by Nolon King
The stories went on and on and on. Sloane worried that they had “too much footage” and was ready to wrap well ahead of the deadline.
“There is no such thing as too much footage,” Dominic told her, already planning on turning the feature into an eventual series, assuming its legs were as long as he and Melinda kept thinking.
Sloane was finished with her final interview for the day when Ellis walked on-set with yet another and all the breath left her body. Despite the subject matter of her interviews, it was still the last person she expected to see.
“Nicole,” she whispered.
“Sloane,” Nicole whispered back.
And then, quite suddenly, they were sobbing in each other’s arms.
Both of their faces were wet when they pulled away from one another, but so were others in the room, including Ellis and Orson.
“I heard you were looking for victims of Liam Wentz …” Nicole gave the room a tiny, awkward laugh as she raised a hand and gave it a wave. “I’m here.”
Nicole’s interview was long and exhausting for everyone, not only covering the nightmare of what Liam Wentz had done to her, but the horror of dealing with the media aftermath as well. The questions were hard for Sloane to ask, and often seemed even harder for Nicole to answer, but together they made it through every one, her former rival now on a mission to tell the world that Sloane had never been lying.
“So, how are you feeling today?” she asked Nicole as they neared the end of her interview.
“Better than I ever have.” She wiped a tear. “But I’m still trying to work through the psychological damage with MDMA-therapy, after years of numbing myself with alcohol and drugs … and whatever.”
“Isn’t MDMA a drug?”
“Sure, but it’s not for numbing out,” Nicole said. “MDMA is the opposite.”
“That’s molly, right?”
“Not exactly. Molly and ecstasy can have MDMA in them, but they’re often mixed with other fillers. And it’s not like I’m taking the drug at a rave. MDMA-therapy is just more direct than talk therapy, for me, because I’m forced to digest my experiences.”
“How so?”
“The drug quiets the amygdala.”
“The fear center,” Sloane said.
“Right. Meaning I can explore the trauma without being overwhelmed by it.”
“Sounds a lot like this conversation.” Sloane wiped a tear from each side of her face.
“I’m glad we’re finally talking …” Nicole had been stoic throughout the entire interview, only needing to break twice. Once for water and a second time to use the restroom. But now she finally lost it. Both of them did.
Then they stood from their chairs, crossed the narrow distance between, and fell into another embrace.
“I was so sure that you hated me,” Nicole blubbered through her tears.
“I thought you hated me …” Sloane worked to gain control of her breath and voice so she could say what she needed to. “I always felt so terrible that I couldn’t make anyone believe me, and I was always weighed down by the guilt that I couldn’t convince you to stay away from him … before it was too late. I escaped, but you never did—”
“No.” Nicole sounded suddenly sharp, and was looking right into her old friend’s eyes, the pair of them seemingly oblivious to all the spectators still in the room. “You can ask me again and I’ll say it for the interview — not that it matters since we’re no longer speaking — but this was all my mother’s fault. She encouraged me to do whatever Liam wanted for the sake of my career. There was nothing you could have ever said to convince me. I’m glad you escaped, and I loved that you thrived despite all the negative publicity. I’ve always been your biggest fan.”
“Let’s take him down—” Sloane started, still sobbing, but now with the best kind of tears.
“Together,” her oldest friend finished.
The moment would have made her day perfect.
If it hadn’t been for the next one that came just ten seconds later.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sloane
Sloane would normally ignore her phone entirely at a time like this.
But it wasn’t on Do Not Disturb because Miles was leaving with Jolie in the morning and despite having lived most of his life as a nomad, he was still a nervous traveler.
So she glanced at the device.
She didn’t usually answer calls from unlisted or private numbers. Too many solicitors, journalists, and emotional scars from dealing with both of them, the second much more than the first.
But this was a text. From an unknown number.
Then she was staring down at the screen with a heart that quite suddenly wanted to pound right out of her chest.
She clicked the text and the pounding stopped.
For the most frightening moment of Sloane Alexander’s life, her heart was no longer beating, and she couldn’t draw a breath at all.
She pressed Play on the video, then watched in horror as a camera panned over Miles, tied to a chair and beaten to a pulp, then over to their cowering daughter.
A disembodied voice added an audible disease to the video. The sound was disguised with distortion, but Sloane had zero difficulty identifying its source.
“It’s time for us to play, little kitten,” said the nightmare.
A second before the video cut to black.
Sloane looked up from the video and into a dozen dumbfounded stares.
Orson broke the silence. “Call the cops right—”
“I can’t call the cops! They never do—”
“They will this time. He’s gone too far, given you proof.”
Sloane shook her head, feeling like she might melt right into the floor. “They couldn’t see that he was behind the sabotage on set or the hit and run. They never even found the guy who attacked Jake.” Her voice kept rising in pitch and her arms were wild. She felt like she might have a seizure. “Don’t you realize that he owns the police!”
