Your Guilty Secret

by Rebecca Thornton

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Or you are trying to tell me that a car picked her up, drove her six kilometres and dumped her where her body was found? Or were you in fact in a different place altogether when you rang us? That seems like the most plausible explanation, Ms King. Doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh God, I don’t know. I think I might have got into my car to look for her. I might have driven up the road. Thinking that I would find her a little way up the canyon. Maybe I was in a different place when I rang. I can’t remember. I just can’t remember, Detective. I was in shock.’

  ‘You can’t remember if you got into your car, switched on the ignition, and drove a distance of about six kilometres looking for your daughter when she went missing? You seemed to have missed out that extremely important detail all this time you’ve had during the investigation and you only think to tell us this now?’

  ‘I forgot. I think I did . . . I can’t remember . . .’

  ‘You can’t remember? That seems very strange, Ms King.’

  ‘Please stop questioning my client now, Detective Mcgraw,’ Anna instructed.

  ‘I know this has something to do with the pool annexe, it’s all linked together.’ Detective Mcgraw slammed his hands on the wall. ‘I know. I know. I know. Joan warned me over and over about you. That you didn’t care about anything but your fame. That you were totally self-interested.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  Eventually I was released on bail with Matthew. But just as we were both about to leave the police station, Conor had started to ask more questions.

  ‘Lara, you need to tell me everything. About England. I don’t want to do this to you now. But there are rumours, people are saying you did something. Something that should have put you behind bars.’

  So I told him in hushed whispers, whilst we had a moment alone.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?’

  ‘Because I killed an unborn child. Please. Help me.’

  ‘Of course I will. You just need to tell me the truth from now on.’

  *

  A woman who had worked with me for years as a lookalike, was called in to help form an elaborate decoy. The plan was that she would go out the front of the police station and drive past the press conference, so that I could leave via the back exit, and grieve in peace.

  I passed smoothly through the crowds in an old battered Volkswagen wearing a brown-haired wig and sunglasses. I wished for a lookalike of my little girl too. I wished for her to stand right next to my decoy, so that for one minute I could step outside myself and pretend that this wasn’t happening.

  As our car pulled up in to my drive, Joan opened the door. She looked pale and washed out. I wanted to tell her to get out of my house. After the stunt she’d pulled with the fob and the things she’d said about me to Detective Mcgraw, I didn’t want her near me. But the energy deserted me and I realised I needed her for the funeral. The memorial. I needed her to tell me things she knew about my daughter. Some of the things that she knew and I didn’t.

  ‘Oh God.’ She held her hands up to her face. ‘Oh God.’

  ‘I know,’ I told her. ‘I will never be the same again.’ I started to howl, wondering how I’d go on without her. I couldn’t ever imagine resuming my normal life. It seemed unfathomable to me. I hated the thought of anyone even taking another breath without my daughter.

  ‘Why was she found so far away?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘They let you go?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The police.’

  Not you as well.

  ‘Of course they let me go. Nothing much to go on.’

  I thought about what had really happened but I’d be damned if I was going to tell Joan. I thought about Detective Mcgraw. The way his eyes had roamed over me, searching for clues.

  ‘I know you know something. I won’t stop until I find out what,’ he had said. ‘We will be charging you with obstruction of justice. Lying about Ava’s paternity. And God knows what else.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Anna said. ‘We’ll get you off. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘She got lost,’ I had told Detective Mcgraw.

  ‘So you’re changing your story again? You didn’t drive for six kilometres after you realised she went missing?’ He had shaken his fist at me.

  ‘I don’t know anything. I just want to go home.’

  Lara King Official Website

  Status: Published

  August 31st 2018

  1530hrs

  My dear fans,

  I’d like to say thank you, so much, for everything you’ve done for us. Firstly, your relentless help with the search for my daughter. Secondly, for giving us our privacy when we asked for it. As you know, Ava lived her life in the spotlight and she loved it but we need this time to ourselves, to grieve in peace. We are very grateful to you all for your understanding.

  We’ve had a private ceremony which was beautiful and full of Ava’s close family and friends. We played her favourite music and everyone planted a tree in her memory.

  The thing that hurts me most is that I will never get to hold Ava’s hand again. I will never get to see her grow up to be the most wonderful human I know she would have gone on to be. She will miss out on so much of life that I know she would have loved. Travel, love, laughter. All the things I know she would have excelled at, for her heart was capable of so much.

  Thank you, from the absolute bottom of my heart for all the beautiful flowers, notes, poems and presents you have left for her.

  The fact I know you are with me, following, supporting and loving me and Ava from a distance means so, so much. More than you could imagine and for that, I’m eternally grateful. It has been difficult since we buried her but I will try and take solace in the fact that she had a good life and that she would have wanted us all to follow her lead in the way she lived.

  Please, come and celebrate her life, so tragically cut short. I invite you all to join me, Matthew, Joan and the ones closest to her, in a memorial service dedicated to celebrate Ava’s life.

  The celebration will be held at Elemeris Gardens, from 2 to 4 p.m. on September 6th.

