Fade To Black Read online

  Miles gave her the answer she hadn’t been looking for. “The doctor has to check you out.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re all risk takers. Can’t one of you wheel me out of here?”

  Part of her wanted to stay in that room forever. Or at least long enough for the crowd outside to lose interest. It was only getting bigger, which gave Sloane an ever-swelling urgency to get the hell out of there. Several online gossip columns were already running stories, none flattering. It would only get worse from here. She needed to be home, with Jolie, even if her home was a rental.

  “Just a few more minutes, hon.” Melinda gently rubbed her arm.

  Orson crouched by the bed and took her hand in his. “I know what you’re worried about, and it’s going to be okay.”

  Easy for him to say. Everyone loved Orson Beck.

  “And I know you think that’s easy for me to say, but believe me, I’ve weathered some shit. And the Shellys have helped me get through it all.” He offered the pair an acknowledging nod. “They’ll help you get through this.”

  “Don’t read any of that schiesse online,” Miles said. “It will only make everything worse.”

  Dominic disagreed. “You’re wrong about that.”

  Melinda explained. “You should read whatever you need to get the right kind of angry.”

  “I saw a few headlines already,” she told them.

  Orson said, “When we had our moment earlier. She made me give her my phone.”

  Sloane started quoting headlines from memory. “Orson Beck’s New Lover is a Party Girl. Sloane Alexander Abandons Her Daughter and Wraps Her Car Around a Tree. Sloane Alexander’s Life Still Out of Control, Two Decades After Levying False Accusations at Liam Wentz.”

  “We expected this,” Dominic said.

  “Wait! I didn’t get to my favorite one. Golden Boy Beck Always Goes For Damaged Goods. Can He Save Sloane Alexander From Her 20-Year Spiral?”

  “Maybe he can.” Golden Boy Beck gave her a smile.

  “I don’t need you to make light of the moment, Orson.” Sloane couldn’t believe she just said that. “I want to get out of here now. But more than that, I want to have a serious discussion with everyone in this room. We need to acknowledge that Liam Wentz is out of control, and that this situation is—”

  “You said his name.” Dominic stated the obvious.

  “Damn right I said his name.” Sloane straightened up in the bed, surprising herself. “Yes, Dominic, we expected this, but that doesn’t mean I can ignore what I’m feeling right now. I could have been killed tonight, and yet that’s not even what bothers me. What if Jolie had been in the car?”

  No one had an answer for that one.

  “What if other people — innocent people — had been on the road? What then?”

  “What are you actually saying?” Dominic asked.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be making this movie.” Saying it felt like she was stabbing her own stomach, but Sloane could no longer keep her screaming worry inside. “How much would you lose if we stopped?”

  “It’s not about how much we would lose.” Dominic shook his head. “It’s about how many things we would have to—“

  “We’re making this movie,” Melinda interrupted, “and destroying Wentz. Any discussion that runs against that objective is counter-productive to this conversation. You’re safe—”

  “How am I safe?” Sloane tossed her hands in the air. “I’m in the hospital, and I can’t even leave!”

  “It’s okay, chérie.” Miles took her other hand. He and Orson traded a look.

  Sloane didn’t know if she liked or loathed the exchange. “I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to Jolie.”

  “No one understands that better than I do.” Miles squeezed her hand then turned to the Shellys. “She’s right to talk about this. We both believe in you, but how can we make sure that Sloane and Jolie both stay safe? You can’t be everywhere at once, and we’ve already—”

  Dominic raised a hand to stop him, redirected the attention back to himself by clearing his throat. “Your fears are real and understandable. Everything you said is fair. But I would ask everyone in this room to remember that Wentz is a producer, and right now his product is fear. He’s a lot more careful than it might appear based on what he’s allowing us to see. To my mind, Wentz overplayed his hand tonight. We weren’t as on top of things as we should have been going into this. That lack of foresight has been acknowledged and compensated for. We’re now moving our pieces across the board.”

  “Aggressively,” Melinda added.

  “Aggressively,” Dominic repeated with a decisive nod. “Neither of us wants you to do anything you don’t want to do, but we also both believe that you want to do this and will regret it if you don’t. Yes, we have a tremendous amount riding on the project, but Melinda and I will adjust. Shellter Productions will thrive either way. Is that true for Sloane Alexander?”

  Melinda spoke into her husband’s pause. “We can keep Jolie off set and safe. Removing her from the equation, what is it you’re most worried about?”

  It was a great question and deserved all of Sloane’s thought. But everyone was staring at her expectantly, waiting for her answer as if she already had it.

  When she dug down to the root of it, she had no doubt about the truth. Liam Wentz had her rattled for sure, but it was the trauma of her past experience being smeared by the press that kept drawing the panic like curtains around her.

  Memories were a bludgeon, beating Sloane on the back of her head. Those thoughts had been a constant haunting but were now like hail instead of drizzle.

