Chapter 9
Want to come see a movie with me this afternoon? Arthur’s got soccer practice after school so I have couple hours free!
Ahhhh! I wish I could! I’ve got yoga this afternoon!
Are you kidding me? Cut this bendy shit out and come hang out with your little sister!
Ellie looked guiltily at her phone. There was no yoga this afternoon.
What there was, was a dance recital for one of Estella’s many young nieces, an event Ellie had painstakingly managed to track down after a quick and cautious eavesdrop while casually nursing a coffee in the nearest cafe when Estella strolled in after class with a handful of yoga friends.
It had been one thing sitting six feet from Estella, not daring to take her eyes off her phone as she pretended to doom scroll, listening to the mobster charm a glimmering bunch of wealthy Armadale residents over protein smoothies.
It was another thing altogether to get to glimpse Estella as she interacted with the Grant family, and as their fearsome leader at that.
Sorry! It’s a yoga graduation thing. We’re all going up a level, I really can’t miss it.
She hated lying to anyone, but to Zara most of all.
They were closer than the average pair of sisters, having had no one but each other to rely on for most of their lives.
It was the kind of small betrayal that made her stomach turn; she was about the only person on the planet Zara truly trusted.
Ellie quickly justified it to herself. Her sister would be deeply stressed if she knew what Ellie was really up to.
And after this afternoon, Ellie would stop, she actually would.
There were only so many risks you should take for a role, and pissing off genuinely dangerous criminals was not on her bucket list.
And yet, barely two hours later, there Ellie was.
Carefully in place on a park bench on a posh suburban back street, with her phone in one hand and a chocolate almond Magnum ice-cream in the other, for all the world just another innocent citizen blending in with the dance mums and dads, uncles and aunties, passing by on their way to the recital doors, a mere fifty yards away.
She hadn’t wanted to be too close or too obvious.
She regretted it though, when she finally caught sight of Estella Grant approaching from the opposite side of the street from where she’d hoped.
Ellie was too far away to really see much at all, just a ripple of families moving quickly aside, Estella now dwarfed by a giant man — surely a bodyguard — which had to be as much for show, as for genuine protection.
Considering Estella frequently wandered the street outside yoga unattended; was it the Grants themselves that she felt she needed protection from?
Ellie sighed. So far, this trip had been a bust. She wasn’t committed or creepy enough as a stalker to sit through a children’s dance recital, so she had two choices: wait for the recital to wrap up or give up and head home.
She glanced down at her phone. Maybe she could still catch Zara?
Make up for missing out on the movie with her?
Ugh, fine, she’d take this as her sign. She had to be honest with herself; this little obsession with getting close to Estella was starting to become as much for the thrill of it as it was about the art of a truly good portrayal. It was time to stop.
She dumped the dregs of her ice-cream in the bin and put her Kindle back in her handbag.
She took once last glance over her shoulder at the recital auditorium and made her way back up the now quiet side street towards her car where she’d parked it, tucked — just a touch illegally — on the outer edge of a cobbled laneway between the houses.
She slipped her hand into her bag to pull out her phone to try to call Zara when out of nowhere a sharp blow to her shins had her crumbling to the pavement, her breath whooshing out of her lungs as she fell.
For a split second she froze, lying face-down on the footpath, her left arm outstretched having failed to catch herself.
Her knees throbbed from where she’d connected with the pavement.
She caught sight of movement and her head snapped up.
There, immediately in front of her face were a pair of gleaming red stilettos.
She jerked back in shock, craning her neck up to see them followed by a pair of shapely bare legs, a glimpse of bare thigh through a split in a sculpted, creme designer dress, wrapped around the by now familiar curves, right below the infamous face of Estella Grant.
Ellie gaped up at her, like a goldfish flopped out of her tank, before she sucked in a sharp breath and scrambled to her feet.
Her handbag and phone both lay scattered on the pavement, her car keys so far away in her bag they might as well be on the moon for all the good they’d do her now.
Her eyes darted desperately around them only to find the street was distressingly quiet now, not a single person around to witness Estella Grant if she didn’t care to be disturbed.