It wasn’t even a question. But Orson didn’t argue. Instead, he held her, investing ten long seconds into calming her down. Then he said, “I’m not suggesting that’s our only move, but we should call the—”
“Wait!” Sloane suddenly had an idea.
She remembered talking to Selena outside Dominic’s office.
That man has a lot of power, and he also has a lot of property.
Meaning he can do whatever he wants if he finds the right place to do it.
“What is it?” Orson asked.
But Sloane didn’t know how to say what she was thinking. Not yet.
Close enough to his home base that he could come and go without a lot of fuss.
Easy in, easy out, and no one watching.
It could be a red-light area where most people are almost professionally minding their own business.
Maybe the basement or back room of a night club or bar. An isolated landscape or derelict area of the city where people are used to looking the other way.
Another question from Orson. “What are you doing?”
Sloane ignored him. She was thinking too many things at once and couldn’t afford to sacrifice even a splinter of her attention to answer. Instead, she dialed the phone.
It was answered after one ring. “Hello.”
“Melinda!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Can you get a list of all the property Liam Wentz owns in or around LA?”
“Of course,” Melinda said. “Why?”
“He has Miles and Jolie.” Normally Sloane would have been on the verge of tears, but right now she felt only outrage and an unrelenting, savage fury. “Selena said he might have a place that’s isolated, where he could—”
“He has property down off Wall, by the flower market. It’s a three-story building. An old hotel from like a hundred years ago, from back when the Southern Pacific stopped on Central Avenue. He uses it as a place to shoot every once in a while, but I understand he’s holding onto it as a le
gitimate investment for when the city’s zoning adjustment allows for units smaller than 450 square feet in size. That might be what you’re looking for. I’ll text you the address.”
Sloane hung up with Melinda to find everyone still staring at her.
She turned to Ellis. “I need you to call the cops. Tell them anything you think they might need to know and make sure they’re aware that this is a hostage situation.”
“On it.”
Orson was heading toward the door as she dashed right past him. “Wait, Sloane. I’m coming with you.”
“With me?” she called over her shoulder. “No. You’re driving me. Now!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sloane
Sloane wasn’t sure if she preferred the quiet or not.
Orson had been dead silent ever since leaving Shellter, and her eyes were closed through most of the trip as she focused on her breath, working not to lose her goddamned mind.
She was trapped in her nightmare, fingers digging into her knee, finally opening her eyes only to see how close they might be to finding Jolie.
“Three more minutes, I’m guessing,” he said.
“Go faster!”
“I’m going dangerously fast already. Just another—”
“GO FASTER! Maybe a cop will start following you.”
Orson floored it. Turned a corner. And then another one.
“Half a mile,” he said.
Sloane’s heart was beating out of her chest.
This was all her fault. If she was going to play with fire, then she should have left Jolie in a place where she couldn’t get burned. It was selfish of her to have ever wanted — needed, she had told him — Miles for this project. Sloane could have found another cinematographer, but Jolie needed her father around, if her mother was determined to live on a tightrope between skyscrapers.
If anything happened to Jolie, she would never forgive herself.
“That’s it.” Orson nodded at a three-story structure that made The Brick look like an Architectural Digest centerfold. Its last paint job had been white, but the entire building was now peeling and gray, with the top two floors full of broken windows and — from what she could see through the holes where windows used to be — the bottom floor decorated with sleeping homeless, shopping carts, and an untold number of thirty-two-gallon bags of trash.
A man with a beard that reached past his nipples was dropping trou and squatting as they slammed the doors to Orson’s car then ran across the street.
She set her phone to record, then dropped it into the front pocket of her flannel shirt, just in case.
They tried all the doors and found every one of them locked.
Onlookers outside were staring — no one seemed to notice that one of the two people attempting a break-in of this derelict building was a world-famous actor. So, no subscribers to Variety.
“They got in.” Sloane gestured to the people inside. “How do we?”
Orson answered by bashing his foot against the door, next to the keyhole where the lock was mounted, four times until it finally crashed out of the frame.
“I learned to do that while I was making First Watch,” he explained.
She wasn’t thrilled to lose the element of surprise, or in any position to complain.
“Thank you,” she tried not to whimper, much too frightened to say anything else.
Orson didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer.
Either they had made enough noise to announce their presence or they’d been expected. Either way, there was a Shaq-sized goon pointing a Dirty Harry-sized pistol in their faces.
“I loved you in F the 90s,” said the goon.
“Please. I just—“
“You can shut up.” He waved the gun in her face. “I can’t stand Christmas movies.”
Shaq waved the gun again, this time with purpose, ushering them out of a filthy lobby that reeked of urine and feces and worse. Surely someone had died in this place.
