Wicked Ambition (51 page)

Fuelled by a burst of hatred, she stood on the threshold and struck the match. In a rasp it caught. She threw it in as carelessly as an apple core and watched the place begin to burn.

Coolly she walked to her car, climbed in and switched the ignition. As the vehicle moved off she detected the smash of shattering glass, smoke starting to billow from the windows. Next stop: the Palisades Grand.

78

T
he ETV Platinum Awards was the greatest occasion in the musical calendar. Since the eighties it had been renowned for a glittering array of iconic performances, provocative costumes, show-stopping speeches and scandalous wins. It was the definitive limelight for a galaxy of stars, from upcoming talent to established icons. Each year passed with a fresh dose of drama, whether that was an underdog victory, a red-carpet shocker or a dramatic host.

This summer, all eyes would be on three stories: Kristin White and Scotty Valentine, appearing separately but for ever tied by the theatre of their break-up; Robin Ryder, now one of the biggest names in America after a knock-out smash of a tour; and Turquoise da Luca, whose stellar year with her debut movie
True Match
had culminated in one of the biggest humiliations in Hollywood history: Cosmo Angel’s shattering disgrace.

In her dressing room, Turquoise applied the last of her
make-up. She employed a stylist but had always preferred to do her own paintwork.

The smile she now gave her reflection was something that money couldn’t buy.

The crowd would be waiting to see how she faced the music—they couldn’t know that it was she who had been responsible for Cosmo’s downfall, after all—and everyone imagined she was reeling as much as the rest.

Since the YouTube outrage, Cosmo had disappeared completely from the public eye. No one had seen him. No one had heard from him. Rumour had it he’d fired and hired a whole new team, his PR machine working into the ground, but Turquoise couldn’t imagine how he could possibly come back from it. The footage had been strewn across the web in seconds, gathering a pace of its own, with every click and every view sealing Cosmo’s fate. The press had gone to town. The fans had been dismayed. It had sounded his death knell.

Whatever Cosmo had threatened Turquoise with now was pointless. It could never buy back his reputation. She had taken from him what he had claimed of her all those years ago when she had first arrived in Los Angeles: dignity.

Deliberately she had spared Ava. She had thought long and hard about it and, after searching her conscience, and after the event, she was glad of that decision. When all was done, she and Ava had both worked at Madam Babydoll’s and she would never know what had brought Ava there in the first place. She could never forgive Ava for what she had put her through, but Turquoise had learned over the years that people were rarely what they appeared to be. Who knew what Cosmo had subjected his wife to, in order to turn her
into the reprehensible robot that had fed Turquoise water and changed her sheets? Ava’s treasured marriage was tarnished eternally by her husband’s perversions—and that was enough.

There was a tap at the door and Donna put her head round, smiling. After her initial astonishment at Cosmo’s extra-curricular pursuits had subsided—
’D’you know, I always thought there was something odd about him; that script was way too real’
—she had seen it make Turquoise more bankable than ever. World domination was a single deal away.

‘You ready?’ she asked as a stage assistant passed with a time check:

‘Ten minutes, Ms da Luca.’

She was opening tonight’s show. It was the start of the rest of her life.

‘Let’s do this,’ she replied, getting to her feet. Her hair was piled on top of her head and her jet catsuit clung to every curve. Huge gold hoops glinted at her ears and a slash of red lipstick confirmed her as the most stunning woman there.

Outside, Bronx was waiting.

‘Hey, lady.’ He kissed her and took her hand. ‘Ready?’

She smiled up at him. ‘Ready.’

Backstage, preparing for her own introduction, Kristin watched Turquoise kick off the show with a previously unheard track, ‘Secret Room’. The tens of thousands packed into the stadium were going wild, screaming her name as the bass line trembled and her voice rang out. It was a stunning performance. Turquoise was riding high.

Kristin remembered what they had talked about in Italy that fuzzy, drunken afternoon, comparing horror stories about Cosmo and Jax. She wondered what Turquoise had needed Jax for, but didn’t dwell on it. She was glad he had lost at the Championships. Word was his PA sweetheart had dumped him as well, swiftly followed by her resignation after she’d discovered him seeking solace with an open-mouthed volunteer. To think that Kristin had ever attempted to break Jax’s ludicrous stopwatch record was preposterous.

