Chapter 82 Cara
EIGHTY-TWO
CARA
Choose a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.
—Anonymous
Dusk fell as Cara left Glendale, wound her way through Loz Feliz, and climbed up into the Hollywood Hills. Dylan’s call had been a lifeline.
Come to my house, he insisted. You shouldn’t be alone. I’ll help you figure out what to do. And if you feel up to it, you can tell the rest of your story.
Dylan had to know figuring out what to do was an exercise in futility. She certainly knew his invitation would only forestall the inevitable for a few more hours. So what if he was angling for the second interview she’d promised? She definitely owed him that.
And at least her story would be out there, all of it, whether she was rotting in prison or . . . gone.
Cara’s headlights found Dylan, who stood waiting at the top of a driveway that dropped steeply down to a white midcentury modern home.
The place had to have been created by someone famous—much like Dylan himself.
Slim and wiry with high cheekbones and chestnut colored hair, he took after his willowy French supermodel mother, Daphne Boulet, much more than his football player dad.
She pulled through the gate and parked in front of the semi-attached garage. When she got out, he smiled and wrapped her in a hug that was stronger than Aunt Evelyn’s but just as comforting.
“Cara Campbell. We finally meet in the flesh. Doesn’t it kind of feel like we’ve known each other forever? I sometimes wonder if we were siblings in another life or something.”
She couldn’t say the same, though she’d seen enough paparazzi photos of Dylan and his family that his presence did feel strangely familiar.
“I feel like I’ve lived an entire lifetime in a week.”
“Save that thought,” he said, leading her to the front door.
“I was thinking about it as you were driving up here. We need to get absolutely everything you can think of recorded ASAP while your memory’s still fresh.
I plan to shop this around to Netflix, Hulu, everywhere!
You might be even bigger than OJ was, back in the day.
The more info we can get out there, the better our chance of getting your conviction overturned. ”
Dylan’s manic enthusiasm, while overwhelming to Cara in her exhaustion, did light a tiny ember of hope in the ashes of her heart.
“Let’s do it,” she said, trying to sound more energetic than she felt.
Inside, the house was warm and airy, with an open floor plan, accent walls made out of restored wood, and Eames, Florence Knoll, and Paul Evans furniture.
“What a house,” she said, glancing into a living room cantilevered over the canyon with a wall of plate glass windows facing downtown LA. “It looks like a Richard Neutra.”
“Good eye. Would you believe my parents were ready to buy the place just to tear it down?”
“Why?”
“Because they live at the top of the hill and it’s partially visible from their infinity pool.
But only if you lean out over one edge.” He laughed.
“My wife told them it was worth a fortune as is, and to buy it for us instead. They weren’t convinced until Architectural Digest came out to do one of those Open Door videos. ”
“Finola is the one with the eye,” Cara said. “Is she here?”
“She’s in Milan for Fashion Week.”
“And you didn’t go?”
“What, and leave you running for your life? Besides, been there, done that.” He led her into the kitchen, which, although remodeled with shiny white cabinets, gray stone floors, and quartz countertops, maintained the integrity of the original design.
“The thing is, doors have always just opened to me, and believe me, I peeked behind all of them. I did the modeling thing. I tried my hand at acting, too. I had that cooking show on Bravo for one season. For a while, Finola and I had a lifestyle brand called Finedy.”
He paused, waiting to see if it registered with her.
“Oh—of course. I didn’t make the connection at the time. But of course that was you.”
“It was short-lived. Shorter than we’d hoped.”
He grabbed two water bottles from the refrigerator and a bag of Tate’s gluten-free chocolate chip cookies from a cabinet and led them back into the living room. “Everyone just thinks of me as the son of Daphne Boulet and Nico Danvers. I had to find my own thing.”
“So podcasting?”
“Ready to get after it?”
“I am if you are,” she said.
She followed as he headed for a staircase in the corner that led to the lower level of the house. “You know I was inspired by you, right?”
“I didn’t realize.”
“I was watching a story about your arrest. I could just tell by the look on your face that you were innocent. Then I did my own research to confirm it. I started thinking about innocence and how I could use my name recognition to help bring about justice.”
You never knew about people, thought Cara. No one would have looked at someone like Dylan Danvers and expected him to have this kind of awakening. Nobody would look at her and think she had changed as much as she had.
“This is only the start of what I now know is my calling—fighting for the falsely convicted. I’ve been looking into getting my law degree.”
“Law school? Wow. That’s impressive.”
Dylan shrugged. “In California, you don’t have to go to law school; you just have to pass the bar. Kim Kardashian is going to hook me up with her tutor.”
“So cool,” Cara said, even though she thought Kim K. hadn’t passed.
The downstairs hallway was a floor-to-ceiling photo gallery that included candids with countless celebs, as well as professional photo portraits of Dylan’s famous parents, his beautiful wife, and Dylan himself.
She stopped to look at one of them in particular. In it, Dylan’s hair was shoulder length.
And blond.
Realizing she wasn’t behind him, Dylan turned around and came back. When he saw what she was looking at, he shook his head. “Finola hates that picture of me. I should totally get rid of it.”
“Why does your wife hate this picture?” she asked.
“Probably because my hair is nicer than hers.”
Cara’s heartbeat pounded in her ears as she followed him into a studio that looked completely professional, from the oversized mics with pop filters to the racks of electronic equipment to the acoustic baffles on the walls.
Dylan sat down without offering her a seat. He glanced over at an open laptop that appeared to be wired into the system.
“Oh, shoot, I forgot to reboot. I’d better do it, or the sound gets glitchy. It takes about ten minutes. Want to see my parents’ house while we wait?”
She didn’t.
“Come on,” he said. “The view is beyond incredible.”
When he abruptly stood and breezed out of the room, she followed.