Irene laughed. “Seasoned? That’s a little much. I mean, you’re older than I am!”
Dimple snapped her jaw shut so hard her teeth began to ache. She couldn’t account for what she would say if she opened her mouth, so she bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood.
Irene turned back, seemingly to continue her barrage, but something else caught her attention. “What happened to your dress?”
Dimple looked down and froze. There was a glaring stain at the center of her stomach, dark enough to stand out against the cheap polyester red of her gown. It almost looked like blood. She wasn’t sure what it was or how long it had been there, and felt her face heat at the thought of everyone who’d seen it. Did they laugh behind her back? Tomorrow, would she find herself in an article, “Top Ten Worst Dressed People at Irene Singh’s Party,” not even notable enough to be mentioned by name?
The humiliation was familiar—the same as a child who’d come back from playing with dirtied clothes. Dimple never noticed herdishevelment until there was an open palm smacking her forit.
Raised voices, the smell of alcohol on her aunt and uncle’s breath as they berated her for ruining the clothes they’d worked so hard to buy. They appeared in front of her again now, the world around her melting away. Once, these waking nightmares had terrified her. They’d left her sick to her stomach, unable to sift through reality and fabrication. Eight years later, in place of her guardians was something blurry, out of focus, an afterthought of a face. These phantoms were mere imitations of the real thing.
Of course they were—Dimple’s aunt and uncle had long since burned. It hadn’t been difficult to stage the accident, not when notoriously careless drunkards were involved. It was entirely believable that they’d left the stove on, that they’d never replaced the batteries in their smoke detectors.I’m so sorry, but your family didn’t make it,the doctors had told her afterward. What a joke. It was difficult to think of them asfamilyother than in terms of blood, and they’d never treated her as more than a burden. Dimple touched the cold plastic of the lighter tucked securely in her dress pocket. Usually this—some reminder of reality—would be enough to snap her out of the nightmare.
But the potent smell of alcohol was entirely too strong to be a memory. A phantom hand darted toward her, sending panic through her veins. This was all wrong. They weren’t supposed to be able to touch her. Dimple flinched, her hands moving faster than she could think. She pushed with strength she’d never had as a child.
And connected with something solid.
It was no apparition. Both the hand reaching toward Dimple and the smell of liquor were attached to Irene. The gasp she let out sent chills down Dimple’s spine. Irene’s feet slipped out from under her, arm still outstretched. Their fingers pressed together for a fleeting moment, and Dimple tried to grab ahold of her—to take it back—but she was still wearing her slippery elbow-length gloves. The personification of old Hollywood that the party’s theme had called for.
Fabric tore, loud as a gunshot, and Irene plunged down the grand staircase in slow motion. It felt halfway between a dream and a movie. Dimple was almost certain that she’d seen this exact scene inone of Irene’s films. They’d probably competed for that role as well.
There was a sickening crunch as Irene’s body hit the stairs neck-first and all the breath in her lungs expelled itself. She tumbled the rest of the way down, dress twisting, all pretenses of grace lost somewhere between the first step and the tenth.
When Irene finally reached the bottom, long brown hair fanning around her like a crown, she was as motionless as a statue.
Chapter Two
January 26, 2026
By the timethe police got to Irene’s mansion, gossip was already circulating, spurred on by the loquacious nature of those present. Irene had fallen and Dimple had run. Like a fool, she hadn’t bothered to check if anyone else was around. Although agitated, the crowd Dimple had assimilated into seemed unaware of what had transpired. Only a few people had managed to catch a glimpse of Irene motionless at the bottom of the grand staircase, a sight Dimple hadn’t been able to get out of her mind.
The rest made do with what they had: rumors. There was nothing people wouldn’t give to be a part of the hive mind that operated Hollywood. As soon as the next day, gossip sites were already posting articles about rumored overdoses, fights, and other raunchy misdeeds resulting in the police being called to the Singhs’ Beverly Hills mansion. The party had been the number one trending topic since it ended. Dimple thought Irene would’ve rather enjoyed that, were she there to seeit.