Frantically, she met Estella’s eyes. Estella had her head cocked, like a predator, waiting to see what her prey would do next.
“I—” Ellie had nothing. She licked her lips, her spine stiff with the shock of her fall. She was pretty sure her left hand was bleeding but she didn’t want to look down to check.
“Eloise Silver,” Estella said with deadly calm, and Ellie jolted.
“Otherwise known as Ellie Graham. Graduated NIDA 2014. First big break playing Lila on Home & Away, aged 22. Showed up in a handful of music videos — both Australian and international — always as the love interest. Became a household face — though not a name — in a primetime series of ice-cream commercials. Performed in one big budget film in the crucial role of sarcastic waitress with three speaking lines. Most famous, however, for playing me.”
Ellie shivered. Moments ago she’d been lightly sweating on a warm, sunny Melbourne afternoon but a cool breeze had appeared out of nowhere, the sun ducking behind the clouds.
Estella’s hair lifted in the wind before resting back on her shoulders.
She didn’t drop her shockingly bright blue gaze from Ellie’s for even a second.
“The question is, Eloise, why the hell do you keep following me? You’re like a pesky shadow, every damn place I go.
” She narrowed her eyes and sized Ellie up from head to toe and back again.
“I’ve had every part of my life invaded, photographed and carved up for attention, so usually I’d let it go, but this isn’t my yoga class or a public cafe.
It’s a family event, and so I find myself getting a tad pissed off.
You’ve got one chance to tell me what the hell it is you want.
Then if I ever see you again, you’ll find out what pissed off really looks like. ”
“I—” Ellie was flickering like a glitch. She’d been dying for just a glimpse of this woman and now she was pinned in her blue gaze like a butterfly.
“Spit it out, Ellie.”
“I just wanted to know you,” she managed to gasp. “The real you. The actual woman, not just the news reports.”
“Know me?” Estella screwed up her pretty nose.
“Well, that’s a hell of a line out of little Ellie Graham.
What the fuck are you thinking? That you played me, so you somehow understand me?
You think we have some kind of a bond?” Ellie shook her head but Estella stepped closer.
“What, did you think I’d thank you for playing me? That we’d end up as friends?”
Ellie recoiled.
“I don’t want to be your friend!” she burst out. “God, no. I’m trying to understand you so I can do your character justice on season seven!”
All the air whooshed out of her lungs for the second time in minutes as Estella shoved her back hard into the brick wall bordering the alleyway.
Her fingers gripped Ellie’s t-shirt, the back of her arm pressing hard against her collarbones.
They were inches apart, Estella’s eyes blazing into hers. Ellie struggled for breath.
“Season seven?” Estella’s voice came out high and furious. Ellie could feel her exhalation on her face as she spoke. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You didn’t know?” Somehow Ellie had assumed Estella would just know these things. Melbourne’s crime gangs made news. Fallen made stories about them. Rinse and repeat, ad nauseam.
“How the fuck would I know?” Estella pressed her arm in harder with a little jab.
Her skin was shockingly warm against Ellie’s neck.
“You think someone asks me before they write my life into entertainment? Before they pay some soap star to writhe around on screen, getting her tits out—” she glanced down at Ellie’s chest “—pretending she’s me? Pretending she knows me?”
“I’m just doing my job!” Ellie snapped, categorically annoyed enough by this interpretation of her career to forget she was being threatened. “If you don’t want to see your tits on screen, then maybe stop fucking dirty lawyers! Stop killing people! Stop making people want to watch you!”
Estella pushed in harder, like maybe she was weighing up the idea of crushing Ellie’s entire breath from her lungs just to make her stop talking. Then, just as suddenly, she let go.
“Eloise,” she said, enunciating every syllable of Ellie’s name. “If I see you anywhere near me, or my family, ever again, you’ll wish you’d never even heard of me.”
She ran her fingers through her hair as if to ensure not a single golden strand was out of place. And then she turned on her heel and stalked away.
Ellie watched her disappear. Then she fell to her knees, scrambling in the gravel for her handbag, phone and keys, before running like hell for her car.