Was. Was good enough. The words hang in the air between us.
I don’t suppose she’ll have much of a career to come back to if she ever comes back. I’m sure they’ll make sure of that. I take a moment to steel myself before I ask, “What did they do when she refused to give them the recording?”
She looks out of the diner windows to the LA streets beyond our reflections. “They acted like that was fine,” she says simply. “They said she could keep it until she was sure.” Marla’s eyes glisten in the warm diner light. “And they offered her three possible roles. Great roles, lead roles. They got her hopes up, you know. But she was careful. She recorded that meeting too, their deal, everything they said. And when they told her they’d changed their minds, she told them exactly what she’d do with her two recordings.” Marla pauses, savoring the memory of Emily outsmarting the two men who thought they controlled everything.
“She had them by the balls,” I say, pushing her.
Marla frowns. “Who knows,” she answers. “It certainly focused them. They said the deal was back on, and they told her the role they’d give her. All she had to do was go in and sign her contract…and then she was gone.”
“She disappeared after signing?”
“She wasn’t replying to texts, calls, anything. At first I assumed the meeting had just gone badly, that they’d pulled out again and she was distraught, but it wasn’t that.” She breaks off. “I should have gone straight over to her apartment but I didn’t. I waited until the next morning. The cleaner let me in but Emily wasn’t there. I couldn’t get through to her so I logged into her laptop. I found her using her phone tracking app and I texted her to stay put, that I was coming.”
“Where was she?”
“She had to disappear. She’s still there. If you want I can take you to her.”
Marla’s words send a shiver down my spine; it’s impossible to tell if she’s offering to take me to meet a living person or to visit a grave. I think of the gun in the bag beside me and the safety it could afford me.
“Where is she?” I ask carefully.
“Not far. A fifteen-minute drive.” I try to gauge her intentions but she seems to have no vested interest in me coming one way or another. “I told Emily about you. About how you got involved. How you’ve tried to help. She knows you’ve been looking for her. I’m sorry you’re involved in all this, we both are. But she just can’t risk coming back yet, talking to the police yet. We both can’t risk it. It’s not safe. I’m sorry I can’t be clearer about everything but it’s her plan. It’s hers to explain. I can take you if you want me to? But it’s up to you.”
I study Marla’s face, tired, battered, and bruised. What she’s done for Emily is extreme. She’s been hiding her and I assume muddying the trail she’s left behind, risking her own safety and almost certainly her own career. I wonder if I would do half as much for a friend in need. Or perhaps I’m misreading the situation; I’m painfully aware Marla can be very convincing when she needs to be. What if she’s the one responsible for Emily’s disappearance in the first place, what if all of this is a lie? But I’ve met Ben Cohan, and I’ve seen what’s lurking under his professional veneer. And I can see Marla’s face right in front of me, bright with bruises, full of barely concealed fear for her friend. Perhaps I’ll live to regret it but something tells me I need to trust her. We can all talk about the sisterhood until we’re blue in the face but here’s my moment to actually do something. If Marla can take me to Emily—if I can see her with my own eyes—then I’ll be certain. I’ll know I’ve done my bit. And if I need to, as soon as I’m ready to leave LA I’ll bring the whole house of cards tumbling down around me.
“I’ll come,” I tell Marla, my tone firm, “but I’m going to follow you in my own car.”
She takes a second to mull over the idea.
“Of course, if you’d feel safer. I totally understand.” She reaches into her purse, pulls out a $20 bill, and wedges it under her coffee mug to pay. “Shall we?” she asks, moving to rise.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait,” I say, placing my hands on the table between us. “I just need to get some things straight first. Why did you drag me into this? Last week you pulled me into this whole situation, didn’t you—?”
Marla places a hand on top of mine, and I stop abruptly.
“I didn’t drag you into this at all. You were already part of it. You just didn’t know you were.” She shakes her head, bemused by my lack of insight into everything she’s been explaining.
She pats my arm. “The emails, the apartment, us meeting that day. You really haven’t worked any of it out yet, have you? What you are to Emily, what you are to me?”
I stare at her dumbfounded as the meaning of her words sinks in.
I am part of a plan I do not understand. And I have been since the day we met.
I open my mouth to speak but she cuts me off.
“But it’s her plan, I’ll let her explain—”
“No,” I interrupt, “you explain it to me. Now. Or I’m not going anywhere.”
Marla nods. “Fine. Then I guess we’re done here,” she says simply.
And with that she rises and turns to leave.
33
Up into the Darkness
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16
I follow her taillights north, away from the busy boulevards of Hollywood, to where the roads thin out, becoming bumpier and darker, as we ascend into the hills. I have no idea where we’re heading. However reckless agreeing to follow her may sound, I need to know how I am involved in this. And what exactly this is.
Marla’s car begins to slow ahead of me. She pulls in at the side of the road behind a string of darkened cars, and I pull up behind her as she kills her engine.
Outside in darkness the few far-flung streetlights offer only pools of half-light and shadows. In the distance behind us I see the twinkle of the city’s lights over the treetops.
I turn off my engine and slip Nick’s gun from my bag, checking the safety before plunging it into the pocket of a jacket from the backseat. I root out my phone and pop it into my other pocket then stop myself. I don’t know why I haven’t thought of it earlier but I slip it out again and open the Voice Memos app, press record, and drop it back into my pocket. It can’t hurt to follow Emily’s own example. Just in case.
I watch Marla exit her vehicle in front of me and wonder what on earth could connect her and me, what could connect all of us? I guess I’ll find out.
I pop my door and take in the street around me for the first time. Emily could be in any one of the darkened houses lining this rough track road. It’s after one a.m. on a Tuesday; the inhabitants of all of them are most likely fast asleep in their beds. I get a sudden pang for home: for my pokey Clapton flat and my saggy bed with its soft brushed-cotton bedsheets.
Marla gestures, motioning up the road. We need to keep going on foot from here.
She wouldn’t tell me where she’s leading me but from the satnav it looked like we were heading up toward the distant edges of Griffith Park. As we make our way farther up the road, though, I see we’ve come to a dead end; we must be going into one of the houses.
Marla crosses the road and waits for me, leaning on a locked jade-hued oxidized gate. I cannot see the house beyond her but this must be it. I jog to catch up but as I reach her she turns from the gate and continues along the blank white wall toward the dead end. I turn back to the green gate, confused, and when I look back to Marla she is gone. Only the whitewashed wall stares back at me. I pause for a moment unsure what to do when suddenly her head pokes out, seemingly through the white wall itself. Taken aback, I approach slowly to discover that there is a narrow, staggered opening in the wall, with a rough-trodden path leading up into Griffith Park.