The Disappearing Act(70)

After an hour I have three names left on my list. Marla Sinclair, Marla Kaplan, Marla Butler.

Sinclair only has two credits: Woman in Crowd, in a 2011 Christmas rom-com I’ve never heard of, and Communion Girl, in a 2001 slasher movie. Both parts are essentially extra roles so I’m guessing this isn’t Marla.

Marla Kaplan’s credits look more promising. Nine television credits in total, with depressingly two-dimensional character names like: Hot Friend, Vampire Girl, Mila’s au pair, Nude woman, and Girl.

Marla Butler’s credits look plausible too, though in a different way. Most of her credits come from the early 2000s and the character names, such as Young Iris, Young Cassandra, and Cute Girl, indicate she was a child actor then. She clocked up an impressive twenty-six credits before a hiatus in 2012. Then a fresh crop of short film and cameo roles since 2019 brings us up to date with a small role as a hotel receptionist in a recent Bond film. This Marla is slowly starting to get somewhere.

I scour the Internet for photographs of both Kaplan and Butler. I can find a few production stills from Butler’s younger roles but she’s a kid and it’s impossible to tell if it’s actually her. The little girl in these films runs from about five years old to ten.

I find a still of Kaplan from her Vampire movie, her hair highlighted, her features similar to those of other Marlas, but she’s only crouched in profile on the edges of the frame, not the focus of the photograph. It could be my Marla, though.

Either of these women could be.

A thought occurs to me. It might be worth searching Vimeo again, this time for one of the Marlas instead of for Emily.

I tap in Marla Butler’s most recent short film credit, but nothing comes up. I try another title. Again nothing.

Exasperated, I try simply typing in her name. A result appears. It’s a scene from a 2011 teen movie called She’s Got Class.

The names of two actresses in the scene are written in the video’s description box. Amy Rogers plays the lead and Marla Butler is her co-star. This could be her.

I click play. Two sixteen-year-old girls huddled on school bleachers, they’re cold, sleeves pulled down over their hands, cheeks rosy and noses sniffle-y. They discuss a group of characters we don’t know. Marla is brunette, Amy redhead. It’s hard to tell yet. The characters seem close but something has come between them. From their conversation I gather their issue is a boy. Amy is a straight-A student while Marla’s character looks cooler, more complicated. Something Amy says causes Marla to sigh and look off into the distance. I watch as she shuffles out a soft pack of cigarettes from her hoodie and reaches for her lighter. And then she does something that takes my breath away.

Cigarette held loosely between two plump lips, she cups the end from the wind, then flicks her lighter open and on in one smooth roll of the wrist. I sit bolt upright as she flicks it closed. She did the exact same thing on that bench in the sunlight, five days ago, the same reflexive, fluid motion. A movement she must have made a million times throughout her life. It’s her. The teenage girl I’m watching, Marla Butler, is the woman I met at that audition.

I’m up and pacing the apartment living room. What am I supposed to do with this information? I know what I’d like to do, I’d like to fly home and never see any of these people ever again, but I can’t leave LA until after Wednesday. And would I ever forget the ghost of Emily’s voice in that audio recording, asking her attacker to stop? Fighting for her life? Can I forget that? Because try as I might to imagine Emily is still alive, I can’t.

But I also can’t imagine the girl I met a few days ago could be a killer. Even in the footage Lucy showed me, she never looked threatening. But then as Lucy said, she’s clearly very convincing when she needs to be.

Perhaps whatever happened when Emily and Marla last met ended in an accident and Marla didn’t know what else to do but fill the gap Emily left behind?

But then where does that leave me, if that’s true? How far could Marla go to protect her secret? She’s already broken into my apartment, tampered with my car.

My phone rings—it’s Cynthia telling me she’s found me new accommodations starting tomorrow morning until Wednesday. Which means only one more night in this building. One more night in an apartment that Marla has repeatedly broken into. I shudder at the thought, but I know she’s not stupid enough to come back to the building now that I’m onto her.

Of course, I don’t have to stay here tonight. Nick texted me earlier to invite me over for dinner. I didn’t think I’d be hanging around long enough to do that, but it looks like I’m stuck here for a bit longer. I text him back accepting the invite. I could always ask him if I could stay over later if I felt unsafe. I’m sure he has spare rooms or a couch, it’s not like I have to sleep in bed with him in order to stay over. Of course, I realize at some point I am going to have to let him know I’m returning home.

I stare out at LA from my gigantic apartment windows, my eyes finding the tall tombstone letters emblazoned across the Hollywood Hills in the distance. Almost a century ago an actress who missed out on the role of a lifetime went to meet her friends and was found three days later dead, bloated, and unrecognizable in a ravine. Emily Bryant’s face flashes through my mind. Nobody reported the actress who jumped missing either. An unknown female hiker found her. No one had even raised an alarm until then.

Before I can chicken out, I type a text and press send.