Finding Forever (45 page)

“Sounds good,” Holden said, keeping his eyes on the freeway ahead. “That way, if he gets mad, or the publicist stops the interview, at least we got something from him on tape.”

“Just remember that no matter what happens, don't stop recording.”

Holden pulled into the palm-lined driveway of the Beverly Hilton a little after four thirty, a half hour before her interview with Evan. Brooklyn had only seen the legendary hotel when watching the Golden Globes on TV.

A uniformed valet attendant opened the passenger door for Brooklyn. Careful not to create a wardrobe malfunction for the paparazzi lurking on the sidewalk, she gingerly stepped out of the car. A woman in a white blouse and black pantsuit wearing a headset approached her.

“Brooklyn Brant?” The woman checked her clipboard. “
Deadline Diaries
?”

Brooklyn pushed her scrunched-up dress down into place and extended her hand. “That's me!”

“Mallory Barrie,” the woman said, shaking hands. “Happy to have you cover our event tonight. You might be the youngest reporter I've ever had on a red carpet. How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” she said, “and a half.”

Brooklyn looked over at Holden, who had a camera bag slung over his shoulder and was pulling a tripod from the trunk of his car.

“Is that your shooter?” Mallory asked.

“Yes, that's Holden.”

“My assistant will set him up at your position on the rope line,” Mallory said. “You're in the first online slot, just behind
E! News
and
Access Hollywood
. While he's setting up on the red carpet, I'll take you up to the room for your sit-down.”

Brooklyn tilted her head. “But, uh, I need Holden to shoot my interview.”

“Sorry,” Mallory said. “I've been ordered that cameras are restricted to the carpet only. I apologize that this wasn't made more clear. Your interview will be for print only.”

Brooklyn pursed her lips. “Fine.” She turned to Holden. “Meet you later on the carpet, Holden.”

“Come with me, Ms. Brant.” Brooklyn followed the publicist into the hotel, across the marble floor of the bustling lobby to the bank of elevators.

“We've been keeping it under wraps, but Evan is being honored tonight,” Mallory explained as they waited for the next lift. “He's receiving the Young Leader award. As you know, he's had his run-ins with the law and credits the legal system for helping to get him scared straight. He will be giving a very moving speech. It's going to be a special night.”

Brooklyn followed her into the empty elevator. Mallory barked into her headset, “We're coming up.”

“I have to ask,” Brooklyn said as the door closed, “did Evan personally approve my interview with him? Does he know that
Deadline Diaries
is interviewing him? This isn't something I would normally do.”

Mallory beamed. “Sweetie, not only did he approve, but he personally requested that you interview him. In fact, you're his only one-on-one. He isn't even walking the red carpet. This is his only media interview tonight.”

“And his first since rehab.”

“Oh yes. About that . . .” The doors spread open to the seventh floor. They both stepped out. “No personal questions. We'd like to keep the interview focused on the event.”

“My job as a journalist is to ask. His job as the subject is to decide whether or not to answer.” Brooklyn had never agreed to any restrictions before and wasn't about to agree to any now. “That's only fair.”

“Ms. Brant,” Mallory said. “I'm just a volunteer for this non-profit and I am telling you what the organizers told me. Just, please, keep it professional.”

A credible journalist never agrees to ground rules.

Mallory led Brooklyn to the very end of the hall to a set of double doors guarded by a hulking man in a dark suit and sunglasses. The guard's arms were nearly as wide as Brooklyn's torso, which he scanned head to toe, leering at her low-cut dress to the point where she felt uncomfortable.

Brooklyn cleared her throat. “Can I help you?” The guard looked familiar to her, like one of those WWE wrestlers. But everyone in L.A. looked like someone. “Brooklyn Brant.”

“She's cleared,” Mallory assured the guard.

The guard nodded and inserted a card key into the entry slot. He swiped it back out and pushed the door open. “He's ready for you. You've got five minutes.”

As Brooklyn crossed through the entry, the guard stuck out
his arm, blocking Mallory from following her inside. “One on one,” he grumbled. “Not two on one.”

The heavy hotel door closed behind her and Brooklyn stood alone in the suite. The shades were drawn, but floor lamps and a crystal chandelier brightened the room. The suite bent into an L shape to the right.

Brooklyn peeked her head around the corner. “Hello?”

“Coming!” a male voice sounded from the bedroom.

Four vases. Four chairs in the corner of the suite. Four side tables. 5:04 p.m.
Brooklyn stopped herself. She didn't want the Fourmation to distract her from what was the most important interview of her career. She wanted to prove to herself that she could be normal, a professional.

Focus.
She sucked in a deep breath and recited a silent prayer.

Evan appeared from the bedroom in a perfectly tailored tux—shorter than he looked in pictures and thinner than she'd ever seen him. She noticed dark circles under his eyes and his skin had the pastiness of someone who had not seen much sun.

“
The
Brooklyn Brant?” he joked with a smile.

“
The
Evan Ryan?” she joked back.

“How about we do this on the balcony? It's private.” He spoke in a blunt monotone, as if he had just woken up from a nap. “Please, let's step outside.”

He opened the sliding glass door and stepped onto the balcony overlooking downtown Beverly Hills. She sat in the chair beside him.

“
Deadline Diaries
is a very good website,” Evan said. “You've got a good reputation in Hollywood. You should know that. And thanks for always being fair to me.”

“I try to be fair to everyone,” Brooklyn replied. “Or at least I try my best.”

