Incriminated (7 page)

The smell of frying chicken had driven most everyone toward the kitchen and living room. A snaking line had formed of people waiting for a bite. John-Michael had given up his spot on the balcony to the first bunch of party guests who were looking for somewhere to enjoy the hot food.

Grace followed him downstairs, where the stereo was blasting some grating music. John-Michael had compiled three playlists, “nostalgia,” “punk,” and “zone out.” They were somewhere in the middle of “punk” and it was giving Grace a headache. She switched to “nostalgia” and an orchestral sound track swelled. It sounded like the sound track to some kind of action-adventure movie. She was about to switch again when cries of “Yeah, the music from Zelda, awesome!” erupted from at least four kids in the chicken line.

Grace locked eyes with Candace. Her stepsister was leaning on the threshold of the French doors, watching
her. They both smiled. “Video game geeks,” she said, a Sea Breeze in one hand. “Just leave it on.”

Grace felt a stab of guilt as she watched Maya squeeze past Candace on her way in from the tiny backyard, which had been designated as the “smoking” area. Only a few months ago they'd taken great pains to protect Maya from the weed and alcohol at their first party. At fifteen, Maya was the baby of the house and back then they thought she needed their protection. Now, no one seemed to care. They'd told her
once
, right?

“I hope you didn't let anyone out there tempt you into smoking,” Grace teased, drawing up alongside her stepsister.

Resentment flicked in Maya's eyes. Candace caught the vibe and joined in. “Let it go, Gracie. You wanna call Aunt Marilu over to bust up the party?”

Maya tipped her head toward the long gray sofa, on which six kids were perched, laughing and smoking. “Maybe we should worry more about the fact that people are smoking
cigarettes
inside. Didn't Candace's mom forbid that?”

Candace turned, apparently unaware. “You guys! Put those cigarettes out or get out.”

Luckily, no one seemed to take issue with this. Hands were waved in apology and the burning cigarettes dropped into a discarded Coke can.

Candace turned her attention back to Maya. “How's your app going?”

Maya seemed surprised by the question. “Oh—Cheetr? Actually, I'm kind of moving on to something else.”

Grace gave a nod of vague enthusiasm. She suspected that Candace, like her, had very little to say on the subject and was just trying to show polite interest. Maya might have noticed, or maybe not. She seemed to get tunnel vision around her coding.

“How about you?” Maya asked Candace. “You hear back from that TV show you auditioned for?”

Candace's grin became broad. “It was the weirdest thing. Not like going through an open audition, at all. I got invited to the audition a little over a week ago and this morning my agent called to tell me they're sending over the contracts. Somehow I missed the actual ‘yes.'”

“Wow,” Maya said. “That's
literally
insane. Things are gonna start to change pretty fast for you,” she observed. “Next it's going to be magazine interviews and photo shoots. Then premieres. The red carpet treatment.”

Candace broke off from sipping her drink to chuckle. “Ha—I guess. To all the C-list events.”

“Maybe that's how it begins,” Maya said. “Then before you know it you'll forget your friends on the beach, hitting the Hollywood party scene, up in the hills, Mulholland Drive, all of that. You'll be able to ask Lucy for advice—although she probably won't want to talk about it. She must not have the best memories from her days as a child star.”

Grace froze. Could Maya possibly know how totally right she was? She was acting as if it was no biggie, as though
all three girls knew to what she referred. Yet, it was pretty obvious that Candace wasn't entirely sure what Maya was getting at. “Why would she have bad memories?” Candace asked. “She was a kid and she got to be on TV.”

Maya replied calmly and with confidence, “I mean because of the murder.”

Grace pressed her lips together. Maya
did
know. Cautiously, she glanced at both girls. Candace stared at Maya in bafflement. Maya's attention, however, was divided equally between Grace and Candace.

“What murder?” Candace said.

Maya seemed bemused. “The Tyson Drew murder.”

Candace sounded puzzled. “You keep saying ‘murder' like I'm supposed to know what you're talking about.”

For a couple of seconds, Grace held her breath. How much did Maya know—and more importantly,
how did she find out?

Grace couldn't imagine Lucy talking about it. Everything Grace had observed about Lucy screamed total and absolute denial of what she might have seen that night, eight years ago.

Not Lucy, then. Her stomach lurched. Which meant that John-Michael must have talked to Maya. But why?

What exactly had he told Maya about their conversation on the Pacific Coast Highway?

Grace searched her stepsister's face for any sign of recognition. She seemed genuinely surprised. Grace reminded herself that Candace was an actor. She was either giving the
performance of her life, or her absolute shock and puzzlement were the real thing. Maya, in contrast, was cool and measured, as if she knew the likely impact of her words. She was drip-feeding the information, watching each girl for their reaction.

