Dark Justice

by Sinclair, Rachel

  Of course, it wasn’t open. The box office was closed, and my phone indicated that it wouldn’t open again until 10 AM the next morning.

  Why am I here? I shook my head. I was being stupid - I should have checked into a hotel and returned to the studio the next day, when it opened. I could’ve taken the guided tour, went to the museums and generally walked around and seen the sites. Maybe something would have come to me if I did that.

  Right at that moment, a woman came up on the sidewalk. She appeared to have a pass to get onto the lot, so I assumed that she worked there.

  She looked at me, and immediately turned away. She attempted to input her code to open the studio gates, but she was shaking all over, so she couldn’t.

  I sighed and got back on my phone to call another Uber when she spoke.

  “I know who you are,” she said. And then she started crying. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. So sorry for everything. I didn’t think it would go this far. I thought-“

  My ears perked up. “Who do you believe I am? I’m so sorry, I don’t think that we’ve met.” I held out my hand, but she looked at it and then started crying again.

  “You’re Emerson Justice. I’ve been following the Carter Dixon trial obsessively. I’ve seen you on TV many times. Seen your picture on the Internet many, many times.” She nodded her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve spoken with many reporters who were inside the trial courtroom, and they all said that you did a great job, but that you lost because of that goddamned hair.”

  She shook her head and clenched her fists.

  “Well, those are the breaks,” I said. “You win some, you lose some.” I didn’t feel that way, of course. I still firmly believed that Carter was innocent, and losing his case wasn’t “the breaks.” It was devastating, but I wasn’t about to tell this perfect stranger how I felt.

  She took a deep breath. “I’ve also heard that Carter Dixon is on suicide watch. In protective custody. Other inmates are threatening to kill him. He’s only 16. Only 16. He doesn’t deserve this, especially because he didn’t do it.”

  I bit my lip and narrowed my eyes. “No, he didn’t do it, but why are you so certain about that?”

  She sighed, her hand shaking. “Because I’m Addison Wentworth.”

  Chapter 46

  “I’m sorry? Come again?” What the hell was going on here?”

  She touched my arm and grabbed my wrist. “Come with me,” she said. “There’s a coffee shop around the corner. We’ll go there, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  All at once, everything made sense to me. Everything. The emails from Addison to Art Loffino. The fact that my mother couldn’t communicate with Addison when she did her seance.

  We got into her car, which was parked on the street in front of the movie studio. It was a Tesla, brand-new, high-end, with luxury leather seats and fully loaded. It was quiet as a church mouse as she started it up and drove off.

  In a matter of blocks, she parked in a small parking lot behind a coffee shop. “Here we are,” she said, parking the car. “I have to admit, I’m relieved about all this. I know that my life is going to change again. I’m going to have to answer for this to the public, and I’m going to get sued by my agent and three different movie studios where I signed contracts. I’m going to be in an even bigger fishbowl than I was before, but at least my conscience will finally be clear.”

  We walked into the coffee shop, and our waiter knew just who this woman was. “Buenosera, Signora Montenegro,” he said, bowing his head. And then he started saying something in Italian, and Addison fluently answered him back. She motioned to me, and the waiter looked at me and smiled.

  “Si,” he said, taking my hand and kissing it. He smiled broadly and I returned the favor. Then he scurried off and Addison turned to me and smiled.

  “Giuseppe. He’s always here. The nicest guy you’ll ever meet.” She took a deep breath. “It’s so much nicer here than in Hollywood. So much slower-paced. People aren’t nearly as artificial. I’ve made actual friends here, people who just want to get to know me for me. Because literally nobody knows who I am.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know how peaceful it is being here anonymously. How I’m able just to come here, to this little coffee shop and talk to Giuseppe and not a single person bothers me. Nobody approaches me for my autograph. Nobody comes up to me and congratulates me on my two Oscars. Nobody comes up to me to tell me that this movie or that is their all-time favorite.” She smiled. “I mean, most of my interactions with people, out in the world, were positive, but I’m a private person at heart. Sometimes you just want to be left alone, even though most people who approached me meant well.”

  “Did everybody who approached you mean well?”

  “No, of course not. I’ve had my share of people come up to me and, right to my face, call me overrated.” She shrugged. “I tend to agree with those people, much more than with the ones who treat me like I’m the second coming or something.”

  Giuseppe came back with two cups of tea and Addison asked me if I was hungry.

  “I could eat some eggs,” I said. “No toast or fruit, though.”

  She smiled. “Low carb. Me too. At first, when I got here, I thought that I would throw all that low-carb into the garbage. After all, I was pregnant, so I was going to have to get back in shape no matter what I did. But, after just one pizza, I started to feel not-right, so I went right back on the low carb thing. I guess it really is a lifetime thing.”

  We ordered food - I got an omelet, she got a chicken breast with vegetables - and then I had to ask her questions.

  “Your face, it’s very different. I wouldn’t have even recognized you if you didn’t say something.”

