by John Marrs
‘Eric, you can’t be . . .’ she said out loud.
‘I can’t be what?’ came a voice in her ear, making her yelp.
‘What’s with you?’ laughed Eric.
‘Nothing! Nothing,’ Nicole replied. The rapid speed of her pulse made her body judder. Her fist clenched the velvet pouch, and its contents dug sharply into her hand.
‘What happened to the vent?’ he asked, noticing the plastic casing lying in the footwell.
‘Erm, I was picking at it,’ Nicole stumbled, and slowly slid the pouch from her hand and into her pocket. Then she picked up the casing and jammed it back in place. ‘Can we go?’
Eric returned to the driver’s seat, put his seat belt on and pulled away, ready to return to Venice Beach. As Nicole tried to regulate her breathing, she was unaware the breeze coming through the windows had blown Maria’s note under her seat.
CHAPTER 17
Some 3,000 regulars made their way to downtown Santa Monica’s farmers’ market each and every Sunday.
Unlike other markets throughout the city, Santa Monica’s appealed to more than single shoppers or restaurant staff picking up the freshest local produce for their eateries. It targeted young and old with food stalls, arts and crafts stands, face painting and pony rides.
‘This looks just ripe enough,’ said Jane, picking up a grapefruit and squeezing it. ‘It should have a good week left in it.’
‘How do you know this stuff?’ asked Savannah, who back in Alabama, never had call to set foot inside a supermarket let alone a street crammed with colourful edibles.
‘When you’re a mum they give you a manual for this kind of thing.’
When a confused Savannah frowned, Jane added, ‘I’m kidding, darling.’
‘How many kids do you have?’
‘Oh, I have two,’ she replied casually. ‘Well, I had two, but they passed away. It still never sounds like it’s me when I’m saying that.’
‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ gasped Savannah.
‘That’s okay. And speaking of children, when are you due?’
CHAPTER 18
There were almost 130 people from 28 different nationalities sleeping under the roof of the Venice Beach International Hostel.
But Tommy still instantly recognised the figure walking along the corridor ahead of him, even with the back of his head obscured. The olive green frayed backpack was a giveaway, decorated with dozens of airport security tags, flight labels, Greyhound and Amtrak tickets and stickers hung from straps and zips; a tapestry of wanderlust that could only belong to Jake.
Tommy felt a sudden sense of dismay when he realised Jake had packed up to leave. He’d already lost one ally in Nicole that week, but that friendship was only ever going to be temporary, and Tommy felt that he and Jake still had some way to go.
Meanwhile, as Jake made his way towards the hostel’s front door, he was still embarrassed and angry with himself for letting his guard down and befriending Tommy. Even though he hadn’t revealed anything about his past life as Stuart Reynolds, pop star, he’d allowed Tommy to get closer than most. Jake hadn’t planned to kiss him and he knew Tommy was straight, but he’d let his emotions get the better of him and acted on impulse, not forethought.
Jake was attracted to Tommy, he could admit that to himself now, and like any gay man who’d ever had a crush on a straight guy, he knew nothing would come of it. So, to stop himself making more of a fool of himself than he already had, he reasoned it was better to just disappear.
‘I thought you only left when people weren’t looking?’ yelled Tommy.
‘Oh hi, yeah,’ Jake replied, turning around and clearly flustered.
‘So?’
‘So . . . what?’
‘So you can’t leave because I’m looking.’
‘I made a bit of a tit of myself so I thought it best I just . . . go.’
‘Ah, you mean after you tried to snog my face off?’ Tommy teased.
‘I was a bit emotional. I was thinking about home and, well, I dealt with it the wrong way. I’m sorry.’
‘You said being homesick was the sacrifice you make for a fresh start.’
‘Using my own words against me, eh? Maybe I’m not as sorted as you think I am.’
‘Maybe you’re just more human than you realise.’
‘Possibly,’ thought Jake, ‘or maybe I’ve just made more fucking stupid decisions than you’ll ever know.’
TWO YEARS EARLIER – LONDON
The tinted windows of the limousine couldn’t completely hide the camera flashes as Stuart and soap actress Katie Begley pulled away from the red-carpet film premiere and drove towards London’s Embankment.
Even though the clock was approaching midnight, the roads were overcrowded and they moved slowly as the audience dispersed towards their vehicles and public transport.
A familiar, frosty silence between Katie and Stuart filled the limo as it often did when they were left alone. Theirs was a relationship of convenience, dreamed up by managers and PR experts eager to promote both their brands. In front of the cameras, they were love’s young dream, but away from the flashing lights of the paparazzi, they had little in common and even less of a desire to discover common ground in their manufactured worlds.
Katie tucked her strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear, put her fingers down her blouse and pulled out four finger-sized paper wraps from her bra. She expertly tapped out a powdery substance from one of them onto her clutch bag, placed the wraps on it and carefully shaped four lines with her VIP lanyard.
‘Haven’t you done enough of that already?’ Stuart asked. ‘You took enough toilet breaks during the film to snort half of Columbia.’
Katie ignored him, then removed a straw from her purse, placed it at the base of her nostril and snorted two lines in quick succession, finishing with a long, hard blink as the cocaine numbed the back of her throat.
