“You can be a mess without that man and whatever he’s giving you.”

  “I won’t go down that road. I promise.”

  At last he looks up at the ceiling. Lightly, she touches the skin under his eyes, and even this touch she is grateful for.

  “I’m worried,” he says. “I’ve told myself not to be, but I have to face it. The possibility that . . .” He stops, unable to continue.

  She lowers her hand but says nothing.

  He registers her silence, and keeps going. “I blacked out the night with the coyotes and the shotgun. I don’t drink much, but when I do, that’s happened. So what if I’m just not remembering something? From when she was killed?”

  Frankie glances at the door. They’re alone, and for once she wishes someone would walk in. Would stop him from saying what he’s about to say.

  “It’s like worrying you talked in your sleep,” he continues. “Unless someone’s there to say no, I was beside you the whole night, I was listening, there’s always a chance.”

  All her instincts tell her to keep quiet. To let the rest remain unsaid.

  In the hall, Nico calls for her.

  This is her job.

  Finally, she forces herself to speak. “Jack. I can’t help you if I don’t know what you’re worried about.”

  To this, he smiles sadly. “I tell myself I wouldn’t do something like that, but what if I did?”

  Wondering is not the same thing as believing. This is what she tells herself as she readies for the press conference. He’s nervous because he can’t remember, but that doesn’t mean there’s actually something to remember. Just because you can’t rule something out doesn’t mean it happened.

  Still, his fear lurks in her mind. Even as she places the members of the press into assigned seats—Magda in the front row, Dottie wedged into a corner—it’s there. A pervasive apprehension.

  Are there any leads on the whereabouts of June Finney’s ex, Tank Adams? Have his alibis been verified? Why did you decide to elope? Are you getting any of the casseroles that your fans sent to the studio? What do you eat for dinner? The questions continue, and Jack’s voice begins to slow. Maybe whatever the doctor gave him to wake up is fading, or maybe whatever the doctor gave him to settle down is finally kicking in; it could be anything. All Frankie knows is that he doesn’t have much longer. Which, of course, is when one of the reporters goes off script.

  “Who gets to take June’s place as your love interest in the upcoming pictures?”

  No one says a word. The question has thrown the crowd, jolted them awake. Nico steps forward, arm raised in a signal to Jack that he doesn’t need to answer that.

  For the first time, Jack looks present. He sits up, and the throng of reporters stills. Steadily, he says, “Her body’s barely cold, and you’re asking who gets the part?”

  Pencils hover above pads. Microphones held aloft. Even the grandfather clock in the corner seems to pause longer than usual till it releases one frightful tick.

  Nico steps in front of Jack as if to physically shield him. “He’s saying it’s a little soon.”

  Frankie searches for the reporter in the crowd. The man’s new but undaunted.

  “Reports are already out that Dede Domenico’s taken June Finney’s spot in Moving Up, that Milton Ewing project. Milton’s your friend, right?”

  “Dede’s fifteen,” Jack says. “She’s a child. I don’t do casting, and I only have a cameo in that film. How about a question that has to do with me?”

  Almost under his breath, the man says, “It starts shooting in days, someone must know.”

  Now Jack starts to stand. The table before him wobbles, and Nico reaches for a glass of water before it spills, then quickly whispers something to Jack, whose eyes never leave the reporter. At last, Jack seems to make a decision, and sits.

  But the reporter continues. “All right, then. Can you confirm or deny that two studio staffers were in the crowd outside Grauman’s talking about the necklace and lack of security?”

  With this, Frankie’s heart begins to pound. It feels as though the room is filling with sediment, everything heavy and suffocating.

  Now it’s Nico who faces the man. “What was your name?”

  “Jerry.”

  “Jerry, look, the necklace was stolen, so obviously something went wrong. Thankfully it was insured. But the very nature of eloping is to do it in secret—so the studio was not aware that Ms. Finney would be at the bungalow by herself, or arrangements would’ve been made. But, being in love and happy, June didn’t see the danger. Are you going to fault her for that, Jerry?”

