PREVIEW: The first 5 chapters of my novel, "The Double"
Epigraph
"There's no business like show business."
Irving Berlin
PROLOGUE
"I am big. It's the pictures that got small."
Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
"You're not anybody in America unless you're on TV."
Nicole Kidman; To Die For
THE COLD OPEN
A group of movie execs from Keystone Pictures is clustered around a mahogany coffee table in the well-appointed office of the President of the studio. Sitting opposite them is the creative team, a producer, a writer, and two others. They represent two sides of a Hollywood coin, the Suits and Creatives. The buyers and the sellers.
Roy Palmer, the producer, his skin tan from his vacation overseas, wearing a dark suit and a Rolex Submariner watch that costs as much as some cars, opens up the pitch, "First lesson I learned in Hollywood," he drawls, "know your hook. It's the cold open that grabs the audience by the balls. But let me tell you," Roy says, "a hook isn’t worth anything if it doesn't plant the seeds of a good story, which is what we're selling here. A heckuva good story. One you only think you know." He jerks a thumb at the guy next to him, a twenty-something in round specs, jeans, and a wrinkled tee shirt. "We've got the writer for it," he says, smirking.
Roy leans in closer, command in his eyes, as he takes in everyone — the new Studio President, his programming team, and even the assistant scribbling notes on the sidelines. "We all remember where we were when we saw the videos," he says, "and we remember the chill we felt watching them, one after the next. We heard the whispered rumors… but here's the thing. You might think you know how this story turns out…" He pauses again, longer this time. Then he says, "But here's the twist: the killer isn't who you think it is."
Their eyes widen. He's got them, hook, line, and sinker.
He settles back, a shark's grin splitting his face. "So, when we roll this out, we aren't just gonna make a killing at the box office, we're gonna land a killer behind bars. Ain't that right, kid?" Roy flicks a glance at the writer, who nods enthusiastically. "Now, give 'em the pitch.”
The writer leans in, his eyes bright. "We open on a hotel rooftop. It’s the E3 Gaming Expo, and this party is an invitation-only event. The DJ was paid a quarter of a million dollars for one night's performance, and right now, he's midway through his set. On stage are the biggest gamers and e-sport players in the world, all jacked into gaming consoles. A giant screen above projects video of their gameplay to the audience who crowds the stage, cheering on the players, and moving to the music, while at the bar in the back, different kinds of moves are being made. It's quite the scene.
Among the crowd we find four young women, looking great, dressed to the nines, and dancing. One, a brunette in a black dress, is not dancing. Because she’s busy filming with her camera…”
Part 1: PRE-PRODUCTION
“I would hate to get the wrong person arrested.”
“Oh, please! This is Pasadena. We do not arrest the wrong person. That’s L.A.!”
Tim Robbins and Whoopi Goldberg; The Player.
"It's a good scream. It's a good scream."
John Travolta; Blow Out
Chapter 1
The E3 Gaming Expo is held every year in Los Angeles; it's one of the hottest gaming conventions in the world. Luminaries from the worlds of show business, video games, big tech, and big business rub elbows. It's the kind of event you don't want to miss, especially when being seen at the hottest scenes in town is your thing, which for Stacy Gumer, a social media influencer, and avid online gamer, it is.
That's why she's filming everything.
In the frame, Stacy's girl gang, a trio of party dresses and cross-body purses, is dancing while cheering on the players on stage. This is the new cool: sexy girls and nerdy gamers.
Stacy's fingers nimbly navigate the edges of her Canon DSLR. She presses the record button. The red light switches off. "OK bitches, I got it," Stacy says.
Her troika stops dancing. One of the girls, a tall brunette in a tight-fitting, strapless, red dress named Riley, asks, "Now what, Stacy?"
Stacy's dismissive shrug says more than words. She doesn't care what they do.
Another girl, Tara, a bleached blond in a skimpy, silver cocktail dress not entirely covering all her assets, asks, "Should we hit another party?"
Without looking at either of them, Stacy says, "I don't care what you do. You girls go party if you want. I'm going home to edit this video and post it to my channel."
With that, Stacy turns and walks out on the three girls, leaving them looking dumbstruck as she exits the rooftop bar.
Ten minutes later, she's breezing down Hollywood Boulevard, the window of her white Mercedes C-Class rolled down, the warm night air playing with her hair as she races home towards Santa Monica. To her right are the Hollywood Hills, dotted with lights from the multimillion-dollar mansions tucked away in canyons or perched majestically on steep, rugged mountain slopes. Their locations reveal a hierarchy of affluence. The higher up you are on the hill, the higher up you are in life.
