It’s not about the quantity of hours, but the quality. People repeat themselves, anyhow, curating their lives into the top three or four stories about childhood, first love, career highs. Sometimes asking specific, provocative questions or presenting multimedia related to a moment they haven’t described will evoke something fresh. More often, they circle back to their gems. You let them go through it again, for new details, but after you’ve heard the iconic stories twice, you must write. Gaps are inevitable. It’s your knowledge of them as a person that’s the key. If you understand your client on a deep level, you will present the narrative in a way that feels conscious and complete.
Mari sat at her laptop, as usual, but she couldn’t concentrate. She checked her computer clock—one p.m. on Sunday. A benign time—neither too late nor too early. Before brunch, she had emailed Anke the “homework” she had promised her, but she hadn’t received any response. Now was the moment to be brave, to do whatever still could be done. She texted Anke: “Hi, I hope you’re having a lovely Sunday. Could you please call me when you’re free? Thanks, xo Mari.”
Her phone buzzed.
“Anke, thank you for responding so quickly.”
“Hallo, Magdalena, I am doing my homework. I thought it would be good for me to read, so you can hear my voice and give your feedback.”
“How wonderful, but—” Mari leapt in before Anke could begin.
Every time nonwriters scratched out half a page, they wanted a trophy. Often refused to let their rare and precious words be edited. Mari was sympathetic. She could remember, when she had studied writing in college, how she had labored all weekend over a paragraph. Even now that she was a veteran, she loved words, found them precious, and could fall under their spell. But Mari knew she had to be careful. Anke had softened toward her for some reason she had yet to share, but another writer already waited in the wings. And Mari had a new job. She could tell herself she was just being kind to Anke, in feminist solidarity, but she couldn’t let it go too deep.
“I was hoping you could text me pictures of your writing, so I can digest it. I will have detailed notes tomorrow. I am happy to help you, as your friend, until you hire your new writer.”
“Hm,” Anke said. “But that is not my process.”
Mari swallowed her sigh of frustration. Anke had fired her, but in this moment, she wanted to write, and Mari was the only one who was available to listen, so Mari would help.
“I want to support your process. So, yes, you should read your pages to me. I can’t wait. Could I please just ask you a few questions first?”
“What questions?”
“We have spoken a great deal about Mal and Dante and very little about the rest of the entourage, like Sigrid. Or even Jack. What can you tell me about him?”
“He is not five foot seven,” Anke said.
Mari laughed. “If you don’t want to get sued, maybe go along with his Wikipedia page.”
“Men. Little babies. Except my son. I raised him to be strong. To not care for gossip.”
“That must have been a great gift for him, given the circumstances in which he grew up,” Mari said. “Did you ever want a child with Jack?”
“He was the child.”
“But you loved him.”
“Jack is like a comet. If fortune brings him across your path in your lifetime, you take it.”
“I can’t imagine comets are easy to love.”
“Most people are not easy to love. I am not. I am not sure that should even be something to aspire to—I was no catch. Heroin and love cannot coexist in the same body. It was not until Jack had me for his own that he learned the truth of my condition. We struggle and fight, until we can’t anymore, and I end up back in Berlin. There is a version of the story where he saved me.”
Mari thought of the “mistaken” plane ticket, but she wanted Anke to feel close to her.
So, she stuck with Anke’s version. “When you left Jack, you followed your heart.”
“I missed Fritz. I missed the real world.”
“The real world outside of rock ’n’ roll?”
“The real world outside fame. I wanted to walk to the café in the morning, take my son to the park. I wanted to be free to go where my whims carried me.”
“Jack is not known for being generous to his exes.”
“It was a breakup after five years of living together, being together every day. It is a horrible rupture. Why should he be generous? I am not sure what you are asking.”
“If you had married him in California, you would have been entitled to half of everything. In two more years, you would have been considered common-law partners.”
