Starlet: A Dark Retelling

by Cora Kenborn

  It began with death, and that’s how it ends.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Jade

  One Year Later

  “Coming up on your right, you’ll see the infamous Romanov mansion, the tragic site of six homicides that rocked Bel Air sixteen years ago.”

  I press my falling sunglasses back onto my face and lean forward as the tour guide makes a sweeping gesture, and an entire row of sheep to my left eagerly turn their heads. People get off on the sick and macabre—case in point this bus tour.

  Of course, my paid seat on the “Infamous Hollywood Murders Tour” doesn’t make me much of a saint.

  I follow suit, my gaze locked on the sculptured grounds of the immaculately kept mansion. This is the darker side of Hollywood. The one nobody likes to talk about because it makes their icons too human. Too fallible. Flesh and blood and weakness just like the rest of us.

  Then again, I’ve always found beauty where others found shame. I believe pain has a residue. No matter how hard we scrub, it can never be cleaned—only transformed.

  I grit my teeth as warm breath fans over my bare shoulder. Inhaling slowly, I try to even out my temper before elbowing her in the throat. I’m not one for close contact, and this woman has invaded it the whole damn tour. Slowly, I tilt my chin over my shoulder and glare at her.

  Instead of tossing back a glare of her own, the redhead tucks a wad of bubblegum in her cheek. “Don’t you mean seven homicides?”

  Eighteen pairs of eyes swing toward the statuesque tour guide, who stiffens, her brittle smile betraying the barest hint of a twitch. “The seventh has never officially been confirmed.”

  “She confessed to killing him,” the redhead snorts, realizing she has a captive audience. “What the hell are they waiting on?”

  “A body,” her friend pipes up on the other side of her.

  The redhead rolls her eyes and blows another bubble. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

  I sit back and watch with fascination. Maybe not so much the incessant chatter as much as the panic playing on the poor tour guide’s face. She’s lost control and has no idea how to corral the herd back inside the pen.

  Her hand shakes as she fiddles with the wireless microphone at her mouth. “Ladies and gentlemen…”

  I could help her out. It wouldn’t be difficult to toss out a random question and redirect everyone’s attention back to her regurgitated spiel. But I’d be lying if I said my curiosity hasn’t been piqued.

  I cock my head toward the redhead. “Wait, what do you mean?”

  She raises an eyebrow. “That tabloid owner was murdered a year ago today.”

  “By the same killer that murdered the Romanov family?”

  She slides a tepid look toward her friend then shifts it back to me. “Depends on who you ask. By the way, I’m Tess, and that’s Isla.” She tips her head toward the exotic-looking woman beside her.

  Introductions are a nice gesture, but I didn’t come here for pen pals. “Do you plan to elaborate on that, or was it simply a baiting question?”

  Tess is quiet for a minute, and I wonder if my directness offended her. Her gaze wanders toward the estate again. “Alexandra Romanov has blood on her hands.” An uncomfortable silence falls between us. “They still haven’t found either of them, you know.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Isla pops her head over Tess’s shoulder. “Because she pulled some serious Romeo and Juliet shit and wrote a full confession to an LAPD detective before killing herself.”

  There’s a muffled snort on the other side of her, and we all three turn to see a stocky man in a blue Dodgers cap shaking his head. “Jesus, you’re just as bad as them.”

  She narrows her eyes. “Excuse me?”

  The man shrugs, tugging his hat down low over his eyes. “You heard me. A woman is dead, and you three are over here acting like the assholes who drove her to her grave.”

  Tess leans over Isla and flashes him an icy smile. “Hi, you’re on a bus tour of famous murders. I’m not sure you have the authority to be tossing out moral citations, there, buddy.”

  “I just don’t think anyone should romanticize murder and suicide.”

  “Seriously? Are you from this century? Hollywood couldn’t write a more twisted love story. Those two had a sick obsession with each other that cost them their lives.”

  The man rolls his eyes and huffs. “Women.”

