Emma had acknowledged to me that Harper had always been the odd woman out in the Four Flames. She wasn’t an actress; she wasn’t as outgoing as the other three; she was the one the paparazzi cared least about. As a result, she’d ended up playing loyal sidekick to Annie’s Queen Bee.
God, I knew how that felt.
Annie, Emma told me, had always treated Harper with velvet-lined contempt. She acted like Harper was her personal makeup artist, her chauffeur, her go-fer girl. Roxy had been the same, although Emma always objected.
“Was Dempsey trying to make herself look better in this retelling?” Jack asked. “Or did she really stick up for Connelly?”
“You gotta understand, Emma is terminallynice. I overheard a conversation Annie had with her on the phone once, about the way Annie and Roxy had treated Harper the day before. Annie waspissedwhen she hung up. But Em hates bullying,” I said. “She wouldn’t let it slide.” In fact, Emma Dempsey had told Annie to lay offmeonce or twice, when Annie’s teasing turned caustic.
“Ah,” Jack said. “So Dempsey’s like you.”
“Huh?”
“You hate bullies, too. I’ve seen how you go out of your way to protect people. Even when those Bernardis pulled me aside at the Chateau, you just marched right up…” He shook his head, amused, but then turned serious, maybe remembering the aftermath of that meeting. “I need you to take care of yourself that way, too, Trouble. What you’d do for others, you need to do for yourself.”
I gave an awkward shrug and changed the subject. “So anyway, here’s what happened with Harper.”
One day, Annie and Roxy had pretended to Harper that the Flames were all going to get matching tattoos. They made Harper go first, and then once she had something indelible etched into her skin, Annie told her she’d changed her mind. That the design was tacky, and Annie didn’t want something like that on her body.
Emma hadn’t been there, but Harper had called her up afterward in tears. And then Emma went nuclear on Annie and Roxy. “She ripped both Annie and Roxy a new asshole and then she never spoke to either of them again. As for Harper, I guess she went back to whatever middle-America town she came from, because Emma never saw her again after that either. She said she did try to keep in touch with emails and calls, but after a while, Harper stopped responding.”
Jack didn’t say anything, just poked at the sandwich he’d placed down on a plate in front of him with a sour look on his face. The expression was still there when he glanced up at me. “You know, your sister—” he began, and then cut off with a shake of the head. He pushed his meal away. “I’ve lost my appetite.”
CHAPTER44
MILLER
We said no moreabout the Flames, and after I’d choked down half a sandwich, we got to work logging into my sister’s social media accounts.
There was something in me that wanted to protest to Jack, to make him understand the nice things about Annie. Because shewasn’tall bad. She’d had her good qualities, too. The past few days we’d focused too much on the negative stuff about her, but that was just because we were looking for reasons she might have been killed, I reasoned.
She’d done good things in her life. She’d done good things forme. She’d threatened to quitCamelot Courtwhen the studio canned me. She told me she’d hold out as long as it took, that she’dmakethem give me my job back. I’d told her to forget it. It was humiliating enough to get kicked off; I didn’t want my sister to be the only reason they kept me on. Still, it had always meant the world to me that she’d tried.
She was my blood. Mytwin. I wanted to defend her to Jack, but I bit my tongue, since that was his approach as well.
“Let’s start with the week before she died,” he said. “You check her private Instagram. I’ll go through her emails. If nothing turns up there, we’ll regroup and go through the rest of the socials.”
Jack used his laptop, which he’d dumped in his bag on the way out of his apartment, and I used my burner phone. He made the first find.
“She was emailing with Harper Connelly again,” he said. “Starting from a few months back. Connelly came back to LA, and they were catching up pretty often. Your sister talks a lot about getting her work on set. But it looks like she was stringing that out.”
“Lookslike?” I shot back. “Maybe you just want to see the worst when it comes to Annie.”
Jack just sighed. “Okay. No offense meant. You got anything, Trouble?”
“Just lots of selfies of her and Roxy together.” I held out one to show him, rolling my eyes. Roxy and Annie had been out at some nightclub, taking a selfie together with fish-pouts and exaggerated hips. Roxy’s dramatic features were set off by the black lace dress she wore. Annie was wearing a strapless, sparkling sheath that looked like it was held up by willpower alone, although I knew there was probably a lot of double-sided tape involved.
“Fuckme,” Jack said under his breath, grabbing my wrist.
“I mean, I know they’re self-involved, but it’s not that bad, is it?”
But Jack was shaking his head. “Not that. It’s the necklace your sister is wearing.” He tapped on the picture, clicking his tongue with irritation. “Make itbigger.”
I pulled my wrist away and zoomed in for him, trying not to think about how happy Annie’s face was in the photo. I wasn’t sure why Jack was so fixated on the necklace. “It’s fake,” I said.
“It’s not.”
I zoomed in even closer. “Ithasto be.” The necklace was made up of egg-sized sapphires surrounded by sparkling diamonds, and the sheer size of the stones told me ithadto be fake. Annie got gifts and she was paid well, but a necklace like this—if it was real—was the kind of thing a billionaire would buy, not a millionaire. The only time Annie would even get close to a necklace like this would be at an event like the Met Gala, where jewelry companies loaned out outrageously expensive pieces just for the night. And Annie, so far as I knew, hadn’t been to the Met Gala for a few years now.