  People whispering as she walked past them, tittering and pointing, occasionally hurling insults straight to her face. The Lolita That No One Wanted among the worst of them.

  The way she had practically collapsed in on herself, like a dying star and a black hole in the making, refusing to go to school and melting down until her mother finally relented and let her stay home — the last place she wanted her daughter to be if she wasn’t making money.

  How everything about her mother suddenly changed. She made Sloane dye her hair a darker color and hide behind oversized sunglasses, not just in the states, but after they landed in London and she was so much less recognizable. She was living across the pond where people at large didn’t know who Sloane Alexander was, let alone what she looked like. But Mom dragged her around shame-faced, anyway.

  More than anything it was the inescapable pain of hearing and seeing the worst of herself articulated through layers of poisonous snark. Sloane loathed the judgment of others because it exposed the worst of what she already knew about herself. An unforgiving media had forced her to live with her emotions and vulnerabilities on the outside instead of inside her skin.

  “The thing I’m most worried about besides Jolie’s physical safety is her emotional security.” Sloane finally answered. “The gossip was insufferable the first time, but I expected it again and was ready to deal with it. I just didn’t think about how that might affect our daughter.” She glanced at Miles, apologizing with her eyes. “Even if we can protect her from danger, she’ll know these stories. If this movie is as big as we all want it to be, then that right there is a double-edged sword. This will become part of the permanent pop culture lexicon.”

  “She’s right,” Orson said.

  Not that he needed to say anything. All four of them were nodding along.

  “So again, is getting back at Liam Wentz worth it?”

  “This is about a lot more than getting back at him,” Dominic said.

  “It’s about wiping him and his filthy seed from this planet,” added Melinda.

  “But the cops don’t even believe me! They didn’t then and they won’t now. I’m sure Solomon told you all about that little scene down at the accident. They were blaming me for getting run off the road!”

  Melinda maneuvered between Orson and Miles. “You’re right to worry about all of this, Sloane. Doing so helps
us to plot our way out.” She turned to Dominic. “Call Karlson.”

  He replied with a nod, taking out his phone, apparently to dial Karlson, whoever he was.

  Melinda explained. “We have a contact in the LAPD, high up enough to give us a straight answer to whatever we need to know. Give him five minutes.”

  “Karlson,” Dominic said with a nod to the room before slipping out into the hallway to make his call.

  Miles turned to Melinda the second the door closed. “What’s our exit plan?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.” Melinda sounded surprisingly terse to Sloane’s admittedly sensitive ears.

  “Right now, it seems like Wentz is winning. You two are confident that you’ll be able to reverse that trend. Like I said, I’m inclined to believe you. But what happens if you’re wrong and there’s another hard strike that we can’t stop? What then?”

  “As always, we will respond accordingly. I’m not sure it’s constructive to hypothesize about what we should do in scenarios that do not yet exist. Not with our history of adaptive reactions.”

  “You make it sound like science,” Miles said.

  “Isn’t it?” Melinda looked at him.

  The lingering silence was long and uncomfortable, lasting until Dominic’s return a few minutes later. “Good news and bad news,” he said, closing the door.

  He looked around, sensed the unease, then continued.

  “Despite the behavior by our officer friendlies on-scene, Sloane’s vehicle shows evidence of being hit. But the police have zero leads or any idea who it was. There weren’t any cameras on that stretch of road, which might help to prove premeditation, but does nothing in regard to—”

  “What about the last place where there was footage,” Miles interrupted. “Did you ask about that?”

  “Of course he did,” Melinda said.

  “The last camera footage with Sloane’s car shows three possibilities—”

  Orson nodded. “That sounds promising.”

  “An old man, a vehicle full of joyriding teenagers, and a third car that had been reported stolen. “

  Orson said, “Definitely that one.”

  “If it was one of those three and no one turned onto the road on a blind spot after, it was very likely the stolen car.”

  “And I’m guessing there’s no sign of the stolen car now?” Orson asked.

  “It has not yet been recovered. Our friend is sending units to talk to the other two vehicle owners and promises an update as soon as he learns more, no later than tonight, even if his next update is only that they’re still working on it.” Dominic brightened, then said, “And you’re all clear to go home.”

  “Let me help you,” Orson said.

  Miles already was.

  They helped her out of the hospital bed together. She felt shaky on her feet, but anything was better than staying in that room a minute longer than she had to.

  “I’ll keep Jolie for the night,” Orson offered. “The kids can have a sleepover.”

  Miles nodded his thanks. “I’ll take you home, Sloane.”

  “That sounds perfect.” That was exactly what she needed right now.

  But before they were even in the car, Sloane realized the opposite was true.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sloane

  Miles agitated Sloane the entire way home.

  He wasn’t trying to, exactly, but he sure as hell wasn’t trying not to.

  She and Miles had known one another for a long time. Jolie’s life, plus nine months of pregnancy and three years before that. Friends with benefits who had an oops and wanted to co-raise their little dose of reality. All that history meant Miles knew how to push her buttons. Every. Goddamned. One of them.