  Ignoring both of them, Isla twirls a piece of hair around her finger. “Don’t you find the unexplained fascinating, though? Both Alexandra and Dominic just disappeared without a trace.”

  I didn’t put much stock in anything these two had to say before, but now I’m intrigued. More than that, there’s something about the man in the hat I can’t put my finger on.

  Tess lets out an unattractive snort. “Yeah, right. The only thing unexplained is how she got away with it.” Her last words are drowned out as the bus lurches forward, the gears grinding as we head toward Sunset Plaza.

  “You seem pretty sure of yourself,” he growls, and again, there’s something scratching at the back of my mind.

  She shrugs. “Crazy breeds crazy. He should’ve left those skeletons in the closet where they belonged.”

  I roll her words around in my head as I take a sip from my water bottle. “So, do you know the real story?”

  Tess’s eyes flicker. “Didn’t you see the made for TV movie?”

  Seeing as though we’re sitting at the top of an open bus on a guided murder tour, I assume that’s a rhetorical question and don’t answer. However, there’s a quiet hum inside my head, whispering familiar words. Words from another time and another place. So, instead I smile and give them new life.

  “I don’t buy into Hollywood’s version of things. Everything is embellished to pad the top echelon’s bottom line.”

  “Well, that might be true, but not when it comes to the Romanovs.” She leans forward. “They were Hollywood royalty.”

  “Meaning?”

  “They couldn’t sneeze without it making headlines.” Her gaze fixates on me. “I swear, anything that family touched turned to gold. Which meant whatever they wanted, they got.” Her jaw clenches. “Anything and anyone.”

  I pause to absorb everything, and Isla seizes the brief lull to bulldoze her way back into the conversation. “Katerina Romanov wasn’t exactly a young starlet. She’d aged out of lead roles, and from what I read, resorted to sleeping with the studio exec to stay relevant.”

  “Don’t most people in Hollywood?”

  Both women flinch, but I don’t offer an apology. I don’t presume to know their sexual habits, and I don’t care to. Thirty percent of Hollywood is struggling actors, and, eventually, most of them will have a price tag. Everyone likes to think they’re different until the rent is two months past due, and they haven’t eaten in four days.

  Desperation has a tendency to put morality on a sliding scale.

  “Most people also don’t offer their eight-year-old daughter as a fringe benefit,” she continues, and I can’t help but wince at the disgust in her voice. “I’ll never be sorry Alexandra Romanov allegedly put a bullet in that woman’s chest. After they found all those videos…” She shudders. “Those poor children. I don’t care if there isn’t definitive proof. No one can convince me Greg Rosten didn’t murder the whole family to keep his perversions quiet. Of course, I guess we’ll never really know, will we?”

  “You seem confident,” the man beside me pipes up.

  Tess leans back and picks at her nails. “What I think doesn’t matter. In the end, it’s all hearsay, isn’t it? All the police have is the word of a crazy woman, who, moments later, did a swan dive into the reservoir. And now, for the second time, Alexandra Romanov’s body has never been found. In the end, the truth of what really happened that night died with her.”

  I frown. “Do you think she was evil?”

  “The mind is a very fragile thing, and when it breaks, even good people are capable of wicked
things.”

  The wind blows a piece of my short blonde hair across my face as a knot in my gut twists. “So, your theory is she snapped and killed everyone?”

  Isla snorts. “Tess has lots of theories.”

  I’m sure she does. However, theory and truth are almost always mutually exclusive. Both can hide behind pretty words and persuasive rhetoric, but putting a dress on a dragon doesn’t stop it from breathing fire. It just disguises the flame until it’s too late.

  Tess offers a brittle smile. “Do I believe she shot her mother? Absolutely. Do I believe she had a breakdown and killed Greg Rosten? Yes. Do I believe she killed Violet DeLuca?” Rolling her eyes toward the sky, she flips her palm up and shrugs. “Indirectly.”

  Plastic crinkles as my hands clench around my water bottle. “I’m sorry?”