  Wear: Brightly coloured clothes

  Bring: A balloon and a donation that will be split between the Missing Children’s charity and Hope Sings, a charity that Ava raised money for at school that uses the creative arts to help under-privileged children.

  Sing: I will be singing a rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’ and I would love it if you could all join in for a second rendition straight after. All of us singing for Ava. We’ll be recording the song for both charities, and it will be uploaded on to iTunes at midnight September 7th 2018. Recording of the charity single will take place at 3 p.m.

  There are six thousand spaces available for the memorial. Please REGISTER HERE for tickets, which will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

  PRESS REQUESTS AND ENQUIRIES TO CONOR@CONOR-PR.COM

  England, December 2004

  ‘There’s an opportunity,’ Joanne told me after I’d left the freezing cold London police station. She pressed an American Visa into my hand. ‘Go. Take it. Audition as an English host for a TV show. Same format as the one you won. I’ve sold you well. They’re willing to overlook your past because you’re exactly what they want. Lovely English accent, very pretty, great singer,’ she said, as though she was reading a shopping list. ‘The all-round package. I’ve got a contact there. Conor. He’s stellar at what he does. He’ll look after you. He went out to LA over a decade ago and knows what it’s like. He’s going to put in a good word for you. OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ I told her. I sounded flat but a spark had ignited inside me.

  ‘Good.’ She patted my arm. ‘I knew you’d make the right decision. Flight tomorrow. You’re booked first class.’

  I met Conor when I landed at LAX airport. I suppose it was him that planted the seeds in my brain.

  ‘Joanne’s told me a bit about
you.’ I took a breath, waiting for him to mention the past, but he carried on breezily. ‘She told me that you have something. An indefinable quality is how she put it.’ Phew, she obviously had kept everything quiet. I let out a breath. ‘I trust Joanne and now I’ve met you, I can see what she means. What we need,’ he said whilst ordering hundreds of dollars’ worth of sushi after I’d signed the contract with him, ‘is a total image overhaul. You’re great the way you are but you know what’s happening at the moment? The good, healthy revolution.’ He waved his hands in the air like a magician mid-trick. ‘Shed your old image because no one here knows who you are or gives a fuck about your past.’ He smeared a large glob of wasabi on his salmon. ‘And so that works in your favour.’

  ‘Well, how do I stand out from the rest?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Let me think. Have a kid. Do the whole working mum thing. Hell, I don’t know. No sex tapes or anything now. They’re sleazy and people are bored of them. We need you to be a vision of beauty and cleanliness. I’m sure that will change soon but for the moment . . .’

  He carried on talking but his words were like static in my brain because from that point onwards, I did know. I knew how I was going to right my wrong. I knew how I was going to win everyone back. I was going to go all out and totally disassociate myself from my past. I would become an earth mother. And in doing so, I hoped I’d offset the bad. Take a life. Give a life and all that. I thought of the girl, Carys, crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, the life inside her ebbing away. This way, I would make amends. I’d make everyone love me again. I thought back to how I’d tried to make things better in England. The things I’d said after I’d tried to apologise. When I knew then that the future hung on my next few sentences. That somehow, Ben and Joanne had been willing for me to protest my innocence, despite the fact they probably had an idea that I wasn’t so squeaky clean. In part, I think they wanted so desperately to believe I had done nothing wrong. And so when I looked up at Ben, and saw the look of disappointment and fear in his face, I knew what I had to do.

  ‘She tripped and fell,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t even anywhere near her and Kaycee was too drunk to see.’

  And then my lawyer. ‘There were no security cameras,’ she told them. ‘She had taken footage of my client previously in the hope she’d sell it. I’m sure that goes to show what kind of a person she was.’

  Me, going back to Ben’s house from the police station.

  ‘You were so drunk, Kaycee,’ I mocked her as I walked through the door, moving around in an exaggerated fashion. ‘I always get everything wrong when I’m that pissed. Random memories of things that didn’t happen.’ I knew that Kaycee had started to question herself, her recollection of the previous night’s events and from then on, I was safe. Safe to start anew when Joanne had managed to get Carys Lockwood to sign a non-disclosure agreement following a payout on my behalf from the record company.

  Lucky me. I thought about my new life. It was as easy as that, to start again. To wipe the slate clean.

  And just like that, I was born again.

  Ryans-world.com

  Entry: August 31st, 1540hrs

  Author: Ryan

  Guys, who has their tickets to the memorial? I got mine. As soon as I saw Lara had updated her website, I could feel my pulse whizzing all round my body. I kept refreshing my browser and then the fucking thing crashed and my hands were shaking so much that I could barely type. But I got there in the end. Like gold dust they are and I saw them already trading on eBay for thousands of dollars.

  What kind of a sick fuck would do that!

  Anyway, I hope you are all doing OK. Thank you, for bearing with me for the past couple days. It’s been pretty brutal, I have to say. Like, there’s been no media let-up on this whole story. No escape. Constant rolling news, speculation. And then there was that God-awful press conference which Lara never turned up to, and just about broke me and everyone else there.