Stacy is a fast driver. When she first moved to LA, the freeways scared her. Now she treats the speed limit like a suggestion. These days she's a regular speed demon, not just on the freeways, but on service roads and side streets as well. She drives fast everywhere, even in school zones (outta the way, kids!).
That's how Stacy knew she was a true SoCal gal. It had nothing to do with the beach, the weather, or Hollywood. It was when she started thinking that anyone doing less than seventy was driving slowly.
It's a forty-five-minute drive back to her place in Santa Monica.
Stacy makes it in twenty.
Stacy's apartment is in an Art Deco building with classic, white stucco walls and a red tile roof located, fittingly, on California Avenue. Originally a hotel built back in the twenties, (that's the 1920s), it was converted into apartments after the building was damaged in the 1994 earthquake.
The entrance to the building is through a walled courtyard graced with a two-tiered fountain tiled in sunset and sea colors, a glittering blue pool, and stylized foliage motifs that run throughout the building.
Stacy's apartment is on the sixth floor. She's lived there since moving to Los Angeles six years ago from a small town outside Vancouver where she grew up. Back home, she did some modeling and was in a pair of made-for-TV movies, after which she decided she was ready for the big time. Hollywood.
She came to Southern California to make it big in showbiz. We're talking movie star, baby! (Though, she'd settle for being a TV star.)
She tells people she's an actress, and when talking about her career, she puts on all the airs of someone who takes her craft seriously.
The truth is she just wants to be famous.
But it's hard to impress the Hollywood heavyweights when your IMDB page is skimpy. Stacy's got a single scene in a Tom Cruise film, and that's about it. But, one scene does not a movie star make.
In her darker moments of self-doubt, she tells herself that it doesn't mean anything. She reminds herself of the story of Jennifer Anniston crying to a network executive at a gas station after yet another failed audition. Then, she got cast in Friends, after which Stacy figures Jennifer Aniston didn't cry much anymore.
Stacy is sure she's got that “It" factor – that star quality. That's not the problem. The problem is there are too many slick Hollywood producers, smarmy casting agents, and studio executives to get through on the path to becoming a star. D-girls and D-bags, Stacy thinks.
In the last few years though, something changed. Social media came along and flipped the script. These days the rule is if at first you don't succeed try, try, and then try YouTube.
Stacy is a talented gamer, which, in case you don't know, means she films herself playing and talking about video games. That might not sound very exciting, or like it takes a lot of talent, but that's where the skimpy outfits she wears while gaming come into play. A little over a two years ago, she uploaded her first video. What Stacy lacks in talent, she makes up for with relentless persistence. She posts a new video a few times a week.
She went from no subscribers to over seven-hundred-thousand followers in just a couple of years.
Stacy loves the sound of that. She has followers. The way Stacy figures it, having followers is way better than having fans. Fans are fickle. Followers, if handled right, are forever.
The video she just shot with her "friends" in the club is part of her plan to get over a million followers.
But there's a rub.
For about a year, it was easy coming up with material. But Stacy quickly learned it's not so easy to come up with new video ideas every week, never mind shooting and editing them. It's hard to do without being boring which, when you're on camera, is the cardinal sin. The name of the game is: keep 'em hooked.
When she gets home, she is so lost in thought thinking about tonight's video that she doesn't notice the white light coming from beneath her door until she is standing in front of it, fishing for her keys in her purse. Only when the light reflects off her shiny, leather Manolo Blahnik shoes does she notice it and wonder if she left the lights on.
But she knows she didn't. She's far too OCD about things like turning off the lights.
She turns the key, opens the door, and enters her apartment. As she does, she raises her hand to block the light shining in her eyes, momentarily blinding her. It takes a second for her eyes to adjust to the glare.
When they do, she sees the studio light she uses for filming her videos, which is normally in her bedroom, now set up in the middle of her living room, aimed directly at the front door. What the hell is that doing here? she thinks.
She walks out of the light, stepping behind the camera, and checking the LCD screen. She sees the red dot in the upper corner of the screen. It's recording. She has a moment to wonder what is going on, and to get the beginnings of a bad feeling before she smells it. A sickly-sweet odor.
She doesn't get a chance to react as a hood is thrown over her head. It's wet. Soaked in that sweet-smelling liquid. She fights to breathe, but the damp fabric inhibits it.
