Finding Forever (12 page)

“Is that all?”

“Well . . .” Simone looked away. “Some Adderall and Oxy.”

Brooklyn had never seen a person do drugs in real life. She stopped typing. “A walking Walgreens!”

Simone hung her head. “I know, I know. And you're probably thinking I'm a totally horrible human being. There was
a whole stash of drugs inside the house when those cops, or whoever they were, came and shut down the party.”

“So this guy, this drug dealer dude or whatever, came to the party, and you had a pharmacy of drugs on you, and that's why you ran?”

“Pretty much. Totally panicked. And by the time I realized what was happening, the guys with the guns had dragged Taylor outside through the gate. I didn't know who to turn to afterward. Except you.” Simone sighed. “Brooklyn, this is literally the entire story. Swear.”

“But why do you think these guys only wanted Taylor?”

“To kidnap her? Hold her for ransom?” Simone asked. “She was the only celeb. I mean, Evan was invited, but he didn't come, and there weren't any other celeb types there. I don't know. Why else would they take her away except maybe for money?”

“If it's for a ransom, it's already been two days and they haven't made any demands. That makes me think this might be about more than money.”

Simone crunched her eyes. “You know, most sixteen-year-old girls I meet aren't anything like you.”

“Blame my parents,” Brooklyn answered. “They let me watch way too much TV as a kid. My friends call me ‘G-ma' for being able to remember every plot line from shows like
Law & Order
and
CSI
. My parents always thought I would end up wanting to be a cop or a lawyer or something. But I picked journalism. That way I still get to solve mysteries, but without the ulcers. Or the guns.”

“What do your parents do?”

“Mom's a lawyer. But not like one of those rich lawyers. She's a public defender.”

“So she defends criminals?”

“
Alleged
criminals.”

“Okay.” Simone fashioned air quotes. “Alleged.”

“She loves it, even though she has to work like fifteen hours a day. And my dad, he was a cop. Twenty-two years on the Twin Oaks Police force.”

“A cop?” Simone's eyes widened. “You're not going to tell
him
about me, are you?”

“I won't be telling him anything.”

“You promise? Because that would be really bad. The cops can't know all that stuff about the drugs.”

“I definitely won't be telling my dad anything.”

“Why?”

“Because he's dead.”

Simone's mouth dropped open.

Brooklyn rubbed Simone's shoulder and got to her feet. “It's okay. This bench is killing me, by the way. Let's go for a walk.”

They stepped off the bleachers and walked over to the Coffee Cartel in a strip mall across the street from campus.

As Brooklyn scrolled through Simone's cell phone pics, Simone fished inside her purse.

“You smoke?” Simone asked. “'Cuz I'm all out.”

“Do you run across the 101 at rush hour?” Brooklyn asked.

“Hell no. I'm not stupid!”

“Exactly my point. You're
not
stupid. You don't want to die! So why do you smoke? Smoking is my least favorite thing that humans do—besides making bad TV shows, bullying vulnerable people, and starting pointless wars.”

“Okay, okay, fine.” Simone tapped her coffee cup on the table and bit the nail of her pinkie finger. “I can't disagree with you. But I still really need a smoke.”

“Why do so many people in Hollywood smoke, anyway?”

“Good question.” Simone pressed her lips together. “I think it starts off as something you do when you're bored at parties. And then it becomes something you do instead of eating. By
the time you've gotten that far into it, it's really hard to stop. You're hooked, addicted. I know this from personal experience. It sucks.”

“Finally! An honest answer from you!”

“Hey, I've been honest,” Simone said with a laugh. “Okay, maybe not at first I wasn't.”

“To say the least.”

Brooklyn knew a Hollywood girl like Simone would never be friends with someone like her. But she was enjoying hanging out with her, despite the circumstances.

“I'm glad you came to me,” Brooklyn said. “I won't disappoint you, and I won't betray your trust. You have my word.”

“I know you won't. It's just that being an assistant to someone as famous as Taylor Prince, you learn pretty quickly that you can't trust everyone, so you end up not trusting anyone at all.”

“I get it. My dad used to always say, ‘Even if your mother says she loves you, check your sources.'”

“About that.” Simone cleared her throat twice. “I'm really sorry about your dad. How old were you when he died?”

“Twelve.”

“Wow, that's super recent. I can't imagine. My parents drive me nuts, but I know I am lucky to have both of them alive. That is just so harsh.”

“Yeah, it was, and it still is. That's life, I guess.”

Brooklyn didn't normally open up so easily to strangers, but having seen Simone in so many photos over the last couple years and following her movements with Taylor on Instagram, she seemed familiar, almost like a friend.

Still, Brooklyn didn't tell Simone how she spent six months in a near-catatonic state after her father's death. She didn't reveal that she could barely get off the couch, where she would spend days watching TV and movies and napping and crying. And then crying some more.

During her couch potato period, she rented the movie
Girl on the Verge
, starring Taylor Prince. Brooklyn had a big-time girl crush, her first ever, and she decided that her purpose in life was to obsessively track every move of Taylor Prince and then share the news with other fans on a website. Starting
DeadlineDiaries.com
knocked Brooklyn out of her father-grieving funk while also making her realize she wanted to be an entertainment journalist.

But per her lawyerly usual self, Brooklyn's mother pointed out the holes in her career choice.

“Brooklyn, real journalists can't just write about what they want when they want,” her mother lectured. “They get assigned stories and are given actual deadlines. You can't even get your math homework handed in on time.”

The next day Brooklyn borrowed her mom's credit card and plunked down $12.99 to register “
DeadlineDiaries.com
,” and some four years later, Brooklyn had met self-imposed deadlines every day and expanded her coverage to include all young celebrities, not just Taylor Prince.

Brooklyn swiped her way through a few dozen shots on Simone's phone. Most were of random chicks and dudes posing with girls in tiny dresses. Taylor looked gorgeous in all the pics, wearing bright-red lipstick that matched her red heels.

“So which one of these guys is the drug guy?” Brooklyn asked.

Simone enlarged a pic of Taylor swinging her arm around a good-looking guy with short dark hair. “That's him.”

“You weren't kidding.” Brooklyn leaned in closer to the picture. “He's actually
really
hot. What's his name?”

“I don't know. I met him at a club and he gave me his number. He called himself ‘B.'”

“I guess when you're that hot, a name becomes pretty unimportant.”

“Sad but true.”

“I'm going to need his name,” Brooklyn said. “If he doesn't know where Taylor is, he might know someone who does. Now that we have a picture, Holden can work his magic. I'm gonna text him.”

“And he definitely won't know I'm the source, right?”

“He won't. But be very careful. I don't want to freak you out, but you're the closest person to Taylor and so they might still be looking for you.”

Simone's face went white. She looked out the window at the cars behind them in the parking lot. Range Rover with tinted windows. Random guy sitting alone in a Honda. Soccer mom checking her teeth in the rearview mirror of a minivan.

Brooklyn lowered the brim of her baseball cap to her eyebrows and scanned the perimeter of the strip mall lot. “At this point, until we know where Taylor is and who took her, we have to assume anything is possible.”