Your Guilty Secret

by Rebecca Thornton

  ‘Conor?’ I asked again. ‘Answer me.’ I started to feel frantic and I didn’t know why.

  ‘Look, it’s all right,’ he said again except he wasn’t looking at me at all. I could only watch as his eyes flickered all over the place, knowing that with thirty million people plus watching me, fixated on this moment, there was nothing I could do anyway.

  Ryans-world.com

  Entry: September 6th, 1455hrs

  Author: Ryan

  Thank you for stepping in. All of you. Thank you. After my last post, I was absolutely inundated with offers of help. A couple of you worked through the night to help me out and eventually we got all the information we needed.

  I sat on it this morning, and here I am now, singing ‘Amazing Grace’. It’s beautiful. For those of you not here, let me tell you, it’s sending shivers up and down my spine, watching the crowd singing in unison. One of those moments that last a lifetime. It’s going to be a beautiful single. The weather too, it’s perfect and everyone’s being respectful of each other’s space. A perfect, peaceful day, just as Ava deserved. She went all out, Lara, that’s one thing I can report. We queued for ages this morning and it all went seamlessly. Security was great. Everyone’s bags were checked and the marshals obviously knew what they were doing. The bands that played were awesome.

  We’ve all been holding our phones up to get pics of all the VIPs. Here are a couple so far. If anyone has any more that you don’t see in the mainstream press ping them here. I’ll give you all a shoutout. Here’s a selfie of me with my BAE. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what to do with all the information I’ve got.

  Word has it that the detective in charge of the case, Mcgraw, is still looking into Matthew, Lara . . . some sort of row that prompted Ava to disappear. And now that I’ve found what I found, it’s all fitting together like some sort of gruesome puzzle.

  And so I’ve decided, my dear friends, what to do with the info.

  You might be asking, why don’t I just go straight to the cops if I’ve got something worth saying? They could sort it out? Well, I think this deserves a little bit of the spectacular. Don’t you? And given she wanted us all to watch her when times were good, all the ins and outs of her life, it’s only fitting that you watch this too.

  So – I’m going to leave it up to YOU, dear friends and readers.

  If you say yes I’ll do it. I’ll unveil the spectacular in about five minutes time. You’ve got THREE MINUTES.

  I’ve created a poll here.

  GO.

  TRUTH – YES 97%

  TRUTH – NO 3%

  Peace out.

  Twitter: @ryan_gosling_wannabe

  September 6th 2018

  1500hrs

  ‘Five, four, three . . .’ Lily was behind me doing the countdown. I felt the heat coming off her, her breath in short, sharp bursts. She moved in front of me now. ‘Two, one.’ She shut her eyes, and pushed me forwards. ‘Go.’

  The curtain parted. Silence. I felt a blast of energy coming off the crowd in waves. And then the music started. I felt the lights right on me. Centre stage. The lights spotting the crowd as you recorded me.

  My feet soaked up the vibrations from the floor and that was the moment that I opened my mouth and started to sing. I heard the first note, clear and loud. My body felt grounded and then I heard a wall of noise. Everyone was singing along with me.

  I hit the last note, and I watched the flames in the air, everyone holding their lighters up. I held the microphone tight and I lifted up an arm.

  I sang higher and higher, louder and louder. The notes floated around the space. Everyone was silent and then someone started walking towards me onto the stage. He looked cool and collected, as though he was in on the act. He waved at the crowd, then brought his hands up over his head, clapping. He was wearing a hooded top, even in the roaring heat, so I couldn’t see his face but then I saw them. His eyes. Flinty, green. He had a goatee. Not a proper one. But gentle wisps of hair floating from his face and as he waved, everyone kept waving back.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. I saw security stepping back and some of them started to clap. Jesus, I thought. They had been fooled too, and then he pulled down his hood. Instantly, I recognised him. The guy in the photograph. The long-haired dude from the catering company, who’d stammered around me, except he’d cut off all his hair. In that split second, I remembered.

  ‘He’s a wannabe actor,’ Detective Mcgraw had said. ‘Gave a fake name.’ But he checked out, he’d said. I wish I had asked how.