"Sssh. Sssh," whispers a voice behind her.
She tries to scream, but the cloth hugging her face muffles her cry. She feels tiny droplets from the damp fabric land on her tongue and reflexively gasps. She breathes in sharply, sucking in mouthfuls of that sickly-sweet smell.
Amid her mounting terror, she claws at the cloth wrapped tightly around her face, trying to rip it away. She stumbles backward, her feet tangling, and she starts to fall but is pulled to her feet by whoever is behind her. Sharp elbows press into her back as the fabric around her face is pulled even tighter.
Terror-stricken, she sucks in one panicked breath after another. Her head starts to spin. Panic, bright and sharp, shines through the fog, then quickly dims like the light at the bottom of a deep well. The world swims, and slowly, Stacy feels like she is tumbling into that deep well, down into the dark.
She inhales one more time, and then everything goes black.
Chapter 2
In an online chat room, comments scroll past at breakneck speed. It's hard to keep up but easy to follow because they're all arguing the same thing. Is what they're watching real?
The video is of terrified Stacy Gumer, crazy-glued to a chair, a spotlight shining on her.
BStone317: NO WAY this is real.
DomniNadine: It's real. Not the first time.
BStone317: bullsh*t.
Eva_Nightengale21: I saw the last one. The one he choked.
BStone317: same guy?
Eva_Nightengale: think so.
CooperJonny88: where? on the tok? the gram?
Eva_Nightengale21: all social. different every time. depends.
BStone317: guy's a psycho.
DomniNadine: how do you know it's a "he?"
BStone317: don't. but psychos are usually "he's" not she's.
DomniNadine: spoken like a typical cis white male. such privilege.
BStone317: chill. was jus sayin'.
PYT69: No way this b real. I call bs.
CooperJonny88: agree. highly sus.
BStone317: fuggazzi
Eva_Nightengale21: it's real. he kills her. watch.
Suddenly, the scrolling comments stop. Everyone is watching the video now, waiting to see a murder live on social media.
Chapter 3
One of the millions watching the video of the murder is Detective Kim Mallory.
She's in her cramped, one-bedroom apartment, lying in bed, with her mind racing and no chance of sleep, when her phone dings. She snatches it off her nightstand and sits bolt upright. Her eyes, bloodshot and wired, widen at the notification. A tweet: "he killed another one."
At thirty years old, Kim Mallory already has two years as a detective under her belt. She's one of the fresh faces of the new, tech-savvy LAPD. Her beat is the Computer Crimes division which she believes is too dull a name for a city that's home to Hollywood. Bad names aside, what it boils down to is cybercrime.
Despite what you may have seen on TV, on shows like CSI, with their super-slick detectives using high-tech investigative tools to take down the criminals, the reality is that the LAPD is largely stuck in the past; wifi and text messages in an age of satellites and social media. Kim Mallory is part of the department's effort to change that.
Besides, any job that hands you a Glock as a graduation present isn't all bad, right?
The truth is that she uses her LAPD-issued laptop far more than her LAPD-issued Glock .45 ACP. Like right now, she’s watching the video of a young woman being killed on her laptop, while her gun is in its holster in the top drawer of her nightstand.
Mallory clicks the attached link. A video starts to play. The video shows a girl in a chair wearing a short black party dress under a stark, white spotlight. Her legs are sprawled out, and her head is lolled sideways. Mallory's first thought: she's dead.
But then the woman in the chair moves, kicks her legs, and jerks her head up. Consciousness slowly seeps back in. Panic takes over. She looks around frantically, her eyes wide with terror.
She's alive, Mallory thinks, whomever she is.
Mallory pulls her laptop close. She reads the name of the YouTube channel, STACY GAMER. She finds a grayed-out email, stacygumer@stacygamer.com. Mallory notes the clever channel name and files it away in her detective mind.
In the video, Stacy whimpers as she struggles to get out of the chair but can't. Something is holding her down. Mallory doesn't see any ropes, tape, or bindings of any kind holding her in place. Then, a closer look, and Mallory feels her stomach clench. She sees the skin on Stacy's forearm stretch each time she struggles, unsuccessfully, to get up. Mallory realizes the problem: Stacy is glued to the chair.
Music starts, bass-heavy, throbbing, EDM, David Guetta or something, like the music from the rooftop party. Stacy's eyes dart back and forth.