Evan stared off into the hazy distance. “I have one ground rule—”

“Don't worry. I'm aware I shouldn't ask any personal questions, but like I told Mallory, I have to ask what I have to ask. You can answer as you wish. I just can't ethically agree to do an interview under that kind of restriction.”

“We're not doing an interview,” he sighed. “That's definitely not happening.”

“Then why am I even here?”

Evan reached back for the glass door and closed it.

“We are talking.” His voice, his expression, his posture turned stiff. “Privately.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “This all has to be off the record.”

Her creep-o-meter on alert, Brooklyn slid her finger over her phone screen, unlocking it. Just in case she needed to make a call for help.

“How's Taylor doing?” she said, instantly abandoning her strategy of buttering him up.

Evan leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. “Good question. But your question assumes I really know how she is doing.”

“That's because I think you do. You guys were pretty close there for a while. Logic would tell me you have to know something.”

He laughed. “Oh, really. Okay, let me ask you a question. Have you ever lied?”

“Of course.”

“And it probably makes you feel bad?”

“Let's just say there's no guilt like Catholic guilt. Sunday school every week from the time I was in kindergarten. And Catholic school until my freshman year. So, yes, lying is a sin and I don't ever feel good about it.”

“I'm jealous,” Evan said.

“Of my guilt?”

“No, of your faith.”

“I didn't always believe. It's kind of grown with me as I've gotten older.”

“I don't know what I believe in anymore.” His hands fidgeted. “I mean, all the pain and suffering in the world. All the evil people. All the death. Where is God in all that?”

“He's in all of it,” she said. “The good and the bad.”

“No offense, but I don't want to believe in a God that lets so much evil happen.”

“Well, God said, ‘I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins.'”

“Where did he say that?” Evan asked.

“Isaiah, chapter thirteen,” she said. “Verse eleven.”

“Wow!” He laughed. “Are you like a minister or something?”

“No, just Sunday school every week since kindergarten. And Catholic school, until my freshman year.”

“Maybe that's my problem. While you were reading the Bible, I was reading scripts. While you were praying, I was memorizing lines. Now look at me. I'm lost. I've turned into the kind of person I would never have wanted to be by the time I was this age. I'm tired.”

Brooklyn cocked her head. “What are you tired of?”

Evan focused his bloodshot eyes on her. “Tired of keeping secrets, of lying. Tired of people getting hurt.” He stood and leaned his chest against the balcony's metal railing. “The truth is the only solution.”

Brooklyn gripped her phone.

“This is not a game,” he continued. “This is not about make-believe, not about Hollywood gossip. This is real—life and death.”

“I don't understand.”

“I was sent here to lie. I was sent here to lie in my speech to all those cops, all the media. I was sent here to lie to you,
Brooklyn. I'm supposed to tell you that Taylor is doing just great, that she's getting better and closer to making a comeback so that you will write a story about it and spread their lies.” He looked down at the sidewalk. “And I've been told that if I don't lie to you, there will be consequences.”

She swallowed. “You can tell me the truth. I will protect you. It's okay.”

Evan stepped away from the railing. “Before I came here today, they reminded me that Whitney Houston died in this hotel. The story is that she was an addict and drowned in the bathtub in Room 434. They found pills in her room. The police called it ‘an accident.'”

He leaned in closer to her ear and whispered, “They also said Michael Jackson's death was an accident. But nothing with these people is ever an accident.”

Brooklyn sat rigid, at full attention.

“You know that guard out there?” Evan said. “He has a gun. I don't know what he will do with it, what so-called accident could happen. And I can't promise you what will happen to Taylor if I say the wrong thing. Time is running out. Any day now, after they're done using her, they will hurt her, just like they did me. Do you understand?”

“Are you saying you know who has Taylor? You know what rehab she's in?” Brooklyn asked.

He nodded yes.

“Is it Kensington?”

His eyes darted back through the glass door and he nodded. “How did you know?”

“I know quite a bit,” she bluffed. “Is she okay?”

He slowly shook his head and looked down. “They call it ‘Deletion.' If you resist, they fry your brain, so you'll submit. And so you'll forget.”

“Forget what?”

“Your past self.”

Brooklyn leaned in closer. “If all this is true, why aren't you telling the cops? There's probably a hundred police downstairs in that ballroom right now. Certainly, they could save her—and arrest the people responsible.”

“Because the cops are in on it, Brooklyn. They're all bought off. That's how he's able to recruit so many celebrities. Cops, judges, DAs, publicists, tabloids, prison guards. Anyone who will take his money—bribes, blackmail.” He released a pocket of air. “Brooklyn, it's bigger than just me, and bigger than Taylor. He's been running this cult—and it is definitely a
cult—
in Hollywood for a very long time. He calls it the Program. He claims he's helping people, ridding them of addictions and infusing them with health and wellness and, in his ultimate dream, immortal youth.”

Brooklyn shook her head. “You realize how crazy this all sounds, don't you? I'm not saying you're lying, but honestly, what you're telling me is highly illegal, unethical, and plain evil. I need verifiable proof that a) Taylor is there and b) She is undergoing treatment against her will. I need you to go on the record.”

“I can't go on the record,” he said. “He will destroy me.”

“Sounds like he's already doing that.”

Evan and Brooklyn flinched at the thud of the inside suite door slamming shut. Evan quickly reached into his pocket and stuffed a folded scrap of paper into her hand, shielding them with his tuxedo-clad body. Brooklyn wedged open the top of her dress and placed the paper firmly in her cleavage. The bodyguard yanked open the glass door and barked, “Interview's over. Let's go.” The guard glanced at Evan. “You all done here?”