Lux and Lies (Whitebird Chronicles Book 1) Page 10

  He considered her question long enough that Wren started to worry about his answer. Finally, he said, “Always remember there was no one equal to Sloane. She stood on her own in a world that valued her face and body over her voice and mind. When you can’t figure out how to speak or act like her, consider how it would feel to know, deep down in your heart, that no one really cared about what you were saying, only how you looked saying it.”

  She couldn’t find the right words to reply. There were none. What had that felt like for Sloane? To know people only cared for her on the most surface level? That wound would have stretched across every aspect of her life, including the people closest to her who did care, like Roman and Hutton. It explained why Bode and Hutton had commented about only getting to know Sloane on a superficial level because no one cared about the rest. Maybe, toward the end, she’d only let them in on a surface level too. Maybe that was why no one had known the real Sloane Lux before she died.

  Wren licked her dry lips. “I can’t be a caricature of her. It’s not working. I need to understand her as much as possible.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “You will?”

  “For the red carpet, you’ll need more than what Hutton is teaching you.” Roman’s grip tightened on the door handle. “Meet me back here tomorrow night and we’ll start.”

  “Why not tonight?” Wren pressed.

  He lowered his head, and a piece of hair fell across his forehead. “I can’t tonight.” He opened the door and stepped into the hall.

  “Why?” she whispered. She could barely make out his silhouette. “Why help me?”

  “Because you might be the best thing to ever happen to Sloane.”

  The words drifted quietly back to her, but she caught each one and clutched them to her chest.

  He closed the door behind him, and Wren collapsed into her chair, breathing heavily, her body aching with soreness and sadness. Mostly sadness.

  She knew one thing for certain: Roman’s heartbreak, the brokenness in his eyes as he spoke about Sloane, was real. Everything else, with Hutton and Hazen, was a show he put on.

  Just from the expression on his face as he’d left, Wren crossed him off her list of suspects.

  12:

  “Don’t pout. You’ll get wrinkles,” Hutton said, her focus on her phone and not the view of Hollywood sweeping past the car windows.

  Wren crossed her arms; she was, indeed, pouting. “Meeting Maddox Rivers on the actual set of Glass House is a big deal. I should have prepared for it or something.”

  “And what do you think I’ve been trying to do with you all week? Besides, you should be happy you’re out of that penthouse. I know I am.”

  “Me too,” Bode said from his seat across from Wren. He wore his security clothes: combat boots and a loose jacket over a body-hugging shirt to conceal the weapons strapped to him.

  It did feel wonderful to be driving through Hollywood, seeing more the city from inside one of Hazen’s cars, which Bode and his team had swept for bombs and deemed clear. Wren craned her neck to look out the tinted window. The top-most floors of the glittering, gilded buildings seemed to touch the clouds, though she doubted they swayed in the wind like the government housing in Sunshine Heights.

  The car rounded a corner onto a new street, and Wren pressed her face against the glass. Glass and polished concrete stretched into the air, an exclamation point of staggering architecture. “What is that?”

  The building’s angles, modern and slashing, would have been brutal if not for the water—so much water—flowing through clear tubing coiled around the roof and cascaded down the sides. Beneath the late morning sunshine, crystalline drops shone like fresh, pure hope.

  “The city’s water treatment facility,” Bode said.

  “That’s where VidaCorp purifies the water?” Wren’s breath fogged the glass.

  “No,” Hutton said without looking up from her phone, a bottle of water pressed between her knees. She pointed to the opposite window. “This is where they purify the water.”

  Wren leaned around her to peer out. Just a couple blocks away, directly across from the water treatment facility, was VidaCorp’s headquarters.

  The skyscraper, the tallest in the city, was a spire of reflective chrome and glass. It had become the hallmark of the city, almost as identifying to the skyline as the Hollywood sign. Wren had seen VidaCorp’s headquarters countless times on television, but in person, it stole the air from her lungs.

