Scotty lit another cigarette. “Yup. No question.”
But Kira didn’t want to say a word either way and jinx it. Sphinx was the best thing she’d worked on in years. She’d known it would be, from the moment she read the script over eighteen months ago. Taut, biting, mysterious in just the right ways. She loved everything about the film. “I have no idea. It should.”
“But?”
“You know what it’s like. Too much relies on favoritism. Who’s due. And who’s sleeping with which producer.”
Scotty snorted. “She’s right.”
“Or who looks the best on the cover of People magazine?” Isha asked.
“Something like that.”
Isha leaned against the table and fussed with her braid. “Your boss called.”
“When?”
“Fifteen minutes ago. He wanted to know if you could work a double today. I told him I didn’t know what your schedule was like.”
Kira made a face. She already gave Permanent Addiction more time than she wanted to. Making cappuccino and serving biscotti wasn’t exactly her first career choice, though it paid the bills while she dabbled in production, nights and weekends.
“One phone call,” Scotty muttered.
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” Kira glared at him.
“We got a phone call the other day,” Scotty said. “Producer from L.A. He wants to hire Kira. He saw her work on one of my other films and wondered if she wanted a job. All she has to do is pick up the phone and call him back.”
“Oh, my God,” Isha said. “That’s amazing!”
Kira didn’t answer. There was no way she could explain to her friends how amazing it wasn’t. “It’s a low-man-on-the-totem-pole job. Entry level at best.”
“So? It’s L.A. The movie biz. You’re going to take it, right? I mean, that’s so cool. You could be working with legit stars.”
“She turned him down,” Scotty said.
“What? Why?” Isha’s eyes were saucers. “Why wouldn’t you want a job like that? It’s all you talk about, making movies. You know more about the industry than anyone I’ve ever met. I mean, it’s like your life. Isn’t it?”
It was and it wasn’t, and she couldn’t explain that, either. Kira jammed a sweater and her dead phone into a backpack and slipped it over her shoulders. “The pay was terrible.” She avoided making eye contact with either of them. She would never go back to that life. Not unless the universe shifted or hell froze over.
“But isn’t it more about getting your foot in the door? Meeting the right people and making connections? The pay would have to get better, if you were good at your job. And you’re great at it, Kira. I know you are.”
“See?” Scotty said. “Your roommate gets it. I get it. Everyone gets it except you.”
Kira set her jaw and pulled open the warehouse door. Sunlight blinded them. “I don’t care. I’m not ready to move to L.A., and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
Half an hour later, showered and feeling slightly more alive, Kira stepped from the bathroom into the kitchen of the apartment she and Isha shared.
“What the hell is that?”
“What?”
Isha pointed. “You got another one?”
Kira glanced down and ran a fingertip over the small black symbol on her hip. It peeked over the top of her boy shorts, two inches wide. It still stung, though she’d had it inked there almost a week ago.
“Oh. Yeah. Moment of weakness. And too much sangria with Scotty.”
“They’re not supposed to do it if you’re drunk.”
“I wasn’t, not really.” Just stupid. She’d given in to memory on whim and a dare, and for the first two days, she regretted the tattoo completely. She had a half-dozen others, but they didn’t have the significance this one did. She never let the past influence her decisions when it came to her ink. Most of the time, she had no desire to remember her life before she became Kira March.
Yet another reason not to consider that job offer. At all.
“What is it? Some kind of Chinese symbol?”
“Greek letters. ‘Gnothi sauton’,” Kira said, reading the words upside down.
“A sorority?”
“It’s a phrase that was carved into the temple of the Oracle at Delphi.” Why did I pick this one?
“What’s the Oracle at Delphi?”
“A woman back in ancient Greece who communicated with the gods. The words mean ‘know thyself’.”
“That’s pretty philosophical.”
