Author's Preface
“I don’t recall her, no.”
“She was arrested for breaking into the RedViolet corporate headquarters a week ago. She would’ve come across as a crazy fan, looking for—”
“Dude, this is Hollywood. Do you know how many crazy fans breaking and entering we arrest every year?”
“Okay…can you look her up in your system? Her name is Lacey Cutts. She might have gone by Lacey Kang or Lacey Montego.”
“Do you have a warrant for that information, mister?” There was an amused smirk on the cop’s face. “She’s gone, bro. A week ago? You think we hold little pests like that for an entire week? Day max. She’s gone, bro.”
The police station on Wilcox Avenue was no help.
I’ll drive through The Blade tomorrow, was the last thing Sevan thought before he collapsed into bed long after dark.
And then Rick called.
Staring at the eerie silhouettes made by the travel bags in his tiny studio apartment, Sevan quietly summarized his day for Rick.
“That does mean she knows him, then?” Rick sounded stunned.
But no more stunned than Sevan felt. “I don’t know what it means,” he murmured. “I don’t know if it means anything.”
“Avis. Avis, the singer. So that kid in Miami was actually Avis, the singer? And he does know something about where Lacey is, even though he acted like he didn’t when we were finally face-to-face with him?”
Sevan’s finger traced up the side of his neck. “I don’t know how…when…how she would’ve met this person without either of us meeting him…”
“Yeah, she sure never said anything to me about it,” Rick grumbled. There was a pause. “She don’t even like his music, Sevs. I know that for a fact. You know that one that plays on the radio? ‘Alice, Alice…da, da, da…’ I forget the specific words. The only reason I know Avis apart from all the others is because Lacey makes me change the station whenever somethin’ of his comes on. Him and Justin Beiber.”
“Do you think they met online?” Sevan whispered.
“What, like a datin’ app? No. Lacey would never.”
More silence.
“She ain’ lookin’ for no hookups, Sevs,” Rick added after a moment. “She told us exactly what she’s out there lookin’ for.”
Another moment of quiet.
“Do you suppose they met when they were kids? When you two were separated because you were adopted, and she was still in the foster system?”
“In Nevada?” A chill crept across Sevan’s skin. “No.”
“No? How do you know? She was what…fourteen? And you guys were apart for a good year or so after your mom left you two in the system. If this guy knows her by the last name ‘Kang,’ that makes the most sense anyway, don’t it? Before your dad adopted her and her name changed to Montego. Also before it changed to Cutts.”
No. Lacey had never mentioned anyone from Nevada. She had never mentioned any secret childhood friend who turned into a celebrity singer.
“Maybe they did meet in Nevada as kids. Then got in touch again because she needed a place to stay when she ran off?”
Rick didn’t seem to understand the ridiculous odds of it. The odds that someone like Meikhyel Callisto would associate himself with someone like Lacey, even if they had known each other as kids.
“Well, what. So the other option would be…they met after she ran off. Over there in LA, sometime in the last two months.” The words came out of Rick’s mouth right as the conclusion settled in Sevan’s mind.
Sevan slowly shut his eyes, fingers lifting to comb through the front of his hair. That would mean Lacey had reverted to the surname “Kang” for her LA adventure. Was that supposed to be a slap in the face? Or was she going through one of those phases where she pretended their mother had been a martyr to circumstances and deserved better?
“They have to have met, at least,” Rick went on. “Learned each other’s names. This Avis fellow wouldn’t have thought nothin’ of my Instagram post if he didn’t know Lacey’s name.”
Except Rick had posted pictures of her, too. But where would Meikhyel Callisto have seen Lacey’s face that he would’ve thought anything at all?
A presumably homeless person. And a celebrity.
Sevan turned over and shifted the phone against his face. “Rick, you…you still haven’t gotten a phone call or a job offer?”
“No phone call, no job offer,” Rick confirmed.
Presumably no private number text messages, either, then.
“So that’s how you got this job in LA, huh? Guess he wanted to do you a solid for savin’ his life back there and got his little record company to hire you. It was your name on the motel reservation, so that’s probably how they found you.”
Sevan said nothing. He said nothing about the fact that Meikhyel Callisto had almost certainly had nothing to do with the job offer, or the fact that RedViolet had only hired Sevan to have him sign NDAs, or the fact that this job was actually only a cover for the job the private number had for him.
“I just don’t like this—idea—of her breakin’ into a buildin’,” Rick broke the silence again. “Lacey ain’t like that. And to see some singer she don’t even like?”
