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“That’s her screen name. She obviously wasn’t going to use her real one. She said Missy sounded young and innocent, which is the type of character she was known for. Also it fit with her fake identity, Melissa Mackenzie. That was the name on the social security number she bought for employment documents.”
“She really thought this through, huh?” Jessie said, half-admiringly.
“Like I said, she had a plan. Two years, $250,000. That was her focus.”
“Was she working yesterday?”
“Yeah. She had an early call—six a.m. She was supposed to be there today too.”
“Do you know the name of the company she worked for?”
“She did a lot of fly-by-night stuff for a while. But for the last half dozen movies, she’s been a regular performer for Filthy Films. They’re based here in Van Nuys.”
Lizzie sighed deeply. Jessie could tell the girl was fading.
“Okay,” Jessie said, writing it down. “I’m going to wrap up soon. Just a couple more questions—do you know if she had any obsessive fans? Did she ever mention stalkers or anything like that?”
“If she had any, she didn’t mention them to me. You have to understand, we didn’t really talk about what she did that much. She knew I wasn’t super comfortable with it. And I think she just wanted to put it out of her head once she got home. So I doubt she would have brought up that kind of thing with me unless someone had done something really scary, like come to the apartment. We talked about movies, reality TV, friends from school. It never got too heavy.”
A nurse walked in and, seeing Lizzie awake, immediately walked over to check her vitals.
“Am I going to be okay?” the girl asked.
“Yes,” the nurse answered without hesitation. “You don’t have any injuries. The EMTs brought you in because you were in shock. The doctor will do another evaluation. But I imagine you’ll be able to leave in a few hours. Your recovery would be expedited by more rest and fewer disturbances.”
Her last comment was accompanied by a raised eyebrow at Jessie, who had spent enough time recovering in hospitals under the care of protective nurses not to take offense.
“Last question and then I’ll let you rest,” she promised them both. “What do you know about Mick’s father?”
Lizzie got quiet for a second. Clearly she knew something.
“She didn’t talk about him much,” she finally said. “And I only saw him once. He came to school one day at St. Ursula. He was stumbling around campus, really drunk, looking for her. He was calling out her name. You could hear it echo across the quad. The nuns had to call the cops.”
“Did she ever talk about that incident or anything else related to him?”
“She just said that after her mom died, he started drinking a lot and got violent. I know he lives in some cabin in the mountains now and she seemed glad that he wasn’t around.”
The nurse gave an irritated grunt that indicated she was about to make a fuss. Jessie closed her notebook to prove she was done.
“Where will you stay?” she asked the girl. “How can I reach you if I have more questions?”
“My parents live in Thousand Oaks,” Lizzie answered. “I’ll probably crash with them for a while.”
Jessie thought about how nice it must be to have the luxury to fall back on parents who would love and protect you when you were in crisis. It sounded like Michaela hadn’t had that in a long time. Now that Jessie thought about it, neither did Hannah.
Neither did I.
