The limo was quiet save the tapping of her finger on the faceplate of her phone. The driver glanced at her in the mirror, but she was lost in her own rearview and missed it. And him. From his vantage point, he had a front-row seat of her. And her iconic legs. While she caught the first glance, she didn’t catch the second.
The pill fob was attached to a chain around her neck. Knowing the drive from her seaside home could last more than an hour, she unscrewed the lid, dropped one pill discreetly onto her tongue, and then returned the fob to its hiding place at the base of her neck. Something to take the edge off. The seamless motion reminded the driver of a kid with a Pez dispenser. Or the Marlboro Man with a Zippo lighter. Both actions were practiced and subconscious, requiring little thought.
The tapping slowed but only slightly; there was always an edge.
A minute later, her phone pulsed. Something she’d been expecting but it startled her nonetheless. She’d been awaiting word from her private investigator, Roger, but when she eyed the unknown number, her heart leapt. It was not him. She tapped on the text and read furiously as a wrinkle appeared between her eyes. The text was short. To the point. As was the demand. Their last communiqué had promised information if she satisfied their demand. She had. To the penny. In return, they had assured her of something tangible. Hence, the finger tapping the phone.
She read the text a second time, looking for any clue but found none. She typed quickly. “But you promised a picture.”
Their response was equally prompt. “Do you really want to play this game?”
She did not. “30 min.”
The response was immediate. “15.”
She straightened and sent a cryptic text to her financial advisor.
His response returned just as quickly. “You must be joking.”
“Please don’t argue. Send the money.”
The text disappeared into the stratosphere. Two seconds later, her phone rang. He spoke before she had a chance. “Joe, I’m recording this call. I can’t wire a half million dollars to an unknown Swiss account from a text. We have procedures. Safeguards. You know this—”
“George.” She took a breath. “It’s time sensitive. Please . . . just—”
“I need it in writing. Not to mention the fact that we need to have a conversation about fiduciary responsibility.”
The driver watched as she polished off the Grey Goose and poured a second. In truth, she didn’t really like vodka, but it amplified the pills and left her breath untainted. “This is time sensitive. I need it done now.”
“Joe, it’s for your pro—”
“George . . . they have my baby.”
A long pause. “Is this you or the silver screen talking?”
It was an honest question. “It’s me.”
Another pause while he filtered for the truth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. We’d heard rumors but . . .”
“We’ve been trying to keep it out of the press.”
“What about the authorities?”
“It’s tricky. They always seem a step ahead.”
“Heard she used to work for you.” It was a question posed as a statement.
“Two years.”
“You were close?”
“Hair
and makeup.”
“You never really know someone, do you?” He listened to himself and tried to correct. “I’m sorry. That’s not helpful.”
She nodded again, conscious that the medicine was lowering her defenses. And her filter. Through the silence, she said, “Send me whatever you need me to sign. You’re protected.”
She heard fingers tapping keys in the background. Her phone pulsed, and she signed with her finger and tapped Submit.
He continued. “I thought you were renovating Malibu or buying a Swiss chalet.”
“I wish.”
A pause. More keystrokes. “You want the total?”
“One point two,” she said calmly.
A long pause. “Can the authorities recover any of this?”
“The FBI says yes. My investigator doubts that.”
“Who do you believe?”
“Neither.”
On the drive down, the sun had set over the Pacific where deep blue bled into a crimson sky. Now the night had grown dark, lit only by streetlights. After a final keystroke, he said, “We’re dealing with different time zones, so hang on a minute while I get confirmation.” George tried to fill the awkward silence and address the elephant in the phone. “Did you get the flowers?”
She had. “Yes. Thank you. They were lovely.”
“So how was it this time? Any better? I hear mixed reviews.”
“Cured.” She turned the pill fob in her fingers, her honesty disarming. “Sixth time’s the charm.”
A pause. “I didn’t know. Thought it was more casual.” Something must have happened on the electronic screens in front of him because she heard his chair squeak. “Wire confirmed. Check your phone.”
