“This is the Peninsula, Cici,” Jessica said, now finished with her call. “Anything you want, they can find. We can’t smuggle you out until later. If Terri finds out you’re in Beverly Hills and ditched her, this face-lift won’t remain a secret.” Jessica picked up the room-service menu. “Anyone else hungry?”
Frustration spiked within Lydia. Had they heard her? Did they even listen? She’d risked her career for these three, and all they wanted to discuss was plastic surgery, shopping, and lunch? She ditched her security detail to attend this meeting. Why weren’t her friends more alarmed? Was this a game for them?
“He knows,” Lydia said. She needed them to stop chatting. To stop pretending everything was fine. To begin to feel the fear she experienced almost every day. But their chatter continued.
“Lydia, he can’t know,” Cici said. “Don’t worry. Oh! I didn’t tell you? Terri and Kiki go to hookers.”
“Hookers? But they’re so old,” Mary Anne said.
“What? Old people don’t do it?” Jessica asked. “You think Mitsy and Marvin haven’t been like rabbits since they renewed their vows and went to Miravel for their couples’ weekend?”
“Are you and my mom still e-mailing?” Mary Anne asked Jessica.
“Occasionally, but not about you,” Jessica said playfully. “Never about you. Or Holden. Or anything like that.”
“Ted knows,” Lydia said again. Her irritation turning to anger. “Ted knows about the sex tape!” Lydia didn’t realize she’d yelled, giving voice to her anxiety, until she saw the looks on her friends’ faces.
Lydia never yelled. Not even during
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
, with Arnold clawing down her back. But now, at this moment, the overwhelming sensation that she might drown in fear—and anxiety—and paranoia—consumed her. All three of her friends softened their eyes and looked at her as she were a lost puppy trapped in a well.
“What did he say?” Jessica asked softly.
“It’s not what he said, but how he said it.” Lydia watched her friends exchange looks.
Cici finally broke the awkward silence. “I know what you mean. Ted conveys information he doesn’t want to verbalize through tone.”
“Exactly. I’m telling you, Cici, he knows. And I need you to tell him about the footage, because if we don’t—”
“What about Sherman?” Jessica interrupted.
“Sherman doesn’t matter if Ted knows,” Lydia said. Desperation laced her voice. Her friends needed to understand—they couldn’t lie to Ted—they shouldn’t lie to Ted.
“Sherman still matters if the goal is to get the DVD,” Jessica said.
“Isn’t Howard negotiating with Sherman?” Cici asked.
“If we get the DVD, all Ted has is speculation,” Jessica said.
“Wait, I’m still back on the sex tape,” Mary Anne said. “Your sex tape got out? I thought you destroyed the DVD.”
“So did I,” Cici said. “But it seems Nathan Curtis saw the footage at some sex party. Then Sherman Ross, this very questionable private investigator who works with both Howard and Kiki, gave the DVD to Kiki.”
“Your publicist?” Mary Anne asked. “But why?”
“To let Cici know he had the tape,” Jessica said. “So she can make an offer to purchase the DVD.”
“Right. Seems he’s brokering the sale for whoever owns it,” Cici said. “I’ve got Howard on it—he’s attempting to buy it from Sherman.”
“But who stole the footage?”
“Mary Anne, if we knew who stole the footage, do you think we’d still be having this conversation? Do you think I’d be this upset?” Lydia asked.
“Sorry,” Mary Anne whispered.
“Jessica and Lydia seem to think Billy has something to do with it, and maybe Viève and Nathan,” Cici said. “Viève and Billy have been friends for years, but they’re keeping that a secret, and we don’t know why.”
“And Lydia’s been getting crazy stalker notes and phone calls,” Jessica added.
“So Worldwide put a security detail on Lydia,” Cici said.
“And Ted doesn’t know any of this?” Mary Anne asked.
“Ted knows about the notes and the stalker,” Jessica said.
“But not about my sex tape. Or my eyes,” Cici finished.
“He knows everything,” Lydia said. “Cici, you’re in denial if you think Ted doesn’t know about the DVD.”
“Lydia, you said yourself that Ted didn’t mention the tape. If we get the DVD then all Ted has is groundless rumors, and all of us know how many rumors float around Hollywood.”
“And audiotape,” Lydia muttered. “Ted might be monitoring your home phone and your cell.”
“Then why would he call you? He’d know I was staying at the Peninsula. He’d know about my eye-lift. I used the home phone and my mobile for those calls.”
