit candor. Sofia had hung a poster of Brandi Basher in a leather jacket and a nose ring above her desk when she was a teenager. Brandi didn’t let anyone jerk her around.

  She’d been arrested a few months before for sprinkling a fan’s ashes around the Y in the Hollywood sign. She’d had to knock out a park ranger with a beer bottle to get to it, so there was probably an assault charge in there as well as some kind of drug offense. Sofia was willing to bet Waves was Brandi’s court-ordered rehab.

  “I’m Brandi Basher, and I’m an addict.” Brandi spoke in a bored sing-song. She ran a be-ringed hand through her spiked green and orange hair. Her middle finger stuck out a little more than the others when she did.

  “Good morning, Brandi,” everyone chorused. Sofia said it louder this time.

  Brandi took a cigarette pack out of the cuff of her jeans and fiddled with it. She couldn’t light it, because they’d been told there was no smoking in circle. “I pass.”

  Passing was an option? Sofia’s stomach unclenched. She didn’t have to invent a complicated drug-addict history and perform it in front of this small but far-too-knowledgeable audience. A couple of days of passing and she’d be able to get out of there without making anything up.

  Monaco pressed her lips together. Apparently she didn’t like people who passed. Polly nodded to Brandi as if she were relieved about the pass.

  “You’re new here.” Monaco seemed to be the one running the meeting. She smiled at Sofia. “Go ahead.”

  Drug Addict Sofia had already decided she would base her personality on Brandi. Brandi was the coolest addict here. “My name is Sofia, and I’m an addict.”

  “Good morning, Sofia,” everyone said, and Sofia had to admit she liked being good-morninged.

  “I’m going to pass, too.” She waited for the meeting to move on without her, studying the sun on the pink bougainvillea.

  Monaco shook her head. “You can’t pass on the first day.”

  Where was that written down? Sofia looked at Brandi, who gave her a lopsided smile and rubbed her middle finger on a barbell piercing her eyebrow.

  “You can do it,” Polly said. “Everyone here was new once, and you have to give to get. It works if you work it.”

  Sofia remembered Jenna’s comments about The Book of Polly and how Craig had started using all these weird pat phrases.

  Everyone stared at Sofia. Monaco and Amber looked earnest, Polly like she couldn’t wait to hear what Sofia might say, and Brandi like she was writing a new song in her head. Probably something with lyrics about how idiotic the whole idea of high-priced rehab was.

  “OK.” Sofia wondered what Drug Addict Sofia would say next. “I’m, you know, trying to stop using drugs. That’s why I’m here.”

  “What kind?” Monaco asked.

  “OxyContin.”

  “And?” Monaco prompted.

  “And I hope this place will help?” Sofia wasn’t sure what the right answer was. She looked at Brandi for help, but Brandi had balled up the cellophane from her cigarette package and was tilting it back and forth to catch light.

  “It will only help you if you let it.” Monaco sniffed. “You have to give to get.”

  Those phrases again. Maybe Drug Addict Sofia should use them, be a compliant addict and say all the right things. That would make Polly like her. But she didn’t want to. She crossed her arms and kept quiet.

  “You’re supposed to say what it was like being an addict, what happened to you, and what it’s like now.” Amber touched Sofia’s arm gently. “It’s scary the first time, but it gets better. Really.”

  Sofia felt like a jerk. She was going to have to lie, and suddenly it felt like she was lessening everybody else’s truth, mocking them. She closed her eyes and took a breath from deep in her belly button. She let the inhalation bring in yellow light and creativity, and the exhalation take away darkness and fear. This was how she got ready to perform.

  She hunched her shoulders a little to give herself a slouch, crossed her legs so that one ankle rested on the opposite knee, and tried to become Drug Addict Sofia. Acting was a lot easier when someone else wrote the lines.

  “My name is Sofia.” Her voice s
uddenly had a hint of a Hispanic accent, even though she didn’t usually have one. She barely spoke Spanish. Maybe she was channeling the dad who’d run off when they were kids. For all she knew, he was a drug addict. “I started taking OxyContin when I fell off a horse during rehearsal. My knee was in a lot of pain, but we couldn’t stop filming, so I had to keep going.” It hadn’t actually been that bad, but they didn’t need to know that. “It hurt, and I liked how the Oxy filled out in my knee like a warm bath, washing the pain away. It took the edge off everything.”

