Chapter 9 Lana #2
“I can drive us!” Maggie jumped onto the pavement, shotgun in hand. Under the cone of light, Lana could make out an amateurish tattoo across her cleavage—Griffin’s name, in cursive writing. “Road trip! Four hours in a car together—now won’t that be nice!” Sweetie beamed.
A muscle twitched in Griffin’s jaw. “Put the damn shotgun away! And you need to call your son.”
“You are my son!”
“Jerry? Remember Jerry? Remember the restraining order?”
“But we’re having such a lovely time!”
“Maggie…”
“Well, I left my phone at home.” She defiantly crossed her arms. “Jerry’s got this tracker app on it, and—”
“You didn’t want him to know you were coming out here.”
“He doesn’t trust me—his own mother! And you needed me! I guess I’ll just have to use your phone?” She smiled victoriously, holding out a hand.
“Take mine,” Lana said, reading Griffin’s reluctance. There were layers to even his neutral expression—you just had to sift through them.
“Well, I don’t know Jerry’s number,” Maggie said as if she were scoring a point.
“I have it.” Griffin took Lana’s phone with a grateful look. “It’s on the restraining order. I’ll call him.”
He wandered away, dialing.
“So, tell me,” Maggie said, taking Lana’s arm. “How did it happen? You two were working on set, and…?”
“Nothing’s going on, Momma. We both just got left behind.”
“I’m not your Momma!” Maggie’s body went rigid, then softened again. She bumped the side of her hip against Lana’s, hurting her bruise. “Oh, come on. It’s the least you can do after I saved your life! I do love a Cinderella story! Filthy little servant gets the prince.”
“I’m just a background actor, an extra.”
“There is no just to background acting. It’s not as easy as you think.
Having conversations without making noise, while not looking like a fish?
” She demonstrated. “That was until they kicked me off, but it must have been hard for my baby to concentrate with his momma there.” She leaned in close.
“I’m worried about him, with those people after him. Was it kidnap? A ransom?”
“Mistaken identity, nothing to worry about.”
“Jerry wants a word, Maggie,” Griffin said, returning. “And let me put that back in the trunk.” He closed his hand around the shotgun barrel.
Maggie gave a dark look but relented. “Jerry, baby?” she purred into Lana’s phone. “No, I just gave him a ride, I swear! Saved his hide, matter of fact.”
“We can certainly melt into the traffic in your car,” Griffin said to Lana, stowing the gun in Maggie’s trunk as she argued with Jerry. “But let’s change your look, in case they find a way to come after us.”
“My look?”
“Take your hair out. Mess it up.”
She undid her bun and shook it out. He stepped in and adjusted her hair to frame her face. “Sorry, I should have asked permission to touch.”
“It’s okay.” She was a little breathless, but that seemed to be her new normal. “I wouldn’t worry. People can meet me in the morning and fail to recognize me in the afternoon.”
“I doubt that.”
“Happens at work all the time.”
“I wouldn’t forget you. I didn’t forget you! I recognized you right away as the woman who tried to jump me outside my trailer.”
“I didn’t try to—!” she began before noting his grin. A car passed and he turned away, raising a hand to obscure his face. “It’s you who needs to be less recognizable. I have a cap in the car.”
He checked his watch. “We’ll get to L.A. around nine. What’s our plan—try your sister’s address?”
“Our plan? You’re coming with me?” She’d assumed she’d drop him in Bel Air or Malibu, or wherever a guy like him lived, and that would be that for her fifteen-hour brush with fame.
He shrugged. “I got nothing better to do this weekend. And so far, it’s been a blast.”
Maggie appeared between them, making Lana jump. “Why, Lana, don’t you look nice with your hair down?” she said, handing back the phone. “Almost pretty! You sure I don’t detect a little something-something between you two? The way he looks at you… Call it a momma’s instinct.”
“Thank you for helping out today, Maggie,” Griffin said tightly, walking to Lana’s car. “Drive safe, now.”
Maggie held out her arms, following him. “Not even a hug?”
“Definitely not.”
Maggie seemed to have no intention of leaving it at that, so Lana stepped in front of her, halting her approach. “Thanks so much, Maggie. It was great to meet you.” She laid a friendly but firm hand on the older woman’s shoulder, and gently turned her to face the Chevy.
“Does this mean no more restraining order?” Maggie called.
“The order stands,” Griffin replied. “If I see you following us back to L.A., I’ll call the police.”
Lana stood guard until Maggie drove off, beeping and waving, a bereft Sweetie still in the back seat. Another car passed, and again Griffin turned away, shielding his face. A habitual move, like the scanning?
“Thanks,” he sa id, his posture relaxing. “Oh, hey, you have messages and things on your phone.”
“I forgot to take it off silent.” She unlocked it.
Even after all these weeks with no contact from Vivien, every time she checked her phone, her belly fizzed with terrifying hope that she’d find a text.
“Joined a cult, but they were weirdos, so I skipped out!” “Went volunteering in Africa, back now!” But no.
A few automated texts from utility companies, and a message from Lana’s boss checking she was returning to work after the holiday weekend.
Her stomach dived. She couldn’t afford not to, but reverting to regular programming would feel like an end to things.
Like she was giving up on Vivien—again. “Shit—there’s a missed call from the Fitch Police Station. They left a voicemail.”
Another car approached. Griffin laid a hand on Lana’s waist, dipping his head as if they were having a private moment. “We should get out of here. I can drive, if you want to check the message.”
She found her baseball cap for him—a souvenir from a librarian’s convention—and settled into the passenger seat.
“Let’s see what this baby can do,” he said, starting the engine.
She laughed. It was a relief to be back to just the two of them. But it also felt … intimate. Like they were a unit now.
As Griffin drove, she played the message.
“It’s the cop I spoke to.” She switched it to speakerphone, and Officer Sheng’s tinny voice filled the car.
“…been continuing to inquire into your sister’s case.
I discovered that she spoke with an LAPD detective before she disappeared.
The detective is happy to brief you. It’s Detective Keisha Graham, and her number is… One second while I bring it up…”
Lana scrambled to find a pen and scribbled the number on a receipt.
She probably couldn’t call in the middle of the night.
She brought up Vivien’s social media and looked at the selfie with Griffin.
Now that Lana knew him better, she read his expression not as anger but as impatient forbearance.
She idly flicked through Vivien’s most recent photos, as she had a dozen times in the last month.
She paused on another selfie: a smiling Vivien in what had to be her bedroom, going by the framed Gone with the Wind poster behind her—a birthday present from Lana, years ago.
“Weekend vibes,” she’d captioned it. Lana hadn’t looked closely at the photo when Vivien had posted it, otherwise she might have realized it wasn’t the apartment her sister had shared with Julian.
A book lay on a shelf by the bed—a library book, going by the stickers on the spine.
Lana zoomed in on the title. It was partially obscured by the sticker.
“Giving up your…”
“Sorry, what?” Griffin said.
“This photo, in her bedroom. There’s a book by her bed. I can’t see the full title, but the Dewey decimal number looks like … 362.73.”
“Know what that is?”
“The three hundreds is social sciences. Three-hundred sixties is social problems and services.” Lana squeezed her eyes shut, the numbers appearing in front of her, leading her to the row, the shelf…
“Three-hundred sixty-two, three-hundred sixty-two-point-seven… Holy shit!” She snapped her eyes open.
“What? What does that mean?”
“Adoption. That book title. Giving Up Your… It has to be ‘baby.’ She’s pregnant?”