Grace felt as though a chilly breeze had just swept across her. She sensed, quite suddenly, that Maya knew a lot more about Lucy's past than she was letting on.

But how much?

“Lucy was at a party on Mulholland Drive. A lot of TV people were there,” began Maya. “At this point she'd be, oh, I'm guessing nine or ten years old.”

Maya seemed to make an executive decision that their discussion would move outdoors. The backyard had emptied as word got out about Ariana's chicken.

Grace hesitated for a second and then followed Candace and Maya into the backyard. She couldn't feign disinterest. At any moment, she was expecting Maya to reveal that she'd heard all this from John-Michael. Grace had to bury the tide of resentment she could already feel building toward him. How could he have revealed her secret? With everything he'd shared with her—how dare he risk it?

Outside, the air smelled thickly of cannabis smoke. A lanky boy wearing only board shorts lay sprawled, asleep on the edge of the lawn. Aside from him, the girls were alone.

Maya continued, fully conspiratorial, “Another kid from
Jelly and Pie
was at the party, too, plus three other
child stars. I think the party was for their agent.”

“Are you saying someone got killed at the party?” Candace said. She was clearly still puzzled, as though this was idle gossip about someone they didn't know. Grace guessed that it was the alcohol dulling her senses.

“You don't remember the Tyson Drew murder?” Maya seemed surprised. “It was a big deal in Hollywood. Tyson Drew was an up-and-coming movie star. And he was drowned in the pool, at a party on Mulholland Drive.”

Grace said nothing. She watched Maya very closely now. She hadn't mentioned Grace's father yet. If she'd gotten this from John-Michael, it would be just plain aggressive to talk this way in front of Grace, without acknowledging that she knew Grace's father had been sentenced to death row for the murder of Tyson Drew.

It really was not like Maya to be so mean. Was it possible that Maya hadn't found out from John-Michael, after all? Grace's curiosity spiked. “How do you know all this?”

“Weird that Lucy never talks about it,” Candace interrupted, with a sudden sharpness that grabbed Grace's attention. “Murder? Rehab? She sure has kept a lot of secrets. If I had stories like those you couldn't keep me quiet.”

“Maybe we could,” Maya remarked, “if what you knew was dangerous.”

Candace just stared. Grace watched and thought,
Finally, she gets it.

Candace repeated Grace's question. “Seriously, where'd
you get this? I Googled Lucy when she first told us about the show. I bet we all did. None of this comes up.”

“The
Jelly and Pie
fan forum,” Maya replied with sudden authority. “You gotta search deep, 'cause it's behind a child-protection firewall. And the thread has gone pretty cold. There's some interesting speculation, though. They got a guy on death row for the murder. Of course, he says he's innocent. From the beginning, he's said that one of the kids must have seen the real murderer. But the guy they convicted, he was wasted. He couldn't say which one it was. And all the kids denied it.”

“So you think Lucy was a
witness
?” Candace was beyond fascinated. “Holy shit. Maybe that's the real reason why she didn't want us to know about
Jelly and Pie
.”

Maya's attention moved to Grace. “Could be,” she said, deadpan. There was a momentary pause. “Candace, you think you could get us some sodas? I don't want to get into that chicken-crush.”

To Grace's astonishment, Candace simply nodded and disappeared back into the house. It was like some kind of magic trick—no one ever told Candace to do anything. But it seemed as though Maya's bombshell had turned Candace into a willing supplicant.

And once they were alone, Maya dropped a second payload.

“Why don't you tell her?”

Grace took a breath. “Tell her . . . ?”

“That Alex Vesper, the man on death row for murdering
a movie star, is your father,” Maya said. She spoke quietly but the veneer of calm had vanished. “You told John-Michael, that day you drove back from San Quentin with him—the day he totaled his dad's car.”

Grace shook her head as though she'd been slapped. “How can you possibly . . . Did John-Michael say?”

“Our call was still connected. I heard you guys talking.”

The breath caught in her throat. “You . . . heard?” Grace's eyes strayed toward the kitchen where Candace was starting to return, carrying three sodas.

“You have to tell your sister, Grace,” Maya said. Her words spilled out, the confidence gone, replaced by an urgency that was unnerving. “Lucy has to speak up, too. It's not safe to keep secrets like this. We're all safer if you—”

As Candace rejoined them, Maya's mouth snapped shut. Candace handed her a Sprite Zero.

“You were saying?”

Maya spoke reluctantly. “Oh. Yeah. The Tyson Drew conspiracy theory.”

“Okay so—if the guy they got on death row didn't do it, then who?” asked Candace. The shock had faded, apparently, and she was back to the business of serious gossip.

Maya paused. Expectantly, she glanced at Grace. Grace stayed silent. Maya took a breath. Before she could reply, all three became aware of a commotion in the living room, around the sofa. It looked as though a fight had broken out, with a sudden explosion of activity centered on the sofa. One boy was flung from the group's core. He landed
hard against the wall, stumbled, teetered, and fell through the gap between the French doors, landing partway on the grass.