Irene’s normally overactive social media presence, on the other hand, had shifted to an eerie silence. Half of the world was convinced she was hospitalized, the other half oscillated back and forth between kidnapped and jailed. Death, it seemed, was not at all within the realm of possibility.
But this was a good thing. It gave Dimple the time to get her story straight. The police had been almost comically out of their depth when they arrived at a crime scene brimming with hundreds of inebriated low-level celebrities. They’d spent a good few hours collecting the contact information of everyone present before sending them home with a stern warning to keep quiet.
And now, over forty-eight hours after the party, Dimple had yet to sleep. She had yet to do much of anything other than sit on her couch, wrapped tightly in a blanket as she went over the events of Friday night. Getting a lawyer would only look suspicious. Not to mention expensive.
No, it would be detrimental to act rashly. Instead, she worked her brain until she herself could hardly remember which aspects of her cover were reality and which weren’t.
Dimple Kapoor had been with the rest of the crowd for the entirety of the function. Like the others, she hadn’t caught a glimpse of Irene Singh all night. And she’d been drinking—which was why her memory wasn’t the clearest.
Becoming someone else was Dimple’s specialty, something she’d always savored, like slipping into her favorite coat. Eight years ago, she’d been sent home early from school to find that her childhood home had burned to the ground. Part of her had been sad to miss it. Fire was a fleeting beauty, and Dimple only had the chance to bear witness to the ash that was its calling card. It shouldn’t have shocked her, but nothing she’d done to put an end to the abuse had ever worked before. Her aunt, who’d never stopped grieving the sister she lost due to childbirth, could never love the child that had taken her from the world. Her uncle, who’d never wanted kids in the first place and resented Dimple’s father’s ability to walk out with such ease, found solace in inebriation. Both had burned. For how intently Dimple had studied the silent film actors on her mother’s old VHS tapes, it hadn’t been difficult to play up her innocence to anyone who’d asked.
People always seemed untouchable until they died. Years after the fire and sometimes even now, Dimple would hold her breath andlisten for their footsteps at night. Just in case it hadn’t worked after all. She’d flick her lighter to life, comforted by the knowledge that the flame could consume anything, even her.
It wasn’t until she remembered that today was Monday and that she had work to do that Dimple finally dragged herself from the couch and got dressed for the day. She’d spent nearly thirty minutes staring at the wall, debating whether she should give her assistant another day off or fire her altogether. On one hand, she could barely afford hiring Priyal in the first place. Her manager had insisted on it given Dimple’s aversion to social media, but now that Julie was likely to drop her anyway, it would be prudent to save the money instead. Barely three months of employing the girl and it was already eating into Dimple’s meager savings. She ended up giving her assistant the rest of the week off.
The bell rang and Dimple frowned. Perhaps Priyal had already been on the way. Dimple cleared her throat, testing her voice, before swinging her apartment door open.
She stopped short when she realized she didn’t recognize the two men standing on her welcome mat: one olive-toned and the other with skin a deep umber. A glance back at the clock reminded her that it was a bit too early for Priyal’s shift; she was always late regardless. Part of Dimple was relieved—she still didn’t know how best to deal with her assistant.
By now, several seconds had passed and neither of her visitors had offered up so much as a greeting. Dimple hadn’t ordered delivery or called for maintenance. And police officers didn’t wear suits nice enough that she could recognize them by brand.
The men, however, seemed content to stand there and stare at her, unblinking, as she gave them a cool once-over. Dimple glanced up at the security camera above her head. Their gazes followed hers, just as she’d hoped, but instead of leaving in a panic, they laughed.
“I’m Eli Taylor,” the shorter of the two said, though he still loomed considerably over Dimple. Which was saying a lot, as she was nearly six feet. “And this is Atlas Andino. We’re private investigators with Andino and Taylor Private Eye. Ever heard of us?”
