Ellis looked bereft. Like the mere suggestion had stolen something from her. “Like that wouldn’t upend my entire professional life. Georgia was my first homicide. It was David against Goliath. Victims against an abuser. It waspersonal.”
“I get it,” said Rosie. “Which is why you’re the perfect person to help me right these wrongs.” She lifted the fat binder of her research onto the table. “I’m going to prove to you that Scout and Isabel are more than capable of hurting people—then, and now.Theywere in the wrong, Detective Ellis, not you. If I’m right, you don’t have to own this mistake anymore.”
Ellis looked back at her with such profound hunger that Rosie hesitated for a moment, wondering how deeply this casehadreached inside the detective, and whether it was something she should be messing with. But she pushed past the doubt and slid her plate of pancakes across the table, as if she could somehow feed the woman’s hunger with mere food.
“My first question for you,” Rosie said, “is going to sound a little strange. Have you ever heard of something called the Hot Girl Murder Club?”
On May 4, Scout Sage was brought to the LAPD headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles as an official person of interest in the slaying of thirty-three-year-old Elizabeth Drake. In the years leading up to that day, Sage had been mentioned a total of ten meager times acrossPage Sixand TMZ combined, and that coverage had solely focused on her nightlife. But the news of her potential involvement in a brutal crime flipped the script. For the first time, Sage flew to the front pages of news sites and dominated their social media feeds.
The story landed like a shock wave.
Within days, public interest in Sage compounded whenThe New York Timespublished an exposé by reporter Rosie Wright titled, “Scout Sage’s Hot Girl Murder Club.” Claiming to be the result of a year-long investigation, the piece linked Sage and her accomplices to a string of high-wire revenge plots, the most serious of which involved the death of Alden Banks, once accused of killing Sage’s sister.
The exposé spread like wildfire through TV news, print outlets, and social media, even becoming the subject of a poorly receivedSaturday Night Livesketch. Looking back, what is most remarkable is not how quickly Sage went from an under-the-radar pop singer to a household name. It is how rapidly the public seemed to accept Sage’s guilt—and how deeply they loved her for it.
The love: That was the twist no one saw coming.
—Frances Vogel, “Our Ladies of the Dark: A History,” PhD dissertation presented to the UCLA Department of History
Chapter 18Isabel, the Assistant
PRESENT DAY
I pushed open the exit to the police headquarters and was met with a blistering wall of flashing lights and screaming reporters. “Shield Scout,” barked the lawyer beside me, but I’d frozen. In all my years in Hollywood, I’d never seen anything like this.
“You need to move,now,” growled Scout’s lawyer, and his fierce tone wrenched me out of my stillness. I threw myself in front of Scout, trying to block the cameras as we pushed forward. But nothing could protect her from their questions.
“Scout, is it true you’re the lead suspect in a murder?”
“Did you kill Elizabeth Drake?”
“Who is Drake to you?”
“Did Reese Griffin ever assault you? Is that why you killed Drake, for revenge?”
“Ignore them,” ordered Scout’s attorney. “Say nothing. It’s a trap.”
Scout kept her head down as two uniformed officers shouted at the reporters, trying to get them to stand back. The last twenty-four hours had been a living nightmare, and now this. We needed to make it to the black SUV waiting in the parking lot, but the throng of people was too thick, not only journalists shouldering cameras but rubberneckers who must’ve been in the vicinity when TMZ broke the news.
Only two days ago, Scout and I would’ve done anything to attract this many paparazzi. We’d busted our asses for years to increase her profile and sell more albums. It was the wish we both made before blowing out every year’s birthday candles:Let this be the year she breaks through. The irony of it left an intense bitterness in my mouth.
Scout was wearing the same hot-pink fuzzy jacket and denim cut-off shorts she’d been in for Cybele’s party, a ridiculous outfit that was going to make her look insane in the news coverage. Detective Holloway had threatened to bring her in wearing her bikini, but after I’d argued myself hoarse, along with our friends, she’d allowed Scout to change. I should’ve anticipated this moment and gone to her house to grab a change of clothes, but I’d been too sick with worry to tear myself from the station.
She’d endured twelve hours of questioning, which her lawyer told me was a tactic meant to break her down. I hadn’t been allowed into the interrogation room, and not knowing what they were asking killed me. I’d imagined every scenario, all of our secrets coming out, the cops busting open the doors to drag me in next. But Scout’s lawyer had worked his magic, and after what seemed like a year she’d emerged, pale and shaky, but allowed to go home.
“For now,” Detective Holloway had said, leaning against the receptionist’s desk. “But don’t get too comfortable. You’ll be back.”
I genuinely hated that woman.
Finally, the cops shoved a path to the SUV and the doors swung open. We leapt inside, and when they slammed behind us, the quiet was such a relief I had the sudden urge to cry.
“Izzy,” Scout whispered, sounding nineteen and broken again, and I wrapped my arms around her. Those naive girls we’d been, the ones who’d moved out here to chase their dreams, so full of hope and excitement—they never could’ve pictured this.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered back. “I promise.”
“We need to talk.” Her voice was choked. “In private.”
My heart thundered. “Does the detective know about us?”