“Get out,” he gasped. “The sofa's on fire!”

“You're being too obvious.” Candace paused. “Okay, look now.”

This time, only Grace's eyes moved. Then they darted back toward Candace. “The guy over by the main set with the Lakers hat?”

“What do you think?”

A pause. “
Very
nice. Did you say he's from Cuba?”

“He was born there, but his family has lived here a while now.”

“No accent?”

“An unbelievably hot one.”

Candace glanced over her shoulder. Ricardo Adams, whose fame had just exploded across the globe following the dramatic ending of the TV series
Deadbeat
, was the star of the new show. He was standing beside a table piled high with fruit and muffins. At one point, he looked right through her. “Oh and look,” she muttered, “Mr. Big.”

“Not as cute as on TV,” Grace remarked. “You were
right.” She pointed at the breakfast buffet. “Can you grab me a peach? Then I'm gonna head off to meet John-Michael at IKEA.”

“Please. How many people does it take to pick out a sofa?”

“You know how it is. He doesn't want to stay home alone with Ariana.”

Candace frowned. “We gotta do something about that girl.”

“I know, but how do you throw out the perfect houseguest?”

“The perfect housemate splits the rent. We'll figure something out.” Candace moved sideways and approached the snack table obliquely, with a polite smile at Ricardo. She returned with a large, ripe peach, which she handed to Grace. “Just pick out the couch you guys like and my mom will pay for it online. Make sure that someone's home for the delivery.”

“Ariana offered to wait around for it.”

“Oh, sure, Ariana is all about the helpful.”

Grace sniffed the peach with blissfully closed eyes. “Anyway, what scene are you filming today?”

“Annika and Sebastian meet for the first time, rescue some kid, then fight. It should be pretty intense. My character has been walking all night, through the ruined city, to the bug-out location.”

“‘Bug-out' location?”

“It's what doomsday preppers call their secret go-to
location where they've hidden all their prepper crap, in case of the apocalypse.”

Grace grinned. “Good thing my mom made you take those tae kwon do classes.”

Candace couldn't help but smile at the memory of herself as a little thirteen-year-old learning to kick ass in an old gym hall that smelled like a Goodwill store. She'd loathed the experience with a passion and swapped it for riding lessons as soon as her stepmother was convinced that she'd covered the basics. “I guess it wasn't a total waste of time. But who knew I would someday fight hot guys for a living?”

“I take it Yoandy is playing Sebastian?” Grace teased.

Candace had a hard time hiding her smile. “Come on,” she said. “I'll walk you to your car.”

Candace locked arms with Grace and walked her to the front of the lot, which was open to a narrow walkway outside. When she returned to the set of
Prepped
, Candace recognized only Yoandy and Ricardo. Ignoring her, Ricardo went over lines with Yoandy, who took a moment to give her a little smile. Her agent had promised to stop by to say hello, but so far there was no sign of him. She began to regret letting Grace leave so soon.

It sucked to look like such an obvious clueless newbie. However confident Candace managed to act around people her own age, being on a studio lot in Hollywood was still a very big deal. She wasn't sure of the protocol. On the
set of
Downtowners
there'd been a strict hierarchy, depending on how big a star you were. As a total newcomer and the youngest person on set, Candace had been virtually ignored at first.

On the whole, she'd found that it was best not to share any insecurities about her acting. Her stepmother, Tina, had drummed that much into her, those first few years of going to auditions. Now that she wasn't stitched to Candace's side, Tina insisted on lengthy postmortem phone calls after each audition. After the audition for
Prepped
, Tina had reiterated a favorite piece of advice: “Someone asks you if you can do something? You say yes. Someone asks you if you're worried about anything? You say no. You gotta fake it till you make it, Candace. Anyone tells you otherwise is just trying to find your weak spot. Don't let them.”

Once, it had seemed like crazy advice. The opposite of all the teachers who told her to be truthful, honest, to share any worries.

“I should lie about what I can and can't do?”

“That's right,” Tina had snapped. “The entertainment business is all about illusion, Candace. If you can make someone believe something then it might as well be true. Relax. No one's going to ask you to design a vaccine, or anything.”

The assistant director arrived on set, rapped his knuckles twice against the snack table, and then announced, “Change of plans, people. The bug-out location isn't
finished yet, so we're just going to record the later scenes, not the fight. Let's have first positions for scene six in five minutes.”

Yoandy strolled over to Candace. “Too bad,
nena linda
. Looks like we won't get to practice the fight. And I was looking forward to another dance.”

“Well, I was looking forward to kicking your ass,” Candace returned teasingly.

Yoandy seemed delighted by the riposte. “Oh, were you?”