“I guess.” She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She knew damn well why she’d picked it, and she hated herself for it. I should forget him. He broke my heart. But the tattoo artist had scripted the tiny Greek letters perfectly, and now the entire phrase was branded to her skin. Forever. Like the blood in her veins, or the DNA that made up her genetic code.
Isha picked up the remote and pointed it at the television in the corner. “The View is doing their whole show on Edoardo Morelli this morning.” She propped her elbows on the countertop. “God, he’s gorgeous. Did you see him in Another Tomorrow?” She sighed. “I heard he has another movie coming out. I can’t wait. I don’t know if it’s in Italian or English, but I’ll tell you, I don’t even care. I’ll read subtitles all night long for that man. He’s so yummy, you know?”
“‘Yummy’? How old are you, twelve?”
“You know what I mean.” Isha looked from the television to Kira and then back. “If you took that job in L.A., maybe you’d run into him.”
Kira shivered. She couldn’t think of anything worse.
“Or maybe you’d get to work with him. You really don’t think he’s hot?”
“Nope.” The show’s hosts giggled and cooed as they watched a trailer for Morelli’s latest movie. Kira rolled her eyes. “Foreign good looks are overrated.”
Isha laughed. “Whatever. Not like you would kick him out of your bed.”
Kira didn’t answer. Her stomach went queasy, and she yanked up her boy shorts so her tattoo disappeared. Maybe she could get it removed.
Edoardo’s face filled the screen—dark eyes, dark hair with a touch of gray at the temples, laugh lines sketched across tanned skin. The camera zoomed in for another close-up, and Kira ducked into the bathroom to blow dry her hair and put on makeup. She wondered if it was time to start thinking about moving again. Four years was the longest she’d spent anywhere. Yuba City was a friendly town, Scotty was a dream to work with, and Isha was hands-down the nicest roommate she’d had.
But let’s be honest, she thought as she lined her eyes with heavy shadow and mascara. It’s only a matter of time. She was overstaying her welcome. Even if she never breathed a word about her past, some nosy asshole would dig it up. She stayed off social media, changed her phone number every few months, didn’t own a credit card. She never called home. She never laid claim to her legacy. But the world was too small, and technology was too damn powerful.
She needed to keep moving. Sooner or later, people would start stringing details together and find out who Kira March really was.
Noon
Steele turned onto the interstate and answered his phone as it buzzed a third time.
“You on your way to Napa Valley?” Not even a hello from his father. Typical.
“Yep.” He cut off a tractor-trailer and accelerated.
“You missed the morning meeting.”
“I know. Sorry. Had some kind of stomach bug last night. Just started feeling better a little while ago.”
His father harrumphed into the phone, as if they both knew that wasn’t what had kept Steele away from the office. “I want the story done by tonight.”
“I know. You told me the deadline five fucking times.”
“Watch your mouth.” Another harrumph, his father’s favorite way of communicating with him. “I wouldn’t have to tell you five times if you didn’t keep missing deadlines.”
Steele glanced into the rear-view mirror. He was
tempted to pull over into one of the wineries and drink his way through the rest of the day. What difference would it make?
“Hope you’ve gotten something worth printing,” his father went on. “I want more than just a rehash of the damn movies she made forty years ago. Get her to talk about her son, her missing grandkid, something like that.”
“Francesca doesn’t talk about family.” Steele had pushed, but the woman was as tight-lipped as anyone he’d ever met when it came to talking about either her movie star son or her estranged granddaughter. He toed the gas. The sooner he got this last interview out of the way, the better.
“You get anything on record about Isabella?”
“Edoardo’s daughter? Nope.” Now that would be a story. The girl’s birth was as much of a mystery as her disappearance nearly seven years ago. By all accounts, she’d simply walked out the mansion’s back door one afternoon and never returned. The only thing authorities knew was there wasn’t any sign of foul play, and they’d never found a body to prove she’d died. Other than that, it was like Isabella Morelli had vanished from the face of the earth. Though Steele had asked Francesca about Isabella in ten different ways, he’d gotten little more than a verification of the facts everyone already knew.
