Chapter 27. Isabel, the Assistant
Isabel, the Assistant
PRESENT DAY
“You swear this place is off the grid?” Scout pulled her baseball cap lower over her head, then adjusted her bandanna and sunglasses. Barely an inch of her face remained visible. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
The news that Rosie Wright had been found dead in her apartment had hit every major news station two nights ago.
Since then, the reporters had been relentless.
No gag orders from Scout’s agent could halt the onslaught—everyone wanted to ask Scout if she’d killed Rosie in revenge for the article.
And according to Scout’s lawyer, “Do you really think I’m that stupid? ” wasn’t a winning response.
Strangely, the only people who weren’t pounding down Scout’s door were the cops.
Brooks said he was dealing with Detective Holloway, but the LAPD’s absence made me nervous.
It was like the rattlesnake we’d once witnessed on a hike through Runyon Canyon: that perfect, coiled stillness, right before the strike.
“The restaurant’s across from USC,” I assured her, locking my SUV. “You know no one in LA comes to Downtown. And Ridley and Gia won’t breathe a word.”
I hurried across the wide, empty street, Scout on my heels. All of a sudden, I sensed her stop.
“Izzy,” she breathed. “Look.”
I followed her gaze. Past the low walls announcing the entrance to USC, on the side of a tall, redbrick building, someone had painted a mural of Scout’s face against a starlit night.
The artist had written the words Our Lady Is Watching in script above her head. It was beautiful—eerie, but beautiful.
“How surreal, It’s like you’re a…” But I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. A hero? A patron saint? All of this, in response to murder accusations, to rumors about what we’d built?
She turned to me. Even through her sunglasses, I could see the apprehension in her eyes. “I don’t deserve this,” she whispered.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“No.” A rough shake of her head. “Izzy, I’m going to disappoint them—”
“Scout?” A group of young women wearing Greek letters and canvas tote bags walked toward us off campus.
“Shit,” I said to Scout, tugging her hand. “Sorority girls. Time to go.”
“Scout, wait,” one of the girls called, but Scout and I power walked across the street. Stupid of me to let her stand out in the open, even for a moment, even in disguise. In a matter of weeks, people seemed to have memorized the slightly hunched way she stood.
“We just wanted to say we’re proud of you!” one of the girls yelled to our backs.
“We love you!” another shouted.
Scout froze mid-step, turning to wave or maybe to speak, but I shoved her through the front door of Gino’s Italian Diner before she could, guiding her to the back of the restaurant, where Ridley Reed and Gia Thomas sat on opposite ends of a table draped in a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth.
“Not to be that girl,” sniffed Ridley as we walked up, “but Chateau Marmont this place is not.”
The years had not been kind to Ridley. Back when we’d first met him at Easton’s Christmas party, he’d been young and svelte, with maybe a touch of a tanning addiction.
He used to be one of the most popular people at any party—everyone wanted to whisper with him, get their name on his blog.
But the tide had turned. I wasn’t sure if people had lost their taste for gossip in general or lost their taste for his vicious brand of it, but either way, he’d become persona non grata in Hollywood, a tacky person to be avoided.
The stress of falling from favor was visible in his lined face and too-thin frame.
“We obviously can’t meet somewhere like the Chateau,” Gia sniped.
Unlike Ridley, Gia appeared frozen in time.
She was elfin, with a dark pixie cut and huge, expressive brown eyes.
“If anyone sees us with her”—she waved at Scout—“our careers are toast. Not that it’s really a problem for you.
Can’t kill something that’s already dead. ”
Ridley cocked his head. “I’m pretty sure you did that in Undead Reckoning: Part 2. Or was it Zombie Apocalypse: Part 3? When your movies all have the same plot, how do you tell them apart?”
“Enough,” I said, taking a seat next to Scout. “Gia, if you’re so worried about being seen with us, why’d you even come?”
She blinked. “I’m trying to be a better person.”
Ridley snorted.
“No, I’m serious.” Gia directed her words to me and Scout. “You obviously called us here to talk about Easton’s Christmas party, right?”
At our surprised looks, she said, “It’s a pretty easy guess. Why else would you want me and Ridley? And, look, I’m not exactly proud of the person I was ten years ago. I wasn’t always…” She hesitated. “Kind. Especially to other women.”
“Meow.” Ridley clawed at her.
Gia ignored him. “I talked a lot of shit and sabotaged girls to get roles. I wasn’t exactly a girl’s girl, but I’m trying to evolve, okay?
I mean, you guys get it. Ten years ago you were in that shitty sitcom, what was it called?
Where you were cheerleader rivals to some shy bookworm?