  Sandwiched between the water facility and VidaCorp’s headquarters, the car glided to a smooth stop, and a woman’s face appeared outside her window. Wren recoiled.

  “Reporter,” Hutton said dryly. She checked the window. “There’s more. At least twenty. News of the car bomb must have leaked.”

  Bode raked a hand through his hair. “That’s convenient. Hazen could have warned me before he told the press.”

  Wren swiveled away from her window to face Hutton and Bode. “Why would he leak it now?”

  “Sympathy?” Hutton offered. “Hype? Hazen doesn’t need a reason for his actions. He does what he wants.”

  “Normally, he has good reasons, but it would have been better if the Whitebirds had hit Beau’s car …” Bode shrugged, as if to say, “What can you do?”

  The face against Wren’s window disappeared, and someone knocked on the glass. She stiffened at the sound. “Is that another reporter?”

  “No, it’s my team,” Bode said. “They’re meeting us here.”

  Wren tugged down the brim of the vintage Red Sox ball cap she wore and adjusted her silver aviator sunglasses Hutton had also insisted she wear. The swelling from her alterations had gone down, leaving her as an almost perfect Sloane replica, though she’d need a few more minor alts to be completely perfect. Without mirrors, Wren couldn’t decide for herself, but everyone had deemed her similar enough, even if her voice was still healing, to be seen outside the penthouse.

  “The reporters will start shouting questions as soon as I open the door. Answer none of them. Don’t look up. Don’t meet their eyes. Don’t say a word, no matter what they ask you, and never stop walking. Understand?” Hutton drilled the commands like a USPD sergeant.

  Across from her, Bode adjusted his jacket. Beneath it, a gun’s barrel gleamed from its leather shoulder holster. Wren swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded at Hutton.

  “Move fast,” Bode told Hutton. “The team is on crowd control and I’m on Wren, so you’re by yourself.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Hutton popped open the door and climbed out with effortless grace. The reporters scuffled closer to the car, shouting Sloane’s name. Hands smacked against the windows, and the Link driver snapped its plastic head toward the sound, lasers whirring. Bode’s team struggled to keep the reporters off Hutton and an area clear for Wren.

  “You’re up,” Bode said.

  “It’s a madhouse out there.”

  “Just keep your head down. I’ll be right behind you.”

  She forced herself to move by imagining she was back in Sunshine Heights and she was rushing to get out the door before her father worked himself into a rage. Wren slid over the sleek leather seat and eased out of the car.

  Suddenly, it was more than just shouting and jostling. It was cameras flashing in her eyes. It was a surge of heat so thick Wren could slice it with a knife. It was a slam of pressure, both physical and the sort in Wren’s mind that screamed everyone was watching her, waiting, begging. They wanted every last scrap of her—of Sloane.

  She froze.

  “Miss Lux, do you fear for your safety?”

  “Is it true the Whitebirds threatened you, Miss Lux?”

  “Miss Lux, where have you been these past few weeks?”

  “Is it true you’ve relapsed?”

  “Are you in rehab for your serk addiction?”

  More than just a few reporters were gathered. This was a swarm of buzzing, humming, flashing killer bees. Wren looked up, and her
eyes locked on the crowd. Her mouth gaped open, and a piece of hair blew across her face. They hurled question after question at her until her ears rang.

  Behind her, Bode gripped her shoulder. A few steps ahead, Hutton yelled at the security team, her words lost in the cacophony. She snagged Wren’s hand and jerked her forward as Bode steered, his body a shield against Wren’s back. His heat warmed the bare skin of her neck. More VidaCorp security poured from the lobby and joined the effort to clear a path to the front doors.

  “Miss Lux, please! Over here!”

  “Have you heard rumors of Glass House being canceled?”

  “Are the Whitebirds a fake gang created by VidaCorp to garner more publicity for the show, Miss Lux?”

  “Is it true you had an abortion last summer?”

  Wren almost stumbled, her eyes darting in the direction of the reporter who had asked the last question, but it had already faded among the barrage of others. The shouts all mingled until the air clogged her throat and the sidewalk tilted beneath her feet.