She did. A screen of numbers stared back at her.
“Of all the nights . . .” He trailed off.
She stared at the distant searchlights making figure eights in the night sky. “She’s no dummy.”
“And how much money you make,” he quipped. She heard the chair squeaking again. Then he barked, “Unconscionable,” followed by a guttural, half-muted curse and ending with “betrayal.”
Another slight nod. “Feels that way.”
He redirected. “We’re pulling for you.”
When she spoke, she was staring out the window. “I’d trade it all.”
She ended the call and leaned against the window as the Los Angeles skyline
came into view. Wasting no time, she forwarded the confirmation to the unknown number that had demanded the sum. From the first contact, they had used different numbers. Now somewhere over two dozen. Not even her ex-CIA private investigator, Roger, could crack the system because each number was untraceable, single use, and prepaid monthly. Used once and discarded. Cartels and ISIS did the same. She knew as soon as she sent this text, this number and this phone would cease to work.
She typed quickly, hoping to sneak it in. “Amber, please, are you okay? Is the baby well?”
The driver watched her knee bounce as she waited for a response.
A minute later, her screen lit. “Baby is kicking.” Then came the gut punch. The thing she’d been wanting but never expecting. For which she’d never let herself hope. Which was exactly why Amber sent it. But that, too, raised a question. Had Amber sent it? Was she okay? The wording gave way to doubt. “Baby is kicking” didn’t sound like Amber. But did she really know Amber? Regardless, whoever sent it knew it’d knock the air out of her.
That was not the knockout. It would follow. The next pulse included a close-up of a pregnant stomach, complete with tiny stretch marks and a small protrusion to the right of the belly button. The inexplicable and undeniable imprint of the underside of a baby’s foot. Complete with slight toe indentions. The pineapple tattoo alongside was their bona fides. Proof that the stomach was, in fact, Amber’s. They’d been in Maui on a film set drinking rum punch when she’d sat for it.
The sting was exponential. She’d put Amber through cosmetology school. Taught her the nuance of makeup for screen. Bought her a car. Introduced her. Paid her twice what she was worth. Brought her on vacation. Made her family.
“Amber.” She typed furiously. The window was closing. Using as few words as possible. “Boy? Girl!? PLEASE.”
The response was quick. “VEI.”
She had no idea what this meant. “Sorry. I don’t understand.”
Somebody was playing her. “That is very expensive information.”
This, too, did not sound like Amber, which once again assumed she knew Amber at all. Joe had received very little information over the last two months. All of it consisted of cryptic messages, so she was never certain if she was talking with Amber or someone else. The word choice here didn’t sound like Amber. She wouldn’t say “very” or “That is.” The entire phrase was too polished. Too put together. Too mysterious. It sounded like someone trying to sound like someone they weren’t.
Amber had grown up in rural Alabama and quit high school in the tenth grade to start “doing hair” because she had a knack for it and could make more money standing behind a chair than sitting in it. Her language was much more casual. More along the lines of, “Girlfriend, you can’t touch that.” As much as the texts made it seem like Amber was running the show, Joe had long suspected she was not. Complicit? Yes. In
charge? Probably not.
Amber’s boyfriend was a hip-hop wannabe. Tall. Fit. Early twenties. Tattooed bumper to bumper. Frank Carter, aka Busta Line, fancied himself an entrepreneur. Businessman. They’d met at Da Beez Neez—a popular dance club where he stared mysteriously through sunglasses, grabbed his groin, and mumbled expletives into a microphone on open mic night. Frank was a classic pretender who convinced Amber he was an artist to watch. On the move. Being courted by Atlanta, LA, New York. “In talks.” Seven-figure record deal. In truth, he was a thug. A punk with an attitude. And the only thing he was moving was prescription drugs through the night club. Frank was an opportunist, a shoplifter, a car thief, a drug dealer, and a pathological liar, and his only claim to fame was having spent time in juvie and now dating someone who once had access to someone famous. Someone with money. Making him important by association.