  He came and stood right next to me. I thought at first he might draw a gun and shoot me, but he was standing, staring and smiling, lifting his hands up to the crowd, totally different to how he’d been the day of the announcement. I looked down. He was wearing a T-shirt under the hoodie, and shorts. Absolutely nothing to suggest he was armed, although you never could tell these days.

  I looked around for Conor and Detective Mcgraw, hoping they would realise he wasn’t meant to be anywhere near me. I could see them both in the wings. Conor was showing Detective Mcgraw something on his phone. Both of them totally engrossed.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, right into my microphone. I thought about pulling away, turning around. Screaming. Telling security he wasn’t meant to be here but I was rooted to the spot.

  Something told me not to move. That it would be better if I let him talk. I looked over again at Conor. Please, I pleaded. Please, just look up, but they were still totally fixated on the screen. How dare they. I thought of what Conor would do. He’d use it to the best of his ability. He’d twist the whole situation to his advantage, and I knew that because I’d learned from him too. So I took a breath and I smiled at the intruder.

  ‘Y’all,’ I said. ‘Meet . . .’ And I held the microphone right up to his mouth. For a minute, I thought he might punch me, but then he looked totally shocked and surprised, even gobsmacked, and he leaned down with his arm mid-wave as though he was a rockstar that had just pulled off the performance of a lifetime.

  ‘Nicholas.’ He waved. ‘My name’s Nicholas. And, Lara, I’d just like to say that we’ve met before.’ The crowd hesitated and then he clapped again above his head. ‘Come on, guys,’ and then there was a roar. ‘I worked for you once. Well, I use that term loosely. I served you a few drinks. At your home. The announcement. I’m a jobbing actor. Well, failed actor really. You wouldn’t remember my name. That’s cos I went by something different that day. But not only that,’ he went on. ‘I’m also your number one fan.’

  ‘Wow. Nicholas, I’m honoured.’ Oh God, I thought. Another crazy, obsessed person. But that was absolutely all right. I could manage them. In fact, I’d been doing exactly that for a large part of my life.

  ‘Nicholas. Nice name too. And what would you like to say to the crowd?’ I asked. ‘Because we don’t have very much time until’ – I looked at my wrist – ‘the audience’s recording. For charity.’ I decided to shout for Conor, to get his attention but when I looked over, him and Detective Mcgraw had gone. So much for all the worry over security. I remembered asking if they thought there were going to be any surprises on stage. I had been joking. But now, I thought that even if Conor or Lily had seen this guy Nicholas, they might have thought I meant it seriously, and that he was ‘the surprise’.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ He smiled. He had small yellowed teeth. This is your moment, I thought. You’ll then make it big and you’ll get those teeth changed, mark my words. I could no longer control my thoughts, they were veering off into hypermania. ‘I won’t take long at all.’ He smiled. ‘I just want to talk about Ava.’ He put his arm around me and the cheers went shrill. The sun started to look grey. I finally clocked Lily. She was frowning at me, flicking through her notes to find out if she’d missed something obvious and I tried to mouth to her but she was busy turning the sheets of paper as quickly as she could. I watched everyone clapping, some with fingers in mouths whistling, whistling. I felt weak. Weak, and all alone.

  Septembe
r 6th 2018

  1505hrs

  So this is where it ends. I don’t need to tell you anymore. You know. Don’t you? You know all this very well because I’m sure you are one of them. Just like the rest of the world. Watching me closely. You might see the flutter of my eyelashes as I try to blink away the blurring. You might see my breastbone, up and down, up and down, as I try and catch my breath. There might be other things you notice too. Conor reappearing. His smile as he looks at the crowd. Ah, haven’t I done well? he’d be thinking because, still, he hasn’t noticed what’s going on. You might notice that I want to shake him, right about now. Then you might look a bit more closely at Nicholas.

  And you’d realise that you knew him too. Not too well, mind, for he doesn’t give too much away and lest I remind you, you haven’t known him long. A relatively new friend, let’s say.

  But, well enough. You know him well enough.

