Lou
“I guess we’d have to hear what the motive was,” Marnie said, her eyes trained on me. “We should have all the information in hand before we go blow up our lives.”
“You said it was the right thing to do!”
“I don’t know anything! Do I seem like the kind of person who understands what risks we’re taking here? The risks we already took by not reporting this immediately?”
“Yes!” Constance and I said in unison.
“You’re the pack leader,” Constance said. “We’re doing what you’re telling us to do.”
“I’m the youngest one!” Marnie said.
Constance and I looked at each other.
“So?” I said.
Marnie sighed. “Fine. If I decide, then let’s go somewhere more private.”
The market was bustling now. There was a line of people at every stall, merchants yelling out deals, probably.
Since I’d arrived in Cannes, I’d been surrounded by Americans.
Everyone at the festival spoke English. This was a surreal reminder that we were in France.
We were criminals at large in a foreign land.
We made our way out of the hall, the three of us in a neat row of guilty-looking girls. Outside, the crisp air was giving way to sunshine, rays starting to warm up the facades of the stone houses. The exuberant party on the yacht should have felt far away, but I wasn’t sure we would ever escape it.
We ambled down the uneven cobblestones, took a left, then a right.
I don’t think any of us knew where we were going.
We walked up some stairs, eventually ending up in front of the seventeenth-century church overlooking the city.
(In a different life, I’d read up on the city to plan for my trip.) In front of a white stone wall, there were a few benches, and we all sat on one, Marnie in the middle.
“Not to pressure you or anything,” Marnie said to me, “But we don’t have all day. It kind of sounded serious when you asked what we should do if one of us had a motive.”
“Right.”
I felt like I was taking a leap off a cliff, unsure if the stream below would be deep enough for me to splash into, or if I was about to break my neck.
“I’m not in the movie,” I started. “I’m not even close to becoming famous. In fact, my acting career is pretty much over. Oh, and I think it was Dorian Fisher’s idea to cut out all the scenes I was in. I think that’s what Odetta Olson tried to tell me before she… You know.”
When Marshall Wild said that Odetta Olson couldn’t be blamed for all the decisions regarding the movie, I’d assumed it was a throwaway comment, a way to protect the artist from the big bad Hollywood machine.
But compiling that with her fight with Dorian Fisher, one of the main producers on the movie, it had all started to click.
Dorian Fisher would have had a say over the final cut.
He was so cold with me in the car on the way to the premiere…
It was very possible that Dorian Fisher was the one who’d put an end to my career.
Which would give me a very good reason for wanting him dead.
Marnie’s jaw dropped.
“I was trying to cut to the chase,” I added. “Time is of the essence and all that.”
“Okay, but maybe back up a little,” Marnie said.
“Right. From the start then. I sat at the bar of the Carlton hotel…”
I laid out the entire story for them. The high I was flying on when I arrived in Cannes. The acting career of my dreams splayed open in front of me. Everything I’d ever wanted would be at the top of that red carpet. Except it was all fake.
“And in a few hours, if the movie wins the Palme, everyone is going to find out that I’m not who I’ve been pretending to be.
I’m definitely not Dorian Fisher’s new girlfriend, and even less of a rising star in an award-winning movie.
Instead, I’m forever going to be remembered as the girl who watched one of the most famous men on earth die.
At a party I had no business attending, because I should never have been in Cannes in the first place.
How am I supposed to recover from that?”
I didn’t expect them to have an answer, but I would have appreciated some comforting words. Neither of them had any, so I kept talking.
“And yes, it’s three of us against her. We all saw the same thing, and maybe I’m being paranoid, but I’m terrified of going after someone like Odetta Olson.
I know her reputation hasn’t always been the best, but she has so much more power than all of us combined.
I’ve already lost everything and if the police don’t believe…
Even if they do, we’re not innocent. We let it happen.
We made no attempt to stop her. And then, we got off that yacht and didn’t tell anyone.
We’re still here, hours later, not telling anyone.
There, that’s everything I’ve got. If you two believe we should go to the police, I’ll follow you. Whatever happens, I deserve it.”
We sat there in awkward silence. My head hurt so freaking much. I wanted all of this to be over, but maybe not if that involved getting locked up.
Eventually, it was Constance who spoke.
“Before we do that, I also have a confession to make.”