Chapter 9. Isabel, the Rising Star
Isabel, the Rising Star
TEN YEARS EARLIER, NEW JERSEY
Snow fell in Clark, New Jersey, on the day of Georgia’s funeral, settling on the grass around the grave site and dusting the wood of her coffin as it hung suspended over the empty rectangle they’d cut into the ground.
You finally got your snow, I told her, then wondered if the compulsion to talk to my friend who was no longer here would ever leave me.
At least a hundred people had come to pay their respects.
Georgia was only a year out of high school, and the memory of the studious, well-mannered salutatorian—the universally liked girl who’d been voted Most Likely to Succeed—was still fresh.
Our principal, teachers, and former students still living in town had come, plus everyone from church.
We gathered around her coffin in thick dark jackets, mittens, and wool hats, the elderly sitting in chairs, the Sage family standing in front.
Mrs. Sage looked like she’d aged a decade.
Mr. Sage stared into the cemetery grounds like he was lost. My parents were in the back, but I stood shoulder to shoulder with Scout, Brooks beside me, holding my hand and trying not to shiver in his too-thin California jacket.
The pastor began to speak, his deep voice loud against the hushed silence of snowfall.
A woman I vaguely recognized as Georgia’s former history teacher let out a choked sob.
It echoed, growing louder as the woman hunched over and wept into a tissue.
Even with my back to the crowd, I could sense the glances being exchanged.
Mrs. Sage watched the woman with color rising in her cheeks.
Scout simply stared ahead. She hadn’t spoken all day. It had been two weeks since we’d found Georgia and spent all night in the police station, but in that short time, something had changed in her that was deep and foundational. I could sense it, but I didn’t know what to call it.
Mrs. Sage’s phone started ringing, a shrill trilling that made the pastor pause. She dug into her purse, and when she pulled out the phone, her eyes widened.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, backing away from the grave. “I have to take this.” She turned to her husband and whispered, “It’s the detective.”
Scout and I had been back to the LA station twice to give the cops every name we could think of who could serve as a witness, not just to the party but to Alden’s obsessive crush.
The medical examiner had finished his tests and the forensic techs had combed the Banks mansion.
We were now waiting on an update in Georgia’s case—specifically, on the charges the LAPD were going to bring against Alden.
I’d expected the news of Georgia’s death and the Bankses’ involvement to be everywhere, but I’d seen nothing on TV, let alone the trades.
Even Ridley Reed hadn’t posted about it on Hollywood Anonymous.
It was surreal. Every day, I woke up praying the eerie silence surrounding Georgia’s death would break.
Scout and I exchanged glances. “Stay here,” I whispered to Brooks, then she and I hurried after her parents. We found the Sages huddled on the other side of their Suburban.
“I’ve got you on speakerphone,” said Mrs. Sage.
“Right. Good.” I recognized Detective Sutherland’s voice. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’ve spent all morning in the deputy district attorney’s office, and there simply isn’t enough evidence to charge anyone with Georgia’s murder.”
The world flipped on its head.
“But Alden,” I blurted. “What about Alden Banks?”
“I understand there’s circumstantial evidence pointing to an unhealthy attachment Alden had to your daughter,” said the detective, mistaking me for Scout’s mom. “But the DDA doesn’t feel we meet the evidentiary bar necessary for homicide or even manslaughter.”
“Then go get the evidence,” I snapped, but Mrs. Sage was already talking over me.
“There must be something more you can do,” she said. “Anything.”
A wailing came from the grave site, unmistakably the history teacher. Mrs. Sage winced, but Mr. Sage ignored the sound, grabbing the phone and pulling it close to his mouth. “Our daughter was killed.” His face was splotchy. “You can’t be telling us that whoever did this will simply walk free.”
“We’re not closing the case.” I expected Sutherland to sound ashamed, but there was no emotion in his voice. “I know you were expecting swift charges, but we just don’t have what we need yet. Now again, I’m very sorry. I’ll call you the minute anything changes.”
The detective might’ve said goodbye—I was no longer aware of much, except for the fact that they weren’t going to punish Alden for killing Georgia.
That was like saying it didn’t matter she was dead.
Georgia was friendship bracelets and whispered secrets and the phone clutched to my ear giggling, complaining about my parents, gossiping about boys.
First crushes and first periods and the first sip of Mike’s Hard Lemonade at a party.
She was my girlhood, sacred, as close to me as my own skin.
Ending her life was the same, on some level, as ending mine.
