Trashed

by Alison Gaylin

  Walker smiled at Simone, a challenge of a smile that made her grit her teeth.

  Julie called on the next reporter, a woman from People who wanted to know if Julie had spoken to Chris and Lara since that morning. By the next question, Simone felt calm again. She wondered why Walker hadn’t outed her as an Asteroid reporter, but not for too long. She didn’t want to think about why he did anything.

  Later, back at the office, Nigel announced, “We will all be working through the weekend to keep our momentum going. ” And no one complained.

  Simone wrote up a rather nebulous but intriguing story called INSIDE THE WORLD OF CHRIS’S NEW LOVE. Though nothing in it pointed directly to Simone, it did include Dylan’s insistence “to friends” that she didn’t steal other women’s men and her wild car chases with the paparazzi (whom Nigel insisted Simone refer to as “fans”). The article also detailed Chris’s protective feelings for his beautiful mistress, as evidenced by the fact he’d lent her his strongest bodyguard in order to shield her from legions of Dylan-haters.

  The whole time, Simone couldn’t stop thinking of her last phone conversation with Holly. And, at nightfall, she sped over to the personal assistant’s bungalow.

  Just as Simone was about to ring the bell, she sensed something odd. A rustling, as if someone were moving through the bushes around the side of the house. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck and her mouth went dry. “Who’s there?” she said. The rustling stopped. She stepped away from the door and peered around the house. She saw nothing, no shadows. Still, she wished she had a flashlight because she could have sworn she heard something else . . . a whisper of a laugh.

  Stop it, Simone. You’re imagining things. She leaned on the bell.

  Holly said, “Simone?”

  “Hi.”

  Holly opened the door. She looked pale and gaunt, but her eyes and voice were clear—drug-free—and when Simone walked into her living room, it was neat and orderly. Her floors gleamed and her potted plants glistened with beads of water and everything smelled of pine cleanser. She may not have been able to leave her house, but she’d certainly been able to clean it.

  Holly brought out two glasses of water and they sat down on the couch—jade green silk, identical to Wayne Deegan’s. “I love your sofa,” Simone said.

  “Emerald,” said Holly. “She had wonderful taste. She gave me this, too.” Holly plucked the necklace she was wearing out of her T-shirt. Simone moved closer and looked at the pendant at the end, a large, single emerald cut in the shape of an H. “That is beautiful.”

  “I never take it off,” said Holly, and Simone glanced at the bracelet on her own wrist, the bracelet Emerald had never taken off.

  “So,” said Holly, “is your media friend going to meet us here?”

  Simone took a deep breath. This was harder than she thought it would be. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Simone thought of holding her breath and jumping into cold water, she thought of doing the right thing, she thought, Holly deserves the truth. Until finally she was able to make herself say the words: “I’m the media person, Holly.”

  “What?”

  “I’m a reporter,” she said, “for the Asteroid.”

  “What?!”

  Holly glared at her. In her black eyes, Simone saw the same anger and disgust she’d seen two days ago, when the police escorted Neil Walker off Emerald’s property. “I’m sor—”

  “You lied to me.”

  “I didn’t know what to—”

  “Get out.”

  “Holly.”

  “Get out!”

  “No!” Simone’s voice was louder than she’d intended. It bounced off Holly’s walls and through her windows, a piercing shout. But Simone couldn’t help it; she needed to be heard. She took a breath. “Look,” she said, “you have every right to be angry.”

  “You bet I—”

  “But consider this. Yesterday, you told me that Emerald was a cutter. That is huge news. But you asked me not to tell anyone—I gave you my word. I didn’t tell a soul. I wrote up an on-the-record piece with Wayne Deegan, who gave a better story to the Interloper, and I almost lost my job. But still I didn’t tell anyone, Holly,” she said. “Still I kept your secret.”

  Holly stared at her, her eyes softening a little.