Maybe more deaths would be coming.
Orson tried to take her hand but the goon ordered him to stop. “None of that.”
Then he led them out of the lobby, up two ancient flights of stairs, then down a long grimy hallway to an open door at the end. Shaq waved his gun yet again, this time at the entrance. “Both of you. Inside.”
Orson went first.
Sloane followed him into the next part of her nightmare.
Shaq stood slightly off to the side, in between them and the hideous scene.
She felt a flicker of relief then the feeling faded to black. Sloane was glad to see Miles alive, but he was tied to his chair, badly beaten and apparently unconscious. Jolie looked fresh-faced but terrified, which filled her mother with a raw fear that somehow felt even worse than the uncertainty of a moment ago.
Liam Wentz was standing behind Jolie with his hands on the little girl’s shoulders.
“Mommy …” she whimpered.
The monster smiled at Orson and Sloane, but instead of greeting the newcomers, he bent down and whispered something in Jolie’s ear.
Her lip quivered and she said nothing else.
Sloane didn’t need to know what it was. Gravity sent her straight to the floor. Needing to vomit and down on her knees, she started to beg.
“Take me. I’ll do whatever you want. Just—”
He silenced her pleas with his laughter, slowly approaching her, apparently not realizing that he was partially blocking the goon’s shot if Sloane were to make any sudden moves.
Maybe he knew that she would never have the courage.
She tried again. “Please … whatever you like … I can …”
But Sloane couldn’t even finish her thought.
And Liam Wentz was back laughing again. “You’re not the fresh-faced little thing you used to be.”
“I can try!” What a worthless thing to say.
And he knew it. “Sorry. Not interested.” Then he looked down at Jolie with a vile little smile and said, “I have what I need now.”
“PLEASE!” She begged, louder and harder. “I’m sorry I never let you touch me — you were right, maybe I would have liked it if I’d given it a chance. I’m sorry I told on you. I’m sorry I talked to Nicole. And I’m sorry about my movie.”
“Movies,” he snarled.
“Movies,” she repeated with a vigorous nod. “I won’t make any of them. Please, just let us go. Let her go.”
“It’s too late for any of that.” He squeezed Jolie’s shoulders then walked away from her, slowly approaching Sloane instead.
“It’s not too late, Wentz.” Orson, making his best attempt. “We can still figure this out. We’re both too high profile — this whole thing is too high profile. Everyone knows where we were going and why. The police will be here any minute now. You can’t just make us disappear.”
“Can’t I?” He looked at Orson as though the actor was only a boy who didn’t understand a thing.
“I forgive you for everything. Please can we—”
“There’s nothing to forgive …” He smiled as he stood over Sloane, plucked the phone from the breast pocket, then looked down at the screen to see she had been actively recording. He shook the phone in front of her but smiled again. “This hardly seems like the act of someone in a forgiving mood.”
Liam Wentz didn’t seem like a man who was even the least bit afraid of the police.
And right now, that was the most horrifying thing in the world.
She glanced at Orson. He was looking around, clearly searching for some means of either attack or escape, probably both.
“Face front,” Shaq ordered him, with yet another little shake of his gun.
Her heart felt bruised, pounding hard as it was against her ribcage. But Sloane didn’t care if Liam Wentz killed her, so long as Jolie got away.
Her gaze locked on her daughter. She screamed, “RUN!”
Jolie darted for the door.
Wentz grabbed a handful of Sloane’s hair. She clawed a
t his hand, but she couldn’t break free of his grasp.
“Get the girl!” Then he slammed Sloane into the wall.
Pain exploded in her head. Her vision grayed.
Shaq turned toward them, angling for a clear shot.
Wentz pounded her into the wall again.
Sloane fought to remain conscious. Struggled against Wentz’s grip. Flung her body back just enough to obscure Shaq’s shot as the monster kept trying to shove her against the brick on repeat.
Orson ran over to the goon and attempted to tackle him, but that was a suicide mission.
“The girl!” Wentz bellowed.
Shaq swatted Orson back onto the ground where he landed with a heavy THUD.
There was a terrible cacophony from somewhere downstairs, followed almost immediately by an inhuman sounding howl from Jolie.
Miles’s eyelids fluttered then snapped open wide.
“NO!” Sloane cried out, sure the monster’s reinforcements had arrived and her daughter was dead.
But that was when the police rushed into the room.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Melinda
Endings were usually Melinda’s favorite part of anything.
She loved the closure, but even more than that, endings were often the precursor to a new beginning, and a better something else. So much of this particular story was over, but it had paved the way for a future that was brighter than anything the Shellys had imagined twenty years ago.
“Satisfied?” Dominic asked.
She took her husband’s hand as they looked out at their party. “Satisfied is such a relative term.”