  The twist is artful, and the shamer shamed. Jerry looks rattled as he sits back down, but Frankie’s pulse won’t settle, because this means her words about lack of security were heard at the premiere, and with this, she understands there is a very good chance that she’s the one who set everything in motion.

  Chapter 17

  This Is What It’s Come To

  Saturday, March 4, 1933

  After. That’s how Frankie thinks of it; they are in the after, the time without June in the world, a time that has changed drastically from the golden before. Or maybe the delineation was the dread she saw in Jack’s eyes, because for him to so much as entertain the idea that he’d be capable of hurting June has rattled Frankie and made her wish for the days of innocent certainty. Again, she hears his voice: You have to let me be a mess. Even that goes against her instincts, because all she wants to do is mend the tear, and yet she can’t.

  Though it’s Saturday, both she and Nico are in the office. The one time she brings up the reporter, Jerry, and what he said, Nico tells her not to worry and promptly picks up the phone to make a call, swiveling his chair to face the window, an indication he wants privacy. Through the glass, she catches a studio gardener pause while mowing the lawn, a narrow path of light-green cut grass behind him. He lowers his head, then takes another step before stopping once more. Stooped over, he puts his hands on his knees, a reddened patch of exposed skin on the back of his neck. Frankie’s seen this before; the man is about to pass out. In seconds she’s at the window, her hand on the glass as, beside her, Nico’s forgotten about the phone and is watching as well, the operator’s voice faint yet demanding through the line. At last the man raises his chin and trudges forward.

  Back at her desk, she answers automatically when her phone rings, but is met with silence. She’s about to hang up when she hears the steady intake of breath, and then a slow exhale. And even that is enough, because she’s spent countless hours beside him, listening to him breathe.

  Quietly, she says, “I was just thinking about you. I’ll try to come to you tonight.”

  “Don’t. There are still people outside. I just wanted to hear your voice. Tell me one thing.”

  “A good thing?”

  “Do I need more bad?”

  She glances toward the window. “A man I thought was about to faint didn’t.”

  A small laugh. “So this is what it’s come to.”

  Despite herself, she smiles. His laugh, she’d needed even that.

  On the way home, she stops by the little house—her little house—for the reminder that a better day will come, soon. She’s in the driveway, sitting in her car, when she worries that she shouldn’t be here. It’s as though she’s treading the line between belonging to this place, and not belonging, perched before a future that feels unearned, as if she’s skipped ahead in a book. Tucked in the green, the house is shaded by trees, quiet and peaceful. Fresh white trim against red. A pot of violets on the porch. This, she decides, is what she would show her mother, if she could. Not the spotlights and the cameras and the red carpets but a little house that is just hers, with a line to dry her wash that she never needs to keep an eye on, and a front path that will never be littered with cigarette butts or bottles. Again, she hears Jack’s voice, telling her about the man who jumped, his insistence he could’ve helped. It’s not always about money, she said to him. You break my heart, he replied.

  She never told him about the house. This chance of hers, this correction to her life, to her mother’s life, to everyone like her who’s only thought of treading softly and staying out of the way, whose goals are to not take up much space or cause too much trouble or overstay their welcome. From that to this. A house that is hers and hers alone. She sees herself on the porch, reading a script, or in the window, drawing down the shade at night. This is the salve on a burn, the chance to sit after years of walking. It’s everything she’s worked for, and it disturbs her that she hasn’t mentioned it to Jack, because he is the one she wants to tell everything to, and yet instinct tells her to protect this little house, to build a wall around it in her heart and keep it clear of all the sadness that fills their days.

  And yet the happier she feels about it, the more the omission begins to sting like a lie. When at last she starts the car, she doesn’t look back at the house, as if worried it might not look the same.

  The next morning, there is a moment where everything is as it should be. Then it all floods back. Taking even breaths, she pulls back the covers.

