The Disappearing Act(47)

But the scenes don’t make it to where I am now. The last page in Joanne’s stack relates to a potential police scene she “acted out” the other night. Whoever organized this pack thought of everything. Well, everything up until the police verifying her ID. I imagine they assumed that after that verification, I would be satisfied. I would stop. But I didn’t.

I wonder if they know I am here. But the only way they could know that is if I’m being watched. I head back to the laptop and flip open the lid. The screen remains lifeless, not even turned on. Then I bend and search under the desk for a camera, but there is nothing except laptop wires. I move on to the bookshelves searching for recording equipment, following my instinct through the living room and into the bedroom.

I check the wardrobes, behind the curtains, under the bed. Stuck to a lamp on the bedside cabinet, I find a photograph. Two women hiking. Emily on the right, and beside her another woman about the same age. A friend perhaps, or a relative. Though why this other woman hasn’t noticed Emily’s disappearance, I do not know. Or perhaps she has noticed? I give the photo a tug and the adhesive putty holding it in place loosens, coming away. I flip the picture over; on the back are the words ME + MARLA. I pocket the photo and keep searching the bedroom. But there’s no filming equipment, no tiny filament camera holes in the paintwork or light fittings. No one is watching.

Whoever hired Joanne probably won’t realize something is amiss until they get the email from Joanne’s agent. I pause. Unless…

I turn on my heels and head for the front door, pulling it open and staring up into the stairwell. No CCTV cameras. I scan the other apartment doors, listening for inhabitants within, but I hear only the low hum of the 101.

I look out toward the street, but the view is shielded by the overhanging trees. There are no windows looking back in this direction. No one is watching. I remind myself that whoever sent Joanne to my apartment two nights ago knows my name, and they know where I live.

Back in the kitchen, I notice rotten fruit in the fruit bowl, obscured by Joanne’s chair earlier, bruised and furred. Perfect spheres of green and white fluff, once apples, or oranges, now just the ghosts of them. Emily hasn’t been here for days.

A shiver runs down my spine as it occurs to me that whatever happened to Emily could now very easily happen to me.

I cast my eyes around her place one last time, taking in her things, her books, her clothes, her slowly perishing groceries.

And then I see it, next to her laptop, half hidden under an audition script. An iPhone.

Emily’s iPhone.





20


    Proof


SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13

I head back to my apartment taking a deliberately complex route, bending back on myself several times, slowing and changing roads whenever I feel a car too close behind or if I notice one following for more than a block. I’m half expecting someone to swoop in and snatch Emily’s phone and laptop from the seat beside me. I try not to think about the fact that wherever Emily is, she has no phone, no wallet, and no car. I try to shake the thought of the actress who jumped from the sign and her carefully stacked possessions. Her broken lifeless body lying undiscovered in the Hollywood Hills.

At the back of my mind I know my elaborate route home is ultimately useless as whoever hired Joanne already knows where to find me; they sent her to my apartment two nights ago, after all. I texted my address to Emily’s phone. I curse myself for not asking Joanne if she had been the one using Emily’s phone to contact me or if I’d been speaking to someone else via those texts.

Even though they most likely know my address, I’ll still be safer back at the apartment with its CCTV protection and Miguel and Lucy keeping a watch than out here. It would be so easy for someone to carjack me right now, driving down dimly lit roads; they’d leave no trace except my abandoned car. And at this stage I’m under no illusions that my car wouldn’t disappear, too, just like Emily’s. There are no doubts in my mind that given half a chance, LA could swallow me whole in one night.

As I pull into the Ellis Building’s brightly lit porte cochere, I feel the tension in my shoulders release slightly. I catch sight of Miguel wandering over to greet me, and his small talk buoys me as he helps wrangle my long-forgotten gifting-suite bags toward reception. Still, I’m careful to keep one bag in particular close, feeling the reassuring weight of Emily’s things digging the cloth straps of a gifting tote sharply into my shoulder.



* * *



—

Up in the apartment I turn on all the lights and pull the curtains, blocking out the bone-white sign looming in the distance over LA.

I unfurl the cables and plug in Emily’s laptop, laying out her phone, her photo, and Joanne’s padded envelope on the glass coffee table. Then I grab a notebook and pen.

I look down at my stolen goods, a sliver of doubt creeping into my resolve. I remind myself that all I want to do is speed things along. Because once I hand over Emily’s keys to the police tomorrow, it could take them days, weeks, to get the correct permissions to enter her apartment and start to look for her officially. If I can just find something useful to tell or show them tomorrow, then we could be one step closer to finding out what happened to Emily four days ago and where she is now.

But where to start. It’s not like I’ve done this before. I’ve researched a role but never a person. I realize my heart is still racing from the drive back; I need to calm down first. I head to the fridge to grab a quick snack, and crack open a beer to steady my nerves. The vague remembrance that I have the most important screen test of my life on Monday wafts through my mind, but then I still don’t have any scenes to prepare so I’m not technically able to work on it yet. I promise myself that as soon as the scene numbers arrive, I will focus entirely.