Twenty-Four

The good news, if you could call it that, was that Marina’s only costars were a banana, a pineapple (trimmed, thank goodness), and every variety of melon you could think of. Suffice it to say, I wouldn’t be eating fruit salad for a long, long time. I probably wouldn’t be eating period.

Marina was so involved in her work that there was a delay noticing me. Her expression blank, her eyes lazily flicked toward us, then immediately came back to me while she started choking. “Cut,” the director yelled.

No one came to help her. They just stared as she managed to talk between spitting out bits of fruit. “What are you doing here?”

The entire crew turned, their welcome nowhere near as warm as Todd Arrington’s. Sienna gave a tiny wave while I spoke. “I came to see you.”

The crew turned back to Marina. “You followed me?” she asked.

All eyes were back on me. I wondered if Venus and Serena felt like this on the tennis court. “No!” I said, which was true. I’d followed her GPS tracker. “How long has this second career been going on?”

The director finally got tired of the back-and-forth. “Do I need to call security?”

I knew it was just a threat. All of his budget had gone to edible props. Marina stood and threw herself into a robe while she spoke. “They’re friends of mine. I need a minute.”

“We need to get this scene finished,” he said, but he was talking to her back.

Her front was dragging me inside to the living room. Sienna followed. She was quick but not quick enough. Marina slid the door closed in her face, then shut the blinds. I felt bad about leaving Sienna out there, but she could hold her own.

Marina and I stared at each other for a minute, neither sure what to say. She spoke first. “You’re not gonna tell, right?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “You’re the only person who knows about this. You can’t tell. Anyone.”

“Why are you doing this? Are you that hard up for money?”

Not that I could judge. I knew better than anyone the crazy things one would do for cash. I’d been turned down to be a Bikini Barista, after all, but still. There had to be a better way for Marina to make some money.

“It’s harmless,” she said. “They cut my scholarship and I needed money for school and this pays pretty well, considering all I’m doing is eating.”

I wasn’t clear if she was trying to convince me or herself. “How long’s it been?” I asked again.

“Since Brace Face 18.”

I quickly did the math. Seven movies. That was a lot of fruit. I suspected the filming date coincided with the first big deposit in Marina’s checking account a few months ago. “So this was where you were the night Haley died? Why you lied about going to Allie’s party?”

“Brace Face 21.” She realized what I was saying. “Where’d you think I was?”

“Honestly? Kandy Wrapper’s house.”

“Why would I be there? It’s not like I know her or anything.”

“’Cause that’s where Haley was before she died.”

“Haley was hanging out with Kandy?” Marina thought it over. “Wasn’t that the night she got robbed? Kandy wasn’t even at her house, why would Haley be … ”

I could practically see the gears working in her brain. Thoughts processed at a rapid pace, putting two and two together until she got to: “You’re saying Haley robbed Kandy Wrapper’s house?”

I don’t know which one of us was more surprised. I would’ve sworn she knew. Victory sure did. I’d assumed Haley hadn’t kept it a secret. But Marina seemed genuinely shocked. And I’d just seen her filming a scene, so I knew she wasn’t that good an actress. “There’s no way,” she said, sounding like she believed it. “Haley wouldn’t do that.”

“Just like you wouldn’t do porn? Did she know about your little side hustle?”

Her expression told me she hadn’t. As I said, everyone in LA had a side job. These two had just taken it to the extreme.

“Seems like you both had secrets. Haley’s was being part of the Rack Pack. She got into a huge fight with her partner at an earlier robbery. Two days later, the same stolen car they took to Kandy’s house ran her down.”

“You thought it was me?!” Marina darn near choked again. “You think I killed my best friend?”

I had, but in my defense, her actions didn’t really leave me much choice. She could have saved me a lot of time and herself a lot of suspicion if she’d just been honest up front.

Marina was panicked. “I can prove where I was the night she died.”

I knew she could. I just didn’t want to log on to YouPorn to confirm it. Before we could continue the conversation, someone banged on the sliding glass door. “We need you back on set.”

Marina wasn’t quite ready. “I didn’t rob anyone and I didn’t kill her. You believe me, right?”

The thing was, I did. I did have one more question though. “If Haley was to partner with someone, who would it be?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “Victory.”

“Besides him? Any other girls you were cool with? Someone Haley hung out with when you were … at work.”

She thought about it, then shook her head. It coincided with more banging. “I have to go,” she said.

She slid the door open to find both Sienna and the director standing there. Neither looked pleased. “We only have the place for another hour,” he said. I wondered if that included cleanup.