  While Miles was a gentleman ninety-percent of the time, he had a sommelier level of dexterity with the full galley of varietals in mood. One of her least favorites, and the one he was in now, was having something to say and not saying it. No matter how many Are you sure there isn’t something you’d like to talk about?s she tried, he would rebuff every one until he was finally ready to blow his top.

  It was exhausting, and infuriating, and now of all times she deserved something better.

  Sloane didn’t even bother to ask him what was wrong. Instead, she took mental notes. His white knuckles on the steering wheel. His clenched and twitching jaw. His insistence on a silent cabin, even though anything but the quiet would work to twerk his mood.

  There was something Miles wasn’t saying, and as much as Sloane wanted to ignore it, she was getting increasingly pissed off.

  He pulled into the driveway, killed the engine, then turned to her. “Hold on. I’ll help you out.”

  Perfectly nice, but his jaw was still twitching.

  He walked around to open her door. After helping her out, he walked her into the house. She didn’t want to need his help, but she felt bruised and beaten and downright exhausted. Leaning on him felt nice. It just would have felt better if he wasn’t throttling whatever it was he wanted to talk about and pretending the top wouldn’t pop on that bottle eventually. Sooner rather than later given the urgency of their life right now.

  He helped her to bathroom, then waited outside while she eliminated.

  Then he put her to bed and covered her up.

  Sloane’s animosity melted away. Miles was a perfect gentleman ninety percent of the time, so why couldn’t that be good enough? He was trying to protect her by not saying whatever he had on his mind. He didn’t want to fight, not when she needed to heal. Problem was, the argument always happened anyway.

  And yet, if Sloane understood that, then couldn’t she avoid the battle altogether? She’d already done a great job of ignoring his mood instead of falling for the bait like she usually did.

  She could let him be tender. Put away her feelings for now. Ease into being taken care of.

  Just like she needed.

  His phone rang with the Oh, mama mia, mama mia part of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” He looked at his watch and said, “She must have read something online.”

  Then he left her bedroom and stepped into the hallway to accept a call from his mother.

  Queen fell silent and Sloane heard Miles say hello to his mother in French.

  She tried to listen, but the language was too melodic, and Sloane had only a few hundred words worth of fluency. But Miles was talking to his mom, so even a few clues was enough to tell her most if not all of the story.

  She was probably chewing on a baguette or baking a croissant, depending on what time it was — Sloane had a harder time tracking or caring about the time difference ever since coming to California — while reading on her le iPad when she saw a news alert for American train wreck my son narrowly avoided, but in her words, of course.

  Mére then read the article and wanted to know all the gossip, and thus called her son to lavish him with a concern that he pretended to loathe but in truth loved to the point that he didn’t know how to live without it. The longer she listened, the heavier her eyelids became.

  Elle n’est pas une trollop.

  Elle a été chassée de la route!

  Un verre, maman! Vous avez plus que cela avant le deuxième apéritif!

  Sloane was about to drift off entirely when her bedroom door swung open too fast and too loud, instantly waking her.

  She sat up in bed.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to barge in here like that.” His eyes said he meant it. “I didn’t realize how fast I was moving or how much a conversation with my mother would agitate me.”

  “Why would this time be any different?”

  “It’s not always like that,” Miles said.

  “Okay.”

  “She was just checking on me.”

  “On you or me?” Sloane asked.

  “On us.”

  “What about appetizers?”

  “I’m sorry?” He looked back at her, confused.

  “You said something about ‘deluxe appetizers.’”

  H
e laughed. “I think you mean, ‘avant le deuxième apéritif.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Before the second appetizer. I was telling my mother that you had less to drink before getting behind the wheel than she does before the second appetizer.”

  “So you were defending me?”

  “I always defend you, chérie.”

  “It doesn’t always sound like it,” Sloane said, not knowing if she was picking a fight or not, or if she wanted Miles to go. So much of her wanted him to stay, at least until she could see Jolie again.

  “That’s not fair.”

  She shook her head. “This is one of my least favorite conversations in the world. So can we please just not, right now?”

  “Of course.” But then he added, “She doesn’t hate you.”

  “Okay.”

  A long silence lingered between them.

  “I’m fine if you want to go,” Sloane said.

  “I can stay.”

  “Really. It’s fine.”

  He opened his mouth, paused for a long moment, then finally said what was on his mind. “So, are things serious with you and Beck?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “Sure. Before your romantic-sounding dinner and the accident that brought him to your bedside.”

  “Are you seriously jealous that he was at the hospital?”

  “Not even a little bit.” Miles shook his head. “But I do have some concerns.”

  “About Orson?”

  “About all of this.”

  “All of what, Miles?” Dammit. Now she wanted him to go. “And why do you always do this? We could have talked about whatever this is on our way to the car. Or in the car. Or at any point other than when you had to hop on the phone with Le Mama to defend me! So yay, we’re finally talking. What is it that has you grinding your teeth?”