“Are you in contact at all with Rick’s family?”
His family hated my guts.
But the smile stays in place.
I’m not sure why we’re talking about this. Rick’s death was five years ago.
“Unfortunately, no. I think it was too painful.”
“What was it that helped you heal from that loss?”
“Music.” I smile. “Having people in my life who are incredibly supportive. And time, honestly.”
“Good for you. I’m glad you’re doing well.”
“Thank you.”
“Cut.”
Diane sags in her seat as soon as the camera is turned off.
“What’s this all about?” I ask her. “Why all the questions about Rick? He’s been gone for a long time.”
“Because next week is the fifth anniversary of his death.” She looks at me and frowns. “Didn’t your people tell you this episode is about remembering Rick?”
No. Because if they had, I wouldn’t have done it, and it pisses me off that Donald left that out when he called.
I should have known.
“I must not have gotten the memo,” I mutter.
“I’m sorry.” Diane looks sincere as she frowns. “I really am. I would have talked with you more before the interview if I’d known.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“Can I ask you some questions, off camera?”
“Sure.”
Yvette comes over to powder our noses.
“Did you talk to him that morning, before the accident?”
“I did,” I confirm with a tight nod. I don’t trust Diane to keep our conversation confidential, so I’m especially conscious of my words.
“What was his mental state that day?”
“He was tired,” I reply. “But aside from that, I think he was fine.”
“Not angry or upset about anything?”
I smile, not willing in the least bit to confide in Diane about my last conversation with Rick.
“Not when he spoke with me,” I reply. “So, what are we doing next?”
The director steps over, notes in his hand.
“We’re going down to the waterfront to let you two take a walk and chat as if you’re two friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time. And then we’ll come back inside, and you can sing some songs on the piano.”
“Okay. Let’s do it.” I hop off the chair and smile at Levi. “But I don’t want anyone to forget; no shots of the front of this house.”
I already put any personal photos of the family away from prying eyes. I didn’t just put them in a closet, I took them to Nat and Luke’s house just to be safe.
People are nosy.
“Action!”
We’re walking on the sidewalk along the waterfront. There are cameras in front of us and behind us, but Diane and I are just walking casually.
We both changed our clothes. It’ll look like we’ve spent several days together.
“One of the things that your fans love about you is your willingness to be accessible to them. You interact on social media, almost every day. Why is that so important to you?”
“Well, I gave up trying to fight social media a long time ago. And, yes, there are some pitfalls to having your life out there, exposed for all to see.”
Like crazy-ass stalkers.
“But for the most part, it’s fun to interact with fans. They’re supportive and funny. So funny.”
“Sometimes, they aren’t nice,” she reminds me.
“I think that’s true in every walk of life. Sometimes, people aren’t nice in real life either.”
“You recently had a bit of a social media hiccup when a video surfaced of you and a man in a restaurant.”
My face is neutral, my voice even.
But, man, I hate this conversation.
“Yeah, sometimes I think there are trolls who try to turn something simple into a big deal.”
“So you’re saying that wasn’t a big deal.”
“It really wasn’t.”
“The waitress sounded pretty horrible. I saw the video.”
I nod. “She wasn’t very gracious, but I really just wanted to leave. I didn’t want a scene. I think the whole situation was blown out of proportion.”
“Well, one of the things that’s been especially talked about since that video is the guy you were with.”
I can’t help the smile that spreads over my lips.
“Ah, I see that smile. What can you tell us about him?”
“What if I said I didn’t want to tell you anything about him?”
“Come on, Starla. We’ve all seen him. Give us a little something.”
“It’s new,” I reply, looking up at Levi, who’s behind the camera in front of us. “And it’s going very well. That’s all I’ll say for now.”
“No chance of him speaking with us on camera?”
I laugh and shake my head no. “Absolutely not.”
~Levi~
“My ass has grown,” Starla says. She’s sitting next to me on the couch, her legs thrown over mine as she munches on popcorn. “I need to work on that.”
“Your ass is fine.”
Her interview is on television, and she’s watching with rapt attention. She’s been critiquing every movement, every word.
She’s so damn hard on herself.
The interview is almost over, and they’re showing Starla at the piano with Diane sitting next to her, listening to Starla sing. I could tell while watching the interview in person that Diane likes Starla. She was engaging, and the look in her eyes said fan.
But you just never know what the press is going to say or how they will spin a story. Starla’s been a nervous wreck about it for days. I’m glad the interview is airing so she can stop worrying about it.
“As you can see, Starla is enjoying her vacation, her time away from the spotlight for just a little while. But I think she’ll be ready to get back to work shortly.”
“Such a great interview, Diane,” her co-anchor, Marty Randall says. “Did she talk any more about Rick and his tragic death?”
“You know, Marty, we did talk a bit off camera. I could really get the sense that she still grieves for Rick deeply, and may even feel some guilt where his death is concerned.”