Adding insult to injury, Amber was a terrible judge of men.
Knowing her time was short, Joe sent the one phrase that might break through. Rattle something loose. The muted memory of friendship. Amber had grown up idolizing Dolly Parton, who was no stranger to hair spray. Because, even on a bad day, hair spray can fix anything.
Joe typed, “Tease it to Jesus.” Then hit Send.
Come on, Amber.
Seconds passed.
Then a minute.
She stopped tapping, sure the SIM had already been destroyed.
Buzz.
Her heart leapt again. She tapped, then sucked in a deep breath, which she held for nearly thirty seconds.
The text read, “And spray it like hell.”
In the previous months, she often wondered if Frank was doing most of the communicating, leaving Joe to wonder if Amber was okay. Or was she in danger herself? Reading this, she knew Amber was present. She might not be holding the phone, and she might not be in charge, but she was close—because only Amber would know how to fill in that phrase. Yes, Frank could’ve Googled it, but she doubted he was that smart.
But that wasn’t the best part. Unsolicited, a second text followed. This time a picture. Joe sucked in a breath and tapped the icon, revealing an ultrasound. Dated yesterday. 3D. So clear it looked almost alien. The nose. Lips. Ears. Perfect in every detail. The hands. Fingers. One folded. One more open. She counted out loud. “One-two-three-four-five. One-two-three-four-five.” She stroked the picture with her index finger. “Perfect,” she whispered. But what caught her off guard were the eyes. Which seemed to be looking right at the camera. Almost posing. Was it her imagination or was the baby cracking
a smile?
Joe typed furiously, ignoring mistakes, offering more money. “Are you safe? Let me help.”
But Amber never received the offer. Verizon returned the text as “Undelivered.” The window had closed. Frank might have been a punk, but he wasn’t a fool. He had street smarts and he was good at being bad. He’d found his sugar mama and wasn’t about to let her off the hook. Roger had warned Joe not to underestimate him. Choking on anger and tears, she unscrewed the cap, dropped two more pills onto her tongue, and chased them with more fire in a bottle.
The driver watched, unaffected, as her eyes glazed just slightly and her neck began to wobble. The edge had been taken off. Pain muted. The driver left the PCH just north of Santa Monica on San Vicente Boulevard, routing them through Brentwood, the southern end of Bel Air, and finally the Hills. Beverly Hills. 90210. Where little girls’ dreams come true. Or at least some of them. Maybe one or two.
In the rising haze, Joe entertained a question she might not have were she sober. Dreams. When was the last time she had let herself dream? She leaned her head back. She knew the answer. And that, too, hurt. The problem wasn’t the when but the who—and the bitter taste they left in their wake. The unanswered questions. So much left unsaid. She closed her eyes and whispered aloud, “Pockets.”
The driver perked up. “Excuse me?”
She waved him off. “Talking to myself.”
He stared into the rearview mirror and said, “You okay, Mrs. Joe?”
She noticed for the first time that in order to speak, the driver had to push a button at the base of his esophagus and that his voice was computerized. No doubt the effect of too many cigarettes. She waved him off, but she was anything but okay.
She stared up through the tinted glass and counted streetlights. One, two . . . seven, eight. Long ago, she discovered the monotonous rhythm calmed her. Her chest rose and fell with each deep breath. She had just started to doze when her phone shook her awake. Her voice was shaky. “Yes?”
“Joe.” A pause. Roger’s voice sounded pained. “They’re gone. No trace.”
A second passed as she shook off the haze. She was slow to speak. Almost slurring. “But you said—”
Roger cleared his throat. “We’ve exhausted every lead.”
She was more awake now. “But you told me . . . you’d done this before.”
“We have. Many times.”
“What about, ‘These people establish a pattern’?”
“They do. These didn’t. Or haven’t.”