  “So you can throw me out of here if you want, you can cold-call People or the LA Times. But I think that would be a big mistake.” Simone took off the bracelet. “I may be a tabloid reporter,” she said, “but I believe you. And I’m the best friend in the media you’re ever gonna have.”

  For a long time, Holly sat on her couch, twisting her emerald pendant between her fingers and watching Simone, as if she expected her to say more. Finally, she took a breath. “Wayne is giving tabloid interviews?”

  Simone nodded.

  Holly took a sip of water, set the glass down on the coffee table next to a stack of Suburban Indiscretions scripts and a cluster of framed photographs—an elderly woman with Holly’s large black eyes; a chubby-faced baby; Holly and Emerald in ski outfits, pink from the cold, beaming at the camera. “Okay then,” she said quietly.

  First, Simone called Nigel. “I have Emerald’s assistant here, and she wants to go on record saying she believes Keith Furlong killed Emerald.”

  “Sounds brilliant,” he said. “So long as it makes it through Legal.”

  “We’ve got the go-ahead,” Simone told Holly. But the more she spoke to Holly, the less convinced she was that the article would make it through Legal. Yes, Keith had an anger management problem. Simone had seen it herself at Blake Moss’s party. Yes, he was an obvious narcissist, and no, he didn’t seem to care at all that Emerald had died in such a horrible way. As for motive, he was very pissed off that Emerald had talked to the Asteroid about him, but as Holly revealed, those were his malnourished, illegally poached birds. If Emerald had been trapped into discussing his cheating, he had no one to blame but himself. To Simone, the most incriminating thing was the bracelet. But while it was strange that a piece of Keith’s girlfriend’s jewelry would wind up in his lover’s trash, that’s all it was, strange. And strange was nowhere near enough to satisfy a tabloid’s lawyers.

  “You said Keith scared Emerald.” Simone took a sip of water.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  Holly peered into her own glass. “She said he had secrets. ”

  “You mean, like, with Destiny?”

  “No. She said there was a part of him she didn’t know. A dark side. Sometimes he’d disappear, wouldn’t tell her where he was, and if she asked, he’d get this look in his eye . . .”

  “Like a shark.”

  “Emerald just called it mean.” She flicked off Simone’s tape recorder. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  Simone said, “Can I ask you something off the record? ”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you have any reason to believe Keith would have known about Emerald’s knife collection?”

  “Not really,” she said. “She hid it from everyone. And they each had their own bathroom. . . .” Holly picked at a finger. “You . . . you don’t think there’s a story here, do you?”

  Simone sighed. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “You don’t even know how many reporters I called—they don’t care. I guess all anybody is into now is the whole Chris-Lara-Dylan thing, huh?”

  Simone grimaced. “I guess.”

  “I just wish I could get the police to listen, but no.”

  “Why won’t they, Holly?”

  She sighed. “Emerald left a note, there was no sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle, she was a cutter with a history of depression. And Keith had an alibi.”

  “He did?”

  Holly nodded. “The manager, Cole, says he was at Bedrock that whole night.”

  Simone’s spine straightened. “He wasn’t.”
<
br />   “What?”

  “I was at Bedrock that night,” she said. “I talked to Cole. And I’ll tell you one thing. If there’s one place Keith wasn’t the night Emerald died, it was Bedrock. And Cole knew it.”

  Holly’s gaze sharpened. “So why did he lie to the police? ”

  “That,” said Simone, “is a very good question.”

  As Simone left the bungalow and walked out to her car, headlines auditioned in her mind: KEITH LIED, EM DIED. EMERALD’S LAST NIGHT: WHERE WAS KEITH? That might work, she thought. Implying without out-and-out accusing. She would need a police quote. . . .

  Simone pulled out her cell phone, tapped in the number Holly had given her, and heard the voice mail of Detective Louise Bianchi, Hollywood Division. “Detective Bianchi,” she said, “my name is Simone Glass and I’m with the Asteroid. I wanted to talk to you about Keith Furlong’s possible role in the death of Emerald Deegan. I would like a statement from you, but I also have some new evidence. Oh, yeah, and I can dispute his alibi.” She hung up. That should merit a callback.