“Jack is exceptional—I mean it. Even more so than Dante or Mal. Just full of so much light, it can dazzle you, project to the last seat in the arena. I have seen him perform for a literal million people and make each and every one feel special. But he is not so good as a husband. Why would I marry him when I already make the mistake with Mal? I have a little money after Mal die. I have a son, but Dante helps me with him. I take care of my family, take care of myself. Maybe because of this way I live my life, I am not Jack’s problem, and so I am not a problem.”
Of course. How had she not seen it before? Anke had been Mal’s wife.
“How much was Mal’s estate worth when he died?”
“Mal never save a penny in his life. Owe debts all over town, for clothes, for drugs, for the three other children he has. Thank God Sigrid take care of this for me.”
“But you said there was a little money—”
“Not for a year. It takes the lawyers that long to untie all the knots. For that time, Dante, he provides for me and his son. He is a good man. He is fair. Then Sigrid sort out the lawyers and the estate, and there is the trademark and the publishing. Mal wrote on two albums, but he also name the band, come up with the logo, and all together, it is enough.”
“I don’t suppose you still have Mal’s will? It was fifty years ago.”
“Sigrid was the executor, not me.”
Sigrid was the band’s fixer, and maybe she fixed this. But when were the papers signed?
“I don’t see how this is relevant,” Anke continued. “I am not writing a story of marriage agreements and what famous person was at the party on what night. This is why I question the whole endeavor. This book is my legacy. I will be gone soon. It must have poetry at its soul.”
“It does, and it will, Anke, because that is how you live. Please, trust me. Getting all of these facts right, even just in passing, allows the reader to trust you, to believe in your poetry.”
“Ja, okay. Now I read.”
Mari was rattled by Anke’s reminder of her illness. Something thudded against her door. In her ear, Anke read about the boat, Fritz, and her boy—about diamonds of sun on the water.
Leaving the security lock engaged, Mari cracked the door. Pitching Vivienne’s deadweight forward. Mari opened up and caught Vivienne as she fell inward. Vivienne sprang back, scratching at Mari’s face. Mari caught both of her sister’s hands without dropping her phone. But Anke must have registered Mari’s sharp intake of breath.
“Are you okay?” Anke asked. “Where are you?”
Making a dramatic shushing gesture to Vivienne, Mari kept her hand around both of Vivienne’s wrists as she led her inside. Mari leaned V up against the wall.
“Yes, I’m at my desk,” Mari said. “My chair tipped back, and I had to catch myself. I’m sorry to have interrupted. Your writing is wonderful. I can tell you’ve found your true voice.”
“Ja,” Anke said, her tone flat.
“Do you feel up for writing about the accident aboard the boat?”
“I do not know—”
“We can wait and talk about it together, figure out the best way for you to handle such sensitive material. With respect. With sensitivity. I just thought, by writing, you might access deeper memories and feelings—if it’s not too hard.”
“The accident hurts even after so many years, but I will try. You like my new writing?”
“Very much,” Mari said. “It’s going to be an incredible book, Anke. I know it can be painful. I know it’s a lot of work. But you will have a writer to help. It’s worth it. I promise.”
“Ja,” Anke said, again managing to express volumes with one little syllable—the weight of her legacy truly seemed to hang in the balance of their task, and Mari felt it, intensely.
“Thank you,” Mari said. She was trying to figure out how to work the conversation back to Mal’s estate documents, but before she could, V released a gentle moan. She’d better sign off.
“I look forward to seeing you, and going deeper, tomorrow.”
“Okay, until tomorrow.”
Mari got right in her sister’s face. “Fuck, V, how drunk are you? I’m working.”
“I’m working, I’m working,” Vivienne mimicked her. Stumbling over to the bed, she missed and landed on the floor. There was the scratchy, nauseous sound of fabric ripping as she puddled into a heap. She was wearing a snug black sheath dress with expensive-looking drapey net across the chest and hips, and the rip at one thigh spread higher.
Mari crouched down next to her sister, touched her hand. “I’ll help you unzip. Sit up.”
Grabbing V under the armpits, Mari piled her onto the mattress. As she tugged the zipper down, Vivienne yanked out several tags.
