“Oh, you’re definitely very human,” she called back as she headed in to pay.
He wasn’t sure how to take that. Weird that being called human was both a compliment and an insult. He watched her through the glass storefront. No one stared. No one whispered and nudged their friend. No one took a photo.Dance like no one’s watching, they said. But what if someone was always watching?
Lana was probably right when she said he “retracted.” Ironically, the only time he felt able to relax and be himself was when he was on camera, pretending to be someone else. Only then did he let himself feel something, sit in those feelings, let them fill him, use them.
You’re taking on too many roles, his dad said, often.You’ll get overexposed.Not to mention, there’s more to life than work. You gotta be more choosy.But the more Griffin could fill long days being someone else—four a.m. starts and late finishes, or night shoots from dusk to dawn, day in, day out, year in, yearout—the less he needed to be this bizarre artificial construct that was Griffin Hart.
And the greatest irony? All these people thought they knew Griffin Hart, and even he didn’t know who Griffin Hart was. He got the feeling the Griffin Hart that Lana saw was someone else again.
When Lana returned, she offered to drive, and he gladly accepted. He drifted in and out of sleep, his mind shimmering along the boundary between a reality in which lights passed on the freeway and the CD skipped, and a dreamland where Lana leaned over him and kissed him. Eventually, he came to fully, with sun on his face and Lana leaning over him, her hair falling like a curtain.
“I was just going to pull this around.” She flipped his visor to the side window. “To get the sun out of your eyes.”
It didn’t work—the sun was too low—but he appreciated the thought. They were parked at Will Rogers Beach, under a pale blue sky. The cap had fallen off the back of his head and he quickly pulled it on, though no one seemed to be watching. He yanked the tag off the sunglasses and slipped them on. People liked to peer into limos or black SUVs in case there was someone famous behind the tinted windows, but a little Honda with clear glass? What high-profile person would ride in that? Maybe he should get one. He inhaled. “Damn, I smell hot food.”
She pulled a paper bag from the back. “I got us breakfast burritos from a drive-through. You paid, I’m afraid. Turns out I left my wallet in my backpack. There was money left over from the gas.”
“All good.”
They sat in the car eating, as if this were a regular day. A regular moment with a regular girl in a truly regular car.
Lana’s phone trilled and she silenced it. “My alarm. I usually work Saturdays.”
Which was a reminder that nothing about this was regular, for either of them. She should be waking up in her studio, he in the pool house, and they should never have met.
She leaned over him and grabbed a receipt from the door pocket—the one she’d written the detective’s number on. “I think it’s a decent-enough hour to call,” she said, dialing. The detective didn’t answer, so she left her name and number.
“Lana Fleming,” Griffin said after she hung up. “You sound like a 1950s screen siren. Vivien Fleming, too.”
“Named after long-dead relatives. But I’m aware of the irony, given my parents’ thoughts about films, and the fact I’m as far from a movie star as it’s possible to get. Except right now, when I’m as close to a movie star as I’m ever likely to get. So there’s that.”
As they finished their burritos, a phone beeped. They looked at each other expectantly. “Oh, hell.” Lana lunged for a pocket in her cargos. “Vivien’s phone. I forgot to check it when we got into cell coverage.” She brought out the pink phone and unlocked it. “A text from the production company, a few overdue bills, a bunch of missed calls over the last month—mostly from me or the production company, but some random numbers too. Some called multiple times. But then, she’s cleared her contacts. For all I know, it could be her hairdresser.”
“We could call the numbers? See who answers?”
“There are voice messages too, six of them.” She switched the phone to speaker and played them. The most recent was a welfare check from the Fitch cop, just after Lana’s visit. The next from two weeks ago: “Vivien? This is Chase. Dunno if you still want the room, but your down payment’s run out. I’m gonna have to start selling your stuff.” A robocall from her bank, saying her account was overdrawn. And two from Lana, begging her to call. Lana cut those ones short. “If she’s lying low somewhere, it’s not at home. And if she’d left town, wouldn’t she take herthings and quit the lease? She doesn’t have the money to pay rent on a place she’s not living in.”
“We should go there anyway. See if we can find any…”
“Clues?”
“I’m aware I sound like a character in one of my movies—though my characters don’t tend to do a heap of thinking.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
“You said there were six messages? That was only five.”
Lana played the last one. Muffled voices, a series of mechanical beeps. After several minutes, a man cursed, and the phone went dead.
“A butt dial?” Griffin said.
“If so, it suggests they were in contact. Hard to pocket-dial a wrong number. Wait.” She opened the text messages. “That last text Vivi sent, the one begging for help—it’s the same number.” She took a deep breath. “I’m gonna call it.”
It rang out, with no message. Lana tried again. She was about to give up when a man answered. “I told you not to contact me,” he said, whispering, his voice gruff. “Not until … not until it’s all over.”
“But I…” The line went dead. “Until what’s over?” she said to Griffin.
“That voice—it sounded familiar, but I can’t place it.”
