Chapter 53
Sebastian
The Quiet Beat
“Do you want to be my date to the Roses event?”
“The what?” I asked, walking into the living room with a towel wrapped around my hips and nothing else.
Evie and I had come back to my place after leaving Charles’s all-blue mansion, and I’d gone right upstairs to take a scalding hot shower to soothe my muscles.
I needed an evening to relax and not worry about Evie’s murder list.
She lifted her gaze from the journals she was going through and trailed it up my frame, pausing at my middle, before continuing to my eyes. I went to the couch and plopped down.
“My mom’s charity? We Become Roses. I’ve told you about this.” She sighed with annoyance.
I squinted. “Right. Sorry, I remember.”
“They help Latine women who are victims of sexual assault. I’ve never been involved.
This is the first time I’ve ever been in town for their annual awards night, and I want to go.
It’s basically one giant PR op. All the big donors dress up, have their red carpet moment, and eat a fancy dinner while listening to speeches, awards, and requests for donations. ”
“When is the event?” I put my feet up on my coffee table, and my towel opened slightly, causing me to quickly grab it and wrap it back around me.
Evie’s cheeks took on a pink flush as she flicked her eyes away from where I’d accidentally flashed her.
I bit back a smirk.
“This Saturday.”
“Sounds boring, but I’ll always take the chance to go on a date with you.” I grinned.
She rolled her eyes.
“It’s for a good cause. They do good work over there. They give voices to people who had theirs taken away.”
“It’s great, really. I’ll have one of my tuxedos steamed. What color is your dress?”
“Red.”
She looked ravishing in red.
She perked up and grabbed one of the notebooks from the pile on the floor. “I don’t know what to do with these.”
Evie sat on my living room floor, fighting off the dogs trying to slobber her with their love. She tossed another one of Charles’s notebooks into the large pile.
“We should probably burn them now that they’ve drained the lake,” I told her.
They’d drained Falls Lake for regular maintenance a few days ago, finding Charles’s wrinkled, water-logged body.
Since then, security had been tighter than ever, and police were rampant all over the studio lots. It was a bitch going anywhere now.
“I—what if I missed something?” She furrowed her brow. “This can’t be all of their relationship. It makes no sense. Every page is written on, but it feels like entire pieces are missing. One day, they are in love in Paris. The next they’ve been fighting in Austria.”
She huffed and fell back onto the carpet.
The dogs attacked her, breaking the tension.
Her giggle filled the room as they licked her face.
“Stop, you two!” She laughed, pushing them away and sitting back up.
She brushed her hair out of her face and inhaled deeply.
“Okay, I need to focus. What do we do now?”
“What can we do?” I shrugged. “Right now, one wrong move and we’ll be caught. I can’t take a piss without security standing outside waiting for me.”
“It’s awful. I feel like they aren’t there to protect us, but to watch us,” she groaned.
Bingo.
“What do we know from the journals?” I redirected the conversation. I didn’t really feel like talking about work right now.
“Charles had a few interesting quirks, including an eidetic memory. I think what he said was true. He’s not my dad. The time doesn’t match up.” She scrunched up her face.
I knew she’d been hoping out of all six possible candidates, her father would be the one who actually loved her mom.
“So, who do you think it is?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if I even care anymore.”
The notebooks revealed more about Lita Reyes than we ever knew. She’d come to Hollywood when she was eighteen and was an instant hit with small projects. However, she learned quickly that sex sold, and if you wanted something, you had to use whatever you had in your arsenal to get it.
I’d been taught the same lesson.
Charles recorded every verbal and physical abuse she had suffered at the hands of Hollywood while dating him.
He’d written it down matter-of-factly, almost like an impartial third party.
It read like a news article, not her lover confessing about the crimes he witnessed.
It was all very odd, and it was all in his handwriting, with every entry signed by him at the end.
Lita had been chewed up and spit back out by the industry she claimed to love.
She’d told Charles about being molested by directors offering her minor roles—she was barely an adult.
