I COULDN’T TELL if things were falling into place or getting more confusing. I didn’t understand why the blond man kept popping up in so many places. He was connected to Luna. He was connected to the Hollises. He was connected to my parents.
Who the hell was he?
There was one way to find out.
I gathered the articles together, picking up the ones that had fallen on the floor, and crammed all but one of them back where they had been, then settled the cassette recorder on top of them and repositioned the bandage box. As far as Dad knew, nothing had been disturbed. Exactly the way I wanted it.
I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around the fact that my dad was standing right next to the man who’d rushed Luna away from Tesori Antico. There was no denying it now—Dad had something to do with the Hollises. He had something to do with Luna’s getaway driver.
Goose bumps raced up and down my arms and my stomach knotted. I swallowed and swallowed, as the once-familiar scent of my father’s closet began to choke me. Ink. The air felt thick as ink to me. Even if, by some miracle, my father hadn’t betrayed my mother, he had betrayed me.
I stumbled out of the closet, my feet getting tangled on each other. I landed on my butt, sucking in fresh air, starting to feel swimmy. Don’t pass out, Nikki. Don’t pass out.
Oh, I had no intention of passing out.
I had every intention of figuring out how this guy was linked to my family.
DAD WOULD PROBABLY be pissed that I didn’t leave a note. But at this point I was just trying to avoid him as much as humanly possible. Besides, what was there to say? I’ve gone to get to the bottom of your lies, and hopefully find Luna along the way, all while avoiding the drug dealer who probably wants my cop friend dead. Something told me he wouldn’t be in love with that idea.
I was just glad to get out of the house before he got home.
I wanted to confront him with what I knew. I wanted to make him come clean. But what if he didn’t? What if he still clung to his story, called me crazy, refused to admit anything?
I tried to call Chris again, to tell him I was headed to Pear Magic. But he didn’t answer. Meeting, he texted as soon as I hung up. For the briefest moment, I considered waiting for him to get out of the meeting. But I guessed he wouldn’t be too excited about going back to the studio, given how it went last time we were there. It was best for me to go alone.
I grabbed a bandanna and rummaged through the kitchen drawers until I found an old apron that Dad used to wear when he was going through his weekend cookout phase. It was plain black, and still dirty from years-old food grime that had never been washed out. I put on a black T-shirt and jeans and tied the bandanna around my hair like I’d seen cooks on TV do. I tied the apron around my waist, knotting it in front, and headed out.
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. It was just before one o’clock. Lunchtime. I drove to Fat Sal’s and ordered random items—a couple of heroes, a couple of wraps, some fries—enough to fill two sacks—then made a beeline to Pear Magic.
The same security guard was working. He waved me through without even questioning me—apparently nobody had alerted him about my previous visit being bogus. This time I pulled into a parking spot right in front of the studio. My palms were sweating, but I had to act like I belonged here if I was going to pull off getting inside again. I was already counting on nobody recognizing me, and on avoiding the blond man, who definitely would. I pulled down the visor and gave myself one last look, tucking loose strands of hair up into the bandanna, took two deep breaths, grabbed the Fat Sal’s sacks, and got out.
You can do this, Nikki.
A young man was standing behind the front desk. He barely looked up when I walked inside. I had a whole spiel practiced in my head about getting a lunch order and wanting to deliver it in person to make sure I hadn’t made any errors, but it turned out I didn’t even need to. I had just opened my mouth when he motioned over his shoulder with his pencil, not tearing his eyes away from the magazine open on the desk in front of him. “Go ahead,” he said.
I closed my mouth, paused for the tiniest second—seriously, my luck was never that good—and walked past him, ducking my head so I didn’t accidentally make eye contact with anyone.
Once I was inside, I realized I had no idea what I was really looking for. Something, anything that would tell me who the blond man was. That would be a start, anyway.