  I’ve been going over and over it all in my head. I’ve looked back at the events leading up to that day. Everything that the police told us, everything that we knew from different sources from that whole time.

  The fact that Ava’s body was found far away from the search. All of it. It’s all fucking weird.

  I’ve printed off all the info that came out about her disappearance. I’ve been staring at it all, driving myself crazy.

  But you know, like I told you. She got me through a lot of dark times, Lara did. And Ava. And so if there was anything I could do to help, I want to be their man.

  I know. I’m fucking nuts, right? But I’m obsessed. Obsessed with this story and I just want to know what’s going on and what the hell happened to Ava King.

  Don’t you?

  Twitter: @ryan_gosling_wannabe

  August 31st 2018

  1900hrs

  I thought back to the chain of events that led me to this moment. Frankie Spearman. That sofa of his. The Hollywood hills beckoning me from afar.

  In time, things had gone my way and I remembered when I laid eyes on the initial ultrasound. A cluster of cells. Now the size of an avocado, so the blogs had said.

  ‘Do you want to know?’ Suzanne, the sonographer, had moved the wand nearer my pelvis.

  ‘Yes, yes, I do.’ Despite wanting to forget my past, I needed to cement my future into something more real.

  ‘A little more gel.’ Suzanne had pushed her gold-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose. ‘You sure you wanna know, sweetie pie? Looks healthy. Everything’s beautiful. Heart, you see there? Strong heartbeat.’

  ‘I do.’ I had looked at the screen, the limbs curled up. ‘I do want to know.’

  ‘OK.’ She pointed at the monitor. ‘You see there? Look.’ She turned the screen towards me. ‘You’re having a little girl.’

  Months later they made the incision, cutting the dome of my belly as my veins had filled up with the meds.

  ‘There you go!’ The obstetrician handed me the tiny body. ‘A perfect baby girl.’ I leaned down, the metallic tang of her head filling the back of my nose and throat.

  Part of my spirit, in human form.

  I no longer had to face things alone. I leaned down to look at the small person in my arms.

  ‘We’re just sewing you up now,’ the doctor said, but I hadn’t responded. ‘It’s just you and me, Ava King,’ I whispered in her ear. ‘You and me against the world. I’ll always look after you.’

  She turned her head into my chest, and I felt the judder of her breath warm up my skin.

  Flashes of her waxy, stiff skin in the photograph flooded my mind. The bloat of her body. The gash on her right temple where she’d fallen.

  Detective Mcgraw had been to check on me countless times since the news about Ava’s death had broken. Each time he’d asked me about the discrepancy between where I’d said I was and where they’d found her body. I had no answers.

  ‘We’ll get the autopsy soon enough,’ he warned me. And I told him to stop. That I wanted and needed to remember my daughter as the perfect little girl she was. From the moment she’d been delivered from my body into the world, that’s how I wanted to think of her.

  Innocent and perfect. I needed to rid my mind of all the gruesome images I’d seen lately. I needed to feel cleansed of everything that had happened in the past week, before I could even begin to think about the fact that my daughter was gone. I needed to realise, somehow, that no matter how hard I cried, or wished, or screamed – no matter how much I beat the floor, and howled, and pleaded – that my little girl was never coming home.

  Ryans-world.com

  Entry: September 1st, 0400hrs

  Author: Ryan

  I feel like one of those detectives in a show, with a huge array of cards and Post-its pinned to the wall, all decorated in different colored highlighter pens and criss-crossed with cotton tape. So and so was here at this time, so and so said this and this and this. It’s no different really to untangling the source of a vic
ious high-school rumor. And as anyone who knew me in our last year at high school, I’m good at that.

  Someone rang me. A source. A real source. Not the ones from some of the tabloids where the sources are, y’know, made-up people. ‘A pal.’ Or the celebs themselves. And I know I’m not a real journalist or anything so the code of ‘never revealing your source’ doesn’t count but I’m sure you know me well enough now to know that I wouldn’t lie to you. That all the sources I’ve been using so far have been impeccable. And this source is, well, no different. It’s, how do I put it, straight from the horse’s mouth.

  So here we go. And by the way, I know I’ve got this before the papers (eat your heart out Manny Berkowitz! Hi, by the way, I know you read this!) but the autopsy report is as follows: early days, so preliminary findings so far but an overview:

  • It’s confirmed that Ava King died from a wound to the right temple with significant evidence showing that she was also highly dehydrated.

  • She’d been dead for approximately twenty-two hours when she was found – which means that if she disappeared at around eleven thirty to eleven forty-five a.m. on August 27th she died very soon after. Perhaps she ran off, or got lost and slipped on a rock. She was too far from her supposed original location to have run that distance. Maybe she got in a random car that drove her to where she was found? Maybe Lara King was never where she said she was.

  • Ava had an empty stomach, with findings that she had not eaten in the hours that led to her death and had drunk minimal water. Reports state that it is likely the deceased had not eaten since nearly twenty-four hours earlier.

  I know that y’all might find this distressing. I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, wondering how to work with this.

  I don’t have much more to say, cos I’m kinda devastated right now. I’m just trying to work out how to handle this. Mentally, y’know.