  She folded up her phone. When she put the key in the Jeep’s door, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out—a response that would have troubled her if she weren’t so overtaken by terror. . . .

  Which wilted when she turned and saw that the hand belonged to Neil Walker.

  “Hi!” he said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Sealing the deal.”

  “What deal?”

  “In case you don’t remember, I spared your undercover ass today. I do a good deed like that, I want something in return.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  He moved closer, brushed a lock of hair out of her eye. His burning gaze lingered on her face, and Simone thought, not for the first time, that he was very good-looking—in a smart-ass kind of way. “I think,” he said, “you need to start sharing a little.”

  Simone felt a rush of color to her face. “Hey,” she stammered, “I don’t know what kind of women you hang around with, but . . .”

  “Take it easy. I want to share Chrylan leads.”

  She cleared her throat. “Chrylan?”

  “Yeah, you know. Chris, Dylan. The new Clara.”

  “You want to . . .”

  He grinned at her. “What did you think I wanted?”

  “Nothing!” God, how embarrassing. “Nothing . . . just . . . I don’t share leads with the Interloper.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, you do.” He was looking at a business card, holding it up to the light. “Unless you’d like me to place a call to Randi DuMonde, or . . .” He smiled at the card. “Hmmm . . . Dylan Leeds, Actor . . . Well, that’s debatable. But I bet the contact information is accurate.”

  Simone stared at him. “Where did you get that?”

  “You.”

  “When?”

  “Just now. Got it out of your back pocket.”

  “How did you—”

  “Know it was there? I didn’t. Just exploring.”

  “You are . . . unbelievable.”

  “Come on, Simone. This arrangement can work for both of us. We can be like . . . a secret team. You give me the Dylan stuff you don’t use, and I’ll run it. And vice versa. I’ll give you a piece of my leads. Our editors will think we’ve got great new sources. No one will ever know.”

  She leveled her gaze at him. “That sounds good,” she said. “Except for, you know, all of it.”

  “Hey, I’m doing you a favor.”

  “Oh, really? What kind of leads do you have? I mean, other than the ones you steal from me.”

  “You’d be surprised, sweetheart.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Seriously. I’ll give you one right now. I happen to know for a fact that Keith Furlong was cheating on Emerald Deegan.”

  “Wow, that’s hot,” she said. “Next you’re going to tell me Elton John is gay.” Surreptitiously, she slipped the bracelet into the side pocket of her purse.

  Walker took a step forward, which put his body so close to hers she could actually feel the heat it emitted. “Look,” he said softly. “We can make this easy . . . maybe even fun. Or I can force you into it. It’s your choice.”

  Her chest tightened. A gasp escaped from her lips. “I don’t trust you.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  Simone felt it again—the start of another ridiculous staring contest. I don’t have time for this. I really do not.

  But she did it anyway. She stood there, stock-still next to her Jeep, staring into his eyes, refusing to budge. What was it about him? No matter what was going on in her life, he made it more important to get the last laugh. You have no idea, she thought as she stared into those gas-flame irises. You have absolutely no idea how badly I’m about to kick your butt with this Keith Furlong story. She grinned up at him, eyes sparkling. For a second, Simone thought she saw something else in his eyes . . . something that may not have had anything to do with competition or Chrylan leads or . . .

  Maybe she was just imagining.

  A smile played across his lips. “What,” he said, “is on your mind?”

  She started to say something, but then she stopped, and then a sudden burst of mechanical sound put their staring contest to an end. Simone jumped a little, confused. Until she figured out it was both their cell phones, ringing at once.

  Simone and Walker answered their phones in unison, doing a weird sort of dance as they attempted to hear each other’s conversations while digesting their own, and speaking as quietly and cryptically as possible, so as not to be overheard. At one point, Simone realized she was following Walker and trying to get away from him at the same time.

  This had to stop. Now.