And apparently, we were of no consequence.
Horrified silence gripped the Sage family.
Tears slid down my face. “Who are we supposed to ask for help now?”
Scout clenched her jaw but said nothing.
“Come on, girls.” Mrs. Sage motioned us away from the car. “We have to go back. They’re waiting for us. Someone has to show your sister the respect she deserves.”
Every eye was on us as we walked back to the grave site. Once we were standing in our designated places, the pastor began to speak again. Brooks frowned as he took my hand, his eyes searching my face. I shook my head, and his frown deepened.
“And at this late hour,” intoned the pastor, “we take comfort that at least our darling Georgia is in a better place.”
Scout’s eyes moved to her sister’s coffin. As if to say, No, she’s right here, alone and starting to rot.
The history teacher lowered herself to her knees.
Murmurs broke out. I watched, repulsed and fascinated, as she touched her fingertips to her forehead, then her heart, then each of her shoulders, making the sign of the cross.
I hadn’t grown up Catholic like my extended family in Mexico, but I knew it was a gesture of prayer.
Actually, I knew it best from horror movies, where grim-faced nuns made the sign to ward off evil.
The Sages were stone-faced at Georgia’s grave, but this woman was emoting enough for all of us.
“What’s wrong with her?” Mrs. Sage hissed. “She was our daughter. This isn’t how you behave.”
Scout watched the teacher with a detached curiosity. And when she finally spoke, her words were cold as the snow. “There are no rules, Mom. It turns out there never were.”
A week later, we flew back to Burbank to turn in our production badges. I was numb to it. There had been no question we were quitting The Weird World of Wenda Word. ABS and Freeverse belonged to Easton Banks, and, by extension, Alden, which meant they belonged to Georgia’s killer.
In my mind, all of Los Angeles did. It didn’t matter how fervently I’d nurtured my acting dreams, or for how many years: Hollywood was now enemy territory.
Those dreams were blown, dandelion seeds floating in the wind.
Scout and I were going to pack up our apartment and move home, and then I’d never return out West, never cross the invisible line that marked the state that had stolen her.
But an hour after we got back from the lot, Scout disappeared.
At first, I thought she’d gone to get some air.
But as time rolled by and she didn’t answer her phone, panic crept in.
I paced in our living room as darkness fell outside the windows.
Should I call the police? Scout’s parents? Brooks, to help me search?
My phone rang on the coffee table, and I leapt to it, flooded with relief at the sight of Scout’s name.
“Jesus Christ, where are you? Why weren’t you answering? Don’t you understand how PTSD works?”
“Iz, I need you to come meet me.” Her voice was muffled. “Bring the handcuffs you bought for Brooks.”
I frowned. “The fuzzy ones?”
“Actually, bring the lingerie, too—the set with the ties. And your bathrobe.”
“Where the hell are you?”
The line went quiet. After a moment, she whispered, “I’m outside Alden’s house.”
I froze. “Why?”
“I’ll explain when you get here.”
“Scout, come home right now.” My heart hammered. “I’m serious.”
“Are you going to make me do this alone?” Her voice was oddly empty. The voice of new Scout.
I knew in my gut that whatever she was planning was a terrible idea. But she had my number, because I would never let her do anything alone.
The taxi dropped me off down the street from the Banks mansion, on a steep incline next to Scout’s Honda Civic, which flashed phantom-white in the taxi’s headlights.
I slipped into the passenger seat and dumped the robe and handcuffs, already sweating. “Let’s go home. I’ll order a pizza. We can watch Housewives. And I’ll never bring this up again.”
“I’ve been watching the house for hours.” Scout’s eyes were glued to the tall gate that guarded the Bankses’ property. “Everyone left. I think he’s alone.”
“Scout, stop.” I raised my voice, cycling through denial into anger. “You’re scaring me.”
She turned. “You asked who would help us.”
“What?”
“At the funeral, you asked who we’re supposed to turn to for help now that the cops have abandoned us. And the answer is, we do it ourselves.”
I looked down at the handcuffs. “Do what?”
“Even the scale.” Scout shoved open the door. “Bring the handcuffs.”
One after the other, we scaled the gate and walked silently past the reindeer-sheared bushes, saying nothing on the long trek up to the house.
Georgia had walked up this driveway only a month ago, rolling her eyes, her round baby face flush with exertion.
I could see the ghost of her in her red dress beside us, laughing and calling us Romy and Michelle.