Mallory imagines Stacy's mind screaming at the horror, refusing to accept that this is happening. But this is real, no matter how many comments call it fake. Mallory knows it. More important, Stacy knows it.
Mallory sees the genuine fear in Stacy's face as she shakes the chair, attempting to get up. She rocks it enough that she manages to topple the chair over. She almost crashes to the ground, but a gloved hand catches her and rights the chair.
On-screen, a figure dressed in all black wearing dark sunglasses and a black pandemic mask, dances into the frame. The mask and sunglasses hide his features.
He does some funky dance steps; a hip swish followed by a spin, some offbeat jerks that are his version of twists all in time to the booming soundtrack. All while Stacy trembles, bound to the chair, her terror mocked by the masked man's strange dance moves.
Suddenly, the music stops. The masked man finishes his bizarre routine with a final spin before turning to face Stacy, whose sobs are the only sound left. He caresses Stacy's face with a gloved hand.
A single word escapes her lips. "Please…"
Then suddenly, the masked man waves something in front of Stacy, a silver flash under the light. Stacy flinches.
A frightening thought enters Mallory's head. He's got a knife…
She leans in for a closer look, and exhales deeply—
Not a knife. A microphone.
The man in the pandemic mask speaks into it. "Say hello to your fans, Stacy." His voice is clear, but electronically distorted, robotic sounding.
"Please…please…" Stacy whimpers. "Let me go…please…"
The masked man walks behind her, drapes an arm over her, and leans in close. She recoils. He points straight at the camera. "I can't. We're streaming live." Then, he violently grabs her chin and squeezes. She squirms. He squeezes harder, forcing her to look straight into the camera. Stacy moans.
In that robotic-sounding voice the man says, "Your content is tired, Stacy. We've seen it all before, an endless parade of forgettable videos." He points at the camera, then at the viewers. "I'm here to remind people what event programming really is."
He taps her on the head with the microphone. An amplified thump-thump sound is followed by the high-pitched whine of feedback that drown out Stacy's own whining sobs.
The man steps away, his back to the camera. When he turns, the mic is gone, and in its place, a new object.
The masked man shows the knife to Stacy who whimpers. The blade is long, silver, and razor sharp. She manages a few weak, frightened, 'no's and 'pleases.' He presses a button on a remote control he holds in his other hand, and the music starts to play again.
He starts dancing again, moving slower this time, like he’s getting warmed up.
Stacy, her face twisted in fear, looks as if she is teetering on the edge of going mad. She starts crying again, begging the man to stop, to let her go, to—
Without warning, the masked man rushes at Stacy, the knife held her his head like some modern-day Norman Bates at the end of Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Stacy gets off one more shrieking scream before he is on top of her.
The masked man straddles Stacy. He slices at her with the knife. She struggles uselessly. The chair rocks violently from side to side. Her screams harmonize with the fast-tempo, techno music before becoming gurgles that are mostly, mercifully, drowned out by the music.
Mallory grips her laptop and holds her breath. All she can do is watch. Unable to look away, she keeps watching until the end, until Stacy is no longer struggling or moving.
Until Stacy is no longer anything.
When the masked man gets off of her, it’s clear Stacy is dead. Her face is a bloody mess, flaps of skin dangling loose, her nose gone, her eyes lifeless.
Looking at her, a sour taste rises in Mallory's throat. She swallows it, but not her anger. That continues rising.
On-screen, the masked man turns to face the camera, and with a flourish of the knife, takes a bow. Then the video window goes black, and a red box slides onto the screen with a single word written in white letters: "Subscribe."
Mallory grits her teeth. She wants this case.
Chapter 4
Homicide.
That’s where Mallory wants to be. Of all the criminal investigative divisions within the LAPD, homicide detectives are the top dogs. Because murder is the most serious crime. Murders never go away. But instead of hunting killers, she's trawling the net, looking for a different kind of predator, cybercriminals.
It's exciting work, even if it is hampered by the outdated, outmoded technology and mentality of the LAPD. Her boss' view on cybercrime is stuck somewhere around the turn of the century. People don't get it, she thinks. They worry about phone hacks and identity theft yet bare their whole lives online with complete openness. Her generation is living out loud in the digital world. They share their experiences IRL on a URL, with no fear about the things they reveal being forever. Until they end up like Stacy Gumer or Alice Chandler.
Each time she refreshes the screen, she sees that the subscriber count on Stacy's YouTube page keeps climbing. The video is going viral. Her death has got the world's attention, no small feat in this age of media excess.
