Page 67 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

She lets out a whimper. ‘I don’t want to say. It’s humiliating.’

I pull up a chair on the other side of her. ‘Agnes, please tell us. Let us help you.’

Agnes wipes her nose. ‘It’s too horrible,’ she says.

‘What is?’

She takes a deep, shaky breath. ‘I thought we’d moved on from this sort of thing. As like, an industry and as a place,’ she says eventually.

Oh no.

No.

It was her audition today.

Please no.

‘The producer?’ I say and Agnes nods. ‘What did he do?’

She looks at me, eyes full of shame.

‘I really thought he was interested in my tape. In me,’ she says sadly. ‘But they’re still doing it. They’re still getting away with it.’

‘Tell us,’ Antoinette says, so quietly I can barely hear her.

‘It was just us,’ Agnes says. ‘At his house. At the brunch. No other actors. And I shouldn’t have been so stupid. I should’ve known something wasn’t right because who even does that? Who willingly goes into a house with a man, alone?’ She looks at me again. ‘What was the fucking point of #MeToo if it’s still happening?’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I say. ‘Whatever he did, Agnes, it’s not your fault.’

‘It is,’ she sniffs. ‘I was stupid and naive.’

‘No,’ says Antoinette. ‘Did he—?’

Agnes shakes her head vehemently. ‘No, but he touched me. He groped my boobs. Put his hand up my top and tried to kiss me, tried to touch me under my skirt. It was horrible, his hands were everywhere and I didn’t think he was going to stop.’ She lets out an anguished wail. ‘And he made it clear that if I sucked his dick he’d give me a role in a movie. And that if I didn’t, he’d make sure I never ever got a role. He said he would make sure I ended back at home with my parents and that he’d get me kicked out of school.’ She takes another deep and shuddering breath. ‘I tried to run out but he’d locked the door and I just started crying and crying. He just laughed at me. Told me not to be such a pathetic baby. Then he unlocked the door. He didn’t say another word to me. Didn’t even look at me.’ She sniffs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. ‘He’ll tell my agent some fucked-up version of events and that will be that. No one will touch me.’

‘Oh, Agnes!’ Antoinette pulls her closer into her chest and lets her cry it out.

That piece of shit.

That fucking piece of shit.

Antoinette locks eyes with me. Her expression is cold as steel. I know exactly what she’s thinking. And I’m thinking it too.

There’s no way we’re going to let Richard Stone get away with this.

We walk Agnes back over to the guesthouse after she’s calmed down a bit. She’s told us that she doesn’t want to go to the police, that she doesn’t see the point.

‘It’s his word against mine,’ she’d said miserably. ‘And who’s going to believe me, a nobody, over one of the biggest producers in Hollywood? He’s obviously got away with it before.’

And she’s right.

But there’s another type of justice heading Richard Stone’s way.

‘Thanks, you two,’ she says to me and Antoinette. ‘I think I just want to go to sleep now. I want to forget about today.’

‘I’ll stay with you?’ Antoinette says but Agnes just gives a little shake of her head.

‘I just want to sleep.’