“Guess I’m not returning this dress,” Vivienne said. “Oops.”
Mari didn’t want to look, but she had to know: $3,800.
“Christ, V, you didn’t pay full retail, did you? How did you scrape together that much?”
“He bought it for me,” Vivienne said. “And a Chanel purse, which is—”
Vivienne swiveled around, in search of the missing bag, nearly tumbled again.
“Of course you would lose a Chanel bag,” Mari said. “God, you’re so frustrating.”
“Right—because you’ve had such a tough day,” Vivienne said, pulling her phone out of her bra.
Mari realized she wasn’t as drunk as she had first appeared. Whatever was happening to her system was much worse—shock, maybe, or some kind of total internal collapse.
“Boo-hoo, I have to eat room service and write words, and it’s so fucking hard. Poor me. Try getting finger-banged by a sociopath in front of his friends, and the limo driver, just to show you—and them—that he can do whatever the fuck he wants, and then, when you won’t agree to let him share you, because that wasn’t your deal, he pushes you out of the limo at a stoplight, throws the Chanel purse at you. So, yeah, I lost my bag while I was trying to not get hit by a car on the Strip. I’m not even going to tell you what happened after that because you’ll just—”
“Oh, V.”
“Don’t-you-dare-judge-me—” Vivienne said, standing and pushing across the room, her unzipped dress dragging behind. “You don’t know.”
“I’m sorry,” Mari said, spinning her around, holding her in her arms, even though she smelled like cigars and sex and the sour funk of fear sweat. Mari held her, and held her, until V’s nerves stopped fighting. She started to cry, heavy, shuddering sobs.
“He was so mean. Why do they have to be so mean as soon as I try to say no?”
“Men don’t like to hear no.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit,” Vivienne said, struggling out of Mari’s embrace and wiping her tears on the edge of her expensive, ruined dress. “Those are the words of someone who spends very little time with men. Men are easy. Women are fucking scary. Do you know who set me up with this guy? His female assistant. I met her on a flight back to LA, and she purred, talking about how great he was, what a catch. She told me, when I was in Vegas, I just had to look them up. It was like she couldn’t stand me—hated everything about me—my face, my body, the way she knew he would look at me, the way he did look at me. When the doorman was putting us into the limo last night, she leaned into the car, looked right at me, and said, ‘Have fun,’ only her voice said, ‘Fucking die.’ She smiled at her boss, and she shut the door.”
“Do you want me to take you to the hospital? We’ll get a rape kit.”
“I didn’t say no. I never say no. Because the one time I tried to, look what happened.”
“It can still be—”
“I just want to go to bed,” Vivienne said, yanking at the comforter, covering herself.
“I know you do, honey,” Mari said. The word felt strange in her mouth. She hoped her sister could feel her empathy, her love. “But you’ve got to tell me what happened. Who is he?
“No way. I don’t ever wanna hear his name again. Fuck him. And no police!”
“We can’t let him get away with it.”
“This isn’t one of your books where we can just write a happy ending,” V said. “No.”
Mari knew how stubborn her sister was. So that was it. She glanced at her laptop clock.
“V, it’s 1:30 in the afternoon. We should get you some fresh air, some hot food.”
“I don’t want fresh air. I want to fucking die. I’m so tired, I could sleep until I was dead. Cocaine is disgusting. And then, well, let’s just say I didn’t go to bed last night.”
“Look, I hate this, but I have to leave in a few hours, to go to Dante’s house in Joshua Tree. You know what? I’ll cancel and stay here with you.”
“No,” Vivienne said. “You can’t fuck up. You’re the only one making it.”
Nice to be acknowledged, V, but not helpful.
“Don’t worry, V, I’m not fucking up. I can do a phoner another day instead.”
“No. Do not fuck up. What would happen to us then? Mom does her best, but she’s got a new family. And Dad, he’s like an Ocean’s Eleven Halloween costume. I need a drink.”