“Yes, Edoardo was a fool who couldn’t keep his zipper closed.”
“Yes, he got a Greek woman pregnant when he was filming over there.”
“Yes, I adopted the baby and brought her back here to raise.”
“No, I have no idea where she is now.”
Steele figured Francesca must have paid that young Greek woman a ton of money—either that or killed her off altogether—because not a single person had ever been able to trace Isabella Morelli’s biological mother. Now that Isabella herself was gone, he doubted anyone ever would. Where the hell had she disappeared to, anyway? And why? Life in a mansion couldn’t have been that tough.
“See what you can do,” the older man said as the connection faded, though he sounded as if he knew his son wouldn’t be able to do much of anything at all.
Steele slowed as he turned off the highway. Each time he came up to Napa Valley, he tried to take a different path through town. This time, he’d marked out a route that wound past the Truchard Vineyards. If he had any time after the interview, he’d swing by a couple of the spas in Calistoga, too. The shots would be fantastic in the afternoon light. Screw his vow to put photography on the back burner—it was the only thing that made him feel half-alive, most days. Writing might pay the bills, but taking pictures...well, it stoked his soul. Kept him going.
He crested a hill and braked. Five hundred yards away, waves of purple and green laced into a tapestry that caught the sun. Low brick buildings hugged the earth. A cloud covered the sun, darkening the view, then moved away again. For a moment all he did was stare, gaze narrowed, as he assessed the possibilities. Then he grabbed his camera, hopped out, and took a series of shots. Three cars drove around him and kicked up dust. Two laid on their horns. None slowed or stopped.
They’re all missing out. Or they’ve seen it so many times before they’ve stopped noticing altogether. He wondered how that was possible—to stop seeing the things in front of you every single day. To turn blind after a while. He couldn’t imagine it. Watching the world through frames, capturing it in just the right moment and just the right light, was a high he’d never found anywhere else. Certainly not writing for the paper. And though he’d asked more than once, his father refused to send him out as a photographer.
“Like I haven’t put in my time. Like I didn’t study it in college.” He switched to black-and-white film and took a few more shots before climbing back into his car. He’d been a communications major, for fuck’s sake, and that had included a minor in photography. He’d spent a summer in Italy, subscribed to every photography journal he could get his hands on. And he practiced. He honed his eye every damn day that passed.
But none of that mattered to his father, who would probably always see Steele as a kid who couldn’t keep his pants zipped or his deadlines met. I don’t care, he said more than once. A picture isn’t worth a thousand words. It’s worth no words at all.
According to his father, photography was a hobby, and not a very good one, at that. If Steele wanted to spend the rest of his life working for the family business, it wouldn’t be taking pictures. It would be writing, and maybe managing one day when his old man died. Until then, he might as well shut up about wanting anything other than the job that had been waiting for him since the day he was born. His great-grandfather had started The Chronicle, and it was up to every male Walker that came after him to carry on.
But as far as Steele was concerned, legacies were shit when it came down to it.
He got back on the road. Twenty minutes later, he pulled up to Francesca Morelli’s front gate and buzzed.
“Name and ID, please.”
“Steele Walker. From The Chronicle. I have an appointment.” He’d been to the Morelli mansion four times in the last month, driving the same car and arriving at the same time, but he got the same questions no matter what. A couple of years ago, some teenagers had done a nice graffiti number on the granite patio. Since then, her property was surrounded with a wrought-iron fence along one side and a moat on the other three. Of course, only the fence was new; the moat had always been there. Francesca had the thing commissioned when she first designed the house almost forty years ago.
“A moat,” he said aloud. Ridiculous. But then, if he had that kind of money, he supposed he’d throw it away in crazy ways too.