  A few steps from the lobby, the building’s obelisk doors sprang open and an old-fashioned bellhop greeted them with a frantic sweep of his hand and a punctuated bow.

  Bode ushered her inside. The rest of his team closed the doors behind them.

  “You good?” he whispered in her ear, his hand still on the small of her back.

  Wren’s teeth were clattering so much she couldn’t form an answer.

  “What the hell was that?” Hutton hissed, but her face remained smooth and relaxed, the corners of her mouth upturned.

  “So-sorry,” Wren stammered.

  The bellhop led their harried group through the lobby, Wren’s feet passing over rich black slate. The waiting area teemed with business people perched on gray leather chairs and couches to keep their suits from wrinkling. Receptionists sat behind a white marble half wall, answering calls and directing people to the waiting area. Bode acknowledged two hulking men standing guard at the elevator alcove.

  Hutton strode straight to the back elevator, even though the first three were available. This elevator was smaller and had a keyhole instead of a call button.

  “I have a security meeting,” Bode said. “I’ll get my own ride back to the penthouse. Are you two okay?”

  “You’re leaving?” Renewed panic surged through Wren. She’d assumed Bode would be with her today. The thought of being alone with Hutton and Maddox terrified her.

  “Just for a few hours. We’ll catch that new vampire movie later, okay?”

  “Whatever,” Hutton growled. “Maybe on our way out, Sloane could do a line of coke right there on the sidewalks with the reporters.”

  “It wasn’t that bad. Leave her alone.” To Wren, he added, “See you later.”

  Before she could respond, the light above one set of doors lit up, and the elevator dinged before the doors slid open. From inside the carriage, a man stepped out. His belly hung over his belt, and his ashen complexion alarmed Wren. He nodded at Bode.

  “Morning,” he said gruffly, sounding like a loose box of nails.

  “Hey, Maddox. I’ll leave you with the girls. I was just heading up.” Bode took Maddox’s spot in the elevator, and the doors breezed shut.

  Wren’s heart was returning to a normal speed, and she processed that the man limping toward her and Hutton, favoring his left leg, was the Glass House field producer. He carried a worn leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and sweat stained his shirt beneath both arms. Perspiration dotted his brow. He looked far worse in person than he had in the pictures.

  His eyes swept up and down Wren’s body, his face paling even more. He appeared ready to faint on the spot. “Holy shit.”

  “Why, Maddox,” Hutton drawled. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  13:

  Rolling her eyes at Maddox’s gawking, Hutton inserted a clear plastic key into the elevator’s lock and turned it. Instantly, the doors slid open. Wren entered first, followed by Hutton and Maddox. The small carriage felt cramped with three bodies in it, and the scent of Maddox’s sweat made the tight squeeze all the more oppressive.

  “Think she’ll pass?” Hutton asked Maddox when they were alone, the elevator ascending with such speed that Wren’s stomach flattened deep in her body.

  Maddox’s thinly veiled disgust manifested in a shudder. “Whatever gets us through the show.”

  Wren kept her mouth closed, but Maddox clearly hated Sloane to the point of repulsion. Getting through this meeting would be harder than she’d thought.

  “We still have a few more adjustments to go,” Hutton said, “but we’re getting there. Not that any of it will matter if she can’t hold her shit together around the reporters.”

  Maddox frowned, his jowls trembling from the effort. “What happened?”

  “She froze out there. There’s probably a flattering picture of her mouth hanging open with the headline, ‘Sloane Lux Reacts to Abortion Question!’ You’ll love it. Oh, by the way,” she said to Wren as if just remembering she was there, “this is Maddox Rivers, your producer while on set.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Wren said. “Is it true, though? The abortion, I mean?”

  Hutton snorted around a laugh. “Oh, please. The vultures will ask anything to get a reaction like the one you gave them. It’s almost as good as a real answer.”