“Ted is very smart.” Lydia leaned forward and looked at her friends. “He wants us to believe he doesn’t know.” Jessica, Mary Anne and Cici exchanged an awkward glance.
They thought she’d lost her mind. She could see it on their faces. These three women, for whom she risked her career, questioned her sanity.
“Okay, Lydia,” Cici said with barely a smile, “you’re really starting to sound paranoid.”
“Paranoid? Paranoid?” Lydia’s voice became shrill. “Cici, I’ve got a wack job sending me notes, the wealthiest man in America, my boss, only wants to speak to me on an untapped line, you have a sex tape about to be auctioned, Arnold Murphy shows up at a Worldwide premiere … and I’m paranoid?” Her head pounded. “I can’t do this. I feel like I’m doing this alone. Why aren’t any of you concerned? The fate of our careers and the future of Worldwide rides on this, and all you three want to do is order lunch and have mani-pedis!” Lydia grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “You give me a call when you get serious.” She heard the door slam behind her as she walked down the hall.
Rule 24: Never Ignore a Threat
Mary Anne Meyers, Screenwriter
Mary Anne lounged in a cable-knit sweater on the chaise next to her swimming pool while her niece and nephews splashed one another. The underwater pool lights had come on ten minutes earlier and the wind picked up as the sun set.
“Aren’t you guys cold?” Mary Anne called. She watched her niece, Lauren, climb onto her cousin’s shoulders.
“We’re good,” Gavin, her older nephew, called to her.
It was the final night before her family, excluding Mitsy and Marvin, returned to St. Paul, and Mitsy had decided that tonight she wanted to cook a big family meal. Mary Anne could smell Mitsy’s meat loaf wafting from inside. Through the kitchen window, Mary Anne could see Mitsy at the sink. Steam fogged the glass. Mary Anne guessed Mitsy had just dumped the boiled potatoes in preparation for mashing.
Mary Anne leaned back and watched her nephew dive into the pool. The first scream she heard sounded as if it came from her neighbors’. But the second scream was louder and definitely came from the house.
Mary Anne bolted up and jumped for the door. She wondered if Mitsy had cut herself, but she’d never heard her mother make such a horrifying sound, not even when she required seven stitches after her blender accident.
Mary Anne burst into the kitchen. Mitsy stood motionless and Michelle shook.
“What?” Mary Anne asked, looking first to her mother and then to her sister. “What is it?”
“Your … the front door. There’s a—” Michelle looked past Mary Anne to the three kids shivering and dripping water on the kitchen floor.
“Mom, what is it?” Gavin asked, his voice fearful.
“Go back outside and dry off,” Mitsy said, her tone stiff. “I’ll come with you.”
“Mary Anne,” Michelle whispered, watching the children leave. “There’s a dead cat outside the front door.”
Mary Anne rushed to the front door and stopped in the doorway. A white Persian cat lay limp on her doorstep.
“Oh my God.” Mary Anne knelt down and peered closely at the little furry body.
“Is it?” Michelle pressed her fingertips to her lips.
Mary Anne nodded. “I think so.” She bent her face close to the cat to see if she could hear her breathing.
“What happened to her?” Michelle asked.
Mary Anne reached down and carefully touched the cat’s chest, trying to feel for a heartbeat. She stroked her. “Poor kitty,” she said. Slowly, the cat opened her blue eyes. Her lids appeared heavy, as though she were drunk.
“She’s alive,” Mary Anne said. “Let’s go. We’ll take my car.”
*
“You found her unconscious in your front yard?” the vet asked as as she felt the cat’s stomach.
“That’s right,” Mary Anne said.
“She’s groggy, but I don’t feel any internal injuries.” The vet shone a light into each of the cat’s eyes. “I want to take her in back and have our tech draw some blood. See what caused her to pass out on your front step. Toxicity or something else going on. Who knows. Maybe she was napping.”
“She really didn’t look like she was napping,” Mary Anne said. “I thought she was dead.”
“You don’t know who the owner is?” the vet picked the cat up.
Mary Anne shook her head.
“Okay, wait here. I’ll be back.”
*
“Vicodin? Who would give a cat Vicodin?” Mary Anne asked as she held the cat in her arms.
“Who knows,” the vet said. “She might have gotten into it accidentally; maybe someone left it out?”
The cat had really looked dead on her doorstep. Was she supposed to die there? Was Mary Anne meant to find her? Who would put a drugged, semi-dead cat on a doorstep and drive away?