And that night at the party, I remember how much you made fun of that actress who got a butt lift.
And now you’re like running this hot girl murder club.
I figured I could make amends by helping you at your rock bottom. ”
“Gee, thanks,” said Scout. “Thrilled to be your charity case.” The vulnerability of earlier was gone, her armor back in place. “You’re right, though. We do want to talk about Easton’s party. I assume you both know my sister died there.” No inflection. Businesslike.
They nodded, a little hesitantly, and she continued. “We heard you were some of the last people to see Alden that night. Can you tell us what you remember?”
Ridley and Gia exchanged glances.
“What?” Scout demanded.
“Well, we knew you’ve always blamed him,” Ridley said. “Your mind was made up. We figured you wouldn’t want to hear what we had to say.”
“Whatever it is, you can tell us,” I urged. “Please.”
A waiter came to take our drink orders, and Gia waved him off with a sweep of her hand. Apparently, evolving into a better person didn’t extend to waitstaff.
“It started when Ridley and I went to Easton’s kitchen to hunt for food,” she said.
“He never served gluten-free hors d’ouevres at his parties,” Ridley added. “It was really thoughtless.”
“We ran into Alden and your sister there,” Gia told Scout. “We heard her say she was sorry, but she had a boyfriend.”
“Classic brush-off,” added Ridley. “Poor guy looked miserable.”
“They spotted us,” Gia said, “and your sister looked embarrassed, but Alden was too upset to care. He kept demanding to know who she was dating, and she kept repeating that she couldn’t say.”
I frowned. “Couldn’t say,” I clarified, “or wouldn’t?”
Gia and Ridley looked at each other. “Couldn’t,” Gia repeated. “I’m pretty sure it was couldn’t.”
Who would Georgia have dated whose name she couldn’t say—whose existence she would’ve hidden from even me and Scout? We’d teased her mercilessly about dating Alden behind our backs, and even though she’d denied it, she hadn’t said a peep about this other person.
“Alden got weepy,” Ridley said. “It made me feel bad. Trust me, I know a thing or two about pouring your heart out to someone who isn’t interested. I figured I’d protect him from himself and get him to bed.”
“Georgia thanked us for taking care of him,” said Gia.
“I asked if she was going back to the party to find you, but she shook her head and said she was supposed to meet someone. She had this little smile.” Gia demonstrated, giving us a small, secretive twist of her lips.
“Pretty obvious she meant her boyfriend.”
I turned to Scout. “So Georgia’s boyfriend was at the party.”
“She went out the little side door,” Ridley added.
“The side door,” Scout asked, “through the butler’s pantry? The door to the backyard?”
“Yeah…” Ridley squirmed uncomfortably. He clearly knew where Georgia’s body had been found, knew that when he’d watched her walk out that door that night, she’d been walking to her death.
We were silent for a moment, and then Gia said, “Ridley and I walked Alden up to his sister’s room, and she put him in bed. I’m telling you, the boy was done for. He’d drunk way too much. We could barely drag him up the stairs.”
“That’s why when I heard about your sister and there were all those rumors swirling that Alden did it,” Ridley said, “I knew it couldn’t be true. I kept it off my blog out of respect.”
For ten years, I’d wondered why Ridley had never posted about Georgia. News that dark and tragic, involving that many Hollywood players, should’ve been catnip to him. I looked at Scout. She sat frozen, her face pale.
“Oh, so on that one issue you had a moral compass?” Gia rolled her eyes. “What about the other ninety-nine percent of your career?”
“Are you still mad because I called you fat?”
“I was pregnant in those pictures.”
Ridley tore a napkin into shreds, the pieces collecting like snowfall on the table. “How was I supposed to know?”
Scout stared at her hands. I recognized the look on her face. She was reeling.
“This is why no one reads you anymore,” Gia said. “Everyone is trying to evolve except for bottom-feeders like you.”
“My apologies,” Ridley said, scattering the torn napkin. “I was under the impression that people like me were the reason B-list actors like you had careers. Don’t act like you’ve never called a pap and begged for attention.”
“Seriously?” It came out too loud, my stress let loose in a sudden geyser. “We’re here to talk about Georgia.”
“Sorry.” Gia looked abashed. “The whole thing is awful, I know. And now Easton runs around making money off it.”
Scout raised her head. “What do you mean?”
“She’s talking about his podcast career,” I reminded her. “Remember, we listened to one of his episodes? The one where he ranted about how Alden was innocent and women are reverse witch-hunters?”
Scout’s jaw tightened. One episode had been more than enough for us.