“But I did what you said. Paid every penny.”
“There are no guarantees. That said, they have something you want and you have something they want. It’s simple economics. Blackmail 101.
They’ll be in touch.”
“It’s not simple to me.”
He knew he shouldn’t have said that, so he made no response.
“So I just sit here and”—she lifted her phone—“wait for the ding?”
“Unfortunately . . . yes.”
“You know how hard that is?”
“I understand. They have you on a string.”
Normally one to play her cards close to the vest, Joe seldom revealed what she thought, but then there were the pills and the ache. Her voice rose. “You have no idea.” In a rare break, the truth slipped out. “No concept. Do you know what I’ve gone through?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll give them whatever they want. I thought I made that clear. They can have it all.”
“And if you do, you’ll never see—”
“But you told them. Right?”
“Joe.” Seconds passed, which told her all she needed to know. “Part of my job is to protect you from them. Help you make wise decisions when your ability to do so might be . . . compromised.”
The words protect you from them rattled across her mind. In her mind’s eye, she saw Pockets. Standing just a few feet behind her. Always in the shadow. An arm’s length. Three feet. Tie. Sport coat. Sunglasses. Hands folded. Haircut high and tight. If he were here . . . She shook off the thought. He’s the reason I’m in this mess. She gathered her composure. “Compromi—”
He corrected. “You know what I mean.”
“So you didn’t?”
“Joe, if I tell these people you will pay them five million, they will take it, then bleed you for another five. And you’ll have nothing. Please . . . trust me. Let me do my job.”
She untwisted the cap, palmed a single pill, crushed it with her teeth, and chased it with more liquid courage. For a mere mortal, this would turn out the lights, but she’d built quite a tolerance over the years. “So? What now?”
“We wait.”
She spoke to herself as much as him. “Death by a thousand cuts.” She considered the people around her. Her team. Those working for her. Helping her. And yet she still felt very much alone. And had. Since the jury’s decision. Although seven long years had passed, she remembered watching him stand and how the bailiff led him out of the courtroom. Orange jumpsuit. Chains rattling. He had tried to make eye contact but she wouldn’t let him. She’d denied him that.
Staring at the phone, her strength returned. “Roger, I did not ask for this.”
“I realize that. But it’s here. How you respond will determine much of what happens next.”
She ended the call and sat tapping her phone. Within a few blocks, the
drugs hit her bloodstream but had little effect.
They passed Beverly Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, and the Sunset Strip, finally exiting onto West Sunset Boulevard. Appropriate, she thought. My sunset on Sunset. The streetlights played a rhythmic and lonely slideshow through the windows as the driver crossed Hollywood Boulevard. Three blocks down lay her star, encased in black polished-and-speckled concrete. The Walk of Fame. Another laugh. My headstone. Maybe they’ll bury me beneath it.
When they drove by her star, where a group of giddy girls stood taking a selfie in honor of tonight’s festivities, Joe never even glanced. She stared out the opposite window, looking for a shadow that no longer stood alongside her and the warmth and safety of a bubble that had been removed.
A block away a hundred cameras lit the black limo in flashes and ten-frames-per-second shutter clicks. The driver slowed to a stop at the red carpet, then deferred to Joe, who stared at the crowd, questioned both her ability and her desire, and nodded. The driver motioned to security, who opened the door and offered a hand.
Joe had unceremoniously aged out of foster care while flipping burgers at an all-night diner. Now in her late thirties, known worldwide as Joe, and loved by tens upon tens of millions, she eyed the crowd.
Despite paying her dues in shampoo, dog treats, and vinyl siding commercials, she had paid the bills—or most of them—working at a local diner. One night, while working a double, she served a burger to a producer at 2:00 a.m. His film was behind schedule and overbudget, but that wasn’t his biggest problem. His star was. She was a trainwreck in the process of coming off the rails. Yard sale in the making.