Turns out you gotta kill to get noticed.
It makes Mallory think of serial killers that used to write to the newspapers about their crimes. These days, the Zodiac Killer's gone digital. Watching the video again, Mallory thinks he's certainly making himself heard.
She feels a warmed-over frustration welling up inside her. She knew this would happen again.
The first time was a month ago. She saw a video showing what appeared to be the killing of another young woman, a self-described "influencer," a dancer named Alice Chandler. That time it was Instagram Live; this time, it's YouTube. It's a different platform, but the same modus operandi. Both times a young woman who put her life online got killed. Both videos went viral. Mallory suspects it’s the same killer.
After the first video showed up on social media, people asked the same question: Is this real? Most people thought it was a fake, another internet hoax. How cynical and jaded we are, Mallory thinks when she reads people's comments online doubting the murder.
There was reason to think that. Alice Chandler's body was never found. She's still listed as missing.
But Mallory's got doubts. Why hide the bodies if you're announcing your crime for the world to see? Hiding forensic evidence? Maybe, but it's unlikely. If the video was a hoax, and Alice Chandler is not dead, then where is she? How come no one can find her?
Good questions aside, no one Mallory works with was interested in her theory. They all called bullshit on the video. The biggest skeptic of all was her Captain, Salvatore Fusco.
Mallory went to see him about investigating the Alice Chandler murder in the first video. She showed him the video and asked for the case.
"Come on, Detective Mallory, you don't believe that video is real, do you?" her captain had said dismissively.
"I do."
"You're supposed to know the deep fakes from the real thing."
"I think that's the real deal."
"It's a snuff film. An internet hoax. One of the joys of life in the Digital Age."
"I think she's dead IRL."
Captain Fusco raised an eyebrow. "IRL?"
"In real life," Mallory told him.
Fusco rolled his eyes.
She didn't back down. Hoax or not, a viral snuff film crosses a line. Into her turf, computer crimes. She wants a crack at it. So, she told her Captain her theory. Fusco didn't buy it.
But Mallory was sure. Then. And now. Watching the video of Stacy Gumer's murder, she's certain. This is the same guy.
Finally, Mallory closes the video, puts her laptop away, and tries to switch off, eyes shut, in bed, counting breaths, but sleep's not happening. For an hour she lies there staring at her ceiling, trying to make a case for her theory and for her being assigned as the lead detective in the case, until finally, she drifts off to sleep.
Tomorrow, she won't need to argue her theory, because this time, there is a body. In the morning Stacy Gumer will be found in her apartment, stabbed multiple times with a knife. The case will officially be ruled a homicide. And Mallory plans to get her Captain to make her lead investigator.
Chapter 5
In the squad room of LAPD headquarters, rows of plastic chairs host a few dozen cops and detectives, most appearing bored, their collective itching to get to work palpable.
Detective Kim Mallory is positioned strategically in the first row. Now, dressed for work, she wears her hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail, and her uniform of black slacks, black blazer, and crisp white shirt, is worn with an air of quiet confidence. Her eyes are trained on Captain Salvatore Fusco who takes center stage at the front of the squad room, launching into his morning briefing.
Fusco, in his fifties with short, jet-black hair, dresses like a politician. He represents the new breed of police: more a bureaucrat than a cop. Behind him, a video plays, streaming from an open laptop on the podium. The footage is of the murder of Stacy Gumer that Mallory watched live last night. "This went live on the internet last night,” Captain Fusco says. "YouTube took the video down within an hour, but it didn't matter. The video has over five million views and counting."
Mallory listens intently. Captain Fusco continues, "The victim's name is Stacy Gumer, an actress and social media influencer with a large following." Pushing his wire-rim glasses back up the bridge of his nose, Fusco pauses the video, then after taking a dramatic pause, in a voice that's all business, he says, "This is the second video of a violent murder of a young woman on social media. The first video featured a woman named Alice Chandler apparently being strangled to death. I say 'apparently' because we have yet to find a body, though she has been reported missing." He pauses solemnly, adding, "Now, with this latest video, we are treating the two like they may be connected." He casts a glance at Detective Mallory, before continuing. "Our current understanding is that the killer targets young women in public and online. He infiltrates their homes, seizes control of their social media accounts, and then broadcasts the murders on their platforms —YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc." Fusco pauses, a look of disgust crossing his face.
