EPILOGUE
Are All Epilogues Three Months Later?
“How long is it to the resort?” I ask Harper as we wait in line for the shuttle bus to our hotel. I was nearly certain she’d told me they were sending a private car, but even though I searched for a sign with my name on it being held by one of the many uniformed men awaiting our flight, the name Dash didn’t appear on any of them.
Hence the shuttle bus.
“Not far.”
“Like actually not far, or Dad not far?”
Harper shrugs. She buried her head in a book 110 the entire flight here, and now she’s wearing a scarf over her hair and large sunglasses, like a ’50s movie star who doesn’t want to be recognized.
She probably doesn’t.
I can’t blame her.
She’s been struggling ever since we left Catalina. Shawna’s betrayal has hit her hard, and Emma’s, too. She was like a sister and finding out that we didn’t know her at all is a blow it’s going to take both of us a long time to recover from. Maybe you never can. Stay tuned to find out, I guess.
In case you haven’t picked up on that by now, being flip is how I deal with pain.
Because sometimes all you can do is laugh to escape the pain of life.
That’s my excuse, anyway.
How do you cope?
Anyway, she’s why we’re going to this weekend-in-the-sun, learn-how-to-write-a-murder-mystery thing in the Bahamas. I thought it would be a good place for her to relax and forget about life for a while.
It wasn’t because I needed her to organize my life, even on vacation.
I swear.
“About twenty minutes,” Oliver says.
“Great.” I fan my hand in front of my face. It’s hot out and it’s going to get hotter. I’m already regretting agreeing to this trip, even though we could all use a change of scene.
It’s been a hard three months for me, too.
Not that anyone’s asked.
I’m just telling you in case you were interested.
After we failed to get Emma to confess that Sunday morning, we went and found Officer Anderson and told her what we’d discovered. Then we went back to our villa and sat on the balcony until we saw the police boats arriving, two sixteen-footers that chopped through the waves and dispensed what looked like a small army of lab techs and officers and one older, grizzled detective who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but on an island where he had to arrest two major movie stars for trying to kill each other.
The media wasn’t far behind. By the time Fred, Simone, and Emma were led to one of the boats in handcuffs, there was a flotilla of them in Avalon Bay, long lenses at the ready. There might’ve been a few media frenzies like this one before, but it’s hard to remember them.
It was the 9/11 of celebrity stories, consuming everything.
It consumed me, too.
All I could do was spin and spin and spin, turning over every little detail, trying to convince myself I couldn’t have figured it out earlier.
That I couldn’t have stopped Emma from her course of action once she’d decided on it.
It’s taken me thirty-five years to realize you can still feel guilty about something you have no control over.
After a couple of days, Harper and I decamped to Oliver’s house in North Hollywood because too many people knew where I lived. But we couldn’t go anywhere. I’d never really been recognized in public before, and guess what? It’s not that fun! Especially not if it happens because your best friend killed two people.
Deep breaths, Eleanor.
Maybe one day that phrase won’t be a punch to the gut.
But not today.
Allison and David kept in touch with us by text—they were at some undisclosed retreat in Arizona where they make you hike ten hours a day for your sins. David was hard at work on When in Rome You Go to Catalina , because, yes, that’s exactly what Hollywood is doing with this.
Tyler’s at the forefront, bemoaning the indignity of his arrest and pressing a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. But he’s also going to be a star witness in Emma’s trial, which is something else I don’t want to think about right now.
Crazy Cathy became a minor celebrity when she did the rounds on TMZ and the other online tabloids. She and Inspector Tucci were the only ones who’d talk to them, but once they started spinning conspiracy theories, the more reputable news organizations stopped booking them.
I hear Inspector Tucci’s in talks to get his own Nancy Grace–type show on Fox News, though.
Enough said.
Oliver and I mostly spent the time together writing our book. No surprise that Vicki was happy to take the manuscript, which is a dramatization of what happened on Catalina.
We wrote it as a dual narrative—me writing Emma’s part and him writing Fred’s. Only we called them Emily and Ted.
Yes, yes.
Did you not get the part about us cashing in on a tragedy I was involved in?
It’s what I do, after all.
It’s not my fault you want to read all about it.
Let’s see, have I forgotten anyone?
Mr. and Mrs. Winter moved into one of those retirement homes for once-famous actors. It turns out Fred had gambled away their money, too. I’m not sure what the worst blow was for Mrs. Winter. Discovering that her precious baby boy was a murderer, or that she wasn’t going to be able to continue to live the lifestyle she’d become accustomed to.
Thank God for her SAG pension and her residual checks from the 1980s, which started multiplying once her old shows were added to every streaming platform after Fred was arrested.
Seems like everyone’s cashing in on this tragedy.
I’d expect nothing less.
Which brings us to Connor.
I almost forgot about him.
His book came out early, and we were invited to his lavish book launch at Zibby Books in Santa Monica. It’s a small store, but the choice of location was intentional. There was a line two miles long to get in there for Connor to sign a copy.
Not that I went to his event. I just saw the pictures on Instagram.
I think he was pissed we didn’t go.
But I didn’t want to be in that maelstrom.
I read it, though. And it pains me to admit this, but it was good ?
ANYWAY.
“Bus arriving,” Oliver says as a dark blue minibus with the Footprints logo on it pulls up. Ten other people have gathered around us while I’ve been summarizing, at least one of whom I recognize: Elizabeth Ben, the grande dame of detective fiction. She’s in her eighties, thinning out and frail, and walks with a cane. But her dark brown eyes still shine with intelligence.
She’s written fifty bestselling murder mysteries, and I’ve never figured out the ending of any of them.
It can’t be a coincidence that she’s here.
You should know me well enough by now to know it isn’t.
Something is afoot.
Because of course it is.
You didn’t think I was going to be able to go on vacation somewhere without someone dying, did you?
LOL.
But even though I should know better by now, I’ve found that moments of chaos are often preceded by moments of calm. Like the ride to the hotel down a palm-lined street while the Caribbean glimmers beneath a cloudless sky.
Like the glass of Champagne we’re greeted with before we’re even shown to our white stuccoed villa.
But there’s no forgetting when the porter opens our door for us and stops short with a piece of our luggage in each hand, then drops them with a thud to the ground.
“What now?” Harper says with an impatience that’s uncharacteristic for her.
But as she pushes ahead and her hand flies up to her mouth to stifle a scream, I almost don’t have to look to know what she’s seeing.
There’s a body lying on its back in the middle of the room with a bullet in its temple.
Shit .
This probably won’t come as a surprise for you, but: This Weekend Isn’t Going to End Well for Anyone . 111
110 Jackpot Summer by Elyssa Friedland. So fun. Read immediately after you finish this.
111 Coming soon!