Fade to Black (The Black Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

“Hold on,” I said, trying to wrap my head around this. “Molly has a girlfriend? Why didn’t she tell me? You’re saying that…” Then it was my turn to pause. Molly was definitely off lately, but I blamed the stress and the drugs. “What are you saying? And what about the studios?”

Viola began to explain that Molly had been showing up late, and sometimes not at all. Other times she was so stoned, they would have to shut down for the day. Molly had been replaced recently, because the producers felt she was not fit to work with. The media, of course, was told Molly herself backed out of the film because of other commitments.

“So, in short, no, Molly is not doing good. Roger is getting fed up with her,” Viola said, as she wiggled her feet into her shoes. I could see the businesswoman in her returning now. Catch-up was over, and now it was off to work.

“Why wouldn’t she tell me? We share everything,” I said, a little hurt.

Viola stood and began to gather her things. “You’ve got your own problems to worry about, and besides, it’ll probably blow over. Roger is trying to get her into Betty Ford quietly, but so far Molly isn’t willing. You can’t force a person to take care of herself, you know? Molly is an adult, and rebellious, to say the least.” And with that, she wished me good-night and was gone.

Once alone, I tried calling Molly repeatedly. She was either ignoring my calls which was out of character for her, or so messed up she wouldn’t answer to phone. Either way it made me worry for my friend. I decided to leave her be for now and hang out with the only person around that happens to my oversized bodyguard.

Josh and I became fast friends. He stayed in the apartment with me in the evenings sometimes, by my request. I hated to spend night after night just watching the news. At first, I just wanted the company because my solitary life was depressing, but I instantly like Josh and our evenings turned into round after round of five-card draw. He had to teach me, but I caught on quick. He cursed when I finally began to beat him.

“Damn it,” he would say in disgust after my third straight win.

“Being a sore loser doesn’t help,” I teased while shuffling the deck.

“You should know, losing is never something I do with grace.”

I chuckled at his serious tone. “Where are you from Josh? Your accent, it reminds me of Nathan.”

Josh smiled.

“Probably because Nathan and I grew up about two miles from each other. His baby sis was my best friend all my life.”

I stared at him.

“You serious?” I asked in disbelief.

“Oh yeah, I’m serious. We all grew up together, but Nathan left home early. Yeah, man. Piper was going to be my sister-in-law, but my brother had an accident.” Josh stopped to take a deep breath. “He didn’t survive. It was really hard, but Piper took it especially hard. I don’t think she ever got over it, even after she married. The baby might help. She’s due in a couple of months.” A soft expression crossed his face. “Man, I swear I’ve never seen a more gorgeous pregnant woman in my life! Mercy, that girl is an angel. I don’t get to see her as much as I want to mostly because she’s married and her husband gives me the territorial vibes to keep away, you know? But we keep in touch and I go back to check in.”

“This is Tennessee? Where you’re from? I thought you were from Florida?” I asked dealing cards.

“I lived most of my life in Tennessee. Then after my brother died, we moved.” Josh shrugged. “I played some football, and gave that up after I blew out my knee. I tried the military, but my leg was shot. Figuratively speaking, I mean. A friend told me about security, and since I’m as big as a house, I tried it, liked it, and now here I am with you.” He flashed me a brilliant smile.

“Exciting isn’t it? Fighting off twelve-year-old girls?” I asked sardonically.

Josh chuckled. “I’m more worried about their mommas.”

chapter twenty

After weeks of my insisting, Molly finally came to stay with me briefly, and took the back way out of my apartment building, through an alleyway, when she had to leave. She was much easier to hide. She was due to start a new film and had to be in Vancouver for the next four months. I was worried about her but Molly refused to acknowledge her drug use was any different than before. After royally pissing her off, I had no choice but to let work through everything at her own pace.

We canceled all media tours, deeming them unnecessary since the movie was flourishing on its own. We expected the craziness to pass once the DVD was out, but it didn’t. If anything it got worse. I flew to Vancouver to be with Molly for her wrap up. My drug buddy and adviser always made me feel better.

She was my best friend. Sheldon wanted no part of the madness that surrounded me, and I missed him. The crowds were not as bad in Canada, but the paps were. I noticed a change in Molly while I visited. She wouldn’t talk about relationships and was too stoned to talk for long. I was concerned she had begun to shoot heroin like most people drank coffee. She did this in her leg to hide the puncture marks from the cameras. I stayed with my coke and booze. I had more money, but couldn’t go anywhere to use it. I could afford to buy a house but had no desire to stay at one place for long and I was actually fond of staying in hotels when I traveled.

I flew to Los Angeles to stay with Roger for a couple of days when Molly finished her filming, and to prepare for the L.A. premiere of the first
Scott’s Eye
film. I was also getting ready to shoot the sequel to the detective series. I played Elijah Scott, a detective, and I loved the role. The sequel took me to Florida to investigate a serial killer. My contract for this film was the biggest I had signed to date. I felt like a star then. I had people at my beck and call. I did nothing on my own anymore. I had a runner for everything.

