by Gina LaManna
“Close your eyes,” Roman instructed. “Everyone.”
Penny’s eyes were already closed. She didn’t care if anyone else listened; all that mattered was this experience. It felt revolutionary, as if she’d taken some drug, fallen down a transcendent, Alice in Wonderland–type hole. She needed Roman to continue more than she needed her next breath.
“Maybe it was an action scene, the thirst for blood so strong, you could taste it. The soundtrack beating through your skull, taking you onto a battlefield during the Second World War.” Roman stilled, the room halted. Not a soul breathed. “Or maybe it was a scene of passion, a moment of lust.”
Penny couldn’t tell if she was imagining it or if the feel of a man’s breath on her neck was real. Her eyes closed tighter. Her hands balled into fists. She heated from the inside, filled with a rampant surge of want teased from the depths of her spirit.
“A moment of untamed desire,” Roman said as if reading Penny’s thoughts. “Of the desperate coupling of two souls in wild, manic love.”
Penny wasn’t imagining it. She could smell his cologne now, feel his breath on her exposed shoulder. She wondered if it was his finger tracing down the bare skin of her back or if she was imagining that, too.
“Sweaty sheets, tangled limbs, moans that start slowly, involuntarily.” Roman’s voice was a mere whisper, yet it boomed throughout the studio and kept his audience transfixed. His words grew louder, louder, as he continued. “Until together, with the dark desires of forbidden lovers, the two shout each other’s names into the ether…”
The silence was intense.
“And then break into pieces.”
Roman’s footsteps carried him away from Penny, leaving her to wonder if she’d imagined his breath, his touch. If she’d begun to fall under the spell of Roman Tate.
“Let’s try this again.” Flipping another switch, Roman brought the studio back under harsh spotlight. “Tell me, Penny, have you ever experienced a moment while acting that took you to another place entirely?”
She began to speak, but her voice didn’t work. It felt broken, out of practice, hoarse. When she cleared her throat, Roman smiled as if he knew the charm he’d cast over her.
“Yes,” she said finally. “At times, I suppose I get carried away.”
“Indeed.” Roman’s lips twitched in her direction. “See me after class, will you, Penny?”
“But—” She glanced listlessly at the script in her hand. Her shoulders sagged, and she felt drained of energy. Exhausted, like she might after a particularly intense round of lovemaking. Her creativity had sizzled and then fizzled in the time she’d been onstage. “I thought you wanted me to do a scene?”
“I think my point has been made.” Roman easily turned toward the sea of students. “That will be all for now, Ms. Sands. Please take your seat.”
Penny returned to the torn fabric on her chair and slid her notebook in front of her. She was so distracted, so hot and bothered, that she didn’t notice what happened onstage for the rest of the hour.
It was as if she’d turned a new leaf. Something in Roman’s words had stirred a new longing in her, bringing about a transformation that was all too welcome. She no longer felt broken by her lackluster experiences in a new city. She no longer felt vulnerable and weary, out of control. Instead, she felt empowered. Somehow, she’d experienced a patch of greatness, of genius, in a dingy theater off Sunset Boulevard, surrounded by aspiring actors.
They don’t understand, she thought dully, gazing around at her classmates. They want the fame, the glory, the prestige.
Penny wanted to be an artist. Her very spirit craved it, desired the freedom of expression, the life-changing, soul-twisting call for something greater.
It suddenly seemed that only one man in the entire city—maybe the entire world—understood her. The need to create, to bring to life scenes of blood and death so realistic, an audience could taste the filmy copper on their tongues as they watched life seep away on a screen. Or to bring a burning desire to the audience, spurring racing heartbeats as two forbidden lovers came together on the pages of a screenplay in a sweeping culmination of lust and denial.
Yes, Penny thought. Only one man understood her, and that man stood tall and stately onstage, an undiscovered gem of talent in a sea of shiny stars.
That was when it hit her.
Somehow, over the course of a month and a half, Penny Sands had fallen madly, hopelessly, desperately in love with Roman Tate. And he wanted to see her after class—alone.