“You do not need a drink. Here, I’ll run a bath, and I’ll order eggs Benedict, extra bacon, just the way you like.”
“Believe me, I know what I need right now, and it is 80 proof.”
Marie understood she had no idea what V had really been through, and she nodded. Running out to the minibar, she grabbed V a tequila. After bolting the liquid, V seemed steadier. Mari stripped V and piled her into the suds. V looked amazing in clothes, like a dream, but naked, she was too skinny, her ribs showing, dark bruises on her hips and thighs. Seeing the fingerprints on her sister’s pale skin made Mari want to cry. She focused on her task, to steady her nerves. With the room service on its way, Mari sat on the tub’s edge, scrubbed V’s back like she might have done when they were little girls, if they’d had that kind of childhood.
“Remember how amazing it was when Dad was winning—he was so proud, even of us,” V said. “He’d introduce us around as his daughters. Give us hundies. Promise us the sky.”
“Yeah, until he lost, and he always lost.”
“I’d like to win again someday.”
“Yeah, me, too. I’ll be in Joshua Tree, but you can have the room tonight. Where will you go after this?”
V slid lower into the water. Mari thought of how hard the next few weeks were going to be. And then it hit her: V had lost the condo. Where was she going to write Dante’s book?
“I’ll find a cheap sublet when I get back to LA, and you could stay with me,” Mari said. “I have a book—possibly even two—to get written in the next few weeks, so it’s gonna get primal. But there’s a lot of cute boutiques on the east side—you could get a part-time job—”
“I’m not going to sell fifty-dollar hemp candles to stay-at-home moms who take turns going to each other’s birthday parties and giving each other fifty-dollar hemp candles.”
Mari wanted to laugh and scream: I don’t get to say no to work!
She willed herself to be kind. “Oh, honey, I know, but it would be temporary.”
“You don’t understand anything. If I do that, it’s like climbing into my own coffin and closing the lid. You have options. My only chance is to get lucky.”
“Fine, I don’t get it,” Mari said. “But tell me, since you do, what’s your brilliant plan?”
“Bring me my purse.”
“Your plan had better not be cocaine.”
“Gross, no.”
Mari came back to the side of the tub with Vivienne’s Gucci tote.
“Pillbox and wallet, please.”
When Mari looked inside the bag, she felt a maternal pang. Vivienne had a leather-bound day planner like the kind executive assistants used to carry, and her purse was as organized as if it were her arsenal of weapons. It contained six lip glosses in shades from pastel pink to fuck-me red, her bedazzled pillbox, and a Louis Vuitton wallet. V swallowed a pill dry, in a practiced way, and lined up objects on the fat lip of the oversized tub: three chips from different Vegas casinos; a canceled Amex black card that V carried to look like she could pick up the tab sometimes; a piece of folded paper—at least her sister had a little cash.
“Is that your secret stash?” Mari asked.
V snorted and handed it to her. When Mari opened it up, it was a $2 bill. She turned it over. On the back, in their dad’s florid handwriting, was a phone number. Of course Mari knew they were in contact, but this proof of their deeper connection still stung.
“You’re gonna call Dad?”
“And have him ask me for a loan? No, thank you.” V pulled out several electronic keys. “Guzel gave me a key card for the elevator that accesses the Tower and one for the room next door.”
“Guzel?”
“I’m a Vegas regular. The hotel maids can get anything and know the best after-hours.”
Vivienne still exuded a party girl verve, but she was focused and organized, and Mari realized she was accustomed to bad nights. Mari tried to catch up to where her sister was headed.
“I know bands usually book blocks of rooms for their entourage, so everyone stays close together—for working, partying, and keeping tabs on flight risks. It’s one of the band’s rooms?”
“Exactly, and everyone leaves tomorrow when the tour kicks off. But that room has been rented through the end of the month for some reason.”
“So, someone’s staying behind?”
“No one’s been using it for a few days. It’s a mess, because the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign was left on the door, and the maids can’t go in—I mean they go in; they just don’t touch anything. Anyhow, it’s total crazy hoarder alcoholic—papers everywhere, empty liquor bottles, all these stacks of books about the Ramblers. But it’s quiet. I go there when I need a break from you.”