As luck would have it, they were mid-take, the set full of extras, with Celeste Day in the center of the crowd. The white-blond man was sitting in a tall chair with his legs crossed, looking completely bored as he tapped on a tablet. A handful of people stood around the edges of the set, at the ready should their services be needed. But nobody was really hanging around the dressing area.
I snuck back through the area where I’d pretended to be Celeste’s makeup artist and set the bags on a chair. I had to move fast, so I tried hard to focus on colors as I scanned the dressing tables, nudging bottles and tubes and hairbrushes aside so I could riffle through any papers I found. Mostly scripts, the occasional memo or printed list, a press pass. Nothing useful. I crouched and duckwalked to check under each table, looking for open bags or purses. I pawed through what I recognized as Celeste Day’s bag, where I’d found the matchbook before. Nothing. Less than nothing, actually. Nothing, with a side of not having a clue what something would look like even if I found it.
“What are you doing?” I heard. I jerked upright so quickly I nearly smacked the back of my head on the underside of the table. I slapped one hand over my heart.
“Oh my gosh, you scared me,” I said, trying to give myself a southern accent, with no idea why. I pinched my finger and thumb together and held them up like I was holding something tiny between them. “My contact lens.” I gave a nervous, breathy laugh. “They’re new and I don’t really know what I’m doing. They keep popping right out.”
The woman, who was adjusting her zombie costume, appeared to have just come out of the bathroom. She looked unconvinced, but she also looked like she didn’t have time to press it.
“Can I use the mirror to put it back in?” I asked. “It might take me a while.”
“I guess,” she said. She leaned down to check her reflection, pressing her fingers gently under her eyes to smooth her makeup. Satisfied, she started to head toward the set.
“I’m supposed to drop this in the director’s office?” I said, pointing to the Fat Sal’s bags. She looked at the bags and then took a few steps back to look at the blond man, and for a moment I feared she was going to call him over. But instead she just pointed in the direction of the set.
“That guy right there,” she said.
“Yeah, but I have strict instructions not to bother him on set. I’m supposed to leave it on his desk. He already paid.” This was the sketchiest-sounding story, even to myself, but fortunately, the zombie girl was too worried about getting back to filming to think it through. Part of me wanted to just ask her who he was, if she’d ever heard of Luna Fairchild, if she had any idea what his connection was to her. But she looked impatient and annoyed to even be talking to some sandwich delivery girl, and the last thing I wanted to do was arouse suspicion again—or worse, make her call him over. I felt lucky enough to have gotten away from him last time.
“Down that hall,” she said, pointing toward the dark hallway where the blond man had caught me before. “Go left. His is the first door.”
“Thanks,” I said. I leaned over and pulled down my lower lid, bringing one finger up to my eye like I was getting ready to insert a contact. She wasted no time hurrying away, and I wasted no time grabbing my shit and getting out of there.
The hallway was quiet. My footsteps sounded loud in comparison. Every wrinkle of the bags I was holding sounded like a crack of thunder. I could hear my heartbeat. I chewed my bottom lip as I scurried to the left, and then stopped and gave a quick look around before I pushed open the door.
Please, God, let there be no one inside.
There wasn’t. I flipped on the light and eased the door closed. Frightened gold fireworks painted the ceiling, but then gave way to rolling oranges and yellows. I couldn’t feel my feet. It was so silent I could almost hear my own blood rushing.
I dropped the bags in the center of his desk and then stood there for a second, glancing around, hoping something would jump out at me. Fuzzy tangerine—my dad’s name, maybe. Or lavender—my mom’s. Glittery purple—the color of Hollywood Dreams—that I’d come to associate with the Hollis name without even realizing it. Even ice-blue Luna would be a welcome sight. Just something to let me know I wasn’t crazy. That I was on the right track.
Nothing. Not a single loose paper on the pristine desk; only a bookshelf full of books. Random colors popped out at me, like flashbulbs and balloons and floating bubbles, but most of them with the beige edges of boring business. Was it weird for a director’s desk to be such a void?
