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I don’t have milk in my fridge. Someone deliberately brought milk here to do this.
And they wrote all over my walls with what looks like every lipstick I own.Whore. Bitch. Slut.The trifecta of the worst things a woman can be, according to far too many assholes in this world.
An officer clears his throat to get my attention. “Does anything of value appear to be missing?”
My jewelry box appears to be gone, and while I had a lot of nice, expensive stuff, none of it’s sentimental. Only trinkets, given to me by wealthy partners that I set aside in case I needed to pawn one day.
We go back down to the office so I can check on my passport. It’s there. In pieces.
My life is in pieces. I’m not sure how this can get any worse.
“Do you have any enemies, Miss Foley?” the officer asks politely.
I laugh. For a moment, I’m afraid I won’t stop.
The other officer, who has been quietly judging me the whole time, nudges his partner. “She’s from one of those trashy reality TV shows. Might as well add the entire cast and crew to the suspect list, along with half the internet.”
The derision in his voice dries up my laughter. “I am a person,” I say, keeping my tone level when I’d love nothing more than to strangle this bastard. “And my house has been broken into and my privacy violated. Have some fucking respect.”
Lea clears her throat. “Maybe one of Kate Van Sandt’s more disturbed fans is responsible. A bunch of them were camped outside last week. I believe a call was made to the police and nothing was done about it.”
Our words do nothing to improve the situation. If anything, the officers get shittier and they make me jump through about ten million hoops before I can leave. And I have to leave. My house is uninhabitable.
“You can stay with me,” Lea says when we walk back to her car. I’ve managed to fill a box with things that miraculously survived the carnage, and I cling to it.
Lea’s apartment is too small and I don’t want to burden her. “I can stay with my cousin.” I hope. Lauren’s staying at Timothy’s house and the security is better. Not that I’m going to feel safe anywhere anytime soon.
Chapter thirty
Gabe
ThepresstourforThe Last Best Manis an unmitigated slow-rolling disaster. When all these professionals talk about their worst junket experiences, this one is going to top the list. Every interview is awkward and stilted, from New York to London to Tokyo. Even Kate’s smiles can’t save this cursed tour.
I’m jetlagged. I can’t get comfortable, can’t focus, can’t make sense of what happened. Every time a minute ticks by, everything shifts.
Ashley betrayed me and hired that asshole to get photos of us so I’d have no choice but to make our relationship public.
Ashley had nothing to do with it.
Ashley forced me to choose, and I chose wrong.
I chose right.
Back and forth, every minute of every hour of every goddamn day.
I miss her. That’s the constant. I don’t know if her open vulnerability with me was real or an act, I don’t know if she really loved me, but fuck, my life is empty without her.
Rose makes me tell her everything I told Ashley, so she can be prepared. She’s warned me every day that goes by without Ashley spilling everything to the press and raining vengeance upon me is a day I should be thankful.
I desperately want to believe she wouldn’t do that to me, but I don’t know.
Any relief I feel arriving home disappears under the crushing weight of Michael’s expectations when I walk through the door.
He’s been dead for ten years, but I still feel like that fourteen-year-old boy, caught stealing his watch.
Ash’s ghost is here, too, tempting me with memories of her body, warm and ready in my bed. The fear and determination in her eyes while I taught her to float in my pool. Her laugh as she sat on my kitchen counter in my shirt.
Immediately I escape outside, down the wide paved path to a pair of sun loungers. With the ocean in front of me and the house behind me, out of sight, I can breathe again. I call David and ask him to find me a short-term lease for an apartment closer to the studio.