In Los Angeles with Roger, I had a good time. The paps followed me, and there were always fans, but it was far more tolerable than in New York. The premiere was incredible as I spent the evening with some of the most prestigious actors and producers alive.

Josh and I were a team. He kept the crazies off of me, and I stayed glued to him, watching his feet, singing my songs with my head down. I would’ve gone crazy if it were not for Josh.

When I was alone, I would think of Livia. Did she see my face on magazines? Did she believe all the stories of my supposed wild ways? Did it bother her when romances were reported? I drank her out of my head every night, but she was always there the next day when I woke. I did have the occasional fling with a random female but I remained unattached, and hated the thought of being in a relationship with anyone.

Sheldon brought his family out to stay with us for a while on the West Coast. I loved them all, Bee was great, and the girls called me Knoxy, a name Sheldon had often called me when we were kids.

They told me stories of the pretty lady, Piper, and horseback riding, and about the little girl who lived in Tennessee. It seemed Nathan had stayed home for a while, and Sheldon had been in and out of there every few months.

I was jealous he had all this family—not just Bee and the girls, but his parents in England and now the family he had joined in the mountains of Tennessee. My mother had left my father, and me for another man when I was eight. I didn’t remember much about her, but the loss of her after my sister was killed, left my father a bitter and broken man. That was my only blood family. I sent him money and called on his birthday and holidays, but he was incoherent most of the time.

I looked around me. Molly, Roger, Sheldon, Josh, and even Viola was all I had. I would add Nathan to that list also. We were a misfit family and I was thankful for them all, but it was also depressing.

I finished up in Los Angeles. Roger and I headed back to New York. I had new contracts signed and money in the bank. When I arrived at my apartment, a crowd waited for me to make the mad dash from the car to the door. Josh led the way. It was crazy to me. Honestly, the fame was flattering, and I was grateful to the fans, but shouldn’t these people have jobs? Or children they are taking time away from?

Doesn’t the teenagers have school? What was wrong in their minds that they spent day and night hunting me, only to get a distorted picture of me running behind my bodyguard?

I was surprised to find Molly in the apartment when I got there. Josh left at my request, as I dealt with the messed-up state I found her in. She was out of it. Her eyes unfocused, and when she spoke it sounded like she had a mouth full of cotton. Molly lay on the floor looking like a street person. I picked her filthy body up and put her in the tub, clothes and all. I ran the water as she babbled on and on eventually making some sense. I gathered the constant pressure of being followed had led her to the state I found her in.

“They cut a piece of my hair Ryan, my fucking hair,” she slurred and pointed a dirty finger to the side of her head.

“Where was your bodyguard?” I reached for the hand to wash it.

“I fired him. I didn’t trust him.” she said and closed her eyes. I washed the ring of dirt off her neck as she seemed to drift to sleep. I managed to get her clothes off and after just a few moment she sat up terrified as if waking from a nightmare. “They won’t leave me alone!” she screamed in my face, her eyes bulging in their sockets. “Why won’t they go away, Ryan?”

Her arms were tracked with needle marks and I understood she was in the midst of a drug induced psychotic episode. I was in no shape to take care of her myself, I only knew the theory of things like the outburst, paranoia, and deep depression and manic states. I keep Molly safe while the she came down from the drugs tonight then I’d call Roger tomorrow. He didn’t even know where she was right now.

They had had a huge argument a couple of nights before, and she let it be known she wanted space. She thought the pressures of being his daughter was too much to handle. She set out to make her own money and name, yet the fact that she was Roger Mitchells only child added to an already chaotic life. Seemed every person that came in contact with Molly asked for something. Sometimes it was to meet me, or if she could get them in the door for acting jobs. Now the frenzied situation with the fans had evidentially pushed her over the edge. I’d never seen her so out of it.

I looked down at the filthy water filling up around small frame.

“When did you eat last?”

She looked at me, truly noticing my presence for the first time.

“Hey, Ryan,” she said, and began to close her eyes.

I got her undressed the rest of the way and re-filled the tub with soapy water. I let her soak, checking on her every few minutes to make sure she hadn’t drowned. I made grilled cheese sandwiches, stepping on a needle and nearly screaming in the process.

All I had to drink was wine, so that’s what I gave her once I got her dressed and in bed. Thunder and lightning was moving in the city. The sky was turning black, making the apartment dreary adding to the already dark mood.

Molly didn’t eat much, and naked, she looked like a skeleton. Her body was like that of a thirteen-year-old, underdeveloped boy. She was pathetic and didn’t care about anything. I cleaned the needle marks as best as I could, and then left her in the bed so she would hopefully sleep.

Josh called to let me know he had to leave because of an emergency with his mom. I was not going anywhere for a few days so I told him to go, and that I hoped everything was all right.