  “Alexandra Romanov sealed that girl’s fate the minute she allowed her inside the inner circle. That place…” Her eyes shift toward the estate again. “The evil is beautiful. It sucks you in, but once you walk inside, you don’t walk out.”

  Her razor-sharp assessment slithers across my shoulders, dragging a rough tongue against my neck.

  “And Dominic McCallum?” the man interjects, waves of disdain and condescension vibrating off him.

  And there it is again. The wind at my back. The whisper in my ear.

  “Alexandra claimed responsibility, but his mind games pushed her over the edge.” The corner of Tess’s red painted lip tips up. “The man got paid to deliver her to a rapist’s doorstep. Not exactly what I’d call a knight in shining armor.”

  She pauses as the tour guide makes her way toward the back of the bus and turns a half circle right in front of us. Gesturing wildly toward another home, she launches into another speech about a couple who killed themselves in a dual suicide pact. Her close proximity forces every eye on us, so the three of us sit quietly. Finally, the guide tosses a disapproving glare our way before walking back to the front of the bus, turning everyone’s attention the other direction as she goes.

  Immediately, we draw together again, and Tess sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. “The story has a lot of bloodstains, but it all comes back to one simple truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “Alexandra Romanov is one missing person who should’ve stayed that way.”

  I couldn’t agree more.

  I admit, this has been a surprisingly entertaining trip. I’m buzzing with electricity after a chance meeting with these two women. Tess and Isla livened up what I expected to be a somber celebrity bus tour in the burning California heat.

  I open my mouth to pump them for more dirt when the man speaks up again. “So, you really think she killed him?”

  Tess shifts a smug look toward him. “You really think she didn’t?”

  They exchange heated stares, and then he slowly uncrosses his arms, his hands settling on his lap. “I suppose anything can happen in Hollywood.”

  This time, the wind doesn’t whisper. It roars. Every hard consonant batters my back as the familiar rumble of his voice drives a dagger deep in my chest. Even though I’ve balanced on my toes for twelve months. Even though the only way to live on a ledge is never to breathe. I inhale slowly and lower my eyes to the man’s lap.

  To where an inked tattoo spans the top of his right hand.

  I’m in a daze as Tess swings her gaze toward me. “What do you think?” Her intense stare is unrelenting as she tilts her head. There’s something jagged in her eyes I don’t like. It’s as if she’s spent all day putting together a jigsaw puzzle only to realize the main piece was missing. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

  I open my mouth to respond, only to snap it closed as the bus lurches to a stop. Every eye shifts toward the front as the tour guide claps her hands together, her microphone crackling as she announces the end of the tour.

  Gathering my purse and empty water bottle, I stand and nod toward Tess and Isla. “It was nice to meet you both.” Before they can offer a rebuttal, I push my way through the thickening crowd and rush toward the street, the last hour replaying in my head on a frantic loop.

  After running across the parking lot and unlocking my car, I’m about to open the door when I hear footsteps behind me.

  “They have no clue, do they?”

  I freeze as the voice I haven’t heard in over a year slithers over my spine. The deep cadence is so familiar, I can’t believe I didn’t hear it. I suppose on some level I expected him to find me someday and demand answers. If not for anything but closure.

  I square my shoulders, slipping back into an all too familiar skin. “About what?”

  “That they just had a conversation with a dead woman.”

  My keys dig into the palm of my hand as I stare at our reflections in the driver’s side window. The last year hasn’t been kind to either of us. Although my eyes are hidden behind huge, dark sunglasses, there’s no masking the two new lines that frame my mouth like parenthesis.

  It’s almost poetic, if you think about it. Some call them laugh lines. I think God put them there as anecdotal tattoos. Permanent lip cuffs. My own Scarlet Letter ensuring everything that crosses them is nothing more than a historical footnote. A conversational “where were you” moment. Like the assassination of JFK or the Challenger Explosion or 9/11.

  Where were you when Alexandra Romanov crawled out of Hell, then dragged half of Hollywood back down with her?