  In the other room, Susan and Virginia have taken books off shelves and emptied drawers, hunting for mementos or anything June related.

  Virginia, cross-legged on the floor, presses a Kleenex to her eyes. “I had those stills. The ones the photographer wasn’t using that I took. Did I throw them away? I wouldn’t do that, would I?”

  Susan shakes her head, and swipes a dustrag along a bare shelf. “You wouldn’t do that.” Then she sees Frankie. She stops, arm still extended. “You can cry. For us, it’s strange, I know, because we didn’t know her really, but you did. And you’re not crying.”

  “I have to go to work. Now. I have to go.”

  Susan eyes the pajama bottoms Frankie’s wearing. “On a Sunday?”

  When the phone rings, Virginia doesn’t bother looking up. “Speak of the devil.”

  It’s Nico, telling her to stay home. “Rest,” he says, and she waits for him to invite her to his house, to be with him and his family. “No dinner tonight either. This is Gabriella’s first death. Angela’s spending all her time with her so she doesn’t have to go through it alone.”

  When Frankie’s mother died, the family who shared the apartment with her had her over to their side for dinner. The parents cried and the children played and looked confused, and though the mother didn’t speak English, she held Frankie’s hand and didn’t let go even as she ate. But it was one meal. Then Frankie returned to her side and an emptiness that never left.

  “That’s good—that she doesn’t have to be alone.”

  There’s silence on the other end as he must hear what she’s not saying. Then he adds, “You could still come over. I didn’t mean you should be alone. I’m just not good company.”

  Which is what she needs to remember; he lost someone he’s known for years, someone he vowed to protect and care for. She wraps the phone cord around her finger, watching the skin turn white. “I’m not alone. I have my roommates.”

  “If you change your mind, you know where we are. Oh, tomorrow, I want you at the station. Be a fly on the wall. I gave Mickey a talking-to on Friday, but I want you listening for whispers, anything to do with Jack.”

  “Nico, I know you said not to worry, but that reporter? Jerry? What he mentioned in the press conference—”

  “He’s not invited back.”

  “It’s true, then?” Off his silence, she adds, “People overheard my comment?”

  “It’s hard to talk now, right? But what he said is nothing crucial.”

  “How could it not be?”

  “Listen to me. If I was in line at a movie and said I forgot to lock my front door, what are the odds that the very person next to me is going to act on that?”

  What are the odds, what are the odds. Over and over, Frankie repeats this in her mind.

  That night, a wind is blowing and everything feels cold. Drafts seep from under the doors and through the windows’ gaps, Los Angeles not equipped for anything close to a real winter. In bed, each time she nears sleep, a chill wakes her with a shiver. When the phone rings, she races to get it, her bare feet hitting the cold hardwood floor.

  “I can’t sleep,” Jack says.

  “Me either. It’s too cold.”

  “You’re cold? Is your radiator not working?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “I’ll get someone to look at it.”

  “Don’t do that. I can figure it out.”

  “It’s not a weakness to let me take care of you.”

  With a glance over her shoulder, she says quietly, “Not to argue the point, but I think I’m the one taking care of you.”

  A laugh. “True.”

  “Why can’t you sleep?”

  “Well, there are the obvious reasons, but it’s too windy. I don’t like the sound. And I haven’t taken anything.”

  “Good. Don’t.”

  There is a pause, and he says, “You don’t have to talk, but will you stay on the phone with me? I’ll pay for it.”

  Frankie listens for her roommates. “Sure.”

  Curled into a curved green club chair, she holds the phone against her ear. And the strange thing is, it doesn’t feel strange to sit with him like this. Saying nothing, just knowing he’s there. The sound of his breathing. The steady rhythm. In her mind, she sees him in bed, the way he likes to have one arm thrown out across the mattress, palm up. After a while, his breathing slows, becoming softer. And when she wakes in the morning, the phone beside her is in its cradle—one of her roommates must have found her—and her back is sore from having slept in a chair, but it’s the most she’s slept since this began.