  It was Nigel on the phone, and Simone needed to focus on what he was telling her. Because what he was telling her made the blood freeze in her veins.

  By the time she hung up with Nigel, Walker was already in his car. “I’ve got to run. We’ll talk later,” he said. But she didn’t reply. All she could do was get in her Jeep and start it up and drive, to where Nigel had told her to drive—to the Starbright Hotel in East LA. All she could do was turn on the radio, try not to think too hard about what Nigel had said—his speech slowed to normal from shock. “They found Destiny. She is dead. Her throat has been cut.”

  FIFTEEN

  According to Nigel’s police source, Destiny’s estimated time of death had been four thirty in the morning. Simone had been home already, sleeping off the rum and Cokes from Blake Moss’s party—the party she’d supposedly gone to in order to try to find Destiny.

  She hadn’t tried very hard.

  Simone had barely asked a few people where she might be—this missing seventeen-year-old girl with a dead woman’s bracelet in her trash. . . . She’d spent most of the night hanging out with her friend, drinking, ogling celebrities, gossiping.

  Simone could have saved Destiny. At least, she could have warned her—if she hadn’t made excuses. The kid’s in Mexico right now, buying eight thousand dollars’ worth of margaritas.

  Even as Kathy had said it, Simone had known it wasn’t anything more than a pretty picture for her mind. And yet she’d told herself, That makes sense. Because she’d wanted it to make sense.

  The shoe, too. Ever since Holly had told her that Emerald cut the backs of her ankles, Simone had thought that the Jimmy Choo in her trash—and the blood on it—must’ve belonged to Emerald. But it hadn’t. . . . And somewhere inside her, she’d always known.

  The first victim’s shoe in the second victim’s garbage. The second victim’s bracelet in the third victim’s garbage . . . . Three dead young women, their throats all slashed. Connected by what someone had forced them to throw away.

  Their favorite belongings, their secrets, their lives. Trashed.

  Simone remembered a journalistic adage that was a favorite of her features writing professor: Two’s a coincidence. Three makes a trend.
<
br />   Will it stop at three?

  She turned on the car radio. A hyper-animated deejay, talking about Chris and Dylan, who suddenly seemed part of the distant, soft-focused past. “Lara Chandler!” he yelled. “I mean, come on. You get to hit dat any time you want, and . . . well, like this tabloid dude says—coming to you courtesy of our Fox news affiliate . . . If the beautiful Lara Chandler isn’t safe from betrayal . . . is anyone safe? Is anyone really? My thoughts exactly, tabloid dude. Is anyone safe?”

  The cars in front of Simone started to slow down and, several blocks up Sunset, she saw the flashing lights of police cars. “My thoughts, too,” she said.

  When Simone reached the Starbright, she saw Walker’s black Saab parked a few blocks up and across the street. Of course that’s what his call was about. She pulled behind it and parked just as he was getting out. She wasn’t sure why. There were closer spaces. But somehow, it was better to be near him—even if he was the competition, even if he had lied to her, stolen her leads, threatened to give her up to Julie.

  It was better to be near anyone right now.

  He walked up to her window. “You drive fast.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “So . . . you knew about Destiny and Keith Furlong?” he asked.

  “Of course I did.”

  “And the steak.”

  “Yes, the steak, too.”

  Simone pictured the bracelet coiled in her purse like something lethal, something poisonous.

  “What’s wrong?” Walker said.

  She was unable to get the thought out of her mind: Whether or not Keith Furlong put that bracelet in Destiny’s trash, the person who killed Emerald did. “I want to tell you,” she said, “but I can’t.”

  He nodded. “I can understand that. Odds are, I wouldn’t be able to tell you either.” She got out of her car, and they both stood still, staring at the flashing jam of police cars. All that attention for one dead girl.

  Walker said, “You want to call a truce for tonight? I mean . . . we’re both here. We may as well . . .”

  “Infiltrate together?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d like that,” Simone said quietly.

  He turned away, looked up the street. “Good.”