Fake it till you make it.

“Yeah, I think Annika could take Sebastian out. Easy.”

He warmed to their banter. “We'll never know. He's not serious about this first fight; he's only trying to keep things from escalating.”

“Sure, but Annika means it. I'm not going to hold back.”

Yoandy smiled. “I'll try to remember that.”

Candace paused, then asked, “What does
nena linda
mean?”

He looked startled for a moment, then blinked twice, nonplussed. “It means ‘pretty baby,'” he answered in a soft voice. “You don't like?”

“It depends,” she said hesitantly. “I mean . . . I guess you say that to all the girls?”

“Sometimes,” he agreed with utmost sincerity. “But I can call you
Señorita
Candace, if you prefer.”

“Now you're making fun.”

“Of you?” He stepped closer, touched a hand to his
heart in mock disappointment. “
Ay, mi madre
. No way,
nena
.”

“Hmm,” Candace said. “What would Kay Alexander think?”

“Kay?” He seemed surprised at the mention of Kay. “It wouldn't matter what she thinks. She's just a friend.”

“I thought you two were dating.”

“We've been on a few dates but it's not serious.”

“Hmm.” Candace was unconvinced. “You sound like my housemate, Paolo. He goes on dates all the time and says it never means anything.”

Yoandy shook his head. “With
you
in the same house? He's crazy. But I like this Paolo already, since he's keeping away from you.” He paused. “What made you think me and Kay were dating?”

“You said that you and Ricardo were practically family,” she pointed out.

Yoandy's jaw went slack. Either he was a terrific actor or he was telling the truth. “That? Kay and I hung out at the Latin Grammys with Dana and Ricardo. I was making a joke.”

Candace wanted to believe him, but this was getting surreal. “But . . . there are pictures of you with Kay, in
Deadline
.”

Yoandy clicked his tongue. She could see a muscle twitching in his jaw. He was visibly upset. “I promise you, Candace, Kay is not my girlfriend.”

She raised an eyebrow, on the edge of flirting. “Does Kay know that?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, positions please!” the director announced. “We're ready for the next scene.” Candace reluctantly turned away.

Ninety minutes later the recording was finished. They'd shot about two minutes' worth of action, of which maybe one minute would end up on screen. Other members of the cast were already helping themselves to coffee, water, and juice. Candace was opening a bottle of sparkling mineral water when she heard a voice.

It sounded familiar but didn't register for several seconds. It was probably the sexiest female voice she'd ever heard. Slowly, Candace turned around. About five yards away, Ricardo Adams was talking to someone more famous than anyone she'd ever met in person. A jolt went through her as she stared at the woman.

Starstruck
. Candace had never really understood what that meant, hadn't appreciated the physical excitement of seeing someone so strikingly familiar, whose face she was used to seeing magnified to impossible proportions on the silver screen.

Dana Alexander, Academy Award winner, three-time Oscar nominee and, in her day, one of the world's most beautiful women. Even now, in her early forties, she still possessed an absolutely magnetic quality.

She wasn't even dressed particularly fancy; a crisp white shirt, a navy-blue trouser suit of impeccable cut, sleek Charles Jourdan heels that clicked against the sidewalk. Slung over her shoulder was a bloodred Mulberry bag. She
wore her hair longer than Candace had seen in the movies; a rich mahogany color with a twist and bounce in the tresses that fell to her shoulders. A complex, oriental floral scent hung in the air as the woman turned toward Ricardo, who rose from his chair to greet his wife with a chaste kiss.

“I'll be out in about ten minutes,” Candace heard him say. “Why don't you wait in the car?”

Candace watched Dana Alexander leave, accompanied by a second brunette woman who was wearing a black pantsuit. Candace couldn't see her face. Even from behind and at a distance, she could spot which was the movie star and which was the regular person. With Dana Alexander, everything was dialed to the max: haircut, makeup, shoes, right down to the sashay of her step. The other woman might as well have been a shadow.

“How'd you like Dana Alexander?” Yoandy murmured, startling her with his sudden proximity.

Candace turned to him but took a step back. When she stood too close she had a disconcerting urge to lean against his chest. “She's stunning,” she said frankly. “So is Kay. But they don't look much like each other, do they?” That was putting it kindly. From the photos Candace had seen, Kay dressed in grungy, urban fashions and went out of her way to look nothing like her elegant older sister.

“Actually, a little bit, she does. But Kay dresses pretty differently,” Yoandy said, tenderly wrapping his fingers around Candace's wrist. “And I wish you'd stop talking about her,
preciosa
. I prefer to talk about you.”

“Stop it,” she said. But the words got somehow stalled and came out at less than half the intensity that Candace had intended. Things were moving breathtakingly fast. She had to take a moment, to think through what might actually be happening here. Yet somehow she couldn't slow the racing of her heart.