Chapter 3
Actresses, Detectives—It Doesn’t Matter
“Sorry!” Macie said. “So sorry. Look, can I step in?” They glanced behind them. “I parked on the street, and there’s a sedan I don’t recognize. I think it might have followed me over here. I’m worried some asshole with a camera is going to pop out of it any second.”
Macie Finn was the type of actor whose looks destined them for character or comedic roles.
The broad, square jawline, the huge green eyes, the pixie cut—all of it combined with an impertinent, borderline tactless screen presence to mean that Macie had been called “singular” long before coming out as nonbinary.
When Sam was young, Macie had been an inspiration by virtue of this very singularity.
In every role, they were always indescribably Macie.
Bex shut the door and killed everything but the security lights outside.
When Macie shoved off the hood, Sam saw that dark horn-rimmed glasses failed to conceal their exhaustion. Despite the star’s typically ageless quality, the lines around Macie’s eyes were deep.
“Sam,” Macie said in the familiar husky baritone, reaching out their hands. “I went to your place first, and your security guy told me you were here. I know he shouldn’t have, but I convinced him it was an emergency, so go easy on him.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She squeezed Macie’s hands, her heart racing. Vic had come into the foyer and was staring in obvious shock—and Vic was a Hollywood baby who was difficult to shock.
“The thing is, I do have an emergency,” Macie said. “If I were anyone else, and if my emergency were about anything else, I’d go straight to the police, but that’s a last resort.”
“Ramona Watts,” Bex said.
Macie’s mouth tightened. “Shit. I know the gossip rags work fast, but I can’t believe it’s already out there.”
“No. It’s not.” Vic stepped forward. “I found out from Piper Redwood, but she only told me that Ramona no-call-no-showed at The Howling today. The three of us were just talking about it.”
Macie’s eyes closed. “Thank God. Okay. Yeah, it’s because of Ramona that I’m here.
I’ve been running around asking anyone I can about her all day, trying to track her down without everything going sideways.
I’m fucking sick with worry. It’s sensitive enough that I didn’t want to call.
I went by your house, Sam, and like I said, your security sent me over here. ”
Sam didn’t have security. She did, however, have a brother visiting who would not hesitate to give Macie Finn directions to Bex’s place.
Macie suddenly stuck out their hand to Bex. “Apologies. Macie Finn. I’m intruding. You’re Bexley Simon, obviously. Saw you at the Prince Edward in Soho and cried my eyes out. Never going to be the same.” They gave Bex’s hand a firm shake, then offered the same to Vic. “Victoria, isn’t it?”
“Vic,” she confirmed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“What’s going on?” Bex started leading them into the main living room, turning on lights as she went.
The stiff way she moved and the color creeping into the tops of her ears told Sam that Bex was privately freaking out.
Macie’s effusive greeting had overwhelmed the still-obsessed teen inside of her.
The group settled in a rough circle on the comfortable sectional, with Vic on an ottoman.
Macie rocked her body toward Sam’s. “I wanted to talk to you. When you did the Craven’s Daughter reunion, I followed everything about Jen Arnot and how you nailed that little shit-brick, the set designer, for her death.
I was breathless listening to the podcast, let me tell you.
Ramona and I both were. And so I thought of you, hoping …
hoping, I guess, that you guys are still doing it. ”
“Doing what?” Sam asked.
“Sensitive work. Detective work. For people like us. Hollywood people who don’t want to get the authorities involved too soon.”
Sam laughed, incredulous. How could she and Bex have been doing detective work when they hadn’t had a minute together in months?
Macie tipped their head. “Fuck. I’m wrong. Jesus. I’m sorry. It’s only that I’m a complete wreck, and I couldn’t think where else to turn.”
Sam was about to say something sympathetically dismissive when Bex folded her hands together in a move that Sam recognized as something she used to do when playing private investigator Cora Banks.
“No. You’re right,” she said with all of Cora’s gentle empathy.
“It’s not something we talk about, but we might be able to help. ”
Sam wished she had come over here wearing real pants so she didn’t feel like she was going to collapse in front of Macie Finn and Bexley Simon wearing nothing but heels, glorified underwear, and a suit vest. It’s not something we talk about?
No kidding it wasn’t something they talked about.