  Ryans-world.com

  September 6th, 1510hrs

  LIVE BROADCAST

  Ya’ll. My name’s Nicholas but you know me as, well . . . Ryan Gosling Wannabe. I know, I know, hands up. I look nothing like the Gos. I know I look like that dude the new big cheese Timothée Hal Chalamet. I look the spit of him. Especially before I went and shaved my head recently. Anyway, I’m to be known henceforth as . . . everybody wait for it . . . Nick Nack Says. You like? Great. Anyway, I’d like to thank you so much for taking part in the poll just now. Y’all know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You guys at the front there. I see you, with your phones, thumbs up. Yes . . . y’all know. Ninety-seven per cent of you, an overwhelming ninety-seven per cent of you said that you’d like this to happen. Lara, you hear that? Ninety-seven per cent of people I polled just now out of a total of millions, they wanted to see this happen, right here. Right now. So don’t think I’m alone in this. Anyway, I can see you over there, looking a bit edgy. I’ll get on with it, then Lara can do her stuff. We can do our stuff. Together. Raise money for Ava. Right?

  So, I’d first like to say, you can tweet me at my new Twitter handle which is at Nick Nack Says. And I’d like to thank you all for your support.

  Now. Ava. We loved her, didn’t we? Like she was our own sister. Our beautiful baby sister. You see, Lara? Look at the joy she brought everyone. Look at how many of us are here. It’s scorching hot, and the world is here, with you, Lara King. Lara, I can see you nodding away in that beautiful way of yours, like the sunshine is literally up your backside.

  So let’s take it back to the beginning, shall we? There was the leaked 911 call. TMZ. Happens all the time. I’ve listened to all of them. Prince. Brittany Murphy. Bet you all have too. Sick, I know.

  What struck me in that call is that, Lara, you said you were listening to Katy Perry. Did she love Katy Perry? You were singing along to Katy Perry on the radio you said. ‘Yes,’ you say? ‘Yes, Ava adored Katy Perry’? I bet she did. Who doesn’t love a bit of Perry?

  So, I was thinking about Katy Perry whilst I was working the other night. I cranked up my iTunes. Found her name. I was singing away. ‘Firework’, in case any of y’all are interested, when I suddenly caught sight of a still of the CCTV footage of Lara and Ava King, when they’d stopped at that red light at Laurel Canyon. You know the one where it looks like a Chanel advert? All beautiful, and then my heart stops when I remembered what happened after.

  Beautiful picture, wasn’t it, Lara? I bet your heart could barely take it when you saw that. The last real public sighting of your girl. What’s that you say? ‘Yes, you miss her so much.’ I bet you do.

  Let’s go on, shall we? Who here listens to Classical Tunes? On the radio. Hands up. None of you. Thought as much. Oh, Tom Banks over there, your hand’s up, sir, is that correct? Good.

  And then my mind wandered. Because I’m kinda obsessed with Ava and Lara and most things celebrity, I thought to myself, gosh, I wonder what radio station Lara and Ava listened to on their special out together before Ava disappeared? Would it be Kids Ahoy? Or something a little sophisticated. A bit more adult. But then I enlarged the car dashboard from the CCTV footage. You know there was a real clear picture of the dashboard. All these brightly lit dials and buttons and whatnot. And there I saw it. Classical Tunes, 86.6 FM. Wow. It didn’t surprise me. Not at all. Lara and Ava. A classy pair. Get you, Lara. Classical Tunes. But then that got me thinking and I’m sure you’ve all caught up with me now.

  Classical Tunes, Katy Perry? Doesn’t really fit, does it? Nah.

  Of course, Lara could have just changed the radio station, I hear you say. She could have just said it as a figure of speech. Weird figure of speech. I don’t think so. It’s quite a random thing to say, and quite specific when your child is missing. Don’t you think? Looks a bit out of place. It’s in the semantics, really, isn’t it?

  So that’s why I got my friend – Kyle? Where are you, Kyle – there you are – to scrape all the radio listings from the six hours before Ava went missing. Nope. No Katy Perry in all that time. Believe it or not. Nothing. Sorry, Katy. I hope you’re not sad about that.

  So, you know. There’s her first big lie. And what next? You know, you can look into this but I don’t think Lara and Ava were having a jolly old time in that car after all.