She had been confused then…lost. Not any more. It might have taken her years to find out who she really was, but she’d done it in the end.

‘You look beautiful.’

Kristin turned at the voice she knew so well. Scotty Valentine was next to her in the wings, smartly suited, a conservative ensemble with neat hair and a stiff collar. He held an envelope in one hand, the coveted nominations, and in the other a shimmering gong that, moments after her own appearance, would be passed to the winner of the Best Video category.

‘Thanks.’ In a super-short lace dress teamed with sneakers, her blonde locks grown out and now in a high ponytail, her style combined both new and old Kristin. She was still the same woman. She had fought against it, against Ramona and Scotty’s betrayal and her sister’s suicide, pretending a rebirth so she could cast off everything that had gone before, but she couldn’t deny the girl she had been for twenty-three years.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

‘I’m good.’ The last words they had spoken had been in anger. Despite everything, Scotty had comprised an enormous
part of her young life. He had faced reckonings for his actions that he hadn’t deserved, a backlash and criticism that was not just demeaning but unwarranted. Appearing tonight in front of millions was testament to his courage.

It was time to bury their vendetta.

‘I’m sorry about Bunny,’ he said. ‘I’ve cried a lot of tears for her.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Not sure how many people would agree with that.’

‘She built you up to something you weren’t. Doesn’t everyone do that with their idols? In real life you were never going to be all the things she wanted. Being gay or not makes no difference.’

Scotty watched her carefully; surprised, moved, and finally grateful.

‘Fenton’s free,’ he told her.

‘I heard. I’m glad.’

‘So am I.’

In the stadium, the crowd erupted in applause as Turquoise exited the stage. The cameras swung round and the host resumed the podium.

‘Your turn.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Good luck.’

She squeezed his hand. ‘You, too.’

79

D
usk was falling by the time Detectives McEverty and Moretti arrived at Ivy Sewell’s apartment. It was one of those faceless complexes, the kind of place ordinary people went about their ordinary lives and nothing remarkable ever happened—except for today.

Moretti rapped on the door. ‘Police, open up!’

No response.

McEverty withdrew his gun and signalled the entry.

‘On my count,’ he directed. ‘One, two, three…’

One hard kick and they were inside, weapons low, skirting the walls. It was dark, the blinds drawn, but enough clarity soaked through to decipher their surroundings.

Chaos. She appeared to have been living in a single room—everything was gathered in one space: a narrow bed, the sheets disrupted as though it had been scene to a struggle; scattered plates and mugs, brought through from an unused kitchen and left to rot; a sea of unwashed clothes
from which a TV and laptop surfaced, next to each other on the floor.

McEverty kicked the laptop open and the screen flashed white before relinquishing their suspect’s last visited site, an arsenal of firearms: rifles, pistols, shotguns, revolvers…

‘Jesus H.,’ commented Moretti.

Confident the place was empty, McEverty released the blind and flooded the room with light. ‘You said it,’ he murmured as an entire wall covered in Robin Ryder miscellany was revealed, a replica of the cuttings they had found in England. ‘It’s her, no question.’

Moretti tucked his gun away, privately pleased to discover a vacated apartment because truth was the dame gave him the jeepers. He moved to inspect the wall—shrine, obsession, whatever it was—and stumbled over a tangle on the floor. As he put his hands to the mattress to steady himself his foot slammed into something solid.

‘What the…?’

He crouched and looked under the bed.

‘McEverty, get your ass over here. Now.’

His partner was distracted, riffling through paperwork. ‘She got a job at the Palisades Grand,’ he said, glancing worriedly at the wall and then back to the documents. ‘Ain’t that where the ETV event’s happening…?’

‘I said get over here.’

McEverty obliged.

There was a body under the bed, bruised red and purple at the neck.

One look at the man’s bloated corpse, mouth open in
the final gasp of his demise, told McEverty everything he needed to know.

‘We gotta get moving,’ he announced, radioing for backup. ‘We haven’t got long.’

80

G
ordon blinked into the light. He was hot, searingly hot. There was an acrid smell in his nostrils and his lungs were tight as drums, fighting to get air. His head was throbbing and there was shooting pain in his stomach, scorching like acid.