They had made it very clear to the public that while it was true they had played investigators on TV—and, yes, had stumbled on the resolution to the mystery of Jen’s death—they were not, in fact, detectives.
Evidently in Los Angeles that was a distinction without a difference.
“It’s true Ramona didn’t show for call this morning,” Macie said. “But what no one knows is that she’s been gone longer than that. We haven’t heard from her since she went to work Friday morning.”
It was Monday now. No one had heard from Ramona Watts in more than three days?
Macie wrung their hands. “Most people would probably think it’s too soon to say this, but what I know in my heart is that Ramona has disappeared.”
Sam turned to gauge Bex’s reaction to this news. She found Bex already looking at her. Sam raised an eyebrow and watched both of Bex’s dimples sink in, framing her serious mouth.
Sam wanted to kiss that serious mouth. She wanted to kick Macie and Vic out, and then, when they were gone, she wanted to tell Bex to lift up her arms up so that Sam could draw that soft sweatshirt over her head and find out how much softer her skin was underneath.
After that, she wanted to do whatever Bex told her to do, one thing after another, until she was exhausted and breathless and full of stupid gratitude.
Unfortunately, Sam also believed Macie. Ramona Watts was missing. And if Macie had come to Sam and Bex believing they could help, they could at least listen to what Macie had to say.
Sam turned back to her visitor. “Tell us what you’re worried about.”
In an obvious bid to soothe Macie, Bex moved their conversation to a seating area by the pool.
The hot day had eased into cool, dry night with a soft breeze, and whatever night-blooming plants Bex’s gardener had tucked into the landscaping released a fragrance that made the whole area smell like an expensive spa.
Unprompted, Vic had disappeared in the direction of the kitchen and emerged with a pitcher of hibiscus agua fresca, proving that Bex had influenced her sisters where it counted.
Macie did appear to be fractionally more comfortable in the dim outdoor lights, and sitting outdoors meant they could vape.
“You’d think after thirty years shackled to nicotine I’d know better,” they said before taking a long, rueful pull.
“I wish they’d never made these things. I’d just about gotten off the patch when my agent passed one to me, telling me it was ‘healthier,’ and that was ten years ago. ” They blew out a cloud of vapor.
Sam was trying to think of the right question to ask when Macie zipped up their hoodie and put away their vape.
“You know, that’s the first thing to know about Ramona.
She’d never fucking smoke. She doesn’t drink at all.
Never has. One time she tried weed and found out she’s allergic to it.
The only substances Ramona’s into are mushroom coffee and fancy vitamins.
She was drinking green smoothies back when only the cult members were doing it. ”
Macie glanced at Bex, who had begun taking notes with the slim gold pen she liked best. The soft sounds of the pen moving over the paper blended with the lapping water of the pool. It seemed to settle Macie down to be listened to with such officious attention.
“But that’s how she grew up,” Macie said.
“Her parents were both teachers. She’s a Great Lakes kid who had an idyllic childhood, camping and doing children’s theater and reading in this magical treehouse her dad built for her.
She’s never moved out of the first fairly modest place she bought in West Hollywood when she was getting started. Ramona’s always been very grounded.”
“That’s not the version of Ramona that the media peddles.
” Sam sat beside Bex on a love seat plenty big enough for there to be space between them.
Instead, Bex’s pink dance tights pressed against Sam’s bare thigh from her knee nearly to her hip.
Every time she shifted, the sensation of dense nylon stretched over warm skin made Sam want to close her eyes and sink into it.
Macie nodded. “Ramona’s strict policy is to refuse to engage, but sometimes I just want to project forty-foot letters on the roof of SoFi stadium saying that Ramona Watts is an introverted coastal granny who keeps herself to herself, not some bananapants cluster of neuroses who can’t stop falling off the wagon.
In my opinion, the rumors are because Ramona’s private and ambivalent about publicity. It’s punishment.”
Sam had certainly seen this dynamic play out.
A precarious truce existed between the media and celebrity.
It was maintained by giving the media just enough access to feed the world’s parasocial relationship, but not so much that you were criticized for overexposure.
Paradoxically, sometimes ignoring the media led right back to overexposure—usually of a fictitious version of your life that begged you to come out of hiding and correct it.
“It’s the break in her routines that has you worried, is that right?” Bex asked. “Tell us more about that.”