  Chapter 18

  Mountains Made of Clouds

  Monday, March 6, 1933

  Mist burns off fast, the week in a hurry to start. The police station is a two-story building, with stone on the bottom floor and brick on the top, as if the building itself has grown and shifted alongside the Los Angeles population. Palm trees flank either side, and a flagpole is off to the right, missing its flag. Frankie parks on the side street, in front of houses that are small but tidy. Before one of them, a man with a camera leads a pony up the path to a front door. Nico has a photo from one of these photographers, one that captures his daughter, Gabriella, in Western gear atop a horse with white splotches that look like paint. I tried telling her I had an entire make-believe world at her disposal, Nico explained, but the sight of a pony at her front door was irresistible.

  Inside the station, there is noise. Phones ringing, shoes squeaking on the floor, and voices, so many voices. The station’s switchboard—rows of operators concentrated on black panels with toggles and switches and cords—is off to the side. Through another door is reception, and a hall that leads to the interrogation rooms. Pass reception, Nico said. Don’t even look at them. Straight to the bullpen. Act like you know where you’re going, and they won’t stop you.

  Doing as told, Frankie doesn’t even pause. She goes straight through the door on the right and into a large bullpen with detectives at their desks, cops crowded around an easel. You’ll always find reporters in a police station, Nico warned her. It’s where they get their scoops. In exchange, they answer phones and even make coffee.

  And there, sitting on the corner of a desk, wearing a red dress as if determined to be seen, is Dottie. Frankie turns to the wall beside her, pretending to study a map of Los Angeles. Is Dottie here because it’s something she does, or is she here to follow up on a hunch? We gotta get Jack away from her before he kills her. What Nico said the night of the premiere. Did Dottie hear?

  Keeping her back to the bullpen, Frankie edges along the wall, pretending to be interested in whatever’s pinned to bulletin boards while listening in on the conversations closest. Then there’s the smell of coffee, and Frankie hears the clatter of a spoon against ceramic.

  “I know you,” a man says. “The writer. The one whose friend drove like a bat out of hell to that movie.”

  Frankie turns. A cop stirs a cup of coffee behind her. It’s the officer they met outside the theatre, the man with no love for Hollywood, the perfect person to get the scoop from. If anyone’s going to reveal the rumors or suspicion, it’s someone not in the studio’s pocket.

  “I thought that was you,” Frankie says. With a glance over her shoulder, she confirms that Dottie’s still on the corner of the desk, and is actually now on the phone. “My article took a turn. Ever since the star of that movie died.”

  He gives a low whistle. “It’s all anybody’s talking about. She was young.”

  “Hollywood’s taking a toll on young actresses.”

  “You’re telling me. And her sister’s calling here every ten minutes. What are you doing? Are you trying to solve this? Bet that actress got herself into something. The number of times I’ve broken up parties and seen starlets making fools of themselves, it’s shameful.”

  Frankie keeps her voice steady. “But June Finney was killed in a robbery, right? She didn’t bring that on herself.”

  “Wearing a necklace like that?” He takes off his hat to scratch his head, and his forehead shines under the lights. “You bet she did. Someone followed her home because they saw her flaunting diamonds. That’s the truth of it.”

  “Or,” Frankie forces herself to say, “because they overheard someone say there was no security following her home?”

  Now he laughs. “Someone said that? That wasn’t smart.”

  A wash of embarrassment—but then relief, because this was news to him, and Frankie wants to believe that’s because it’s not part of any of the working theories. If the police don’t think it’s important that someone said what she did, then she can let it go and try to find out what’s being said about Jack, the real reason for her visit. “She was the fiancée of the costar. Jack Sawyer?”

  But the man doesn’t react to Jack’s name. Absentmindedly, he takes the spoon from his mug and sets it on the desk beside him, on top of a newspaper. Coffee seeps and spreads, darkening the print. “I don’t follow all that gossip. Though I did hear about the ex, a real creep.”