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#StarOfShameThatsMe

“H
OW
do I look?” I ask Valencia.

“Perfect, as always, Vaughn.” she coos. “But”—she’s frowning now—“I think it’s a bad idea. I mean, what if Grace finds out?”

“Grace is at home. Where she’s been for the last three months. I told her not to wait up for me.”

Val nods and hits send on the email. “OK, then here it is. Two access codes to the Black Bash. But don’t say I didn’t warn you tomorrow when this shit hits the fan.”

“Thank you so much.” I check my email and when it comes in, I download both attachments and forward one directly to my date and then turn to go.

“Hey,” Val calls after me.

“What?” I say, still walking towards the studio door. I’m already late since filming went on longer than expected and I just want to get to the party.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I don’t even turn back. “I do, Val. I do.”

I say that with a confidence I don’t feel though. Because while I know what goes on at a Black Bash, I’ve never been the guest of honor before. And tonight, I am.

The drive downtown is stop and go, as is typical on Friday nights, and by the time I get there, it’s nearly ten o’clock.

I pull into the old building’s garage entrance and flash my access code via phone at the man with the scanner. This place is about to be torn down to make room for some trendy new lofts, so I’m sure the Bash organizers figured it was the perfect place for a party.

The location is never the same from year to year. It’s all very hush-hush until after Halloween and then that’s all anyone in Hollywood is talking about—the stars afraid they will be the ones on display that year, and the media excited to get even with celebrities who may have treated them badly.

One person each year is the guest of honor. The epitome of bad behavior. The one person who deserves to be shamed above all others.

And this year it’s me.

That
Buzz
bitch has had it in for me for more than a decade. She blames me for what happened. And no matter how many times I tried to explain myself back then, she never accepted my apology.

Threatening that editor a few months back was probably a big mistake, but it felt good to use my status and power to fuck up her plan of getting an interview out of me.

I drive up to the top level of the parking garage and park the car. Another set of headlights flashes at me from down the row, and I get out and adjust my suit.

Marjorie steps out of her car wearing the houndstooth suit Lauren Bacall made famous in
The Big Sleep
. She eyes me up and down as she approaches. “Looking good, Bogie.” She slips a masquerade mask over her eyes and I do the same.

I smile down at her. “Ready?”

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I’m not sure, but I’m going through with it.”

She wraps her arm in mine and we walk into the party together.

Chapter Twenty-One

#NUNYA

I
T’S
dark and there must be a smoke machine somewhere to add to the eerie effect, but it’s not necessary because this party is creepy as hell. Everyone is dressed up and no one looks familiar. I just hope no one recognizes me until I find Vaughn.

God,
I pray,
please don’t let him be cheating on me. I don’t think I could take it.

With that little prayer I walk forward into the cavernous room. The party is really all six floors of the building, but only the top two have ‘exhibits’.

The exhibits are partitioned off with thick white canvas sheets hanging from the ceiling to make a sort of cubicle. And even though I know that there are things inside the makeshift rooms that I don’t need to see, curiosity gets the better of me and I peek inside. On three sides, each sheet is displaying a looped video of an unlucky actor.

I wander through the crowd, not taking a drink from any of the servers—who are all dressed up as the Invisible Man and that makes everything triple creepy—because I don’t actually trust that the drinks aren’t drugged.

I’m here for one reason only. To find my husband and ask him what the hell is going on.

A curtain opens as I walk past and I catch a glimpse of some nude photos of a famous starlet and the sounds of a sex tape playing. Jesus. So that’s what this is about. The hall of shame. The pictures that couldn’t be posted publicly for fear of being sued? The sex tape someone paid to have scrubbed? Because while I might’ve been depressed for a few weeks this year, I was certainly on top of my celebrity gossip until very recently. I never saw or heard of that sex tape.

I follow the person who came out of the tent-like room right into the next one.

This time it’s a picture of a famous singer with two black eyes and her assailant’s mug shot. So he was arrested? That was never in the news either.

The singer’s music is playing in the background, but her frantic call to 911 is superimposed over it.

I leave the tent, repulsed at how they are invading her privacy. Why is that anyone’s business? Why do people think just because you’re famous that they get to know every detail of your life?

I mean, I get it. It’s wrong for him to hurt her and he deserves to be held accountable. She needs help. But how is this helping her? How is exposing her most private moments helping her?

Suddenly there’s a hum of murmurs circulating through the party. People are leaning in to whisper, all looking at the elevator. I watch with them as the outdated counter over the top of the doors calls out which floor it’s on.