  Brandi nodded as if she agreed with her. OK, that took care of what it was like doing Oxy. It left what had happened and where she was now.

  She felt herself gaining confidence, sinking into the character. “I feel like I’m under a lot of pressure, and I get overwhelmed and want to escape from everything. It’s like I fall down into a hole.”

  Polly leaned forward, her face screwed up into an expression of sympathy. Sofia didn’t want to like her, but that might be hard. She seemed so sincere. It must be how she got people to let their guard down.

  “And?” Monaco asked.

  “It was easy to get prescriptions for it. I got the names of a couple of doctors.” Was she borrowing that from a Lifetime movie script? If so, she hoped the writer had done her homework. “And I never stopped taking it. But I think I should.”

  Brandi snorted. Apparently, Sofia wasn’t selling this enough.

  “I moved on to … other stuff.” She didn’t know the logical progression. OxyContin straight to heroin? Lots of steps in between? Better to keep it vague. “And one morning I found myself walking along a beach and I didn’t know how I got there or what happened to me.”

  She looked down at her hands. She’d clasped them together and they were twisting around. Her hair fell across her face. She left it there. “I mean, I guess I know. But I don’t want to talk about it. Or repeat it. So, I came here.”

  She decided crying was too much, but she felt she could do it if she needed to. She thought of herself, real Sofia, wandering along a beach half dressed, all alone and too messed up to help herself. That was sad. She breathed that in and out a few times.

  “What do you want right now?” Amber prompted.

  To get the hell out of here and make Aidan come to rehab instead. “To get my head on straight. To not do any drugs today.”

  Everyone sat silent, as if they expected her to say more, but Sofia thought she’d made a fine start. Drug Addict Sofia was only going to dribble out revelations.

  “Thank you for your honesty, Sofia,” said Brandi, which kind of surprised her and made her feel guilty.

  Monaco spoke again. “I haven’t used for over a month, since we got in here.”

  That meant Monaco and Amber must have overlapped with Craig.

  “Last night I heard somebody drive by on the street with the car radio cranked up,” Monaco said. “I couldn’t hear the words, just the beat, and it sounded so hot that I wanted to climb over the wall and jump in. But I didn’t.”

  Muffin would probably have eaten her if she’d tried.

  “Good for you, Monaco!” Polly beamed at her. “You’re learning to resist those urges, to make healthy decisions.”

  That seemed like a stretch, but Sofia didn’t say anything. Drug Addict Sofia would keep quiet. The sun made her feel sleepy and relaxed. She sat up straighter and fidgeted, trying to think restless thoughts.

  Soon after, the meeting broke up, and Brandi headed for the front gate toward the ashtray. It was the only place they were allowed to smoke. Sofia followed her and stood next to her, glancing out through the gate at the empty street. Neat houses lined both sides, the occupants probably already at work. Well, she was at work, too.

  Up close, Brandi looked older than she had on Sofia’s poster. Her skin was papery, and a long white scar ran along her hairline down to her ear. She lit a match on her thumbnail and fired up a cigarette. “Want one?”

  “I don’t smoke,” Sofia answered, realizing that was a lame thing to say.

  Brandi took a long drag on the cigarette and blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth away from Sofia. “Don’t do drugs either.”

  Sofia knew better than to react to that. “How long are you here for?”

  “Thirty days,” Brandi said. “My publicist thinks it’ll help my image.”

  “When did you get here?” Even this early in the day, heat shimmered off the pavement behind Brandi’s head. The street outside looked like a mirage.

  “Last week.” Brandi flicked the cigarette between the bars of the gate, and Sofia wanted to lecture her about fire safety, but she didn’t. “Gus is some kind of Fascist. Polly’s as sweet as a caramel apple, and just as likely to pull out your teeth, especially the gold ones.”

  “What makes you say that?” Sofia’s heart had sped up.

  “She’s latched onto the richest one here.”

  “You’re not doing so bad, from what I’ve read.”

  “You can’t latch onto me. I might as well be made out of glass.” Brandi smiled with half her mouth. “Of course, glass breaks. Just part of being a rock star.”

  “Did you know Craig Williams?”