“She doesn’t have any identification. Do you want us to take her?” the vet asked.
Mary Anne glanced down at the cat curled up and purring in her arms. “What will you do with her?”
“She’s not microchipped. So we’d keep her for twenty-four hours, and if no one claimed her, we’d send her to the pound.”
The pound? Mary Anne didn’t want the kitty to escape death only to be put down.
“Or, you could keep her for a while—see if any of your neighbors claim her.”
Mary Anne smiled. “I think that’s the best idea.”
She and Michelle walked through the waiting room toward the door. “What are you going to call her?” Michelle asked.
“I can’t name her; her owners might come get her”
“You have to call her something.”
“I’m not sure.” Mary Anne waited for the receptionist to print up her bill. She glanced at the counter. Magazines lay across the front desk. People, US, Star, and OK! She glanced at the cover of the newest US. Was that—?
Mary Anne’s heart dropped—a giant mass pitted her stomach. The blood rushed from her face, and a clammy sweat broke out across her skin. She picked up the US Weekly. The headline read REIGNITED ROMANCE and underneath was a grainy picture of Holden with Viève. The magazine had printed a smaller picture of Mary Anne toward the bottom right of the cover. MARY ANNE’S HEARTBREAK was the title above a horrible shot of Mary Anne walking in her neighborhood alone, wearing sweatpants and an oversize jacket.
“What is that?” Michelle breathed over Mary Anne’s shoulder.
Mary Anne fought back the tears that popped into her eyes. They filled the tabloids full of lies—but a photo? A photo of Viève and Holden together?
“That picture has to be old,” Michelle said.
Mary Anne glanced at the date on the magazine cover. No, this was the most recent issue.
“There’s no charge,” the receptionist said.
“Excuse me?” Mary Anne tore herself away from the photo of Holden bent over to listen to Viève. Were they kissing?
“No charge for today.” The receptionist reached out and stroked the cat. “Lucky kitty, seems someone nice found you.”
Mary Anne waited until the receptionist turned away before she stuffed the magazine into her purse.
She and Michelle drove home in silence. Mary Anne pulled to a stop in the drive at her house. “I have something I need to do,” she said without looking at her sister.
“What do you want me to tell Mom?” Michelle asked, climbing out of the car.
“Tell her that I went to get cat food.”
Michelle pushed open the car door and grabbed the cat carrier the vet had given them. “Mary Anne,” Michelle said, her eyes filled with concern. “You know the pictures they use … they have to sell magazines.”
“I know,” Mary Anne whispered. She stared out the windshield. She wanted to believe Holden had accidentally bumped into Viève but Mary Anne also knew from her history with Viève that there weren’t any accidents.
*
Mary Anne didn’t want to cry. Crying made her feel weak. She handed the magazine to Holden. “When did it really end?” Mary Anne asked.
“I don’t love her,” Holden said.
“Holden, answer me.”
“We ended years ago, before
Collusion
,” Holden said. “I told you at Shutters.”
“But that wasn’t the last time you were with her, was it?”
Holden hung his head. Deny until you die, was the mantra he’d recited throughout his life. But now Mary Anne stood before him holding a copy of
US Weekly
with a picture of him and Vieve.
“We broke up, like I said, after our thing. That picture is of her stalking me. She’s been breaking into my house, leaving me notes, chasing me around town.”
Mary Anne’s knees wobbled with the gravity of Holden’s admission. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Look, she just showed up and climbed into my bed. I didn’t want her to come over.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Mary Anne whispered.
“I ended it. I told her to leave me alone. That picture is of me ending it. I told her that I want you,” Holden stepped toward Mary Anne—his arms outstretched—a motion of want—of surrender.
“Don’t touch me.” Mary Anne backed away from Holden. She wanted to believe his story but she’d caught Viève with a boyfriend of hers once before; plus, Holden’s reputation wasn’t built on monogamy and long-term relationships. No, Holden’s reputation rested on bedding supermodels and starlets.
“Look, the relationship thing? It’s pretty new to me,” Holden said. “I wasn’t even sure we were in a relationship until I met your family.”
“Until you met my family?” Mary Anne asked. “Have you been seeing other women this entire time?”
“No, no, no. I mean, for a long time I thought you were still seeing Adam.” Holden dropped to the couch and slumped forward with his hands in his lap. “She didn’t mean anything. Not like you.”