  “Of course. That’s the point. I couldn’t very well come over here with my Addison Wentworth face and expect to fall off the grid. I mean, I thought about doing that, and just telling people that I wasn’t Addison, just somebody who looked like her. But I knew that wasn’t going to work, so I got a plastic surgeon to completely change my face.”

  She wasn’t kidding about that. She looked like a completely different person. Her nose was different, as was her mouth. Her face wasn’t as angular as it once was, as her cheeks were fuller. The shape of her eyes were completely different. She even had a different eye color - they were blue, but now they were brown.

  “Colored contact lenses,” she said, pointing to her eyes. “Cheek filler, eye reconstruction, nose job.” She smiled. “I loved my old nose, my old Italian nose, but I had to change it along with everything else. The ironic thing is that I was completely anti-plastic surgery. I never even considered going under the knife. I ended up doing just that, though, getting much more extensive procedures than I ever dreamed of.”

  “And your name?”

  “Montenegro, my mother’s maiden name. My first name is now Olivia. Olivia Montenegro.”

  “And you were going to that studio. Do you work there?”

  “Yes.” She nodded her head. “I’m making pictures for that studio. I’m an actress, you see, and that’s all that I can ever be. I mean, I have a baby at home, a newborn, so I feel a little bit guilty about leaving her. But my best friend Katie is here with me, and she takes care of little Susanna. She’s beautiful - would you like to see her?”

  She got out her phone and showed me pictures of a tiny baby with dark hair, beautiful blue eyes and rosebud lips.

  “She was born a month premature,” she explained. “And she’s a month old now. She’s healthy, though, as a horse, and I’m so grateful for that. I mean, at my age, and her coming out so early, I was terrified that something would be wrong with her. And maybe something still will be. It’s hard to know at this point. But she seems very healthy and she’s so beautiful.”

  I nodded my head. She really was a beautiful little girl. “And her father is?”

  Addison sighed and shook her head. “That bastard, Senator Nash. He’s the reason why I did all this.” She looked at me. “It wasn’t sup
posed to be like this. Somebody betrayed me, and that was the only reason why your poor client got wrapped up in this. And goddamn it, I didn’t have a copy of that video I made of that person who betrayed me. If I did have a copy, I would have broadcast it to the world, and he would be gone. Finito, as they say here.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “It’s not important. Suffice to say that when I faked my death, I wanted Senator Nash to be the person on the hook, not your poor client. It didn’t work like that, though, because I didn’t have the leverage I thought I did.” Then she shrugged. “That person did get me a job with this studio, so I guess I owe him at least that much. But if he would have done what I asked him to, Senator Nash would be the one in jail, not poor Carter Dixon.”

  I nodded my head. “And that blood that was found in your bedroom? How did you manage to pour so much of your own blood all around the room like that?”

  “Well, I’m just a little bit of a hypochondriac. I mean, I’m deathly afraid of getting a blood transfusion if I need to go to the hospital for something. My aunt died of AIDS that she contracted from contaminated blood. So, I stored my blood. Pints and pints of it in a special room that I had built in my home. It’s a room that is temperature controlled so that none of the blood spoils. I’ve been giving my own blood for years and storing it in this hermetically-sealed, temperature-controlled room.”

  It all became clear. “And you-“

  “Yes. I did. I knew that if I just went missing that nobody would ever believe that I was dead. I needed to leave something behind that would take away that doubt, so I took all the blood I had stored and splashed it everywhere around that room. I knew that if there was that much blood that I could rapidly be declared dead.”

  “And I would imagine that you were behind the Go Fund Me.” That was a statement, because it was self-evident to me.

  “Of course,” she said. “When that poor boy was arrested, I wanted to do all I could to make sure that he could beat the charge. There was no way I was going to chance him going through the Public Defender’s Office, plus I wanted to make sure that he was able to bond out of jail.”

  Our food came and we both dug in.

  “So,” Addison said. “I guess I need to do the right thing. Carter Dixon, an innocent boy, is in jail. On suicide watch. I’m going to have to go to the authorities and prove who I am. It won’t be hard. I’ll give them my DNA and they’ll establish that it really is me, and that will be that.”

  I took a deep breath. It was so difficult to not get angry with Addison. After all, Carter went through enormous stress. Enormous stress. His life was currently in danger, not just because he was on the verge of suicide, but also because other inmates were going to want to do him in.

  The entire trial wasn’t just a circus, but a farce.

  All because Addison Wentworth couldn’t handle life in Hollywood and she apparently wanted revenge on Senator Nash. Her plan apparently was to fake her death and pin it on the senator, which somehow went awry. I wasn’t quite clear, though, on exactly how it went awry.

  “Okay,” I said, after we ate our meals. “Let’s pay the check and get to the airport. The sooner you come clean and give your DNA to prove who you are, the sooner Carter gets out of jail.”

  She looked sad. “I knew this plan wouldn’t work. I thought it might. I dreamed that it would. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy my life here. I’ve been happier these past few months than I ever have been. But you’re right. Your client has to get out of jail as soon as possible.”

  “Let’s get to the airport.”

  She nodded her head. “We’ll take my private plane.”

