Hollywood's Secret Baby

Although Joan’s argument is sound, she might as well be telling a fish to fly.

“I don’t know if I’m the right one for the job.”

Joan lets go of my wrist. She looks to her right once more at the twinkling light of the moon beams refracting off the water. Then back in the direction of Cory’s soon-to-be-old house. “He brought you here. Which means you’re the only one for the job.” She hands the bag of crackers and Pedialyte over to me. “Tell Lizzie I hope she feels better.”

We then walk back up the beach and we part ways on Cory’s lawn. “Thank you for everything,” I say. “You know, I didn’t like you either when we first met, but it’s more because I was jealous of your waist.”

“Anyone can have a waist like mine. There’s only one Cory Flint to go around.”

Back at the house, the party’s still roaring, but I’m not in the mood for small talk and drinks and finger food. All I want is to curl up next to Lizzie. Once I’m up the stairs, turning the corner where I’m out of sight of any guest, I allow my shoulders to relax. I step into the bedroom, already slipping out of my insufferable shoes, when I realize that Lizzie and I are not alone.

Kneeling beside the bed, Lizzie’s hair draped in his palm, his nose inhaling her strawberry-scented shampoo, is Jeb Eli.

Chapter 24

“Where’s the script?”

Cory squints at the sudden onslaught of light as I barge into the second bedroom where I left him the night before.

“A little quieter if you don’t want my brain to pour out my ears.”

“Where’s the script?” I ask again, neither softer nor slower. I’m bursting with the same nervous energy that kept me up into the night after the party had cleared out.

After I caught Jeb, he didn’t show the slightest hint of remorse or panic. I remember how slowly he stood. How he let my sleeping daughter’s hair fall from his grip with tremendous slowness and control. How he approached me, stopping so that his breath was hot on my neck.

“Hollywood is no place for such an innocent look,” he said.

Then he was gone back down the stairs, assimilated into the clinking of glasses and the tinkling of laughter at legendary stories being shared by legendary people.

And I didn’t stop him. Didn’t say a word. The moment he was gone, all I could do was lunge at Lizzie and make sure that she was all right. Which meant confirming that she was really asleep, not drugged, and that Jeb hadn’t done anything else to her while I was away. My stomach turns inside out even as I lift the blanket to confirm that all of her clothes are still in place.

Then I crash onto the floor beside her and whimper, only retreating to the on-suite bathroom when my sobs caused Lizzie to

roll about in her sleep.

Sitting on the bathroom tile, the door cracked open so I could keep an eye on my daughter, I told myself that I’d been still long enough. Without considering the repercussions, I pulled out my phone and logged onto my social media. And over the next hour, I wrote and rewrote and wrote all over again a concise post about Jeb Eli and his actions.

After I hit the ‘Post’ button, gravity released its extra-strong grip it’s had on me since I found Jeb in her room. I was still weighted down, but now I could at least breathe again. I hadn’t done much, but I wasn’t staying quiet like others have. My post might wallow in the ether, or it might get set Jeb’s sights on me, but I’ve done what I can for now.

But when I stood and washed my face, I stared into my own green eyes. There was one other thing I could do. Something Joan had said spurred me on to stay away through the night reading all about acting tips and experiences. I even finished the audition DVDs Cory left out for me nights ago. But what I couldn’t find is the script.

Which is what has me shaking Cory awake the moment the first rays lift the veil of the long night I’ve had.

Cory reaches for his phone, but when he pulls it out, it’s dead. He then goes for his watch, but he took it off in his drunken stupor the night before, and it’s currently holding a meeting with the dust bunnies behind the headboard.

“What time is it?”

“Six. Which gives me three hours before we head to the studio to rehearse. But I need that script. I thought we left it upstairs, but I’ve looked everywhere—hey! Don’t go back to sleep!”

Cory has covered his head with a pillow in a weak attempt to avoid my furious energy. When I pull the pillow off him, he buries his face in the sheets. “Just leave me alone.”

“Like you left me alone last night to deal with all your guests? Guests like Jeb Eli?”

Cory is awake as fast as a house-cat hearing a tin can opening. “What did he do?”

“Let’s just say that if I hadn’t shown up when I did, there’s no telling what he might have done with our daughter.”

I could have stuck his finger in an electrical socket and had less of a reaction than this statement earns me. Cory shoots off the bed and is grabbing onto my wrist, asking, “What happened?”