Mallory's thoughts drift back to a conversation with Captain Fusco a few weeks prior. After watching the video of the first girl, Stacy Gumer's murder, she had proposed a theory, warning him of the impending threat. Yet, he did nothing. Now, there's another dead girl.
When Mallory made her pitch that she be assigned the case to Captain Fusco again earlier this morning before the roll call, he said he'd consider it. Now, as he's looking right at her, Mallory wonders if he's about to put her on this investigation. This could be her chance.
Then, pivoting, Captain Fusco focuses on two detectives standing by the door to the briefing room. "Detectives Riddle and Johnson will take the lead on this case," he announces.
All eyes in the squad room shift to the two veteran detectives. Mallory tries to hide her disappointment as she watches them step forward through the crowd.
The older detective, Steve Riddle, is fifty-five. His silver hair is neatly trimmed and he has a salt-and-pepper goatee framing his mouth. He is lean and tall and in his houndstooth blazer and checkered tie he exudes the air of a college professor, which also happens to be his nickname: "The Professor." It's not because of his clothes, but rather because he approaches every investigation as if it is an exam. He works in a studious and focused manner.
Wesley Johnson, his partner, hails from the gray, concrete streets of Inglewood right here in Los Angeles. A black man with a sartorial flair, Wesley wears a navy blue suit with a matching yellow and blue stripe tie and brown suede shoes. Johnson is the only cop Mallory knows who would dare to wear suede shoes. She asked him about it once, and he told her that they serve as a reminder to tread carefully at crime scenes. When she asked him why, he replied, "because blood doesn't wash out of suede."
Despite the capabilities of the two veteran detectives, both of whom Mallory respects, a wave of anger swells within her. Captain Fusco could have told her this morning he was going to assign the case to Detectives Riddle and Johnson. Instead, he let her believe it might be hers. Mallory's gaze fixes on Captain Fusco. Her primary gripe with him isn't that he didn't put her on the murder investigation, rather, she finds him wholly disagreeable. Several reasons fuel her disdain.
The primary one, she reckons, is his inclination for politics over police work. With three decades on the force, his tenure was marked by the record for the fewest arrests. Following a promotion to Captain Fusco's employed a data-driven policing formula that appeared to show crime was down in LA. This statistical success was primarily due to his reducing more serious crimes to lesser charges in order to make the stats look like the city was getting safer. Worse still, he exported his brand of data-driven policing to other districts and precincts. Despite initial backlash from other captains and district commanders, the higher-ups ultimately endorsed his initiative, entrusting Fusco with oversight of a few precincts in the Central district.
He exploited his position to investigate other officers who spoke out against his brand of policing. It is a constant reminder to Mallory that her boss' true interest lies in power and career progression. Moreover, he is the one keeping her sidelined from handling the more serious cases. Like homicides.
After the briefing, Mallory approaches Captain Fusco, her frustration barely concealed. "I requested this case. Weeks ago, I predicted another video and body, and here we are. Yet, you're handing the case to Riddle and Johnson."
Fusco places a hand on her arm. "You were right. And I appreciate that. But these murders are part of a pattern, and I need my best detectives on it."
"Let me be the secondary. I'll be the support," she pleads. "These murders are occurring online. It's a key aspect of the killer's MO, which you acknowledged."
"I did."
"So, I work in computer crimes. This is my territory. Let me work the case with Riddle and Johnson."
"Can't. I need you on something else," Captain Fusco says.
"What?"
"A blackmail case."
"Blackmail?" Mallory questions, intrigued.
"Over a sex tape," Captain Fusco clarifies.
Mallory rolls her eyes. "Come on, Captain. Give me something real."
Fusco places his hands on his hips. "It is real. It involves Brad Silver."
She doesn't recognize the name. "Brad Silver. Who is he?"
"He runs Keystone Pictures. The biggest independent movie studio in Hollywood. His wife is Julia Silver."
That's a name Mallory recognizes. Julia Silver was at one time the biggest female movie star in the world. That was years ago, but she's still famous. Since then, she married Brad Silver, the two of them becoming a veritable Hollywood power couple to rival George and Amal Clooney, or Bob Iger and Willow Bay. Brad Silver and his wife, Julia Silver, besides being known as Hollywood royalty, are also known for their generous contributions to the LAPD Policeman's Benevolent Association. In other words, they're VIPs. That's why Fusco is assigning her the case.
She looks to him for more information. "He and his wife are being blackmailed? Over a sex video they made?" Mallory asks.
Fusco shakes his head. "Not them. Their daughter."