‘Do you want some?’ she asked Stuart, pointing to the remaining lines.
‘No, I’m good,’ he replied, eager to leave her side and reach their destination.
Aside from the occasional joint, drugs weren’t a high priority for Stuart. His social workers had informed him that his parents’ substance addiction was the reason he’d been removed from them as a toddler and placed into care. He’d since learned his mother had died of a heroin overdose some years later, and he couldn’t bear to read the self-pitying story his father had sold to the Sunday Mirror about how much he missed his only son – a son he hadn’t bothered to track down until fame came his way.
Stuart had dabbled with speed and cocaine recreationally with the rest of Lightning Strikes and kept a small stash in his apartment for when Zak was in town. Most of the time Stuart only indulged in stimulants with Zak, and that was only to enhance the sex. ‘Fucking on coke is like nothing else,’ Zak had told him the first night they spent together, and he wasn’t wrong.
‘Suit yourself,’ said Katie, wiping her top lip with a tissue. ‘Not much fun, are you? I don’t know why I keep agreeing to this.’
‘Because being seen with me makes you front-page news,’ Stuart snipped. ‘Without me, you’re relegated to TV guides.’
‘Well Geri had better not screw me over.’
‘Neither of us is getting screwed the rate this traffic is moving. Driver, how much longer do you reckon it’s going to take?’
As the glass partition descended, Katie passed Stuart her handbag with the two remaining lines of coke scattered across it.
‘Hold this for a minute,’ she said. Her voice wobbled as she knocked the remaining wraps into his lap.
‘Be careful!’ Stuart snapped, but when he gave Katie an angry stare, her eyes rolled back into her head and her body went into seizure.
‘We’re just pulling in now, sir,’ the driver replied as the car moved towards the hotel entrance.
A panicked Stuart knew by heart the well-rehearsed routine that was supposed to follow, but that night would be different. Because, before he had
time to prevent it from happening, one of the hotel staff opened his limo door and half a dozen cameras snapped the star of Britain’s biggest boy band with two lines of cocaine balanced on his lap, three wraps of it in his hand and a convulsing teenage actress by his side.
*
TODAY – HOSTEL
‘I’m not gay, just for the record,’ Tommy told Jake firmly. ‘I mean, it doesn’t bother me that you are, but I’m not. I just wanted to clear that up.’
‘I know, I know’ Jake replied, and hitched his rucksack further up towards his shoulders. ‘I’ve booked into a hostel in West Hollywood, maybe we could catch up in a few days?’
‘You don’t have to go, nobody needs to know you’re gay if you’d prefer to keep it quiet. Not that I think anyone here would give a shit, but you can trust me,’ Tommy replied.
‘People can’t let you down if you don’t trust them.’
‘Another pearl of wisdom, eh?’
Suddenly Tommy grabbed Jake by the cheeks and kissed him, not just a peck on the lips, but a proper kiss. ‘There,’ Tommy laughed, a little surprised by his own spontaneity, ‘we’re equal now, so let’s put your rucksack back in your room and go get a Chinese.’
As the two headed back towards Jake’s room, neither noticed a camera phone pointing in their direction.
CHAPTER 19
‘How do you know I’m pregnant?’ a startled Savannah asked Jane.
Jane put down the punnet of strawberries she was holding at the market stall and took both of Savannah’s hands.
‘Sweetheart, you’re in a hurry to make money in a job that doesn’t match your education. Your arms aren’t marked and your pupils aren’t dilated so you’re not spending any on drugs. I don’t see any Jimmy Choo’s under your bed so you’re not wasting your money on fashion. So what are you doing with it? Probably saving it. And what for? An endgame, of sorts. Now, it could be to move out of the hostel and to get your own apartment, but something tells me there’s more to you than meets the eye and that you’re doing this job, working these crazy hours and putting yourself in harm’s way because you know you can’t do it for much longer. So why could that be? Because you’re expecting a baby.’
Savannah was taken aback. ‘You got all that from sharing a room with me for a day?’
Jane grinned. ‘No, I got all that from the positive pregnancy testing kit you left in the bathroom bin.’
Savannah laughed for the first time that day. ‘I do one every two or three weeks just to make sure,’ she admitted. ‘I know, I know, it’s crazy considering I’m almost five months gone.’
‘Well you’re lucky you’re not showing yet. And you’re keeping the baby when it arrives?’
‘Yes, I’m saving for a deposit on an apartment, and Peyk lets me stay at the hostel for free. I’m sure I’ll start getting bigger soon, and there’s not much demand for strippers with stretch marks.’
‘I don’t know, there seems to be a fetish for just about anything these days.’
Jane picked up her strawberries, handed them to the stallholder and removed her purse from her handbag. ‘You need to keep up your vitamin C intake. We’ll get you some satsumas and iron supplements before we go home.’
Savannah was puzzled by Jane’s interest in her. Peyk and Tommy aside, it felt like a very long time since someone had offered her kindness. But she couldn’t help but feel suspicious.
‘I was about your age when I got pregnant with my first,’ Jane continued, ‘I spent nine months peeing every half hour or vomiting.’