Frantically, I began opening drawers and scanning shelves. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
God. No. I could not come away with nothing. Not again.
I dropped down, flipped to my back, and checked the undersides of the desk and chair. Nope.
I stood, cursing, and was just about to give up, when a black-and-white word streaked across my consciousness. Journal. Tucked in with all the books and binders on the shelves, a thin red notebook with the word Journal printed down the spine.
I pulled it out.
Pay dirt. Where there were journals, there were secrets, right? At least that was always how it was in the movies.
Curious, I opened it, thumbing through the pages. It was more diary, or even activity log, than journal. Weird. Nothing personal. Just line after line of recorded activities. And there was something off about it that I couldn’t quite place.
8:10 A.M. AWAKE
8:22 A.M. SHOWER, DOOR CLOSED
9:10 A.M. BREAKFAST, CEREAL, DRY, COFFEE, CREAM, SUGAR, DIDN’T FINISH
9:30 A.M. STUDYING, OPEN TEXTBOOK, GEOGRAPHY
9:56 A.M. CIGARETTE BREAK 1, COMPLETE TO FILTER, NO BRAND CHANGE, DISCARDED BUTT SAVED, RETRIEVED, AND LOGGED
Damn, the blond man kept a boring-as-shit schedule.
But maybe knowing the kind of schedule he kept would be handy. Maybe there would be clues in later entries to tell me who he was. Maybe knowing his schedule would help me know exactly when his house would be empty. If I could ever find his house, that was. Either way, leaving with a boring journal that might or might not be useful was better than leaving with nothing.
I pulled up my apron, tucked the journal into my waistband, and scurried out of Pear Magic, leaving the Fat Sal’s bags on the blond man’s desk.
I liked the idea of him feeling watched. Of getting back to his office and wondering who was after him.
AS SOON AS I got out of the Pear Magic lot, I pulled off the bandanna and shook my hair out. At the first stoplight, I untied and shimmied out of my apron. I tossed them both into the backseat and stuck the journal in the glove box.
I didn’t know what I had—if I had anything at all—but I felt like I had made maybe the tiniest bit of progress. Who knew—maybe I would find something in the journal that would open Dad’s locked box. It was such a long shot it was basically impossible, but if I didn’t stay optimistic, I would never get anywhere, right? I called Chris’s phone twice more, to no answer, and when I buzzed past his gym, I could see why. His car was there, so he was likely inside, working out. I swung into the lot and parked.
Chris was doing sit-ups on a mat in the corner, sweating so hard his head was leaving a wet, circular blotch on the mat. I walked past the front desk like I owned the place, grabbed a light medicine ball off a shelf, and waited for him to pull himself upright. When he did, I tossed the ball.
“Shit!” He caught the ball half an inch before it hit his face, and held it in the curve of his stomach. “What the hell?”
“I can see your reflexes are still in working order,” I said. “A little sluggish, but . . .” I shrugged sarcastically.
“And what if they weren’t?”
“You’d have a broken nose right now, I guess.”
“Real sensitive, Nikki.” He tossed the ball back at me and lowered himself back to the mat. “You know”—he sat up and went back down again—“you are always”—up, down—“everywhere I don’t”—up, down—“want you to be.”
This time when he sat up, I threw the ball again. He caught it much quicker. “Your throw’s a little sluggish, but . . .” He shrugged and lobbed it to me, then went back to his sit-ups. “To what . . . do I owe the . . . extreme pleasure . . . of having you in my gym?” He sat up and let his arms rest on his knees, his hands dangling between his legs. “On a day when I thought I made it pretty clear I didn’t want to be bothered.”
I shifted the ball to my hip, holding it there with my forearm. “So now I’m a bother?” I acted like he was being ridiculous, but the truth was his words stung a little. Since when did he want to avoid me? Usually I was the one trying to avoid him.