He was a regular. Liked to rewrite scripts from a corner booth in the early morning hours. He ate slowly, studying her smile, her easy conversation, her enthusiasm at 3:00 a.m., and her legs extending out of the 1950s throwback skirt. He stirred his eggs and eyed her name tag, which read “Maybe Joe.”
He pointed his fork at her. “That your real name?”
She topped off his coffee. “Yep. Got a birth certificate to prove it too.”
He shook his head. “Did you fight a lot as a kid?”
“Tried to but I wasn’t very good at it, so . . .” A shrug. “I learned to roll with the punches.”
He admired how comfortable she was in her own skin. “What do people call you?”
“Most folks call me Joe.”
For whatever reason, “Maybe Joe” looked enough like his lead actress in form and feature that under the right lighting, she might pass as an extra in nonspeaking scenes.
He watched her wipe a table and blow a single strand of hair out of her face. “Your parents do that on purpose?”
“Don’t know. Never met them. But”—she tapped her shirt—“that’s not the worst of it.”
“Do tell.”
“My full name is ‘Maybe Joe Sue.’ Suggesting that maybe whoever birthed me could not make up their mind and was not the smartest hammer in the knife drawer.”
“Maybe Joe Sue?”
She curtsied. “In the flesh.”
“Surely they had trouble filling out the birth certificate.”
She refilled his coffee. “Hope so ’cause the alternative is cruelty, and I’ve always believed if you don’t know something about somebody, you fill the gap with trust until you do.”
He turned sideways in his booth. “That would make you different from a lot of people I work with.”
She eyed his yellow legal pad. She’d seen him before. Corner booth. Black coffee. Tipped well. “You ever sleep?”
A shrug. “Not much.”
“Stressful job?”
“Can be.” He tried not to give too much away. “The people I work with can be . . . high maintenance.”
She raised an eyebrow and gave a knowing chuckle. “You should try working at an all-night diner. I could tell you some stories.”
“I’ll take your word for it. How’d you end up here?”
She waved her hand across the room and raised her voice enough to be heard in the kitchen. “Well, when I’m not fast-tracking my way up the corporate ladder of Greasy-Diners-R-Us, owned by a made member of the Mexican drug cartel . . .”
The Irish guy standing over the dishwasher, who looked anything but Mexican, hollered above the steam, “Heard that.”
“I am an”—she made quotation marks with her fingers, which were accented by raised eyebrows—“‘up-and-coming’ and, if it weren’t for this place, starving actress with”—she held up three fingers—“three, count ’em, three career-defining roles to my name.”
“Oh, do tell.”
The dishwasher hollered from his post. “Don’t let her fool you. She’s good.”
She set the coffeepot on his table, careful not to smudge the legal pad. “Well.” She swung her ponytail, mimicking the slow-mo cinematography of most hair commercials. “I starred in a twice-nominated shampoo commercial for oily hair, made from nontoxic, recycled plastic bottles collected by hand in New York City.” Another swing. “Given that career launch pad, which
totally”—she clapped—“shot me out of a cannon, I soon landed the lead role in a commercial for an organic, non-habit-forming, high-fiber, low-sugar, high-protein tofu derivative, low-glycemic, keto dog treat made from South China Sea seaweed. And given that it caught fire among seventy-two-to-eighty-five-year-old retirees in South Florida . . .” She winked, letting him know she’d hit the big time. “It is now ‘episodic’ or ‘recurring.’ Syndicated in multiple national markets, that sweet little number pays me royalties.” She paused and nodded for effect. “Every month. Bam!” Another clap. “Like clockwork. Seventy-four cents. First Tuesday.” She wiped her hands on her apron as if preparing for the big reveal.
He interrupted her, trying to disguise his smile. “Seventy-four.”
