TWENTY-FIVE
I drove down Benedict Canyon Road so erratically that I was surprised nobody pulled me over. I slowed down a bit when I hit Beverly Hills proper, but still managed to get to the bar in record time. People spilled out onto the sidewalk, and I had to push my way through the crowd to look for Marty.
Someone grabbed my arm, and I turned to see Madeleine.
“Where did you go?” she said. She almost had to shout to be heard over the din.
“He set me up!” I said. “Theo set me up!”
“What?” She pointed to her ear to indicate that she hadn’t heard me.
“Where’s Marty?”
“I think he’s by the bar!”
It took another five minutes of pushing through the thick crowd to find Marty, and when we did, it was clear that he was beyond sloshed.
“I need to see your camera!” I shouted.
“Man, have a drink! You’ve earned it.”
“Your camera! Where is it?”
Marty was so drunk that I had to repeat the request three or four times, but he finally agreed to lead me out to his car. His camera was in the trunk, and he got it out for me.
“I’m gonna boot and rally,” he said, swaying on his feet. “You help yourself to my darkroom.”
He wandered off into the bushes to vomit. Madeleine and I leaned on the trunk of his car, and I started going through the pictures.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Theo planned this whole thing,” I said. “Marty took shots of the event tonight. I’ll show you.”
“What do you mean?”
I gave her the note and the key that Fritz had given me.
You see? Everything works itself out by the end of the film.
P.S. Did you get a look at Olivia? Not all of our friends fade away into dim obscurity.
She read it, then frowned. “What does that mean?”
I slowly shook my head. The only thing I could do was laugh. “It means that he was at the theater tonight. Theo was at the premiere.”
“You don’t sound like you’re joking,” Mad said quietly.
I didn’t reply, trying to piece together everything that had happened after my last visit with Theo. I had broken into Windhall, been arrested for it, then returned home to find that the house had gone up in flames.
“Fuck,” I whispered, rubbing my temples. “How far back does it go? Did he plan this whole thing?”
“What are you talking about? Hailey—take a few deep breaths. Are you sure Theo sent you this note?”
I looked at her. “I’m a moron. I want that on the record.”
“Theo died in the fire,” Mad insisted. “There was an ambulance—paramedics…”
I gave a wild laugh. “You don’t think he could have arranged that? I didn’t exactly check their credentials. Theo could have arranged this whole thing.”
She put a grounding hand on my arm. “What does this key belong to?”
“It’s a box at Union Station,” I said. “He left me something.”
“Any idea what?”
“I have lots of ideas.”
I passed her the camera. Madeleine squinted at the screen. “What am I looking at?”
“At the back of the theater,” I said. “Zoom in.”
She toggled the zoom button until she could see what I was trying to show her. “Jesus,” she said. “Is that really Theo? How on earth did he come to the premiere without anyone seeing him?”
“It’s what we always said about him,” I said. “It’s easiest to hide in plain sight. Everyone had already mourned him, they’d already moved on.”
“I thought he died! Isn’t that what you wrote in your article?”
“I’m so fucking stupid,” I said. “I can’t believe I fell for it twice.”
Petra came out into the parking lot and spotted us.
“Hey,” she said. “I thought you left.” She came over to join us and glanced between me and Madeleine. “What’s going on?”
“The story isn’t over,” I said. “Theo didn’t die in the fire.”
She didn’t laugh. “What are you talking about?”
I quickly filled her in, and Madeleine passed her the camera. Petra’s eyes widened when she saw the picture of Theo.
“What’s in the locker?” she asked. “Have you told Alexa what’s going on?”
“Not yet.”
“We could still find him,” she urged. “He’s probably somewhere nearby.”
“What’s the point?”
“This makes an even bigger story than we thought,” she said. “He escaped the fire that burned his house down.”
“He’s gone,” I said quietly. “He wouldn’t write me this note unless he had already planned his escape. He’s long gone.”
“What’s in the locker?” Madeleine piped up. “We need to find out.”
“Sure,” I said, without much enthusiasm. “Let’s go to Union Station.”
Union Station was one of my favorite buildings in Los Angeles. The gorgeous art deco building was flanked by palm trees, and the high ceilings and decadent floors always made me feel like I had stepped back in time to the 1930s. Even late at night, the station wasn’t quiet; as the main hub of Los Angeles transportation, there were always people arriving, leaving, and lingering in the hallways.
Marty had disappeared from the bar’s parking lot by the time we were ready to leave, so we took his camera with us. Once we were at Union Station, we found the locker that corresponded to the key that Theo had left for me in the envelope. I hesitated before sticking the key in the lock, and turned to look at Petra. She nodded.
The key stuck for a moment, and then it turned and I opened the locker. Inside was a parcel wrapped in brown paper. It was about the size of a coffee table book, and I had an idea of what it might be before I undid the tape and removed the paper.
“It’s a painting,” Madeleine said, once I had unwrapped it. “Why would he leave you a painting?”
“It’s not just any painting,” I said. “It’s a Paul de Longpré painting. It’s a joke. Theo told me that de Longpré was the first real celebrity in Los Angeles.”
“That must be worth a fortune.”
I didn’t respond, because I had noticed that there was another envelope inside the locker. I opened it and found another note: That which burns brightly burns quickly, but oh, see how it burns.
“Wasn’t that the last line of the film?” Madeleine leaned over my shoulder.
There was something else in the envelope. I slid it out, and it took a minute for the meaning to sink in.
“Hailey,” Petra said. “Is that…?”
It was a single, spent match.
“The fire at Windhall,” I said slowly. “I thought for sure it was Heather.”
“So… Theo planned this whole thing?” Petra asked.
“My God,” Madeleine said.
“Why would he do that, though?” Petra asked.
“He’d wanted to get rid of that house for years,” I said. “Ben told me so himself.”
“You think Dr. Lewis was in on this? I thought he was helping you write the article.”
“I thought so, too,” I said. “Maybe this whole thing was about revenge against Reuben.”
“He must have been looking for a writer. You thought you were looking for him, but he was waiting for you,” Madeleine said.
“But why?”
“Because of her,” Petra said. She was holding Marty’s camera, and she was looking at a photo. “Look.”
Madeleine and I moved to stand next to her, and she showed us the picture. It was one I had skipped past while looking for Theo. Marty had taken it before the film started, when everyone was milling around in the lobby. It was a throwaway snap, or at least I would have thought it was. It was the type of shot you take when you’re too busy to focus on a single subject.
Standing to the left of the doors, arms around herself against the cold, was a face that I had studied so many times that I could see it in my dreams; indeed I had, many times. The years had been kind to her, or at least, kind enough. So many years had passed that I wouldn’t have recognized her if she had passed by me in the lobby, but on her face was one of the most famous smiles in the world.
It was Eleanor Hayes.