“Your opinion isn’t the one that matters. I’m the one with final approval.”
Linwood held up his hands in surrender. “I know, I know. But you have zero experience in television. You’re looking for authenticity but you can’t see the elements that make for a hit show. I can. My clients are the biggest showrunners in the business.”
“Good for you. I need to go, my dinner is getting cold.” Eve reached for the Taco Bell bag and the envelope.
“Here’s an idea. Toss that bag in the trash and let me take you to dinner at Mastro’s in Malibu. They make a great steak and a lemon-drop martini that will change your life.”
“No thanks.” She stood up.
He stood, too. “I’m on your side, Eve. Why do you treat me like the enemy?”
“Because I hate everything about this.” She shook the envelope at him. “I feel like I’ve been forced into it.”
She’d only accepted the deal because she knew that a series, or a movie, could be made with or without her because she was arguably a public figure. But by agreeing to participate, it gave her a measure of control over how she was portrayed and her story was dramatized. And, eventually, it would give her a nice paycheck. Even so, she wished it would all go away.
“Having a TV series? That’s the cross you have to bear?”
“Yes, it is.”
Linwood laughed. “There are thousands of people in this town who’ve spent their entire lives desperately struggling to get where you are right now and they’ve never come close.”
She knew that. Her mom and dad were two of those people, and they’d both managed to strong-arm their way into the deal. It was Vince who’d brought in Simone and then reached out to Jen to arrange a meeting with Eve. Vince wanted to direct the pilot and Jen wanted a regular speaking role. The possibility of getting some work off of Eve was enough for her mother to set aside her decades of justified bitterness toward Vince for being an absentee, deadbeat father . . . and enough for him to finally make an effort to be in their lives. It made her angry at both of them.
“The difference is, it’s their dream, not mine,” Eve said. “All I ever wanted was to be a good cop.”
“Dreams can change.”
Eve walked away.
Linwood called after her. “Read it tonight and call me.”
If her hands weren’t full, Eve would have given him the finger.
Eve ate her greasy, cold dinner and stared at the envelope the whole time like it contained a rattlesnake waiting to strike.
To distract herself, she turned on the TV and watched the Property Brothers renovate an entire house for what it cost her just to install a kitchen countertop. The show was about as realistic as an episode of Star Trek. She turned off the TV in disgust and her gaze landed on the envelope again.
Her curiosity got the better of her. She took out the script, flipped to the first page, and began reading:
EXT. LOS ANGELES—DAY
From above, the city is a big, flat swath of urban sprawl that smacks up against the Santa Monica Mountains, which look like an island of dry, green wilderness in a sea of bleak concrete and asphalt.
EVE’S VOICE
The law in the City of Los Angeles is enforced by the police department.
As we get closer, heading northwest, we can see that the Santa Monica Mountains are bordered by the city to the south, Pacific Coast Highway to the west, the San Fernando Valley to the north, and the Sepulveda Pass to the east.
EVE’S VOICE
But here in the Santa Monica Mountains and the surrounding communities, the law is enforced by the Los Angeles County Sheriff and his deputies.
WE PUSH IN ON:
EXT. MULHOLLAND HIGHWAY—DAY
The winding two-lane road snakes along the razor’s edge of the mountains and dips into the canyons. The farther northwest we go, the more perilous and empty the road becomes.
WE FIND:
A FEMALE BICYCLIST
speeding down the sharp curves. She’s in her late twenties, lean-bodied and totally focused, clad in razor-slim sunglasses, an aerodynamic helmet, and skintight, sculpted spandex, all worn for efficiency and practicality, not fashion. Though she wears it very well. She is one with her bike and the road, lost in the speed. This is EVE RONIN.
She couldn’t read any further. There was nothing about what she’d read that was particularly objectionable, but it still made her nauseous.
Or perhaps it was her dinner. Or the combination of both.
So she tossed the script aside, opened her laptop, and found the email from CSU with the links to the encrypted virtual drives created from Colter’s and Nagy’s laptops. She started with Colter’s computer and it didn’t take long for her to discover that Duncan’s guess was right: it was full of porn. Colter had downloaded hundreds of porn movies from the internet. She opened some of the files, watched a few minutes, and saw it was generic XXX stuff, nothing illegal, at least not in California.