Chapter 29
29
I t was after ten at night. David had managed to cook us some vegan tacos, making use of the many ingredients inside my sister’s fridge. I was surprised to see she even had anything more than the coffee beans and almond milk necessary for the morning coffee she took before heading to the main house for actual breakfast.
I texted her to inquire about it.
Fridge is full of yummy things. Hope you don’t mind we cooked some dinner.
Also, where are you?
She replied right away.
Marta
Of course the fridge is full. I told the house staff to pack it with plenty of vegan options when you told me you’d be there.
I rolled my eyes. For me, the family money still came like a difficult thing to believe. For her, it was second nature. It had been a more significant part of her life, so it only made sense.
Marta
It’s Friday night and, unlike you, I’m young.
I’m out with some friends. Don’t wait up
“Do you know if Marta is seeing someone?” I asked David.
“Seeing?” He looked up from his computer screen where he was still trying to figure out how to open the zip file inside Henry’s drive.
“You know...” I gave him a look.
“I don’t actually,” he said. “Why are you using euphemisms? You never do.”
“Because we’re talking about my younger sister. Now, do you know if she’s?—”
“Dating someone?”
“So seeing is a euphemism but dating isn’t?”
“Elena, you’re so difficult. I have no clue if your sister is...” He floundered.
“You can’t either, huh?”
“I guess she’s always felt like a little sister,” he said as if he’d just realized. “Wouldn’t she have told you if she was seeing someone?”
“Not sure, she barely tells me anything anymore,” I said. “I had always been the cool older sister, but I guess now I’m the not-so-cool-anymore old sister.”
“Okay, this needs to stop.” He closed his laptop. I must have looked at him with a face that said, Shouldn’t you try a bit harder ? because he added, “My hacker friend is going to email me back, I just sent her the zip file.”
“Hacker friend? You keep surprising me,” I said.
“What, isn’t this the kind of thing the lead in one of your scripts would do?”
I scoffed. “Don’t get cocky. The lead in this particular script is me.”
“I see.”
“What needs to stop though?” I asked, genuinely intrigued.
“Your insecure phase. You thinking that I cheated on you, that your sister no longer finds you cool. When did this nonsense start?”
I bit my lip. “Pretty sure it was the day Henry tried something with me, and I reacted in the worst possible way. I’m still not sure what would have happened if he hadn’t touched my hair, and I sort of magically snapped out of it. I was paralyzed. And I kept like that for months.”
“And I didn’t even realize,” he said softly, the resentment I hadn’t shown him present in his voice. “Or I did see you were more reserved, inward, and subdued. I just thought it was stress.”
“Let’s not hold grudges about the past,” I said. “I think these months have helped me regain some of my past foolish self-assuredness.”
“I’m glad to hear that because foolish, self-assured Elena is my favorite one.” He moved closer and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear the way he used to do before we broke up and the irreconcilable differences started piling against us. I knew he was about to kiss me.
You may think I’m abusing certain dramatic effects like always interrupting my scenes with David when things get heated or are about to get there. Sadly, this is exactly how it all happened, and David’s burner phone started buzzing then.
“Hacker friend,” he told me, his eyes apologetic, then answered the call. “Emma, did you get something?”
I didn’t know if it was because we finally talked, because he’d so much as told me he didn’t care romantically for anyone else, or what, but I didn’t feel the least bit of jealousy about that Emma hacker calling him, regardless of how cool she sounded. I was curious about how they’d met and how Emma had become a hacker, but I was returning to the unpreoccupied, never jealous, never envious, never insecure person I’d always been. And I was happy about that.
David hung up.
“How important would you say his career was for Dashing Henry?” David asked, and I could see him already thinking.
“The most important thing in his life,” I answered, unequivocally.
“Why are you so sure?” David was in reporter mode.
“Because I knew him, and he was a narcissistic prick who only perked up whenever he was being accosted for an autograph or nominated for an award. And he was vile if he wasn’t the one winning that award,” I explained.
“So he wasn’t big on the whole just being nominated is an honor thing,” David said.
“He couldn’t care less about honor.”
“But there must have been something else in his life, no?”
“He had no family, no friends. He attended award ceremonies with his manager as his plus one,” I said. “He had no hobbies. He wasn’t into reading, fishing, puzzles, or freaking knitting. The only thing he liked watching on TV were reruns of his own shows.”
“So LA Misconducts was his life?”
“Pretty much. He’d tried dabbling in movies but hadn’t been successful. He wasn’t that great of an actor, to be honest. He was famously cranky whenever the show went on hiatus between seasons. He even hated the holiday break every winter.”
“And he was going to get fired from LA Misconducts ?” David was confirming a piece of information I had given him the day before.
“He had already been fired,” I said. “You can talk to my agent. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to give you all the juicy details if you quote her as an anonymous source. She loves babbling. What did the hacker tell you?” I finally asked. I wanted to know what had prompted those questions.
“That Henry was the one who leaked his own doctored emails,” David said. “Apparently the zip file on the pen drive contained a copy of them.”
“Was he also behind the fake email address in your name?” I suddenly realized.
“Not only that,” David said, “it looks like I won’t have to worry about YouReallyDontKnowWhatsOutThere.com publishing anything else about me.”
“I told you so,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“No, the reason I won’t have to worry about it is because Emma was able to trace the blog back to Henry. He was the one who published the post saying I had sent him a series of emails and asked him to go to the Eastern Columbia the night he died. He’d scheduled that post, and it was published even if he was already dead. If you think about it, the piece didn’t mention anywhere that he’d been run over by a car, just that I had lured him to my place and something nefarious had happened to him there.”
“Okay, so?” I knew David was making some kind of connection I was missing.
“So, I think he was a desperate man. His lawyer had told him the libel accusations against me were moot and had left him. He wasn’t going to be able to prove that I’d fabricated anything against him. He’d just been fired. His team, the only people in his life, were deserting him. He had nothing left.”
“Not sure I’m following you.” And I really wasn’t. “You’re saying he realized that his career was over.”
“Hence, his life was over,” David added.
“And since there was nothing else, he tried getting you accused of his murder, but it was him who took his own life?” I couldn’t avoid the tone of doubt in those last words.
“Yeah, hearing you saying it out loud, I realize that it sounds a bit ridiculous,” David admitted. “I mean, Henry was an egomaniac and career-obsessed enough, but to the point of suicide? Plus, he was probably aware that there’s nothing Hollywood loves more than a good comeback story.”
“As the Hollywood expert here, allow me to say there are comeback stories and comeback stories . When you throw sexual assault into the mix, like in his case, the options for redemption start getting thinner.”
“He hadn’t been convicted of anything,” David tried reasoning.
“True,” I said. Most of the complaints made against Henry had been for aggressive sexual advances and coercion like the ones he’d made with me or Brenda. But at least one of his victims had accused him of aggravated assault. That case had been settled for an undisclosed amount outside of court though, and the other party involved had doubtless signed an NDA. “We’re not really contemplating the possibility of him being the one who ran himself over with a car though, right?”
“The whole thing sounds a bit preposterous. How do you even run yourself over with a car?” David rubbed the back of his neck.
“Preposterous or not, he’d tried implicating you,” I said. “The whole thing with him being at our building and being drunk on Fernet. I’m sure he made himself drink that stuff.”
“It’s good stuff,” David insisted.
“In any case, the plot thickens.”
“And it’s definitely time for me to get an actual assignment.”