Page 55 of For The Record

Still, I’m surprised she hasn’t noticed the disappearance of her wallet yet. Maybe because she doesn’t have any cash—yes, I snooped. Call it the perpetual curiosity of younger sisters everywhere or just plain nosiness—only a handful of coins, a Black Amex, and her rarely-used driver’s license. In her pictures, she looks like a supermodel. In mine, I look like I’m about to be trampled by a parade of stampeding horses: startled, panicked, wide-eyed. I still have no idea how I passed that test, white-knuckling the steering wheel the whole time. I dial her number, praying she picks up. It’s a Saturday, but schedules are nothing if not erratic in the movie business. “Hello?”

“Hey, Izzy. You left your wallet behind on Thanksgiving, are you free to pick it up now?”

A pause, then static. “Yeah, sure. I’m at the Beverly Wilshire. Room 504. I’ll tell the front desk to expect you.”

I frown, annoyance rising in my chest. My nostrils flare. “You’re in a hotel room, but you want me to come drop off your wallet?”

“I’m between work functions, Skye.”

Work functions. By which I presume she means red carpet premieres and press junkets. There it is: the narrow-minded, narcissistic, world-revolves-around-me attitude of celebrities everywhere that enables them to lecture the public about everything and believe that playing dress-up for a living makes them infinitely superior to the rest of the general populace.

“Fine.” Tossing her wallet back into my purse, I prepare for the drive. “I’m half an hour out.”

“Can you speed?” To my surprise, her tone fills with what sounds less like self-absorbed haughtiness and more like… desperation. Fear.

“I’ll see what I can do.” We both know I’m at the mercy of L.A. traffic. Still, I make it to the Beverly Wilshire in a record-breaking twenty-five minutes, paying ten dollars to valet my car out of pocket. Now I really am disappointed that her wallet didn’t have a single bill, especially when I tip the valet, the doorman, and the concierge.

When the woman behind the front desk, petite and about my age, hears the number of Isabelle’s room, her eyebrows rise, but she says nothing, passing me a temporary key card to her room that expires in three hours. An uneasy sensation squeezes my insides as I make my way through the gold- and marble-lined halls of the Wilshire.

My breathing quickens, chest tightening as I step into the elevator, several businessmen in suits following behind me. One of them gives me the side-eye when I push the button for the fifth floor. I stand up straighter, swallowing down my nerves. Maybe I stick out like a sore thumb in my jeans and UCLA t-shirt, but so what?

Maybe the fifth floor is haunted or something…

Shut up, Skye. There’s no such thing as ghosts.

I get off at the fifth floor, clutching my tote bag in front of me like a shield. I knock on room 504 before using the keycard, in case I walk in on Isabelle changing or something. Right when I walk in, all my suspicions come flooding back.

The room is separated into a few compartments, situated as a suite. There’s a bathroom on the left, a closet on the right, and a living area straight ahead, with the bedroom behind it. I hear the shower running, but as I wonder if I should give up my quest to know more about Antonio Perez and just leave the wallet on the dresser, Isabelle emerges from the wall separating the living room from the bedroom.

She looks strange. Off. Her movements are ethereal, uncertain, as she tugs at the belt of her white, lacy robe, and she drifts around the room as if in a trance. Maybe the room is haunted but by the ghost of my older sister.

“Isabelle?” I clear my throat, feeling as though she’s a wild animal I might scare off by moving too quickly or speaking too loudly.

She whips around to face me, clutching her robe more tightly across her body. Isabelle wears lingerie—if you can call the complicated set of straps and sheer fabric that hugs her body lingerie—and a childlike expression that is entirely at odds with her attire. She looks… innocent. Not just innocent, but raw, vulnerable, worn-out and beaten-down. Like I’ve caught her in a criminal act that she didn’t mean to commit, but some dark spiral dragged her down before she realized the water was closing in over her head.

“Skye,” she says, eyes unfocused. I spy a champagne bottle on the sideboard, but her mood seems far from celebratory. My sister looks like she’s been drinking to forget, or maybe to numb herself. “Thanks for coming.”

I hold up the wallet. “Where do you want me to put this?”

I feel like I’m walking into a lion’s den. Though I guess lion’s dens don’t usually contain luxurious furniture, a flatscreen TV, and various articles of designer clothing strewn over the aforementioned items. The suite is cluttered with items; the only thing in its proper place is a designer gown hanging on a rack, feathers and sequins trailing the thick carpet. I spot a men’s blazer draped over the chair, and a pair of leather loafers kicked off next to it. Pieces click into place, and they make an unsettling picture.

“Is someone else here?”

I had assumed she was about to take a shower when I heard the pipes gurgling. But maybe I was so wrong.

The shower shuts off, confirming my suspicions. I remain rooted in place, flip flops glued to the bronze carpet. Isabelle looks over my shoulder, her gaze fixed on one spot like I’m not there at all.

“Izzy,” I say. “What’s wrong?”

The bathroom door flies open and we both flinch. I whirl around and my gaze latches on a man. Vaguely familiar, with dark hair, clad in a white waffle robe. None of that is the reason I have to bite down on my lip to keep my jaw from dropping, though. No, it’s his age. And his eyes.

Mid-sixties, if the streaks of grey at his temples are anything to go by. And his eyes… they’re the same shape; the same shade of green, as Leo’s.

“You must be Antonio Perez.”

He looks past me, at my sister. “You didn’t tell me you had a guest, Ms. Holland.”

“It’s just my sister. She’s dropping off my wallet. I left it at our parents’ place.” Isabelle’s voice is a thread, already unravelling and halfway to snapping. Yet there’s still an ounce of fighting spirit in there. “Thanks for coming by, Skye.”

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