  Chapter 47

  Addison. August 19 - two days before she went missing

  Addison waited impatiently for Art to see her. She made an appointment with him, goddammit, how could he be making her wait? She tapped her foot on the marble floor, and flipped through some magazines while she looked at her watch.

  She had something important to talk to him about. Something very important.

  She had tossed and turned, tossed and turned, every night since she found out about her pregnancy. She had just passed her first trimester, and her OB-GYN had confirmed that her baby was healthy. Once she found out that she was likely to have this miracle child, she knew that she was going to keep it. There was just no doubt in her mind about that.

  Her plan came to her in a dream. She knew several different things. One was that she was done with Hollywood. Completely done. She couldn’t do this child justice while working 14 hours days on set, and there was just no way in hell she was leave her child with a stranger. The only person she trusted to watch her child would be Katie.

  No, Addison was a traditional Italian girl at heart, as traditional as her own parents in her values. She had spent far too many years denying her true nature, and it had destroyed her. She never imagined, when she was 13 years old and starring in her school play, that her life would come to what it had in Hollywood. Where she had so few morals that she could have an affair with a married man. Where she struggled to stay sober. Where she couldn’t go out of the house without paparazzi following her everywhere she went. Where she literally couldn’t have a meal in peace without person after person coming up to her, asking for her autograph. Where she couldn’t get away from the hurtful and false information published about her on-line and in tabloid trash mags.

  Where she was desperately unhappy, in spite of her $40 million mansion and $20 million asking price per film.

  She thought about taking the easy way out. She did consider that. What would be the harm in moving to Montana and buying a ranch and raising her child in peace?

  But she didn’t particularly want to do that. She had pride, after all, and she knew that if she just left the rat race, there would always be those hurtful stories that would be written about her. Everybody would just assume that she left Hollywood because she was essentially booted out. Because she was unable to find a job. Because she was a has-been. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

  Not only that, but she knew that when she had her baby, she would be hounded about it. She couldn’t just keep mum about the father of the child. That would never work. It would only be a matter of time before it was exposed that Michael was the child’s father, and then the shit would really hit the fan. Her parents would disown her for sleeping with a married man. It would be an enormous scandal, and her legacy would be forever tarnished by it. It would completely destroy his career, and everybody would know that she was responsible for his downfall.

  She had closed her eyes, seeing in her mind the flood of terrible publicity, knowing that she would be a prisoner in her own home, because the media would never leave her alone. She could already hear the ladies of The View dedicating an entire show to her affair with Michael. She could read the books that were going to be written about the entire mess. No matter how she thought about things, she couldn’t see a life where she could ever find peace.

  So, she knew what she had to do. And she had to have Art help her with her plan. He would do it. She knew that he would. He owed her. After all, she knew his secret. She was there when it happened.

  Art had plied her with drugs, along with a hooker named Charlotte Wendt. The three of them got high and had sex until the morning, when Charlotte was unresponsive after falling asleep. She had OD’d, and it turned out that she was underaged to boot. Art panicked and got his fixer to cover it all up. Nobody ever knew that Charlotte had been with Art that night, and her body showed up on a rocky beach in Laguna, some 50 miles away.

  But Addison knew, and she had a film of all of it. She thought that she might one day need a favor from Art, and she took the opportunity to film him with Charlotte, while he was trying to revive her, and he never even knew it. He was too panicked to even notice that she had her phone out and was filming the entire resuscitation scene. She had hurriedly put her phone back in her purse when he turned around, finally realizing that ther
e was nothing that could be done for the poor girl.

  He still didn’t know, to this day, what she had done.

  But he was soon going to find out.

  Chapter 48

  “Alright, Addison, come on in,” Art said gruffly.

  Addison went into Art’s office. It smelled of cigars and Febreze. She knew that Art’s wife, Lorena, hated the smell of cigars, so the Febreze was clearly her idea. Art didn’t care what his office smelled like.

  “Hello, Art,” Addison said as she sat down.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Listen, I know that you wanted to talk to me, and I wanted to talk to you, too. Guy tells me that you’ve been acting like a shit on set again lately.” He wagged his finger at her. “If you’re on the junk again, your ass is going back to rehab, capiche? I’m not putting up with your bullshit this time, do you hear me?”

  Addison let him yell at her. She was used to it. She knew that she deserved it, really, considering all the trouble she gave him during the last film she made for Centurion Pictures. She failed to show up on the set for days at a time, because she was in a drug and alcohol-induced haze. Her manager finally had to come and get her and physically bring her to the set, because the director, Robert Midland, was threatening to fire her if she missed one more day. She still managed to give it her all during the days that she did show up, however, for she won her first Oscar for her role in that particular film. That Oscar was the only reason why Art agreed to take another chance on her for this film.

  “Art, you don’t have to scream at me,” she said calmly. “I didn’t come here for a lecture.”

  “Maybe not, but you had to know that you were going to get one if you came into this office. I’m being goddamned serious, Wentworth, no monkey business on this set.”

  “Are you going to let me talk?” Addison asked calmly. “Or are you just going to continue to berate me mercilessly?”