Sevan drew his hand uneasily across his face, fingers brushing his scar. “She’s off her meds, Rick,” he whispered.
“Yeah, and she’s crazy when she’s off her meds. But she ain’t some criminal. And she ain’t random-batshit, either.”
Sevan said nothing, but something very strong came to the back of his throat, clawing to come out. A small sliver of the fact that Rick had been refusing to see for years how Lacey’s condition was progressively declining. The fact that Sevan was a buffer wearing thin, between his crazy sister and the rest of the world—that he never stopped bearing caretaking responsibilities simply because Lacey’s spirals were more than her husband could handle by himself.
“I never should’ve let her be institutionalized,” Rick murmured into the phone. As if he didn’t know the true turning point in Lacey’s mental health.
Sevan remembered it clearly. Down to the day. The same day Rick had called him in the afternoon to tell him how the follow-up appointment at the fertility clinic went. “Both of them, Sevs. Both ovaries.” He had breathed into the phone in a way that Sevan knew meant he was trying not to cry. “It’s alright. We’ll get us a doggo.”
I need to find a way to talk to Supernova, Sevan thought when the phone call ended. And he wondered how the person behind the private number intended to make that happen.
* * * *
“Haengbokhae?”
Her voice. The cigarette between two fingers, smoke leaving her lips. She smiled softly as she looked down and saw him. She had his sister’s eyes. But next to nothing of him.
Sevan startled awake to a sound he thought was banging on his apartment door. Adrenaline soaked his body like a wet cloth. It was dark, not a hint of dawn showing in the single window in the unit.
Hane?
No.
No way someone’s banging on my door in the middle of the night, Sevan told himself, eyes just beginning to fall shut again.
And then he heard the murmur of voices outside his unit—just outside his door.
Sevan lifted his head to look at the front door right as the second round of brisk knocking came.
What the hell?
Heart beginning to race again, Sevan got up. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand. Adjusting the pantlegs of his shorts over his thighs, he cautiously approached the door.
Sevan leaned slowly into the door and checked the peephole.
A man. And a woman behind him. Strangers.
“Who’s there?” Sevan called through the door, artificially amping the depth of his voice several notches.
“We’re with RedViolet, Mr. Montego. Could you open up, please?”
What the hell is going on? A million possibilities flashed through Sevan’s mind. Paranoia pooled in the pit of his stomach. Fingers shaking a little, he engaged the safety latch over the door, then cracked the door open a few inches. “Can I see some ID?”
He met two pairs of eyes in the same instant. The man’s—brown, deep, handsome. And the woman’s, only for a fleeting second before she turned away, her phone pressed to her face like she was in the middle of a phone call.
“Farren Delrose,” the man introduced himself in a deep voice. “Security management with RedViolet. Can you please come with me, Mr. Montego?” He held out an employee ID card.
He was big. And though Sevan stood at an above average 5’11” and was hardly skinny himself, this was a man he would walk a wide circle around to avoid a disagreement with. There’s no way they could’ve found out about that private number, right? Sevan swallowed and looked down at the ID card. I haven’t sent anything. I haven’t sent anything, and they can’t prove I intended to.
The ID matched the man’s description of himself. Hesitantly, Sevan disengaged the security latch and allowed the door open a little more.
“Lara’s not answering,” the woman spoke suddenly. She lowered her phone and touched something on the screen.
“So, what’s your call?” The security officer folded his thick arms across his chest and glanced at the woman.
Her bejeweled fingers fidgeted for a moment, purple manicure flashing in the lights of the hallway. “Shit. Shit, we don’t have any good alternatives. This is what Lara would do. Let’s go.” She turned and started abruptly down the hallway. And just as suddenly, she stopped again to glance over her shoulder. “ Today, please, Farren.”
Sevan barely had time to slip into a pair of slide sandals by the door before he was escorted out of his apartment by the arm and led down the hallway after the woman.
“Where are we—Where are we going? What’s going on?” Sevan breathed as they took the elevator down.
“Lara had you sign your NDAs?” the woman checked. Her purple manicure glittered as she swiped on her phone, and she did not look up.
“Y-Yes.”
“Perf.” No further explanation came.
Sevan was taken to a car parked on the curb and pressed into the back seat. The security officer shut the door behind him, then took the driver’s seat.
And then Sevan was clutching the fabric of his pajama shorts with one hand, his phone in his pocket with his other, staring out the window in frozen silence as streetlights passed.
They left downtown. And twenty minutes later, a “Welcome to Beverly Hills” sign went by.