TRANSCRIPT
Defense: Ms. Moore, how long have you been babysitting for the Wilkes family?
Olivia Moore: On and off for the last three years. I found the job listing on a corkboard at UCLA when I was a freshman.
Defense: How often would you say you babysit for the Wilkes family?
Olivia Moore: It goes in spurts. Sometimes, it’s every other week. Other times, we go a few months without touching base.
Defense: And what’s the typical length of time you watch the Wilkes children?
Olivia Moore: Under normal circumstances, oh, I’d say anywhere between two and six hours depending on the evening.
Defense: Have there ever been extenuating circumstances?
Olivia Moore: Excuse me?
Defense: You said under normal circumstances. I’m wondering why you said that, if circum stances have been anything other than what you’d classify as normal.
Olivia Moore: Well, there was one time that I watched the kids for a little while longer. That was just because Mark needed help, and it was the right thing to do.
Defense: Mark—you mean, Detective Wilkes?
Olivia Moore: Yes.
Defense: Where was his wife?
Olivia Moore: We didn’t know. That was the problem.
Defense: How long was Anne Wilkes gone?
Olivia Moore: Three days.
Defense: Where did she go?
Olivia Moore: I don’t know the answer to that.
Defense: She didn’t tell you where she was going?
Olivia Moore: Not exactly. She just walked out one night…and didn’t come back.
FIVE
Eight Months Before
June 2018
One month after Anne followed her husband for the first time, she was ready to go again. It had taken her several weeks to build up the confidence to return to the chase. But now that her confidence was raring to go, Anne could hardly wait to get answers. In a twisted way, she was almost looking forward to it.
Anne hadn’t taken control of her life in far too long. She’d let herself become complacent, a victim to motherhood, mediocrity, and busyness. In taking charge of her situation—by demanding answers— Anne had awakened a layer of defiance in herself that she hadn’t exposed to oxygen in years.
For the past fourteen years, she’d been Mark Wilkes’s wife. A devoted wife to a decorated cop, second only to her title of loving mother of four rambunctious children. She was homemaker, support system, chef, maid, and shoulder to cry on. But that was about to change.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Anne told her mother. “I was supposed to meet Mark for dinner, but he’s working late. I’m meeting a mother from playgroup instead.”
Beatrice Harper had flown in two days before, and Anne was deviously planning to use the built-in childcare to fuel her new amateur detective hobby. It was fair, really. Payback for her mother’s visit.
Beatrice only came to visit her daughter at Christmas and at Easter. This special trip was disguised as a checkup for Anne, and Anne didn’t appreciate it. She was fine. Fine, fine, fine. She wouldn’t be surprised if her mother and husband had colluded to babysit Anne, and that was ridiculous.
As Anne bid goodbye to her mother, she donned her trusty purse and scooped up the car keys to her old soccer-mom van. Glancing back at the house she and Mark had scrambled so desperately to afford, she wondered if it had all been worth it. They’d saved and saved, cut corners and budgeted.
Worked overtime and begged loan officers for better news.
When they’d finally purchased the house, it hadn’t had a lick of furniture for a month. Anne and Mark had wanted to buy everything new, everything together—start their married lives with bright, fresh furniture.
They’d made love on the floor the first night in their house. They’d moved from the living room to the kitchen counter to the carpet in the walk-in bedroom closet. They’d giggled, dreaming of the furniture they’d someday buy. And when they’d bought the bed and the couch and the kitchen table, they’d made love on all of them, too.
With four kids, it was expected that the romance would eventually slide. But Anne hadn’t lost the gut-twisting love she had for Mark; it just came out in different ways. When he brought home sunflowers—her favorite—from the farmer’s market, it gave her butterflies. When he held the twins on his lap and read them silly books in silly voices, her heart melted. So why was he throwing it all away?
Tonight was the last night she’d wonder. Unbeknownst to her husband, she’d installed a tracking app on his phone. This whole evening had been planned, step by step. Anne would know her husband’s secrets no matter the cost.