  We were listening to Katy Perry on the radio. Are you sure about that, Lara? Are you sure you weren’t taking us for a ride? Trying to fool us into thinking you were having a lovely old time with your daughter?

  Because of course that’s what you’d think, isn’t it? With that choice of language? Katy Perry. Me and my daughter grooving along in the sunshine.

  And then all the other lies she told. You can find them all listed on my Twitter. They should be uploading right now. As we speak. Remember: at Nick Nack Says.

  Oh fuck. Lara’s security. Wait, hear me out. Wait. Someone’s on the defensive, aren’t they, someone’s lying. Trying to get us to look the other way. The police, bet you they had no idea about all this. Looking for a kidnapper. Or Matthew. But there was something going down right there in that car that day. Please . . . Don’t hurt me . . . Don’t fucking hurt me. Lara, you had a kid. You fucked it up. You deserve this. I never had a mother. She did. You fucked it.

  I’m trying to help.

  Don’t you fucking understand. Ava.

  I’m trying to help.

  September 6th 2018

  1515hrs

  It’s at this point that I think about running. I think about where I’d go. You’re all watching me so closely that there’s nowhere to go. But if I was alone, I’d race back up our cobbled drive, lined with shiny cars. I’d perhaps curse the palm trees, forcing me to weave my way around their silvery trunks. I’d ignore the burn of lungs until I reached the security key pad and front doors to my home. Mine and Ava’s home. And I’d try and think back to where it had all started, my throat swollen with the catch of my breath.

  I’d of course try and ignore you all. Forgive me, for being rude. I’ve always needed you. But now, as I watch you all in front of me, I realise I can’t go anywhere. I’m trapped. Oh, the irony of it all, by you.

  I think of Nicholas, who’d just been on the stage. He called himself a fan. Of mine or Ava’s I can’t remember. Funny fan, to turn on me like that. But he’d got me. And now, there’s nowhere to turn, except to you.

  You go slow at first. I see you, hands moving towards your back pockets. Some of you lift your screens up towards me, lights flashing. I open my mouth to sing again. But I stop mid-way. And then I think of Ava. The goodness that radiated from her.

  I once read somewhere that your child’s DNA passes right through you during pregnancy. That it gets absorbed into your own DNA. I hope that was true of Ava. That somehow, I’d got her goodness, somewhere.

  ‘Shall I sing?’ I asked. But everyone was silent. I was desperate. My body started to shake. ‘Guys?’ But no one spoke. I saw the bright white lights burning into me. ‘I’m here. We’ve got to sing the song. For Ava. The record for charity. Come on. D
on’t do that. I thought you were all going to raise money?’ I laughed, injecting a breeziness into my voice, but I felt you turn hostile. I thought I heard hissing from the front seats. I tried to get you back. I opened my mouth and started to sing again but none of you were paying attention.

  ‘Ava.’ I tried to switch attention but I heard the hisses get louder. ‘Listen,’ I shouted. ‘Listen. Can’t you respect my daughter? This is her memorial. All for you to pay your own respects.’ But a rush of noise started filling the air.

  ‘We loved Ava,’ I heard someone shout, above the hissing.

  ‘Stop,’ I shouted and I looked down into the pit in front of the VIP row of seats and moved my hands, trying to get them to start up the music again but they all stood there, mouths open and holding their instruments in mid-air.

  ‘Listen to me.’ My voice got higher and higher, but I had lost you. I thought back to the moment in the police station. Ben. Joanne. How I’d managed to pull you all back when I’d moved to the US, because no matter how hard I tried, once I’d had you, there was no way I would live without you. And then I start to feel very angry. My daughter. She’s dead, and you’re behaving like this? Every cell in my body vibrates. Listen to me. Are you listening? But you’re all busy, staring, recording like I’m some sort of exhibit.

  And I’m trying to get you to listen. But you aren’t. You aren’t listening. I think about running. And I think about how after this, I’m sure as hell going to get put inside. And that’s pretty inevitable when I tell you what happened. So this is it. I might as well go down on a high. It might as well come from me. The unfiltered me. I feel bad. Really bad. Because, well, this is the beginning of the end.

  And with nothing to hide behind, I have to give you the real me.