Steele waited as the gates swung open, then eased his convertible through the oak trees that lined the hundred-yard brick driveway. At the very end sat the Morelli estate. Four-storied, with wings that fanned out to either side, it was a great gray goliath trimmed in black. Part stone, part solid wood, it sat on the ten-acre property with over forty rooms and grand staircases and wide hallways that connected them all.
No working fireplaces—Francesca told him once she was deathly afraid of fire— but three chimneys rose from nowhere and vented nothing. Exquisitely designed windows looked out on the road, and massive front doors opened onto a sweeping stone stoop. Rumor was the place had a complex tunnel system running out to the road, but he hadn’t seen a hint of where it might disappear from or emerge to.
A knock on the door, a brief hello to the butler, and Steele found himself sitting opposite Francesca Morelli in a front parlor that must have registered ninety degrees. Sweat dribbled down the back of his neck, while the aging film star sat wrapped in something that looked like yellow cashmere.
How is she not dying right now? He yanked at his collar.
She poured sherry into a set of matching glasses and handed him one. He took the drink as usual, though he despised the sickeningly sweet alcohol and had to chase away the taste with a mouthful of chewing gum on his way home. “Thank you.”
Miles, the single house servant, walked into the room holding a plate of cookies. “Here you are, ma’am.” Francesca employed round-the-clock security guards and a landscaping crew, but Miles was the only person besides the weekly housekeeper who was actually allowed inside.
She nodded, a motion so small it might have been a shadow moving across her face rather than an acknowledgement. “Thank you.”
The elderly man shuffled out again.
Steele drank his sherry in a single gulp. “So, Ms. Morelli...”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Walker. It’s the last one, isn’t it? Our last interview together.” She lifted her chin and ran her fingers through butterscotch-colored hair that fell around her shoulders. “Where did we leave off last week?” She smiled, the mask of years lifted, and he saw in the curve of her lips the young actress who’d broken hearts a lifetime ago.
He might as well get right to it. “We were talking about your son,” he lied. “I know you’re not in close touch with him. But when’s the last time you talked to Edoardo?”
She blinked. “Ah...he called th
e family attorney a few days ago, I believe. He was still in Athens. I didn’t talk to him myself.”
“Was he visiting Isabella’s mother?”
Her face closed. “Isabella’s mother? Of course not. He hasn’t seen that woman in years.” She poured herself another glass of sherry but didn’t offer him a refill.
“Since her birth? Or were they in touch after that?”
Francesca set down her glass and leaned forward. “Mr. Walker, tread carefully here. I agreed to this series of interviews only because I respect your father and his work at the paper. And because it’s the twenty-fifth anniversary of my first Oscar, and I thought maybe the world had started to forget about me.”
He backpedaled and gave her a winning smile. “I’m sure that would never happen. I’m sorry. I just wondered, I mean since Isabella left, no one’s heard a thing from her, at least as far as I know, so I—”
“Mr. Walker.” Her voice sliced through him like ice. “I’ve already told you everything I’m going to about my granddaughter. And my son. These interviews are supposed to be about me and my career. My family will not be a part of them. Period. If you have a problem with that, you can let yourself out right now.”
Steele’s jaw tightened.
“I knew your father before he was Chief Editor, you know,” she said suddenly. “Back in the sixties. Did he ever tell you that?”
“He mentioned it.”
She laced her fingers together and laid them in her lap. “He and I crossed paths quite a few times, for years. Bought me a fair share of drinks, as I recall.” She smiled.
He willed her to stop. I don’t want to know how my father was in bed. Please, please, I don’t. Rumors of his father’s on-again, off-again love affair with Francesca Morelli were one thing. Confirmation from the woman herself might make him lose his breakfast.
Her gaze leveled on him. “But even David Walker knew that when Isabella came into this house, certain questions were off limits. I raised my granddaughter to be a strong, independent woman. She chose to leave this house the day she turned eighteen.” Something flickered in her face. “Some things aren’t anyone else’s business,” she went on. “Even when those things happen to very famous, very successful movie stars.”
Countdown: Steele Page 2