“I wish I had a magic key.”
“What can I say? Tip better. So, I can stay there for a few weeks, no one will notice.”
“And then, after that?”
“There’s a man in Chicago. He always takes me back. He’s not nice. But if I don’t make him mad, it can be okay for a few months, maybe longer.”
Dante’s book had bumped Mari’s rate up from the low five figures to the low six figures. It wouldn’t go far in LA. But then she thought of Anke, walking out of her fancy life. Mari’s fear had kept her dreams as narrow as her focus: on survival. But actually, options abounded.
“Can you last six months?” Mari asked. “If you can give me that long, I can get us a house, maybe not in LA, but one that is ours. No more sociopaths. No more crazy deadlines.”
“Six months is a long time.”
“Not really, it isn’t.”
A half hour later, Vivienne was comatose on the bed. Mari hadn’t been able to coax her to eat anything, but she had passed out from her pill. Mari was relieved on many levels. She didn’t know what to do for her sister, but she felt like she had failed her by not convincing her to go to the police station for a rape kit. And if this guy in Vegas had been her first-choice destination—would her Chicago option be even worse?
Mari was sitting on the couch, trying to get back to business as usual, when the day caught up with her. She was about to leave her sister alone, after a bad drug bender and sexual assault. And sure, V had theoretically agreed to Mari’s little plan. But who knew what state V would be in when she woke up? At least she had a free hotel suite as a buffer before Chicago. What V had told her about the room nagged at Mari—it sounded like her work space when she was on a tight deadline, except her liquor bottles were dirty mugs and empty almond butter jars. She needed to check it out. Mari led with caution, but when the stakes were high, she was fearless—it was the combination of these two qualities that had gotten her this far as a ghost.
As Mari was leaving her room, her phone rang: Sigrid. She darted into the hall to answer, feeling a burn along her nerve endings, as if Sigrid knew what she was about to do.
“You will fly with us on the jet. Please meet us at the hotel’s private entrance at five p.m.”
“I’ll be there. Thanks again, Sigrid. This will be a big help for Dante’s book.”
“That is what we all want,” Sigrid said. “To help Dante’s book.”
Mari sighed with relief as she hung up. Maybe she had been reading too much into her earlier conversation with Sigrid. It wasn’t just her clients who became stressed out during the penning of a memoir—she had seen managers freak, too. There was so much pressure to get it just right. And for nonwriters, it was a tremendous leap of faith to put the job in a ghost’s hands.
V hadn’t been exaggerating: The room was a mess. Heaps of clothes on the floor. Piles of papers covering every inch of the couch. Mari lifted a stack, holding them in her lap so she could sit down. Looking at the top page, Mari saw a Word doc printout of a manuscript. Her eye caught on Dante’s name. Of course, this must have been the other ghostwriter’s room. Sigrid had said they’d continued to rent it for him, as a sign of good faith, in case he came back.
Mari flipped pages as fast as she could. Why had Sigrid lied and said there were no files when they had been sitting here all along? Mari thought of how closely the band’s entourage worked together; if they were files Sigrid didn’t want anyone to see, this was a safe place.
Next to the stack of manuscript pages was a manila envelope with a return address in Flagstaff. Mari opened it and found a note, addressed to Axel, thanking him for visiting a lonely old widow in her twilight years, and signed by Nancy, Mal’s final girlfriend. Apparently, during his time at her house, Axel had somehow gotten her to send him Mal’s estate paperwork.
Beneath the will was a piece of paper, torn at a diagonal. A vertical line of phrases was written in black marker: “On the Lash,” “A Change Is Gonna Come,” “Portrait of the Artist,” clearly the set list from the band’s Hollywood Bowl show, which Mari had memorized. In the far right corner was a scrawled note in a large childlike script: “Please forgive me. It is not my choice, but how can I escape my fate? For him who is in disgrace and danger, the hour of death draws near. You will both be better off in the end. Lovingly, Mal.”
