Trashed

by Alison Gaylin

  There was another long pause. And then Hart said, “Hold me.”

  Simone threw a hand in front of her mouth to contain a gasp.

  She put her eye up to the crack in the door and saw Maurice cradling Hart in his arms, Hart whispering, “I don’t ever want this to end.”

  “It won’t.”

  “I want our secret to be safe.”

  “It will.” Maurice pressed Chris Hart to his powerful body and kissed him, deeply.

  This was Chris Hart’s secret. Not murder.

  As Chris lay back on the leather couch, pulling his bodyguard to him, Simone cracked open the closet and stole out.

  “Did you hear something?” said Maurice.

  Simone dropped to the floor, behind the desk.

  “No,” said Hart.

  “You sure?”

  Simone held her breath. Stay still. Stay perfectly still. . . .

  “Yeah.”

  She peered around the desk and saw Maurice moving on top of Hart. Staying down, she crept to the door as noiselessly as she could.

  Slipping through the door, she heard Chris say something, and her breath caught in her throat. She hurried through the hallway. It wasn’t until she reached the stairs that she realized what he had said: I love you.

  She ran down the stairs. The maid said, “Get lost up there?”

  “Yeah,” said Simone.

  “Easy to do,” she said. “I think that guy left without you, though.”

  By the time she got outside, the van was heading through the open gate. She tore out after it, but the driver peeled away. For nine hundred bucks, he could wait.

  At least she was outside the gate. She sprinted back to the side street and got back into her Jeep and collapsed onto her steering wheel, thinking, Great job, Simone. She’d wanted to help capture a killer—the killer who had taken the four lives, including her best friend’s. But all she’d done was to yank a leading man out of the closet, and uncover a club owner’s baby fetish.

  Simone closed her eyes. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, so she did neither, just breathed.

  Her cell phone rang. She picked it up. An unfamiliar woman’s voice said, “Simone Glass?” The voice was efficient and mechanical, and something about it made Simone start to tremble.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “I’m calling regarding Neil Walker,” said the woman. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Walker had been rushed to Valley Memorial Hospital after a passing police officer spotted his Saab upside down in Coldwater Canyon and found him inside, bleeding and unconscious. The woman, whose name was Dr. Marshall, told Simone all of this in a monotone that bordered on robotic. “We found your number in his cell phone,” she said now. “I hope I’m calling the right person.”

  “You are.”

  “Because if you’re just someone he’s called a lot, a business associate, maybe, I don’t want to trouble you with—”

  “You are calling the right person.”

  “Good,” she said.

  Simone was rocking back and forth in front of her steering wheel, desperately trying to get her thoughts in order. She had heard about people collapsing from sheer stress. She had never quite understood that, but now . . . now she felt as if she were on the verge. “What is his condition?”

  “Serious but stable.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s had twelve stitches in his head and lost quite a lot of blood,” said the doctor. “He has a severe concussion, edema in the—”

  “But what does it mean? Is he going to be okay?”

  “He’s no longer critical.”

  “No longer critical?”

  “He’s been weaned off the respirator.”

  The blood pounded in her ears. She wanted not to cry, but to bawl like a baby. “Is he going to be okay?” she said.

  “I can’t tell you that, ma’am. I’m not psychic.”

  Simone said nothing.

  Devoid of emotion as she was, Dr. Marshall must have known Simone was about to lose it, because she put her on with a nurse, who gave her directions to the hospital.

  Simone drove there, numb beyond tears, phrases running through her mind that she didn’t understand: Serious but stable, no longer critical, weaned off the respirator. . . .

  After Simone arrived at the hospital, the nurse at the front desk told her that Walker was in ICU on the third floor. She ran down three different hallways looking for the intensive care unit, feeling like she was trapped in a maze in a terrible, endless nightmare.

  When she finally found ICU, she picked up the phone next to the locked door and said, “I’m here to see Neil Walker.”

  “Your name?” said the nurse.