She got her start on casting couches, eventually working her way up in a male-dominated industry by shutting her mouth and taking what scraps they gave her—until she finally landed a break-out role and didn’t have to take the abuse anymore.
However, from Charles’s recounts, it sounded like her mind had been altered by it all. She’d become jaded, hating most men, which made Charles special.
He was everything Lita needed in a partner. He was kind and took things slow. He took her career seriously and was never jealous of the attention she got. For a while, anyway.
She loved him.
That was what made Lita’s betrayal so hard. Evie wasn’t Charles’s child, because Lita had gotten pregnant while on location filming a movie. Charles had been here in California the entire time.
It made sense now why she started the charity to help women like her.
Manipulated by an industry built on taking advantage of people’s desire for fame.
Sure, she was never required to sleep with any of the men listed in Charles’s journals, but she wouldn’t have had the career opportunities otherwise.
That was one of the sleazy underbelly secrets everyone knew in Hollywood but would never admit to. It was either who you knew or who you blew. And Lita and I shared that in common. We didn’t know anyone.
Having experienced the casting couches firsthand, Charles’s accounts of her being a completely willing participant were doubtful. I was sure some, maybe even most, were what both parties had agreed to. But, I’d been in a number of rooms where choices were taken and consent was murky.
It was why she’d left the knives for Evie with Bryce and started the charity. You couldn’t trust anyone in this industry except yourself. Evie was right. We were missing a piece of the puzzle. Who was her father?
“I want them all dead for what they did.”
“I want that too, but we have to keep lying low for a while,” I reminded her.
She still wanted to rush this, but Elliott Bradley and now Arthur Englund were watching us closely.
I’d spotted them both more than once in the two weeks since we broke into Charles’s house.
They hadn’t approached me, but they’d made sure to let me know they’d seen me.
Evie stood and stretched before coming to cuddle with me, the dogs joining us.
I raised my arm and let her crawl into the crook of it.
She snuggled into my still-damp bare chest. She’d been more touchy-feely since our morning at the Psycho house.
Before, she’d been hesitant to be close to me. Now she went out of her way to do so.
“I just want to be done with all of this,” she said, her voice breathy.
I kissed the top of her head.
“Whenever you want to be done, we can be,” I reminded her.
“I know, but... I swore I’d see it through.” She sat back up, and I felt her absence instantly. She took all the warmth with her.
I bit my tongue, choking down the words I wanted to throw at her. What if she did survive? What if we didn’t get caught? What if we could live normal lives? Would she be interested in being more than just partners in crime?
Would she stay?
These questions ran through my mind day after day, and it took everything in me not to vomit them out.
If I thought it’d do anything, I’d get on my knees right now and beg for her to stop this quest for vengeance, this death sentence.
Instead, I nodded and pulled her back into my embrace.
She didn’t argue and instead snuggled tighter.
“Are you staying over tonight?” I asked.
“Is that okay?”
“Always.”
She’d been staying over a lot under the guise of convenience. We could drive to work together. It saved gas, she’d tell me. I never called her on the lame excuses. She was always welcome here.
“I’ll go home tomorrow,” she promised, and I really wished she wouldn’t. I wanted her to stay here forever. “I just don’t want to be alone tonight. Reading Charles’s journals is taking a toll on me,” she sighed.
“I know.” I kissed her hair again and let her vent.
“Why didn’t she tell him?”
If Charles’s recollections were to be believed, Evie was the product of an affair.
This was the puzzle piece we were missing.
Lita had told Charles everything. She gave up every single producer, executive, director, or casting agent she’d slept with to grow her career.
She told him about every single lover and act she’d performed before him, but she never told him who impregnated her.
Something wasn’t right. Why hadn’t he written it down?
My gut told me that, whoever her father was, he was still alive.
I wasn’t ready to express my theory, but I was pretty sure her father was Elliott Bradley, the worst of them all. And Charles knew. They all knew.