_______________________________
This is it, Anne told herself. She could feel it in her bones. Call it motherly intuition or a wife’s instinct, but Anne was convinced she’d found the root cause of her husband’s disappearing act.
The dot on the map that signified the location of her husband’s phone had left work an hour ago, then beeped in a line across Los Angeles to a small nook in Culver City where it had come to a stop.
Anne had plugged the coordinates into her own GPS and followed the directions across the city. She passed bustling Culver City, a quaint little town complete with cutesy book shops and newfangled Mexican fusion restaurants. A Trader Joe’s had recently popped up, and a Whole Foods was rumored to be moving in across the road.
The street where Anne found her husband’s car was not part of this up-and-coming neighborhood. It was part of a neighborhood riddled with overflowing trash cans and vehicles parked every which way, making two-lane streets a one-lane obstacle course. Police didn’t bother handing out parking tickets around here. They had bigger problems.
Anne watched a possum crawl out of a garbage can and skitter through the darkness into overgrown bushes that had made the walkway to one apartment complex all but impossible to navigate. It was with a jolt of surprise that she spotted Mark approaching that very building. He strolled to a stop and perched against the gate to wait.
Tucking her minivan behind a moving truck a few blocks back, Anne settled in to watch. She could see Mark clearly (the binoculars helped with that), but unless Mark was really looking, he wouldn’t see her in return. Anne’s theory was tested as Mark ran a hand through his hair and cast a quick glance toward the road. His attention was focused back on the apartment complex before Anne could blink.
Even from her hiding spot, she could tell he was wearing his favorite pair of jeans—the ones stained by jelly from when Gretchen had thrown a fit a few months back and slapped her toast on her father’s lap. Anne had worked on the stain for hours. Nothing had helped, and still, Mark had refused to throw them out. He said the stain was a badge of honor, and Anne had found that adorable.
Anne’s patience was finally rewarded when a woman appeared at the gate to let Mark inside. The woman was…not a woman. She was a girl. Maybe eighteen? Definitely not older than twenty-two. Anne’s insides blistered with betrayal.
The woman—girl—wore loose-fitting cotton sleep shorts and a sweater that hung off one shoulder to reveal a swatch of pale skin around her collarbone. The sort of outfit that looked casually sexy on today’s youths with their pert little bodies and big, bright eyes. On Anne, the outfit would look laughable.
The girl unlatched the gate, then looked up at Mark with a smile. There was definite familiarity in her gaze. The two knew each other, a fact that was only confirmed when they embraced. She moved away first, a bounce to her step as she opened the gate farther and gestured for Mark to follow behind her. Anne watched, her throat growing dry, as her husband followed another woman into an unfamiliar apartment.
It was only when the door marked by a crooked number nine closed that the finality of the situation hit Anne. She expected to be hurt, devastated, appalled at the confirmation of her worst fears. Her husband was dating a child!
As Anne picked up one of her daughter’s water bottles and slurped wine from the straw, it dawned on her that the emotions she was experiencing were faulty. Instead of the hurt she had prepared to feel, the only thing in her chest was the pilot light of rage that had been simmering for the past several weeks.
As Anne plunked the Mickey Mouse wine bottle back into the cup holder and pulled away from the curb, she knew… That pilot light would burst into an inferno if she wasn’t careful.
TRANSCRIPT
Defense: Mrs. Wilkes, please describe your relationship with Eliza Tate. How did you meet?
Anne Wilkes: We were roommates in college. We’ve been good friends for a long, long time.
Defense: Are you still friends?
Anne Wilkes: As far as I know.
Defense: Were you being blackmailed, Mrs. Wilkes?
Anne Wilkes: Not exactly.
Defense: What if I told you we had evidence to the contrary?
Anne Wilkes: I’d ask who’s the son of a bitch that spilled the beans.
Defense: So you were being blackmailed?
Anne Wilkes: If we’re being honest here—
Defense: We are being honest. You’ve sworn to tell the truth.