“Really? How so?” Marty asks.
“Yeah, how so?” Starla asks, sitting up.
“Well, she mentioned that when she spoke to Rick the morning of his death, that he seemed tired and just not himself.”
“I never said that.”
Diane continues. “Perhaps they fought or had a disagreement, and Rick was angry when he got in that car.”
“A lover’s spat, perhaps?” Marty asks.
“We don’t know, and frankly, Starla didn’t say more than that. I can only speculate.”
“A great loss to the world of sports, that’s for sure,” Marty replies with a grave nod before they go to a montage of photos of Rick, some with Starla, before fading to his dates of birth and death, and then ending the show.
“Fuckers,” Starla mutters, pacing the living room. “They basically just accused me of killing him.”
“Well, I don’t know if they did that.”
She looks over at me as if to say, seriously?
“Okay, they made it sound bad.”
“Why do they always have to try to put words in my mouth?” she demands. “It’s ridiculous. I never said that we fought. I simply said Rick seemed tired. And she just had to run off with it. Now we’ll have more social media shit where people will post polls. Do you think Starla caused Rick’s death?”
She reaches for her phone.
“I’m putting an end to this bullshit.” She puts the phone on speaker and sits on the edge of the couch.
“I take it you just saw the spot,” Donald says, his voice too chipper. “You did fantastic, sweet girl. Absolutely fantastic.”
“Bullshit,” Starla replies. “You suckered me into doing that inter
view and didn’t give me all of the details because you knew I wouldn’t want to do it.”
“Well—”
“You do this to me all the time, Donald, and I’m done. Do you hear me? If it ever happens again, you’re fired.”
“Now you listen to me, you can’t just—”
“Oh, I can. I know you think you’ve got me cornered with that contract, but I made sure my attorney arranged it so I wouldn’t lose everything to you if we parted ways. I’m not threatening you, Donald. I care about you, and I am grateful to you, but if you think you can pull shit like this without consequences, you’re wrong. It’s disrespectful and hurtful.”
“Everything I do is for the betterment of your career.”
“I call bullshit,” Starla counters. “You do it for ratings. No more ambushes. I either know everything going in with a complete list of questions, or I don’t do it. End of.”
“Fine. Go cool off.”
Donald hangs up, and Starla tosses her phone on the coffee table.
“What a jerk,” she whispers. “He will not guilt me into just blindly following him anymore. I’m not nineteen anymore, Levi. I’m too old for this shit, and I have a say in my damn life.”
“Agreed.”
She glances over at me, and her expression softens. She scoots over to lean into me and sighs.
“Well, that was a shitshow.”
“Not really. It was a good interview. You looked great. They just added the bullshit at the end.”
“My ass has grown,” she pouts, making me laugh.
“Come with me to the gym, and we’ll work on it.”
“You try to kill me at the gym.”
“I won’t try to kill you.” I kiss her hair. “You’re beautiful the way you are. If you want to tighten up your ass, I can help you with that. I’m fine either way.”
She snuggles closer. “Okay, you can help. But curb your sadistic tendencies. I don’t want to be unable to sit for a week after.”
“I’m not a sadist. But I do know people who are.”
Her head whips up, her eyes widening. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’m not into dishing out pain. I’m a pleasure guy.”
“You are good at the pleasure.” She straddles my lap and kisses me deeply. “What should we do now?”
“What do you want to do?”
A smile spreads over her face. “I want to swim.”
She jumps off my lap and runs for the backyard, stripping out of her clothes on the way, leaving a trail not unlike Hansel and Gretel. By the time I walk through the open sliding glass doors, she’s already in the water, swimming easily across the pool.
I shuck out of my shoes and clothes and dive in with her, swimming beside her.
When we reach the end of the pool, I pull her to me and easily slip inside her.
“Well, shit,” she says, leaning her head back against the side of the pool. “That feels good.”
“Too good?”
She grins. “Never.”
“Hey, Crawford, I have something for you.”
I glance up at Jim Parker, the IT cop I assigned to Starla’s stalker, as he leans on the doorway to my office.
“Okay.” I stand and follow him down the hall to his own office where he has several computers set up, along with Starla’s laptop. “What’s up?”
“I think I followed the stalker email back to the beginning.” He sits in his chair, and I lean over his shoulder, watching as he wakes up Starla’s computer. “It started over a year ago.”
“A year?”
“As far as I can tell. I’ve printed them all out for you, and every single one comes from a different email address, but they’re all the same tone. They’re definitely written by the same person. Here’s the first one.”
It’s your fault. Your fault that she’s dead. You wouldn’t help me. Why wouldn’t you help me? I’ve always been there for you! Time and again, I’ve been there for you, but you were not there for me. For us. And now she’s gone, and it’s your fault. I can’t believe you’re such a heartless bitch.
There’s no signature.