Yes, it was formal and pretentious for a love note—even for a suicide note. But that was so Mal. Mari laughed, giddy with her triumph. She knew it was true because she knew Mal so well, just like she knew Anke and Dante. So well that she had kept the project no one had really thought she could handle, and also she had cracked the case no one else ever had. Well, except for the other writer—but where was he? Not about to churn out a bestseller like she was.
Her pride in her accomplishment was so strong, and so unexpected, it was a kind of high. It was also a moot point. Mari wasn’t sure if she could write about this revelation, or even admit she had found it. Clearly the first writer had not been a fuckup. He had been very, very skilled at his job, and what had happened to him? A dank fog of fear settled in her gut.
Mari called Ezra on his cell. He picked up right away.
“Dude, why haven’t you been answering my calls?”
“I’ll explain everything. But I need help ASAP—you went to law school, right?”
“Yeah, what’s up?” She was grateful that he would still hear her out, even now.
“Long story—but I just stumbled into the first writer’s hotel room. They’ve been saying he didn’t leave any files, but they’re all here, including Mal’s suicide note. And his will.”
“Are you serious? What are you even telling me right now?”
“I know, dude. It’s a lot, but we’ve got to focus. I don’t have long in here.”
“Hey, look at you, number one ghost! Does anyone know where you are?”
“No, so I’m not sure I can use the note. I took a picture just in case.”
“Okay, okay, let me think, maybe not, but the will, that should be in the public record, no matter how the rest of the band feels about it coming back into the light now. What does it say?”
The typeset was hard to make out in places—the document was fifty years old.
“Because Anke and Mal were married when he died, Anke received everything, except for a stipend for Mal’s parents.”
There was no mention of Anke and Mal’s unborn child, which Mari didn’t bring up. There were no other beneficiaries, so as Jack had suggested, Mal’s acknowledged children hadn’t gotten anything when Mal died. When Anke passed away, maybe they would try for her estate. Maybe not. Ody would get whatever Anke gave him in her will, so from a financial perspective at least, his paternity would be a moot point.
“Wow, does that make Anke look like a suspect or what?”
“I don’t know. The estate didn’t include much—one country manor outside of London, one Rolls-Royce, a few rare instruments, a life insurance policy purchased earlier that year, and the most valuable assets: Mal’s share of the band’s trademark, plus publishing on twenty-two songs he had cowritten, all of which remained classics, and a few of which were essentially standards.”
“Even one-fifth of the money from those had to be significant,” Ezra said. “What else?”
Mari reached the final two documents—the signature pages. It hit her like a double espresso: The will had been signed August 5, 1969—two days before Mal died—with Sigrid Wagner as witness and executor. Anke had told her Sigrid had handled the estate, but Mari hadn’t understood the significance. And then she thought of the bootleg recording of band practice. Jack had called out for Sigrid to fetch a cab for his furious wife, partway through rehearsal, but she had left the room without anyone noticing. So, Sigrid had an alibi, but only until midnight. Mal’s body had been found at one a.m. It wasn’t much time, but it was enough. Even if he had stumbled out to the pool, intent on killing himself, he might not have gone through with it. But what if he had encountered Sigrid, and she had made him take that swim?
“Anything else, dude?” Ezra said. “You’re not protecting Anke, are you?”
“Of course not,” Mari said. “It’s all a little intense, but I’ve got it! I’m having dinner at Dante’s house in Joshua Tree tonight. And meeting with Anke tomorrow. I’ll call you after.”
“Hang on—what happened to the other writer? Don’t go anywhere until we know more.”
“Don’t worry, dude, the other writer cracked. It’s Vegas. He’s probably been playing poker for seventy-two hours. Or he had a vision and wandered out into the desert. I’ll call you tomorrow!”
“All right, but just in case, I’m calling his agent. We came up at the same agency.”