He tipped his head to wipe his temple and cheek on his shoulder. “No, you’re not a bother,” he said. “You’re just always demanding something. And before you ask, no. I don’t remember anybody with the name on that license plate.”
“I wasn’t going to ask you about the name,” I said. But only because I completely forgot about it, I didn’t add.
“Good.”
“But since you brought it up . . . ,” I said.
He rolled his eyes and went back to his sit-ups. “What do you want, Nikki?”
I tossed the ball. He caught it and threw it back to me immediately. “What’s her name?”
He grunted, ignoring me.
“Oh, come on. What’s the big deal about you telling me?”
He stopped again. “The big deal is I tell you the name and next thing I know I’m having to rush to her house to either apologize to her or bail your ass out of trouble. Or, most likely, both.”
“Funny,” I said. “I thought I was bailing your ass out of trouble this time. You know, unless you don’t consider getting run over to be trouble.” I dropped the ball onto the mat and propped one foot on it. “I promise I won’t—”
“Dear God, you are relentless. Fine. Her name is Rebecca Moreno. The name sounds familiar, but I can’t remember why. And it’s making me crazy to constantly have all these things almost making sense, but not making sense. I just need a day to think, Nikki. I need a day for this to be my problem. Not ours. Mine.”
“Fine,” I said. “It’s your problem.” Part of me wanted to be offended that he was shutting me out so completely, but then again, how many problems was I hiding from him at any given moment?
“Thank you.” He did another three sit-ups.
“Now, to the reason I’m here,” I said.
He laughed. “I knew it.”
“No, this will be fun. I promise.”
“Fun?” He stood, grabbed a towel from a nearby table, and wiped his face and neck. “When have your plans ever been fun?”
I ignored him. “Have you ever been to igNight?”
He thought, then squinted through the sweat. “The hookah place?”
I nodded. “Hookah club is what they call it.”
He pitched the used towel across the room; it landed in a laundry basket, on top of a pile of other dirty towels. “Why on earth would I want to go to a hookah club? Or any kind of club, for that matter.”
“Because you’re not eighty,” I said, kicking his shoe. “Even if you constantly insist on acting like you are.” I hunched over and made a grumpy face.
“I don’t really see you as a big dancer, Nikki,” he said.
“I could be.” He was right; I wasn’t. Dancing felt too uncontrolled and vulnerable, and I felt like a fool when I tried. Mom used to dance. All the time. She was constantly turning up the radio, then picking me up and whirling me around the kitchen. I loved it. Maybe that was why I hated dancing so much now. It was just another thing that died with Mom.
God, that was pathetic.
“But you’re not. So what’s the real reason we’re going to igNight?”
I beamed. “Does that mean you’ll go?”
He zipped his duffel and stood, looping the strap over one shoulder. He raised his eyebrows at me like he was waiting for my response.
“Okay. Don’t get mad.” He rolled his eyes, still wordless. “Luna—”
“No way.” He started out the door.
“No, listen,” I said, following him.
“No.”
He was limping a little, giving me a chance to catch up as he loped across the parking lot. “I have to—”
“It’s not happening,” he said over his shoulder.
I stopped. “I’m going with or without you. I’d rather it be with, but it’s your choice. I’m not giving up this time, Chris. As long as she’s out there, I’m not safe. Maybe you can ignore that, but I can’t.”
He stopped, a few feet ahead of me. He let his bag drop to the ground and sighed loudly. Finally, he turned. “So where does the club come in?”
“Vee told me that Shelby Gray has been hanging out at igNight a lot. She broke up with Gibson and is acting super sketchy, and if I were a betting woman, I would bet that she’s going there to meet up with a certain psychotic friend of hers. It’s worth a shot, anyway. I can’t let this go, Chris. And the old Chris would have totally gotten that.”
He seemed to think this over, his jaw working. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I get it.”
“Good. Meet me there at ten.”