I did some coke and drank the wine. Around half past three, I heard something and discovered I’d been sleeping on the couch. I got up and went to check on Molly. She was propped up against the headboard, eyes closed. A tourniquet was tied tight, and blood poured from the needle still in her arm. I grabbed a shirt from the floor and took out the needle, tossing it onto the nightstand. I pulled off the tourniquet, cursing. I was beyond pissed off.

“Why the fuck are you doing this?” I yelled at her.

Molly mumbled something, eyes rolling, hands grasping. She reached for me to lie beside her. I made up my mind to call Roger first thing in the morning.

“Make ‘em stop, Ryan,” Molly said as I lay beside her and held her to my chest.

“Make who stop, Molly?” She didn’t answer, and I shook her shoulder. “Make who stop, Molly?” I asked again.

She fluttered her eyes, “The voices. I can hear them whispering in the dark. Someone is crying. They never stop.”

I watched her pitiful, gaunt face and kissed her head thinking she must have watched something that spooked her or maybe it was from a script.

“I’ll make ‘em stop, Molly, I promise.”

I lay there, making sure she was breathing okay. Eventually I fell asleep.

After what felt like only a few minutes, I woke to something cold on my face. I swatted it away, and squeezed my eyes tight. My body ached from the restless state of my existence. I wanted nothing more than to sleep all day if Molly would let me.

“Wakey wakey.”

Something tapped me twice on my cheek.

“Molly, let me sleep. I’m exhausted.” I swatted again.

Cold metal touched my temple, and then ran down the length of my face to my chin. Fear gripped me hard because I knew what it was. I sat straight up, terrified. It was still dark outside but the bathroom light was on, and I could plainly see the gun in Molly’s hand. She laughed at my reaction.

“That better be a prop.” I said the first thing that came into my mind, hoping she had taken a fake gun from a movie set.

She shook her head.

“Nope,” she said, in her mocking, baby voice.

I reached for it.

“Don’t,” she said, dead serious. The living room TV flickered colors across her face, and in that instant, I knew she was beyond my help.

“Molly. Give it to me,” I said, like I would speak to an unreasonable child.

Again she laughed. She pointed the gun directly at me.

“Bang!” She teased.

I fell backward to the floor causing her to laugh harder. I spoke from behind the bed, keeping it between us.

“This isn’t funny! Put it down before something happens!”

I glanced at her over the top of the bed. She wasn’t laughing anymore.

“I thought about taking you with me.”

She was crying. At some point during my sleep, she had put on globs of mascara, and now it was running. She had dark pools under her eyes, and long black tear-streaks. She shook her head as if the clear some unpleasant thought.

The pretty young star I knew as Molly was nowhere in this room. The only things there were the ugliness of the drugs, and her coked-out best friend.

“Molly.” I started toward her, and she opened her eyes wide, pointing the gun at me.

“NO! I don’t want to hear it, Ryan Knox! I know everything you’re going to say, and I can’t listen.” She put her hands over her ears.

“Okay. Okay. Okay.” I frantically ran through thoughts in my head. I came up with nothing. I stood up, thinking I’d just catch her off guard, and wrestle her for the gun. I held my hands up, to show I was harmless. She looked up at me and smiled.

“It’s never a good thing to hear voices in your head,” she whispered with crystal clarity. “Love you, Ryan. You were always good to me.”

I knew what was about to happen, and if I had been just a little quicker, I might have even got there in time.

I lunged at her, scrambling over the bed, as she put the gun in her mouth. Before I could reach her, brain matter and blood splattered my face. I got off the bed, but there was nothing left to do or say. Molly’s head hung forward, lying on her chest, a gaping hole in the top of her head. My legs went weak and I dropped to my knees beside her. I heaved, and threw up the wine I had nursed all evening. I screamed a guttural sound.

“Molly!” my body began shaking and I recognize shock as it entered me, “Why? Why did you do this to me?”

It was a selfish question. I should have said, “Why did you leave me alone?” It was an equally selfish question, but that’s what I was at that moment, like I had been when my mother left, and again when my sister died.

Alone.

My body shook from the sobs leaving me. I couldn’t remember ever crying so hard before. After a few minutes of, awareness took over. I ran to the window. It was still raining, thank God. No paps. No crazy fans. I took one second to look at Molly’s body, and then dashed out the door, making sure I left no bloody handprints anywhere. I ran through the alley behind the building. I ran twelve blocks barefoot, wearing only jeans behind apartment buildings and businesses. I blessed the sun for staying down.

I ran through the city, through the cover of the dark, splashing water. I made it to Roger’s office building just before the first light of dawn. I took the stairs two at a time to the twenty-second floor. I pushed the code on the keypad, and softly shut the door behind me. I bent in half, heaving and sobbing.

After I got control of myself, I walked to Roger’s desk and sat in his oversized leather chair. I stayed perfectly still, my hands resting on my knees, touching nothing, controlling my breathing, waiting until he arrived, promptly at seven as he always did. I watched the sun rise over the city, as the rain cleared.