Mari had kept her voice bright for Ezra, but she was shivering. She knew the most intimate moments of this story so well it was as if she had lived them. Back at the house in Los Angeles, Anke was lying on her side, staring at the wall, crying. Mal was floating, angelic in death, his blond hair haloing him. Sigrid was standing in the water, pressing his head under. Or poisoning him with words, pushing him to do it. Deep down, Mari knew it was some version of the truth.
Hands shaking, she took photos of the will documents, making sure to get a good clear shot of the signature page and Mal’s possible suicide note. It contained the exact language of Anke’s I Ching prediction, which she claimed not to have told him. It said “he didn’t have a choice.” Both Anke and Dante had alluded to how broken Mal’s mind was at the end. As frustrated as they were, they had coddled him, trying to hold him together. Anke had drugged him, not confronted him. What if Sigrid hadn’t held his head under, but had filled it with black tar that made him do it? Had stood by the side of the pool so he had no exit, no escape, no help?
That might account for one mystery. But what about the first writer? If V’s hotel source could be trusted, he hadn’t disappeared until a few days ago. What if Sigrid had been fucking with his head, too, but had waited to get rid of him until Mari had appeared as the possible next writer? Mari felt much as she did when she was working on an early draft of a manuscript, identifying each individual thread of the story, which obviously wove together, only the question was where and why. She sat down at the desk. On top of Axel’s computer was a smartphone.
She checked her own phone and saw she had half an hour before she had to meet Sigrid. This wasn’t some movie where she could magically deduce the password of a person she had never met. And besides, even before she had been entrusted with the kind of pop culture secrets millions of people wanted to know, she and Ezra had never written anything sensitive down in an email or text, unless they wanted to create a paper trail of a celebrity’s bad behavior for potential contract disputes. She doubted there was anything on Axel’s devices to find. She had better use her time as efficiently as possible. Just in case these documents disappeared, she took shots of the manuscript pages, too. And then a few pictures of the room. She sent everything to Ezra. At the last minute, though, she didn’t include the signature page of Mal’s will. She didn’t know what Sigrid had done, but she knew she would have to confront her.
Mari was surprised when Ezra called her a few minutes after the last photos had gone through. “Okay, you cannot let on that you know this,” he said, devoid of his usual playfulness.
“Dude, at this point, I’m holding so many secrets, I’m not saying anything to anyone.”
“Good. Axel is in rehab. That’s why he doesn’t have his phone. Obviously his agent doesn’t want it getting out in the industry so he can still get work. Losing Dante’s book was bad enough. He doesn’t have health insurance, so Sigrid had the band take care of it as his kill fee.”
“Wow, I can’t believe they fucked him up that bad in a few months.”
“Worse than that. He was sober for ten years before this job. His agent thinks maybe he wanted to seem cool to Dante—who wouldn’t, right? But the coke is what unraveled him.”
“Dante is Dionysian, but he doesn’t do coke.”
“Exactly. But some of the guys in the entourage do. I guess they were staying on the same floor as him. That’s when Axel crossed the line and Sigrid called his agent. Somehow she knew about this clause in Axel’s custody agreement for his daughter—he had to stay sober.”
“Wow. She’s good.”
“Yeah, good at being evil.”
“Depends on your perspective. She’s taking care of her band, everyone else be damned. I think she felt threatened by Axel because he didn’t just buy her official version of events. Better to push him out and start over with me. On such a tight deadline, she probably figured I wouldn’t have time to step out of line and do any digging of my own.”
“So, you’re seeing her tonight, but Dante’s going to be there, right?”
“Yeah, we’re having dinner at his house in JT with his whole family.”
“Okay, you don’t know any of this. Especially not about the will or about Axel. Just get out of there without making Sigrid suspicious, and we’ll sort it all out when you’re safe in LA.”
As Mari put on her lip gloss and Fracas—armor for the hours ahead—she practiced a smile in the mirror. It looked fake as hell, but hopefully, no one would be looking that hard. Her phone buzzed. Dante’s driver was waiting for her. She was scared, but she was going to pull this off.