He seized her by the elbow and took her back to set, as if marching a convicted criminal to his death. I grabbed Sienna to leave. I peeked back one last time before we left. Marina was back in position and ready for her close-up. Her heart wasn’t in it though. At least I hoped it wasn’t.

She’d get over the shock of both her secret getting out and being accused of killing someone. Then she’d have to deal with learning her best friend was a thief who was murdered. That would take a lot longer. I didn’t envy her. At all.

I spoke as soon as we hit the sidewalk. “It wasn’t Marina. So I’m back to square one, not knowing who it could be.”

“Well, at least it’s not every day you get mistaken for a role-playing hooker and then walk in on a fetish video.” Sienna was trying to cheer me up.

It didn’t work. “Yeah, but I don’t think it’ll be one of those stories I’ll tell people,” I said. “No matter how many drinks I get in me.”

We walked silently back to the car, both throwing a quick glance at Todd Arrington’s place to make sure no one was lying in wait with a pair of fuzzy handcuffs. We got in the car and made it down the block handcuff-free. When we got to the corner, we passed the police heading in the opposite direction. I felt bad about them walking in on Todd, but calling the police wasn’t like ordering on Amazon. You couldn’t change your mind and cancel their arrival. Plus, he paid a lot of people a lot of money to keep this sort of thing out of the papers. He’d be okay, better than me even.

We were halfway home before I remembered that someone had called me. Twice. I figured it was Emme, but a glance at my cell told me the number had come up private both times. I had to do something I only did under extreme circumstances: I checked my voicemail.

Victory’s voice filled the void after the beep. “It’s me.” He sounded like we were BFFs. He also sounded drunk. Big surprise there. “Need to talk about earlier. Got something you’ll want to hear.”

His second message was just a hang-up. When I called back, he didn’t answer. Blurg. It’d been a very long, very crazy twenty-four hours. I’d illegally downloaded a GPS tracker, worked eight hours, broken into an A-list actor’s house, been propositioned by said A-list actor, and crashed a porn shoot. I was tired, and now I was annoyed. If Victory had something to tell me, why not tell me? Why tell me you want to tell me? That’s just as annoying as when someone says, “Can I ask a question?” Just ask the freaking question.

I tried Victory again with the same result. He was probably passed out in a drunken stupor. Knowing him, that could last for days. I’d have to go over there. At least I could find out exactly what he was talking about and give him a piece of my mind. But since I was angry and not stupid, I called Aubrey first. After a quick update, he promised he’d meet me at Victory’s house in thirty minutes. I offered to drop Sienna off at home first, but she refused.

We beat Aubrey there. With all the lights on, Victory’s house was as lit up as the blunt he’d no doubt smoked pre-pass out. His television was loud enough that we could hear it from our car—with the windows up. Between the loud music and the grand theft auto, his neighbors must have loved him to pieces.

We stayed in the car like good girls until Aubrey pedaled up, but I jumped out at the first glimpse of his shiny orange jumpsuit in my rearview mirror. “Is Mr. Malone inside, Ms. Anderson?” Aubrey asked.

“I’m about to find out,” I said.

The three of us walked to the door and rang the bell. Victory didn’t answer. I hoped he hadn’t been playing with me with that phone call. “He can’t hear us above all that racket,” I said, sounding a bit too much like my mother for my liking.

I started banging. As soon as my palm slammed against the door, it swung open. He’d forgotten to lock it. Lucky for him, he was the only criminal in the neighborhood. I stomped into the house, Sienna and Aubrey close behind me. “Victory!” I yelled.

I didn’t stop until I reached the living room just off the foyer. The place was even more of a mess than he was, his decor of choice being “Clothes On Every Surface.” The furniture under his junk looked nice. I wondered if he’d stolen it or gotten it from his parents. Probably a combo. I found him on the couch passed out, his head propped so far back it looked like it might pop off. A belt hung off the back of the couch. I stomped over. “Wake up, you idiot.”

I shook him. It was a bit too hard, because his body slumped off the couch and slid. His head hit the floor hard enough that it should’ve woken him up. It didn’t.

I bent down and shook him again, but still no response. Something wasn’t right. Aubrey appeared next to me. “Please step back, Ms. Anderson.”

I was more than happy to do so, instinctively grabbing Sienna’s hand as I did. She gripped me tight as Aubrey checked Victory’s pulse. After a minute, he stood up and stated what had become obvious. “Mr. Malone is dead.”

The only reason I didn’t faint then and there was because I couldn’t afford the emergency room bill.