  “Simone Glass.”

  “Relation to the patient?”

  She heard herself say, “I’m his girlfriend.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t—”

  “Please!” Her voice came out choked, desperate.

  The nurse said, “All right. But just for a few minutes.”

  Except for the bandage around his head, and the oxygen tube in his nose, and the IVs, Walker might have been asleep. He looked very pale, but peaceful, calm, breathing deeply. Simone gazed at his chest, going up and down under the clean white sheets, and thought, Weaned off the respirator. Good for you. She touched his face, felt the coolness of his skin. “You better not go away,” she whispered.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now, ma’am,” said the nurse.

  “Two more minutes?”

  She sighed. “Okay.”

  Across from the bed was a metal closet, and when she opened it and saw the clothes he’d been wearing that morning, Simone crumbled inside. She put her hand on the shirt and her eyes blurred. She stole a quick glance at the door, then hugged the shirt to her, like some war widow in a corny old movie.

  One week ago I didn’t even know Neil Walker.

  As she let the shirt go, she felt something in the front pocket . . . a microcassette recorder. Simone pulled it out, along with a diskette, the blank one he’d brought to Randi’s that day. She looked at the diskette now, and saw Walker’s handwriting on it. “Dylan Leeds File,” it said. Simone smiled a little. “Nice work, Neil,” she whispered, as the nurse came back in.

  On her way out of ICU, Simone met Dr. Marshall, who, despite her unfortunate voice, was a surprisingly attractive blonde whose hair was cut in a sophisticated bob. “Sorry we couldn’t let you stay longer, but he’s still in serious condition and you’re not family,” she said, like one note on a piano, played over and over.

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll call if there’s any change in his condition.”

  “Thanks.”

  Simone headed down the hallway to the ICU waiting room. It had been empty when she first arrived, but now she saw one person sitting there—Nigel.

  Simone said, “What are you doing here?”

  He glared at her. “I might ask you the same thing.”

  “Nigel, he’s my friend. He’s in serious condition. Can we please just cut the crap?”

  Nigel sighed. “Well, I’m chuffed he’s not critical anymore. ”

  “What,” Simone said, “are you doing here?”

  He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. “Oh, what’s the point,” he said. “Neil Walker is my spy.”

  She gaped at him. “Your Interloper spy was . . . Then why did you—why did you fire me?”

  “Just because a bloke is your fucking spy, that’s no reason to trust him with your reporters.” Nigel raised an eyebrow. “Probably less of a reason to trust him, isn’t it?”

  “He never said anything to me about it.”

  “Right, well, he isn’t proud of it,” he said. “Only reason he spies for me is Nia Lawson. He feels guilty.”

  “Everyone told me you had something against Nia Lawson.”

  Nigel exhaled heavily. “If I t
ell you this, you must promise never to mention it again.”

  “Of course.”

  “I have your word.”

  “Yes, Nigel.”

  “Right then,” he said. “Neil used to work for me.”

  “At the Asteroid?”

  He nodded. “Brilliant reporter. Bit of a . . . conscience problem, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Neil was posing as a bartender at an event. He started chatting up Nia, they exchanged phone numbers, became friends. . . . To make a long story short, she told him about her and Calloway months before it was reported anywhere else. How does he respond? Not only does he reveal that he works for a tabloid, he agrees not to tell anyone. Because she begged him not to, and he felt sorry for her. Months later, Nia Lawson is gassing off to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the tabloid media—except us!” He shook his head. “Willard almost fired me because of Neil Walker’s crisis of conscience.”

  Simone stared at him. Neil has a conscience.

  Nigel stood up. “I am chuffed he’s no longer critical, though,” he said.

  Before he left the room, Simone thought of another question for him. “Nigel, your top secret Chrylan source. The one who gave you the card key.”

  He looked at her.

  “It was Chris Hart, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m not even going to ask you where you got that information. ”

  “It was though, right?”

