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CHAPTER 1
TATE
TEN YEARS AGO
“Are you going to throw up?”
I was startled by the blunt question as I stared at the stern-faced casting agent.
What the fuck?
I vigorously shook my head. “No, of course not.”
Sure, this was only my third audition since I’d arrived in LA two weeks ago, but I wasn’t about to blow it by puking on this chance. This chance being the agent in front of me, one Charlene Tilden, a middle-aged woman with silver hair and a blue gaze so pale, it was like staring into the eyes of a ghost.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “You look grey.”
“It’s the lighting.”
I glanced up at the florescent lights that polluted the ceiling.
“Your name again?”
“Tate Aduma.”
“Nice. Your own or a stage name?”
“Mine.”
The one I’d changed before I left home.
Joshua Tate Hanratty was dead and buried.
“Your headshots suck,” Charlene announced in her booming voice. “They don’t do you justice at all. Get better ones if you want to find work in this town.”
“I’ll certainly do that. Thank you, ma’am.”
“And lose the southern accent. The role is for a cop who’s from Chicago. Talk faster.”
“I didn’t know the audition had already started.”
“It has.”
“Okay.”
I guess I had a lot to learn about the movie business.
She glanced at my portfolio and then back at me. I struggled not to flinch or look away.
“It says here you’re twenty. You look older.”
No fucking kidding.
Inside, I felt close to fifty.
The things I’d endured to date were not fit to discuss.
Outside was a different matter.