It dings that it’s arrived on six, and then the doors open. A collective gasp goes up from the crowd as Vaughn appears dressed as Humphrey Bogart. On his arm, and clinging far too tightly to my husband, is a blonde woman dressed as Lauren Bacall.

People start muttering
Grace
, around me.

“Grace!” someone calls out. “Why did you let your husband bring you to this?”

I look over to find the voice, but the crowd is far too thick now. People are pouring out of the stairwell, desperately trying to get a glimpse of Vaughn and the woman they think is me.

Vaughn ignores them, as does the woman, and he steps forward. People move aside as he enters the vast room and then he leans down and asks a question of a girl standing close.

She raises her arm and points to a tent behind me.

The whole room looks in that direction.

That tent is made up of thick black curtains. I’m only a few feet away, in fact, so I start walking towards the entrance. An arm darts out to block my way and a large man dressed as a Stormtrooper stops me from entering. “Guests of honor first, bitch. You know the rules.”

OK. I stand my ground, waiting to see what they’ve got behind the curtains about Vaughn.

He steps forward, only a few feet in front of me, his eyes straight ahead.

And then the curtain is pulled back.

Chapter Twenty-Two

#JustReturningTheFavor

H
ER
whimpering fills the room. They’ve got the sound on every speaker. Her sniffles boom out from every corner. But it’s the images onscreen that stop me dead and make my heart want to crack.

Grace. On the floor. Trying her best not to cry as Derek Hauser kicks her in the back. I knew it would be bad, but I honestly never thought they’d show those videos of when she was kidnapped as a teen.

My heart speeds up. My face goes hot. The rage I feel at this moment builds, but then the image shifts and it’s another girl lying on the floor. This one is covered in blood too, but this one is dead.

“He killed her.”

Everyone goes silent as the words echo from the speakers.

“He killed my sister.”

The image switches back to Grace, her nude Twitter pictures up for all to see.

I’m mortified that these scumbags should see my wife in this way.

“He uses women,” the speaker system booms. “All of them. See what he made that poor Daisy Bryndle do?”

The tweets on that account are private. They require a password and no one has ever gotten our passwords. I changed them the day Grace was found to some incomprehensible string of numbers. But the pictures are not protected. If you know the link, you can get the pictures.

The scene flashes to Grace in a Nebraska cornfield, being loaded onto the Life Flight helicopter, bound for Denver.

“It was your fault she was taken again, Vaughn Asher. Your fault she was shot. Your fault she lost that baby.”

Hare dare that bitch mention my wife’s pregnancy. I turn and face the crowd. “Show your face, you bitch. Show your fucking face!”

Amy Stratton steps out of the mass of people and they part for her, just as they parted for me. “Here’s my face. The one you’ve been trying to forget for more than a decade. You killed her and you got away with it because you’re famous. You celebrities all feel entitled. You all live by your own rules. You flash your money and use your status so you don’t have to be accountable. You make me sick.” She walks straight up to me and spits in my face.

I say nothing.

“What, no denial?” she snarls at me.

“You know I didn’t do it. You know that every word you’re saying is a complete fabrication. You’re the sick one. Your sister did not commit suicide—”

“You made her kill herself!”

“She was on drugs, Amy. She was doing some very questionable things.”

“She hired you to be in her movie, and you fucked her over. You ruined her career. You made her kill herself.”

“That’s not what happened and you know it. I told you back then, that’s not what happened.”

“Yeah, you tried to blame her boyfriend—”

“Her boyfriend, are you fucking kidding me? Frankie Miller was thirty years older than her. He was a scumbag who was taking advantage of her.”

“No. He loved her. You’re just mad because he tricked you. And then you threatened him. You threatened to send him to jail.”

I shake my head and look at the crowd, trying to decide if I need to make my case or not. But then I remember who my date is for tonight, and I realize I have no choice. This is it. I have to come clean and whatever happens afterward, so be it.

“Frankie Miller killed DeeDee Cisco ten years ago.”

“You’re a liar,” Amy screams. “He was found not guilty.”

“He was
not
found not guilty, Amy. The charges were dropped. There’s a big difference. And the charges were dropped because…” I look over and find Carey Keefe in the crowd. She’s not dressed up and she’s in front to see my reaction. “Because… Because I—”

I stop talking.

But Carey steps forward. “Because what?” Her face is strained. She’s breathing a little faster than normal, so her heart must be beating fast. She’s nervous.

And I realize that she’s as nervous about the truth as I am. She might have set me up tonight, but it’s only because she never believed me. She’s been trying to convince herself for months that I was lying.

But now that we’re both here, she knows I’m not lying. And she wants me to shut the fuck up.