‘I’ve only had morning sickness a handful of times.’
‘You’re lucky. Are your parents supporting you?’
‘No,’ said Savannah quietly, ‘we don’t really have a relationship.’
‘That’s a shame, you could really do with their help at a time like this.’
‘Do you mind me asking what happened to your kids?’ Savannah continued, changing the subject.
‘Not at all, my friends get this . . . awkward look about them when I bring them up so I don’t get to talk about them much.’
Jane paused and chose her words carefully before speaking.
‘My husband killed our children.’
CHAPTER 20
DAY TEN
‘Can I ask what you’re doing here, ma’am?’
Zak aside, the private security staff who pulled up outside his address were the first people to speak to Ruth during her week-long Hollywood Hills sojourn.
‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ Ruth replied, and gave the officers a courteous smile.
‘Who exactly is your friend, ma’am?’
‘Zak Stanley. He lives here.’
‘We are aware of that. And does Mr Stanley know you’re camped outside his home?’
‘Oh yeah, we’ve spoken a bunch of times. And every now and again the camera looks right at me so I can give him a wave.’
The guards looked at each other, thinking the same thing – she was a nutjob, but a harmless one.
‘Well, ma’am, although this isn’t a private road, we do have the authority to ask you to move on if Mr Stanley makes another complaint.’
‘Oh he won’t, don’t worry,’ said Ruth, trying to convince herself that despite their last fractious meeting, there was still hope for a relationship of sorts. ‘We’re friends.’
Ruth had already made the decision before the guards’ arrival that until Zak returned and they’d had the chance to talk properly, she couldn’t risk leaving her seat outside his house to go back to the hostel. So she’d spent a second evening catnapping on the sidewalk, waking each time a car drove past or she heard a voice, and vacating her spot to traipse down the hill to stock up on sugary snacks at the convenience store or to wash in its customer restroom. Food was a necessity, but buying deodorant, a toothbrush or even cheap clothing didn’t cross Ruth’s mind, because the longer she spent away from the house, the more risk there was of missing Zak’s return.
And as the security men left and the hours rolled by, Ruth became more and more anxious about why she hadn’t seen him in almost twenty-four hours.
CHAPTER 21
Nicole took quiet, deep breaths in a desperate attempt to ward off a panic attack.
She’d not suffered one in more than a decade, but she recognised the warning signs of hot flushes, trembling arms and nausea. She knew she must control her body as best she could so as not to give Eric any idea everything between them had changed.
Eric drove without a break for the 300-mile leg of their journey on the 1-10W passing through New Mexico and Arizona, and then crossing into California. And for most of it, Nicole’s head was turned towards the window as she stared at the desert landscape illuminated by an almost-full moon.
Her heart hadn’t stopped racing since she discovered Maria’s note, and her hand remained inside her pocket containing Mrs Baker’s diamonds. There had been casual and polite chit-chat between her and Eric, but during the many silences, her thoughts were dominated by what to do once they returned to the hostel.
And time and time again, she asked herself how she’d failed to realise Eric’s real identity. The answer was always the same – there had been no reason to doubt him. Eric once revealed his father had died when he was a child and that his mother had struggled to cope, so she’d packed him off to boarding school. The years had estranged them further and he’d even changed his surname to distance himself from his family.
Nicole believed he’d also failed to mention his presence to his mother at the hospital, even though he’d spent the best part of a week just feet away from her. Several times Nicole had asked if he wanted to meet Mrs Baker, but each time he declined, claiming he was too busy – a perfectly plausible excuse in an understaffed ward.
And just days earlier, Eric had even helped to scatter his mother’s ashes without so much as shedding a tear. Their two-year friendship, during which Nicole had bared her soul to him, had become rotten.
What scared her the most was where to
go from here. Inside her pocket lay a potential fortune, and sitting next to her was a man who’d lied through his teeth to get hold of it. What else might he be capable of? Nicole desperately needed to talk her options through with someone, and an ocean away from home, there was only one person she trusted enough to turn to for advice – Tommy.
After their latest failed mission, it didn’t take much for Nicole to persuade him returning to Venice Beach would be a good thing for the both of them. They could relax in somewhere familiar and plan for their return to London.
‘Shall we put some music on?’ asked Eric suddenly, stretching out his hand to turn the radio on. He flicked around the dial until he found a station, and chirped along to the chorus of a thirty-year-old Fleetwood Mac song.
‘Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies,’ he sang, both of them aware of the irony of the lyrics, but neither mentioning it.
CHAPTER 22
‘You’d like me to tell you what happened to my babies, wouldn’t you?’
Jane guessed that after dropping the bombshell the previous day about the death of her children at their father’s hands, Savannah might be curious as to the circumstances but wasn’t sure how to ask.
After their shopping expedition to the farmers’ market, they had discussed many topics, but nothing about the events that had altered Jane’s life for good. And, as Savannah had revealed very little about her father or why she’d escaped his grip, she knew that disclosure was a two-way street, so she had no right to ask. But if Jane wanted to offer a further explanation, Savannah would be more than happy to listen.
