Page 70 of Wicked Fortune

I look at Clive, then back to Jonah. “Any idea who?”

He shakes his head. “Not a clue. Except …” He trails off, looking to Clive, who nods. “Well, when Clive said you were working at Hardline, I thought I should say something.”

I look between the two of them. “Why?”

Jonah rubs the back of his neck. “So here’s the thing—I’ve been going to the meet-and-greets at Hardline for years now. Got a few guest spots from them, some decent leads, so they’re legit. But …”

He looks down, biting his lip. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m being paranoid.”

Clive nudges him. “Just tell her.”

Jonah draws a deep breath. “Okay, so … like, a year ago, this girl I used to see at every event just stopped showing up.” He shrugs. “No big deal, right? I figured she’d either booked something or decided to give up acting.”

I lean forward. “But that wasn’t the case?”

“No idea. But a few months later, another girl stopped showing, too. The last time I saw her, she told me she’d landed a gig in London. She was totally stoked.”

“What was the gig?” I ask.

“Don’t know. But here’s the thing. My uncle’s from London, and my cousin was getting married, and I was going to be over in London just a few days after she flew over. So I called Hardline’s London office to see if they could get a message to her. Talked to two different folks. Nobody’d heard of her.”

I feel cold all over, but I lean back, determined not to assume the worst right off the bat. “And you’re sure the gig was with Hardline?”

His brow furrows. “I—well, no. But she did tell me she got the gig through one of the meet-and-greets. So I assumed it was a Hardline job. But maybe she met someone who introduced her to someone and on and on.” He looks between me and Clive. “I guess that’s possible,” he says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

Honestly, neither am I.

“And you couldn’t find her at all?”

He shakes his head.

“Did you call the government? Like, whoever keeps track of passports and stuff?”

“I didn’t think of it,” he says. “I guess someone still could. Her name was Tamra Keane.” He spells it out for me, and I type it into my phone. “She lived in Santa Monica and was born in Oklahoma. We had the Okie thing in common.”

For a moment, we’re all silent. Then he draws a breath and says, “There were others, too. Another girl I knew who stopped coming. And this guy I’d see all the time—Todd—we’d have a beer and shoot the breeze. He—well, he killed himself.”

My eyes cut to Clive, whose expression looks as harsh and disturbed as I feel.

“Anything else?” The question comes out in a whisper.

Jonah shakes his head. “I just … sometimes I think I should have called the police, but I didn’t really know anything. Folks give up on acting all the time, you know? Hell, folks give up on LA all the time. It’s expensive as shit out here and breaking into acting is hard. So someone not coming to a party? Not really breaking news, right?”

“Guess not,” I say. “Who officially sponsors the parties? Hardline, right?”

“Yeah. Well, I guess so. The invites come from the Talent Relations department, and⁠—”

“Elias Trent,” I say, thinking about the snippets of conversation I’d overheard between Joel and Matthew.

“Yeah. He didn’t come all the time, but I met him once or twice. And his name was always on the Hardline Christmas card.”

I nod, feeling a little sick at the thought of Matthew in the midst of all this. “So you met him? Trent?”

“Well, you know. A handshake. Welcome to the party, and all that.”

“What’s he like?”

“Don Draper type. It’s not like I got to know him or anything.”