She turned her hand side to side. “Been as high as seventy-eight. Low as thirty. But there was a hurricane in South Florida, so . . .” She regained her composure. “But the pièce de résistance”—she closed her eyes, breathed in, and held her hands out like a symphony conductor—“the role that placed my name in lights and”—she lowered her voice as if relaying a closely guarded secret—“was recognized by the academy, was a BOGO, hurricane-proof-to-Cat-4, child-safe, lead-paint-free, vinyl siding infomercial. They said my portrayal of an exasperated, pregnant homemaker with a baby on my hip staring at a leak in my kitchen was so convincing, so East of Eden-ish, they doubled sales in three Midwest markets.”
Having finished, she bowed, picked up the coffeepot, and accepted the raucous applause from the empty diner and Nick.
The man laughed out loud. “The Academy?”
A knowing nod. She spoke slowly. Enunciating every letter. “The UACSLFVPMOA.”
He tried but got tongue-tied. “The UA . . . ?”
“The Unionized Academy of Child-Safe Lead-Free Vinyl Producing Manufacturers of America.”
“I had no idea.” He shook his head. “Quite a mouthful.”
“Try saying it three times really fast in a fifteen-second commercial.”
He crossed his arms. “Well, I can see you’re on your way. Really going places.”
“Yeah. I just work here ’cause I can’t leave Nick.” She pointed to the sweaty, bad-combover, large-bellied man wearing a stained and yellowed wife-beater shirt who was cleaning the grill while the stub of his cigar dangled from the corner of his lip. “He’d never make it without me. Plus,” she gushed, “I can’t deny it. We’re in love and eloping just as soon as he gets the three-million-dollar life insurance payout from his recently deceased wife, who, incidentally, hasn’t been seen since she took the dog for a walk six months ago.”
Nick laughed, set a steaming plate on the stainless counter
and spoke around his cigar. “Order up, my love.”
Joe retrieved the steak and hash browns and set them down for the man. “May I get you anything else?”
He pointed at the seat opposite him. “Give me five minutes?”
She looked at Nick, who had walked around the counter and pointed a spatula at the man. “Hey, nothing funny, fellow. She’s a good girl. She don’t do stuff like that.” He waved his spatula at the black-and-white TV. “One day we’ll all be watching her. She’s going places.”
The man nodded. “Nothing funny. It’s all aboveboard. Just hear me out.”
Nick crossed his arms, revealing a faded anchor tattoo.
The man spoke to them both. “I’m a producer, and things are not going well.” He explained. When finished, he asked if she might be interested. A stand-in. Something to help take the pressure off his star.
She laughed and wiped the sweat off her forehead. “Just stand there and look like me?”
“Yep.”
Nick leaned in. “With her clothes on?”
The man laughed. “Yes, but”—he pointed—“not those.”
Nick looked at Joe. “I can close up and go with you? Just to be sure.”
She looked at the producer and smiled. “Told you we were lovers.”
She left straight from work and, despite Nick’s objections, met the producer alone at the set. Still wearing the shirt with her name printed on it. Smelling of burger grease and cigarette smoke. An unknown among the known. The producer brought her on set, put her in front of the camera, turned on the light, and said, “Do what you did with me last night. Just have a conversation.”
She put a hand on her hip. “Technically, it was this morning. And if I remember correctly, I did most of the talking, so it wasn’t really much of a conversation.”
He lifted his eye from the camera. “Perfect.” Over the next few minutes, as other crew arrived, she came alive. Before their very eyes, the atmosphere shifted. No, better yet, the stratosphere.
Such was her break. The rest is cinematic history.
After her stand-in, she’d accepted a supporting role. The director was an up-and-comer with little to no financing, so he’d promised her, along with the rest of the cast, a share in profits. If it ever made any. She didn’t care. It was a foot in the door. After filming, she returned to her roach-infested apartment and Nick’s night shift. By then, he’d promoted her to grill assistant, where she learned the art of smashing burgers, scrambling eggs, and hashing browns, earning her an extra dollar an hour.
Then the inexplicable happened. The thing for which every producer will sell his soul and yet none know the recipe. Lightning struck. Desperate to get noticed, ...
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