“It’s not threatening,” I say with a sigh.
“No, in fact, they weren’t threatening for about six months. Some of these weren’t even opened, so Starla probably hasn’t seen them.”
“Maybe she assumed they were spam?”
“She might have. But they escalate for sure, and it’s absolutely the same person. When I try to trace it back to an IP address, I hit a dead end. I don’t know how they managed to block it unless they’re a talented programmer or hacker. We’re still working on that.”
He reaches to the other side of his desk and hands me a stack at least two inches thick of printed emails.
“This is them?”
“There are hundreds,” he says. “And those are just the ones I found. I found a bunch in her trash bin, but there’s a chance she’s deleted some that I couldn’t find.”
“Thanks, man. Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
I walk back to my office, set the emails on my desk, and sigh. “Jesus.”
I spend the next two hours poring through them. Marty’s right, they start calm. Sad. And then the tone turns angry. Psychotic. Sometimes, there are several in a day, and then other times, weeks pass between messages.
There’s no rhyme or reason to the pattern.
I don’t like that. I also don’t like that we can’t trace the fucking IP address. That means the person is smart.
But even smart people make mistakes, and this one will, too.
Hopefully, sooner rather than later.
I’ve just read through the final email, the one Starla received with the photo attached when my cell rings.
“Crawford.”
“Sir, I think you should come to Starla’s residence.”
“What’s going on? Is she okay?”
“She’s not here, but we’ve had a car drive past about six times, always slowing down in front of the house. It looks like they’re taking photos, but I can’t make out if it’s a man or a woman because the windows are tinted way past the legal limit.”
“Pull them over for that,” I suggest, reaching for my jacket as I shut my computer down.
“I’m in an unmarked,” he reminds me, and I swear under my breath. “I do have a license plate number.”
“And?”
“It comes back owned by a Theodora Fitzgerald of Bellevue. She’s eighty-two. Which could explain the slowing down, if she’s looking for a specific address.”
“So you’re alerting me over a lost grandma?” I demand.
“It looked suspicious to me, and you said to call in anything suspicious.”
“If she comes back, let me know. I’m headed out of the office, but I’ll be on my cell.”
“Copy that.”
He hangs up, and I walk out of the office. Just before I get to the door to the parking garage, I hear my name.
“Levi!”
I look back to see Matt Montgomery jogging toward me.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“We got the ME report on Francesca Smith.”
“Are you telling me we weren’t sure about the cause of death?”
“You’re not funny,” Matt says. “The ME found brain cancer, which I know doesn’t really change anything now, but I thought it was interesting. Thought I’d pass the info along.”
“Does he think the cancer is what made her crazy?”
Matt shrugs. “Who knows? I guess it could have. Maybe she was already a little off, and the cancer exacerbated the obsessive traits into a psychosis. It’s definitely possible. But like I said, it doesn’t change anything. Karen’s still gone, along with the baby.”
“Do you know how Jeremy’s doing?”
Matt’s face sobers more, and he doesn’t look me in the eyes when he replies.
“He killed himself three days ago.”
“Fuck.
” I stomp away and consider punching the wall, but it’s cement, and I don’t want to break my hand. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.” Matt nods.
“And the kids?”
“They’re with Karen’s parents.”
“At least he didn’t kill them, too.”
“Very true.” Matt pats my shoulder. “There was nothing any of us could have done. Nothing.”
“I hear you.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
“Three people are dead, and I saw them all alive just days ago. I should have—”
“You did everything right. We’re not God. You arrested her, and due to a flawed, human system, she hurt them anyway. It’s tragic. It’s horrifying, actually. But it’s not your fault.”
“Thanks.” I nod once, then turn to leave the building. I have to switch gears from stalkers and death to my actual job of property theft.
This has been the weirdest month of my life.
I drop the stack of emails on the piano. Starla stops playing and stares at them and then looks up at me.
“Welcome home, dear.”
“There are hundreds of emails there.”
She looks at them again and then at me. “Okay.”
“Okay.” I walk away from her, tug my jacket off, and throw it on the couch, then stomp into the kitchen for a bottle of water.
I wish it was scotch.
“Fifteen months,” I begin after drinking half the bottle, “of emails. Not six months, Starla. Fifteen.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. It felt like six months, but it’s not like I have a timestamp on hand just in case someone asks me questions.”
“I can live with that.” I nod thoughtfully. “Time goes fast, and you’ve been busy. I get it. So you don’t know how long ago they started. But the sheer number of them should have been a clue to tell someone.”
“I just—”
“What? You just, what? Because I don’t understand how this could happen. You have more money than I can wrap my head around, and a whole team of people whose only job is to take care of you. Yet you let this go on for fifteen damn months?”
“I’m just a human being.” She stands and paces away. “I may be rich and famous, but I’m a person. Sometimes, people make mistakes, Levi.”
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