  “No comment,” said Nigel. Then he walked out the door.

  At six p.m., Dr. Marshall stopped into the waiting room and told Simone she may as well go home, she’d call her with any news. The whole way back, she thought about Walker, and his crisis of conscience; how maybe he was sort of like an overused teddy bear—dirty, frayed, worse for the wear, but deep down full of clean, white stuffing. Maybe she was the same.

  It wasn’t until she pulled up in front of her apartment that she remembered the Dylan Leeds diskette—not to mention the microcassette tape, which she played as she was booting up her laptop. She heard a whoosh of air and realized it had been recorded in a car. Then she heard Walker’s voice. “Chevy Impala, late seventies, early eighties. Light green.” The screech of tires, then a thud, then Walker again. “Shit! 247CDR.”

  Simone’s stomach clenched up. It wasn’t an accident. He was run off the road.

  Simone called Sandiford and Elliot, left voice-mail messages for each of them with the plate number, the car description, and asked Elliot to run it with the DMV for her. Sandiford could do the same thing, of course, but she didn’t want to depend on him to call her back. And she needed to know who that car belonged to.

  Her computer booted up. She had a couple of e-mails, but she decided to check those later. She had a diskette to read. She slipped it into her computer, and its contents popped up on her screen: one file, called “DylanL.” She double-clicked on it, and then the screen read “Dylan Leeds, actress,” with three files underneath: “Movies,” “Roles,” “Dates.”

  Dates?

  Simone got “Movies” out of the way first. There was only one listed: Devil’s Road. There would be no more.

  Next, she clicked “Dates” and saw a long list of men’s names. Most were unfamiliar, but she recognized a few: Lazlo Gant. Instantly, she recalled the way Julie had looked at him, this oversized cherub of a man, at Blake Moss’s party . . . Blake Moss’s name was on the list too. Simone clicked on it, saw a series of dates, times, dollar amounts reaching into the thousands. . . .

  “God,” Simone whispered. “She was numbers.”

  She found herself remembering a high school sleepover at her house, how she and Julie had stayed up until four in the morning, talking mostly about the future.

  ... so right after graduation, I’m going back out to LA, staying at my cousin’s. She’s already said that’s fine.

  But, Julie, graduation isn’t for another year and a half.

  I know. But an actor prepares. Get it?

  Umm . . .

  That’s the name of Stanislavsky’s book. It’s like the acting bible. I’ve read it three times.

  Cool.

  My cousin works at Amblin’.

  Where?

  Steven Spielberg’s company. She’s a production assistant. She totally says she can get me an agent. Of course, I don’t plan on signing with the first one I meet. You have to be smart about these things.

  What had happened to Julie in LA? How had she gone from Stanislavsky to “dates”? Simone wished she could ask her that, wished she could look into those guileless eyes and just ask, Why? Simone’s deepest secret had cost her Julie’s friendship. But Julie had taken her secret to the grave.

  Simone clicked on “Roles.” She expected to see the Devil’s Road character, Delilah. But listed instead was:

  Partner/Wife.

  And when she double-clicked on that, she saw a legal document with signature spaces for Dylan Leeds and Chris Hart. It was binding, promising Julie $5 million up front, with an additional $8 million for each year she stayed “partnered” to Chris. There was a $20 million bonus upon legal marriage, with an additional $10 million for each child “born within wedlock.”

  The contract lasted eight years. And when Simone clicked on an icon at the bottom of the page, she saw a similar contract, with slightly higher prices, between Chris Hart and Lara Chandler.

  Simone’s jaw dropped open and stayed there.

  She thought of what Chris had said to Julie in the alleyway, and the conversation took on a whole new meaning. I want you. More than anyone else. Do you have any idea how perfect we are? He wasn’t sweet-talking a mistress. He was telling an actress she was perfect for the part.

  Me and Chris. It’s different than you think.

  Simone thought of that prom picture of Julie and Todd, those smiles of excitement, anticipation. And Lara’s words finally made sense. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. I feel sorry for you.

