“Mr. Hart is not to be approached,” the guard had warned.
“I need to ask him a quick question.”
“You’re new here, right?”
“My first day.”
“First and last, if you don’t obey the number-one rule. Don’t talk to Mr. Hart, don’t go within twenty feet of Mr. Hart without express permission, do not get in Mr. Hart’s way. No autographs, no gossiping, no photos.” He’d pointed at the phone in Lana’s hand. “You shouldn’t even have that out—leave it in Holding.”
“But I wasn’t?—”
“Don’t even look him in the eye.” Perhaps reading the mortification on Lana’s face, he’d relented, checking over his shoulder. “Be cool, okay? You’ll be dead soon, and he’ll have forgotten you by lunch.”
Forgettable, that’s what she was.
Another thing Lana had learned? In the hierarchy of Hollywood stardom, there were regular movie stars, there were stratospherically famous A-listers, and then there was Griffin Hart. And yes, she was late to the party, being one of the last people in America to hear of him, but as more of a bookworm than a film buff, she was accustomed to her heroes staying confined to her imagination, not popping out in front of her in inarguably impressive 3D.
The extras who’d worked on the first season gleefully whispered thatMr. Hart had gotten various cast and crew fired for crimes as egregious as crossing his path, staring, having body odor, eating food from his table at craft services, and breaking into his trailer and stealing his toothbrush, though that last one was understandable.
But asshole or not, admiring Griffin Hart—from a legally acceptable distance where his personality didn’t matter—had become Lana’s guilty pleasure. With emphasis on the guilt, because his abs were not the reason she was here. Vivien was.
Not that Lana was getting far on that mission. After a week of snooping, she knew little more than she had on the first day—that Vivien’s phone had last pinged a month ago in the foothills behind the set and that was the last anyone had seen or heard of her. Despite several escape attempts, Lana hadn’t managed to explore the hills. The security guards were having none of her claims that she needed to stretch her legs. She was expected to be on the set or in Holding, and the background-actor wranglers corralled their human cattle between the two.
She’dinnocentlyasked the other extras about accidents on set, and all they’d come up with was the time Estelle Duman fell through a trapdoor into a dungeon and twisted her ankle, and Griffin Hart leaped down and carried her out through the tunnels to the set medic.
Lana had struck up conversation with the woman she’d deduced to be Vivien’s replacement and learned that Vivien had been considered a “flake” and her absence was notable only for its inconvenience. “I assume she couldn’t handle the pressure,” the woman had said, shrugging. It was one of those rare times Lana felt a pang of longing for her hometown in Washington State. There, someone would have noticed. Someone would have cared.
She’d wondered if someone would make the link between her and Vivien, but no one had. Fleming was a common enough surname, and though they had the same long, dark hair, brown eyes, and slight build, so did a lot of people.
“The thing is, your sister doesn’t fall into the right category to prompt an intensive search,” the cop at the Fitch Police Station had explained, a week ago. Lana had driven the four hours from L.A. in frustration after her calls had gone unanswered. Once inside the tiny station, she realized why—the phone out front just kept on ringing.
“The rightcategory?” Lana said.
Officer Milo Sheng sniffed as he tapped his computer screen, open at Vivien’s Missing Person Report. “A history of antisocial behavior, substance abuse, misdemeanors. And she’s a prior missing,” he added darkly.
“What does that mean?”
“She’s been reported missing in the past, and she turned up.”
“That was when she joined a guerrilla gardening squad. My mistake.”
“A guerrilla?—?”
“They go around cities, sneakily planting gardens in urban areas. She eventually called me from Salt Lake. Point is, this is different.”
“In what way?”
“She … missed my birthday.”
The cop’s eyebrows lurched upward, which was the most animation he’d displayed. To her relief, the phone stopped ringing. She took a breath. She hadn’t realized how much the haranguing ringtone was stressing her out. It immediately started again.
“She would never miss anyone’s birthday,” Lana continued. “Even when she was on an extreme meditation retreat one year, she snuck away to call me.”
“An extreme?—?”
“Not important. Point is, she makes a big deal of birthdays. Hers is on February 29—leap day—so sometimes people leave it off their calendars. And it was my thirtieth.”
Lana swallowed. She’d promised herself, on her birthday, that Vivien would call. No matter how troubled her sister could be, she was sweet and loyal and would never miss calling Lana on any birthday, let alone a significant one. She would even have forgiven Lana for their last conversation, in which Vivien had (again) asked for money, and Lana had snapped back, “I’m a public librarian. I don’t have any money. You’re thirty-two. Isn’t it time you started taking care of yourself?” Lana should have been the bigger person. Sure, Vivien had a steady job and a boyfriend—or so Lana had thought—but she was always going through something. Instead, Lana had doubled down: “I give up! Solve your own problems, for a change!”