Anne Wilkes: The truth is that I’m not the one on trial here. And apparently, motives are easy to come by in this case. Eliza’s not the only one who wanted him dead, okay? That doesn’t mean I killed him.
SIX
Seven Months Before
July 2018
Eliza hated asking for anything.
She stared into the water glass as she waited for the rest of her party to arrive, watching as sweat beaded on the outside and slipped down like raindrops on a window. A pool of water gathered on the table beneath her cup. She extended a hand and swiped listlessly at the dampness.
An attentive server jumped to attention, moving quickly to Eliza’s side. He lifted her water glass without speaking, patted it down with a towel, then added a napkin beneath it. The whole thing was over and done within a matter of seconds.
Eliza hadn’t always dined at expensive country clubs, worn sky-high heels, or splurged on weekly blowouts from the best salons in Beverly Hills. She’d grown up in Beijing under the watchful eyes of two incredibly strict parents. Eliza’s mother and father had expected nothing but greatness from her, and when she inevitably achieved it, there was no reward. No pat on the back. To say they had been pleased with her accomplishments was a stretch.
Eliza had moved to the States just before college. She had enrolled at UCLA where she blew through an undergrad degree in three years, then rolled straight into a master’s program. After graduation (and a quickie wedding), she’d gone on to secure a prestigious job at Thompson Public Relations along with a fat salary. She had risen rapidly through the ranks until she’d obtained a position second only to Harold. Fucking Harold.
Eliza had no plans to tell her parents she’d been laid off; they just might die from the shock of it. Her parents hadn’t visited America in well over five years, and the last time they’d come, they’d spent the entire visit prodding her about the possibility of children. Before they’d left, her mother had said the next time they visited would be for the birth of Eliza’s first child.
Eliza wondered if she’d ever see her family again.
Two beautiful figures arrived at the restaurant then, drawing Eliza from her daydreams as she pulled herself to her feet. She fought hard against the bile rising in her throat, biting down on her lip at the thought of the task that lay ahead of her.
“Good e
vening, Mr. and Mrs. Tate.” Eliza stood, brushed her hands over the trim skirt covering her thighs, and smiled at her husband’s parents. “I’m so pleased you could join me for dinner.”
“We’re very glad you reached out to us,” Mrs. Tate said. “And for the millionth time, Eliza, call us Todd and Jocelyn.”
Eliza smiled politely as she did every time her mother-in-law insisted Eliza call her by her first name. Not only would Eliza’s upbringing not allow for such informalities, but deep down, she suspected both Todd and Jocelyn preferred the demure image of the daughter-in-law that Eliza had presented from the very start. Todd especially.
Eliza watched the handsome older man as he slid off a suit jacket and looked over his shoulder impatiently for a waiter to take it off his hands. Eliza had chosen Todd’s country club as the location for their meeting because she’d known that making him comfortable, letting him feel superior and powerful, would give her the best chance of getting what she wanted. It didn’t matter what Todd thought at the end of the day; Eliza held the reins. She didn’t need to be bold and brash if she could daintily pluck each string just the way she wanted.
Todd had the chiseled look of a Hollywood star and often turned heads whenever they were out as a group. However, Todd Tate had no interest in the arts whatsoever and had made his money as some sort of financier. His lack of interest in creative pursuits made for dull discussions of Eliza’s and Roman’s careers at the Christmas dinner table.
Jocelyn Tate, however, was more interesting to Eliza. A small woman nearing seventy, she appeared outwardly to be in her early fifties. Her blond hair was kept up at the same expensive salon where Eliza received her weekly blowouts, and her figure remained trim through rigorous exercise routines and strict diets. She looked the part of a rich man’s wife, but Eliza suspected that a peek below Jocelyn’s veneered surface would lead to some peculiar secrets.
“It’s lovely to see you, darling.” Jocelyn sat first, gesturing for her daughter-in-law to follow suit. “We’re sorry to hear Roman couldn’t make it, but—”