A low groan roused him, a thread that seemed to come both to him and away from him, and when the two met he realised it was he who was making the sound.

His limbs were heavy. Opening his eyes was like hauling a portcullis.

When he did, everything was orange and furious. The walls were roaring. And the heat…the clogging, inescapable heat…In his terror he inhaled sharply, swallowing smoke. He choked and coughed, fighting to see, and in doing so met a nightmare.

The building was on fire. With a jolt he recalled where he was—Leon’s apartment.

It spun back on him: his confession; their conversation; the flame-haired stranger arriving at the door…Leon collapsing
at the threshold…and that was the last Gordon could summon. Now they were scorching effigies, perishing on the pyre.

Burned alive
.

Every muscle in his body exploded. He had to get out. But it was as though he had been weighted with lead. The smoke was asphyxiating and he couldn’t get clean air, his whole body crying out for oxygen. The heat went beyond heat to something entirely different, insufferably close, the pain so intense that in pockets it felt almost freezing cold, his brain tricking his body into survival. On his feet, precarious and faltering, the heat was worse.

Higher up there was a rampant soundtrack. Pops and crackles and fizzes as glass exploded and flames licked and whooshed, flicking and darting and pouncing, an energy so bent on destruction he was dwarfed by its might. The walls were a rushing lava flow, the ceiling pooled orange and gold and flashing, leaping red.

Get out, get out, get out…

Leon was unconscious. Through a curtain of fury Gordon deciphered the dancing, quivering promise of a door, misshapen in the fever, the taunting desert mirage. He could have dived for it, given himself half a chance. Instead he grabbed Leon’s shoulders. He didn’t know how he did it, he scarcely had strength to support himself, but somehow he did.

Man, he was heavy. Every muscle in Leon’s body had shut down, limp and useless.

Gordon pulled, shouting out with the searing effort. His knees gave way and his arms scalded but still he didn’t stop. With a hiss a sheet of glass combusted and needles of fire slashed into his skin, blood melting the instant it surfaced.
Agony chased through him, overwhelming to the point of paralysis, but he had to keep going. He couldn’t stop.

Suddenly, miraculously, with a final heave they were out. Clear sky flooded his vision, a wheeling arc as he dragged Leon’s body out after him, away from the wreckage. He heard sirens, people rushing towards the building, felt a pair of arms catching him as he fell.

Is anyone else inside, sir? Is there anyone else inside?

Gordon’s chest gave way. He collapsed. The road was cool, gloriously cool, beneath his scorched, blistered skin. Jets of water sprang like fountains into the air, trucks and hoses full of water, an ocean’s worth of water that Gordon wanted nothing more than to drown in.

‘Leon, can you hear me?’ A medic was crouching. ‘Leon, wake up. Wake up.’

A blanket was shrouded around Gordon’s shoulders, soothing words and a mask over his nose and mouth to help his breathing.

Wake up
, Gordon begged.
Wake up
.

Leon coughed. He spluttered. They slapped his back, helping him sit up.

It was then that their assailant’s voice hit, as if from nowhere.

Gordon remembered her words as she had stood like an ice queen on the threshold.

It’s about Robin Ryder…I need to speak with you urgently…

And after Leon had gone down, before he had lunged and been hit by the same:

No use to her now…are you?

Gordon tore off his mask.

‘She’s going for Robin,’ he wheezed. ‘Robin’s in danger.’

81

S
link Bullion and the Puff City crew occupied a VIP table beneath the stage. A firm favourite of the Platinum Awards, they had seen it all over the years and were no strangers to controversy. At the previous event Principal 7 had taken to the spotlight during another rapper’s set and blasted him for having made a public slant against the model he’d been dating. The night was as much renowned for personal as for professional spectacles.

Slink tossed back another drink. That was why he was uncomfortable—not that the rest of the crew or the cameras would know: the Slink he gave them was the Slink they all knew, chilled, collected, in charge. But the Awards were the kind of arena where shit exploded, and if anyone here knew a single thing about Marlon Sway then none of them were safe. He glanced at the empty seat next to him, dread crawling up his back.