  “Subject change?” Brandi lit a new cigarette. “Or are we talking about the same thing?”

  Sofia shrugged.

  “I partied with him a few times. Liked his sister.” Brandi flicked ash through the gate. “He shattered in the end, though, didn’t he?”

  For a long moment neither of them spoke.

  “You do want to stay away from drugs. They’re for bad girls,” Brandi said. “And you’re not really a bad girl, are you?”

  “Is anybody?”

  “We’re all bad girls here.” Brandi took another long drag on her cigarette. “Or, at least, that’s what Gus tells us.”

  “Does he?” He shouldn’t be working in rehab if he was that judgmental.

  “You’ll need to fail the urine test to stay.” Brandi smiled. “Which I imagine you won’t.”

  “Why would you think that?” She’d just have to keep stalling.

  “Oxy? Plus other things?” Brandi laughed. “You might fool Polly, but you don’t fool me. You’re a tourist here. On vacation.”

  “Why would I do that?” She could think of a lot of places she’d rather visit. Like anywhere.

  “Kick-start a flagging career? Get attention? Settle a bet?”

  Sofia kept her face completely composed. She wasn’t going to let Brandi know what she was thinking. She wrapped her fingers around the wrought iron and waited to see what else Brandi would say.

  “If you don’t have a dirty urine test by the end of the day, you’ll be back on the drug-filled streets. And you won’t find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  “What am I looking for?” Sofia asked.

  “Not the same thing as me.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Peace. And the personality that would make me think peace is a good thing.” Brandi grinned, and Sofia had to grin back.

  “Nothing wrong with peace.”

  “It’s booooring.” Brandi rattled the gate, and Muffin loped over. “Don’t worry, Rin Tin Tin. I’m not busting out.”

  Muffin sat next to them. Sofia petted him again. He let her, but it was clear he wasn’t interested. She scratched the special spot behind his ear that had made the dog on set go crazy, and got the tiniest tail wag. Maybe she could win him over.

  “We test after the meeting,” Brandi said. “If you reach under the toilet tank, there will be a cup stuck up against the bottom with double-sided tape.”

  Sofia looked up from the dog. “What?”

  “I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m hoping it’s to screw over Polly, so I’m on board. I’ll put a sample into that cup. My urine won’t pass any drug test, and I’ll share my polluted bounty with you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sofia said.

  “You have two choices,” Brandi said. “If
you want dirty urine, I can leave you some under the toilet tank. If you want clean urine, you have to talk to Amber. She gives Monaco her samples, but I bet she’d sell you some if you needed it.”

  Sofia considered it. These days she spent too much time talking about pee.

  Brandi turned and walked toward the front door without looking back.

  Sofia turned her back to the surveillance camera and pulled a napkin out of her pocket. She’d folded it around a piece of bacon at breakfast. She held it out to Muffin, but he turned his head away. She’d expected him to be trained not to take food from strangers, but she’d learned a trick from a TV dog trainer. His dog wouldn’t eat anything, unless the trainer gave it to him with his left hand.

  Carefully, she switched the bacon to her left hand, making sure that her body blocked the camera. Muffin leaned over and delicately pulled the bacon from her fingers. He gulped it in one bite, then licked her fingers clean. She bent down and kissed him between the ears. They weren’t friends yet, but it was a start.

  CHAPTER 13

  Sofia found Brandi’s cup where she’d said it would be. It was on the side away from the camera, and she pulled it free without being seen. She set it down on the white tile floor and wondered what to do with it. Should she trust Brandi? Maybe it was exactly what Polly was looking for, and maybe it was lemonade. Even if she could get her nose down there without the camera catching it, she wasn’t about to sniff it to find out.

  She looked at her own empty specimen cup. Brandi might have lied but, basically, Sofia didn’t have a choice. Brandi’s urine was way more likely than hers to show traces of drugs, and Aidan couldn’t get her a tainted sample in time. If she got kicked out, they might never find out what had happened to Craig.

  She leaned to the side as if messing with the toilet paper. Working one-handed, she tipped Brandi’s sample toward her own cup.

  “Hurry up in there!” Monaco called through the door, and Sofia almost spilled the precious pee all over the floor. If she really had a shy bladder, that would have been enough to clench her right up.