  I tug a strand of hair from my short blonde bob away from my mouth and blink at the reflection behind me. How did I not see it before? Granted, the brim of the Dodgers baseball cap hid his head of impeccably styled gray hair and those sharp, cold eyes, but if I’d taken my own advice and looked below the surface, I would have seen then what I see now.

  A familiar icy, pale blue stare.

  “How did you find me?”

  He tilts his chin up, and I swallow a knee-jerk reaction at seeing his steeled expression. “I followed you for fifteen years after you died the first time. What makes you think I’d stop after the second?”

  “Luciano…”

  He chuckles. “You mean how did I find Jade DeLuca? It’s not a hard alias for anyone who really knows you, kid. I’ve known where you were for months.”

  I brace my forearm against the window, a soft curse tearing from my chest. I’m strong, but even concrete cracks, and knowing I’ve been pinging around Europe on some Vitoli GPS tracker causes another fissure. “Then why not come to Italy?”

  Thankfully, Luciano still remembers the rules, and his shadow never moves. “No need. Like I said, I know you. You don’t trust anybody. I knew you’d eventually come back to verify I kept my word. This town is in your blood, kid.”

  He’s right on all counts, and I hate that he knows me so well.

  “That was quite a performance back there. Dominic would’ve been proud.”

  That one word is like a sledgehammer to the chest. Yes, he would’ve been proud. If he were here. But he’s not and he never will be.

  Shaking my head, I push away from the window and turn around. “Luciano, I—”

  A firm grip on my upper arm stops me. “Don’t. Right now, I’m just a Dodgers fan hitting on a blonde facing an Audi. Don’t make it any more than that.”

  He’s right, of course. He’s always right.

  I stare hard at our reflections in the glass. “About what those women said…”

  Luciano stiffens and lets out a low sigh before putting space between us. “I care about you, kid. But more than that, I feel responsible for you. If only—”

  Breaking his hold, I spin around, blood pounding in my ears. “You promised no regrets, remember?” My words are deceptively calm, yet still laced with warning. I’ll be damned if I’ll let him shoulder this sin. Choices have been made, and graves have been dug. Regrets are useless.

  Luciano grinds his teeth together, gripping the back of his neck hard before dropping his hand and holding my stare with a resigned look in his eyes. “All I’m saying i
s I’ll always look out for you, kid. At the risk of my own life.”

  I don’t doubt his word. Opening my fist, I glance down, finally noticing I’ve gripped my key so hard, it broke the skin. Furrowing my brow, I trace the thin line of blood on my palm, dragging it from the top to the bottom and then swirling it in a small circle. “I never got the chance to thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. Hell, I should thank you.” A ghost of a smile rests on his lips. “Because of you, I finally know the truth.” As quickly as it appeared, the smile fades, a frown tugging the corners of his mouth down. I don’t get the chance to ask before he pulls my hand forward, tugs at the hem of his T-shirt, and cleans the bloody “6” off my palm.

  I blink, and the realization of what I’ve done dawns on me, I draw my hand away and curl it by my side. “Thanks.”

  “So, did you get what you came for?” he asks, nodding toward the now empty bus. “Did I live up to my end of the bargain?”

  I purse my lips, thinking over Tess and Isla’s inflated version of events. I think of Alexandra and her declaration that some people were meant to drown. I think of the moment I resurfaced from the bottom of the Hollywood Reservoir alone. I think of truth and lies, and that gray area some place in the middle where reality exists.

  My reality.

  Because in the end, isn’t it the only one that’s ever really mattered?

  “Oh, Luciano.” Cupping his cheek, I memorize the loyalty etched across his face, knowing this will be the last time I ever see it. “You did more than keep your word. You saved my life.” Dropping my hand, I stare at the bloodstain I left on his cheek, locking the image in a tiny corner of my mind reserved for Alexandra Romanov.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

  Six.

  I’m not scared of it anymore. Six can’t hurt me.

  Because just like all the others, six is finally dead.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Luciano

  If you keep knocking on the devil’s door, eventually, he’ll answer.