“What did she have on you?”
“Me personally? Nothing. My family? A whole bunch of too much. Shit, shit, shit. I’m going to have some really awful wine after all. Give me a second.”
When Missy Lee left the room, Gregory shifted in his seat. “Missy Lee is a fine young woman, a hardworking actress. If you’ve researched her background, as I’m sure you have, you know she’s never been in trouble, gives back not only to her fans but to her community.”
“Did she tell you when Mars approached her?”
He hesitated. “Given the circumstances and Missy Lee’s decision here, I feel I can tell you no, she did not. I regret that, as the circumstances would be markedly different if she had.”
Missy Lee came back in with a juice glass holding a couple thimblefuls of white wine that read yellow.
“Foul,” she said, sitting and taking a wincing sip. “Okay. I’ve been an actor nearly all my life. First gig, I played the baby of a long-suffering character in a daytime drama. I did modeling, toddler gigs, and so on. My parents both supported it. My dad managed me until we all agreed I needed a professional, and someone not so personally attached. But he’s still a big part of my career. My mother isn’t. She’s peripheral.”
Another tiny sip and wince. “My mother has, we’ll say, an issue with a certain illegal substance. She has, after the reboot of rehab, gone for long stretches without a stumble. Then she stumbles. Right now, and for about two years now, she’s been good. It won’t last. I accept that. I accept her. I even love her. She’s my mother.”
Pausing, she took another sip, grimaced. “Every time she reboots, my father absolutely believes it’s the last time, and she’ll never stumble again. Maybe she believes it, too. But the point is: He doesn’t just love her, he adores her, and blindly. He adores his girls, as he calls us. Whatever it’s cost, and it’s cost plenty, we’ve kept her issue private. Not just a financial cost, but in every way.”
“Mars found out, threatened to expose that.”
“That, yes, and more. It’s the more I paid her to lock away because part of me wonders, if my mother’s issue came out, it might help end the cycle, one way or the other. I might have paid, for my father’s sake, but I’m not sure.”
“Whose sake then?”
Missy Lee closed her eyes a moment, then opened them. Clear and direct. “Fourteen years ago, my mother stumbled, badly. Badly enough they separated for several months. I wasn’t a big enough name at that time for it to make any real splash in the gossips and tabs. We were living in New L.A. then, and Mom took off with the slug who was supplying her. She was bad enough she cleaned out one of their accounts, and tapped into the one set up for my education, out of my earnings. Later, when she was back, when she was clean and straight again, she told us they’d gone on a South Sea Island binge. Island-hopped, getting high, and living high on her money. Until the money got thinner and she got a little straighter, and he started knocking her around. So she came running home, and Dad took her back.”
She shrugged with that, showing Eve she’d grown used to—and cynical about—her parents’ pattern.
“A couple weeks later, right after she agreed to another round of rehab, she realized she was pregnant.”
“The supplier’s baby?” Eve asked when Missy Lee fell silent.
Shrugging, she sipped again. “Maybe, probably likely, but not for certain, as my parents had consumated her return. My father was adamant the baby was his, refused to so much as consider a paternity test. My mother, being my mother, was fine with that. I didn’t know any of this at the time, or didn’t fully understand, but kids find things out. Kids figure things out.”
Missy Lee frowned down at the thimbleful of wine still in her glass, and for a moment or two—just a moment or two—her voice was young and wistful.
“We had a good run after that. She stayed clean during the pregnancy, ate healthy, stayed healthy. We all probably glowed like suns. I was working pretty steady—I always loved the work—my dad was still managing me. My mother did the domestic thing, decorated, gave parties, ran the house. And that held until Jenny was three. Just a little stumble that time, just a quick adjustment. Another stretch, another stumble. Blah-blah.”
Any trace of the wistful dried up into the cool and flat.
“She’s been clean for almost three years now, so you take the good when you get it. Jenny’s the good. The star, the shine, the everything. I love my mother as much as I can. I’d throw her to the wolves without a second thought to spare Jenny a minute’s grief or shame. She’s my sister, she’s my joy. She’s the world to me.”
“You paid Mars to protect your sister.”
“My family. Jenny first—first, last, and always. My father next—but he’s a big boy. I’d throw him to the wolves, but I’d have a second or third thought first. Jenny? Whatever it takes to keep her safe and happy. Jenny’s a sweet, uncomplicatied, loving kid. She’s beautiful, in and out. Smart, funny, kind.”
A smile flickered on, quick and charming. “When she hit puberty, her head spun around a couple of times, she cried and screamed for about five minutes, then it was finished. I love her more than anything or anyone in the world.”
Now she took a shaky breath. “I can be a hard-assed bitch when I need to be, and there are times you need to be. I know how to protect me and mine from the parasites, the hangers-on, and the leeches. I know how to play the game. Killing this leech, and that’s what Mars was, just didn’t occur to me. I guess my brain doesn’t work that way. If it had, I might have tried to figure out how to do it.”
“Missy Lee.”
Almost indulgently, she patted Gregory’s arm. “I’m being honest here, and it feels, well, fucking righteous. I recognize another hard-assed bitch when she’s looking at me so I’m talking hard-ass to hard-ass. Got me?”
“I do,” Eve said, and felt simple respect.
“I might’ve tried to figure a way, but I didn’t. I paid. It’s just money, and I can make more. I’ve made it all my life, and intend to keep on making it. As long as I paid, she didn’t have a reason to go public. I hated her—and hate’s a weak word for it—but I’m pretty smart. Hell.”
She gestured with the glass and its little skim of yellow wine. “I’m being honest, so I’ll say I’m really pretty damn smart. If my brain had worked around to, hey, rip that damn leech off and stomp her dead, it would’ve worked around to she’s probably more dangerous dead. You’re here, and I’m talking about this, because she’s dead.”