  Poor Julie, thought Simone. Poor, poor Julie.

  Simone put the diskette away and checked her e-mail. There was one from her sister:Hi Monie. In case you missed the Devil’s Road press conference, they announced that the premiere will take place as scheduled, on Friday at Mann’s Chinese. As a “tribute” to Julie, they’re not canceling. Touching, huh? (Yeah, right . . . )

  Love,

  G

  PS. Attached is an invitation to Julie’s funeral tomorrow. I can’t fly out for it, but I thought you might like to go.

  Simone smiled. “I missed you, Greta,” she said to the screen. “Welcome back to my planet.”

  Simone noticed another e-mail, the return address of which was SwampDemon@yahoo.com. She assumed it was spam, but the subject line made her wonder: “Your boyfriend . . .”

  Sure, it could be a Viagra ad, but the ellipses bothered her. She opened it. The message began with more ellipses:... is out of the way!

  The rest of the screen consisted of a photo, and as she waited for it to load, Simone felt that horrible tingle of fear sliding up and down her back, pressing into her neck.

  And when she finally saw it, she didn’t gasp, didn’t scream—she just thought, I knew it. It was a photo of a black Saab, upside down in Coldwater Canyon.

  Simone triple-bolted her door, left another voice mail for Sandiford about the e-mail message, and slept on the couch fully dressed, clutching her cell phone. She slept soundly, as only someone thoroughly exhausted could do, but as soon as the sun eased its way through her closed curtains, Simone was awake, and thinking about that e-mail.

  SwampDemon. What did that mean? Who was this person in the green Impala? And why did they want Neil out of the way? An answer to that last question popped into her head, but she didn’t want to think about it very hard.

  At eight the next morning, her phone rang. It was Sandiford. He had gotten her messages. He thanked Simone for the information, told her not to worry, said that every day his office was following up on leads. He told her he would learn who sent
that e-mail if it killed him. He told her he would ask the North Hollywood Division to patrol her street, and in the meantime, “Please lock your doors, close your windows, check your garbage every day.”

  Simone hung up more frightened than she’d been in the first place. Cops and doctors had a way of doing that, comforting you by way of terror. Simone was making herself coffee when Elliot called.

  “I ran the DMV check on those plates,” he said.

  Her mouth went dry. “Who does the car belong to?” “Someone named Dolores King.”

  “A woman?”

  “Looks like it. Name sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Maybe it’s just one of those names that sounds like it should belong to a famous person.” She could hear Elliot drumming his keyboard. “I’m gonna IMDb her, just for the hell of it.” About five seconds later, Elliot said, “Oh, my God!”

  “What?”

  He took a breath. “Okay. Now, I’m not sure it’s the same person in that Impala, but there was apparently a B-movie actress back in the eighties called Dolores King,” he said. “She did a bunch of straight-to-video movies. Then she disappeared. Without a trace.”

  “Okay,” Simone said slowly. “But why the ‘Oh, my God’?”

  “Again, I’m not sure if this is the same Dolores, but remember my sidebar? ‘Cut Throats Through the Ages’ or whatever we wound up calling it?”

  Simone’s heart pounded. She knew.

  Elliot said, “The wife of the schlocky director, Reginald King . . . the one who wrote the tell-all about him . . .”

  “Her name was Dolores,” Simone guessed.

  “Right. But like I said, I don’t know if it’s the same one.”

  Simone closed her eyes. “The movies she was in. What were they called?”

  “Let’s see . . . Vampire Brides, Zombie Bloodbath, Swamp Demon.”

  Simone felt a hard chill, a horror. “It is the same Dolores King,” she said.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Simone looked through her wastebaskets. Then she put on some rubber kitchen gloves, went outside to the Dumpster in the alley next to her apartment building, pulled out every bag and searched through them, looking for something that might have belonged to Julie Curtis. She did this without hesitation, careful only with broken glass.