Gia rolled her eyes. “He’s a full-blown men’s rights advocate.” She picked at a nail. “You could almost say his son dying was one of the most lucrative things that ever happened to him.”
Ridley leaned in, lured by the gossip. “Everyone thinks Easton will get a cabinet position once Knox gets elected.”
“Gabriel Knox?” I’d never paid attention to the man before he popped up in Rosie’s notes—he wasn’t part of Hollywood, which made him infinitely less interesting—but here he was cropping up yet again.
“You actually think he’ll be president?” Gia scoffed. “His platform is awful. He’s an authoritarian wolf in handsome-man clothing.”
Ridley gave her an incredulous look. “Of course he’ll get elected.” He sighed. “Personally, I want him to lose just so Emerson Banks doesn’t become a Washington wife. As if that woman needs another reason to feel holier-than-thou.”
The name triggered a vague recognition.
“Emerson who?” Scout asked, beating me to the question. Color was slowly returning to her face.
“Oh.” Ridley’s eyes widened. “You don’t know? Naughty Easton married his daughter’s best friend. You might remember her as little Emmy Nolan. She goes by Emerson Banks now.”
My jaw actually dropped—I could taste the garlic and oregano in the air. “So when Dakota mentioned her dad’s new wife, she meant…” I turned to Scout. I couldn’t even picture it.
“But Emmy was our age.” I watched Scout trying to do desperate math. “That’s a forty-year age difference.”
Ridley leaned in. “See, this right here is why gossip is important, and I’ll stand by that until my dying day.” He turned to Gia. “Read your Mikhail Bakhtin, honey. Gossip and parody are the languages of the underclass. It’s how we peasants subvert the powerful—”
“Ridley,” I complained.
“Excuse me for having a graduate degree,” he drawled. “Anyway, among the entertainment industry C-suite, it used to be an open secret that Easton liked ’em young. Why do you think his ex-wife was always self-medicating? The man was a dog.”
“I heard he and his friends used to call themselves the Pussy Posse,” Gia said.
“Ew,” I said.
Gia turned to Ridley. “You never posted about that.”
“’Cause he was litigious,” Ridley protested.
“When he stepped down from ABS, he claimed it was grief over Alden.” He shook his head.
“But word on the street was he exited the network because some scandalous information was about to drop, and they forced him out. We all speculated about what it could’ve been, but then he filed for divorce and stepped out with a girl he’d known since she was in diapers, and that answered that. ”
“How disgusting.” I pictured Emmy. Before our recent run-in with Dakota, it had been a long time since I’d allowed myself to remember her, or Easton, or anyone from those days. “Also, what kind of girl would do that to her best friend?” I shivered. “To herself?”
Ridley snapped his fingers. “You know who you should talk to? Lila Baumgarten. She replaced Easton at ABS. She’s retired now, but back then there were rumors she was part of the coup that took him down.”
“Now that woman is a piece of work,” Gia said, shaking her head.
“Huge ballbuster,” Ridley agreed. “One of those old-school power-hungry backstabbing types. Big shoulder-pad energy. I’m afraid I love her.”
I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye: Scout pitching forward, as if something had just occurred to her that socked her in the stomach. In her lap, she clutched her hands together, knuckles turning white.
“You know what, guys, this has been really helpful.” I slid out of the booth and grabbed Scout by the arm. “We’ll definitely talk to Lila.”
“You’re not staying for lunch?” Ridley asked. “You dragged us all the way downtown and you’re not even going to buy us greasy pizza we’ll have to throw up later?”
Scout was bending toward the ground now, as if physically weighed down by her thoughts. Something very bad was happening in her head. I needed to get her alone. I reached into my wallet and threw two hundred-dollar bills on the table. “Lunch is on us. Go crazy.”
Without another word, I shoved Scout toward the exit, stopping only to drop another crisp hundred-dollar bill into our waiter’s hand. “For your trouble,” I said, then kept moving.
It happened as soon as we burst out the door, into the fading light of the afternoon. Scout’s entire body collapsed on itself. I barely caught her as she crumpled to the sidewalk. “Scout—”
“He didn’t do it.”
I didn’t have to ask. Her body shook violently, too much for me to contain. I sank with her to my knees, the grit of the concrete biting my skin. “Please get up,” I whispered into her hair. “We can’t let anyone see us.”
“He didn’t kill her.”
I tried to shush her, drag her upright—anything to protect her, to keep what was happening from prying eyes. But she reared back, tears on her cheeks, her voice choked and ruined. “We were wrong, what we did to him. All this time, Iz, it was us. We were the monsters.”
“Shh—no, don’t—”
“It was us.”