  Maddox muttered under his breath about explaining something to Hazen and reached into his bag. He withdrew a bottle of antacids. Uncapping it, he threw back a few pills and crunched them loudly. He stuffed the bottle back into his bag and looked up, struggling to meet Wren’s eyes. Eventually, he managed, though his bushy, caterpillar brows pinched together above his bulbous nose.

  Wren tried not to take offense, reminding herself that Sloane had gotten one of his movies canceled, but she remained a touch annoyed that he wasn’t at least giving her a chance.

  “I’m sure Hutton has stressed how important this show is for the network. A lot is riding on its success. No matter what, this secret stays buried. Correct?”

  The key to portraying Sloane was putting on a performance. This meeting with Maddox was just another show, and Wren would have to do far better than she had with the reporters outside. A performance, she thought. What does Maddox Rivers, Glass House producer, want to see?

  “Yes, sir,” she said, deciding to approach Maddox the complete opposite way Sloane would have.

  “So, ah,” Maddox fumbled, unaccustomed to respect, “well, what’s your real name, then?”

  “Her real name doesn’t matter. She’s Sloane.”

  Ignoring Hutton, Maddox asked again, “What’s your name?”

  “Wren,” she said and offered him a very un-Sloane-like smile. It was a Wren smile, the warm sort she often gave Mak when enduring one of her conspiracy theories.

  Maddox’s expression remained a mixture of sternness and nausea. Smiles didn’t impress him. She’d have to try something else.

  The elevator slowed and then stopped. The doors opened to the Glass House set Wren would call home for almost a month once the show started.

  From the center of the entry’s two-story-tall ceiling, a giant crystal chandelier hung with thousands of tiny lights streaking rainbows across the white marble floor. The darting colors landed on blue glass walls and an archway that opened into the rest of the first floor.

  “Don’t act so star-struck,” Hutton snapped.

  Maddox waved off Hutton’s worry. “She’s fine. No one is on set yet.”

  Wren swallowed her apology, because when she drifted past Hutton and Maddox to inspect the rest of the house, she couldn’t hide her wonder.

  Beyond the entry, the house truly was made of glass. All the walls were glass, the floors were glass, and the spiral stairs to the next level were glass. From one room to the next, Wren saw straight through to a sprawling balcony where a pool seemed to spill right over the edge and into the cornflower blue sky beyond. The only color interrupting the glass decor was the white
furniture scattered through various rooms. A lilting sense of vertigo swept over her.

  She reached for a nearby crystal table to steady herself and struggled to process what she was seeing. For a second, she thought she might puke all over the pretty glass floor. She’d wondered about the show’s name, but she hadn’t imagined this. How in the world was she supposed to hunt down the Whitebird insider when everyone would be able to see everything she did?

  The walls and floor suddenly darkened until they were opaque and completely frosted through. The sudden change cut out the outside sunlight, but countless lights inset in the ceiling bathed the set in warm light. Wren spun toward the others. “How did you do that?”

  Maddox held up a tablet. “The opacity in the glass is controlled remotely. The crew can adjust it in case we’re filming in one room and need the focus on the cast in there.”

  “Wow.”

  “Follow me.” He waved her farther into the central living space. “I’ll keep the tour quick so we can cover all the information you need to know.”

  “Thank you.” Wren followed him into the sprawling open room. Overstuffed couches and chairs and lounges cluttered the area atop a sophisticated layer of rugs. A black stone fireplace stretched up against the middle of the back wall, with a television mounted above the mantle. On either side, two archways led into the next set of rooms.

  “First off, aside from Roman, Hutton, Bode, Hazen, and myself, none of the cast or crew know who you are. If you run into an identity issue with a cast mate or crew member, come to me or Hutton right away.”

  “We’ve already been over this,” Hutton said

  “And I’m going over it again.”

  Wren trailed behind as they argued. She felt like a rat in a maze of dead ends and turn backs with only one way to freedom. The set was massive, but she’d have to make it work. If everyone would be able to see her hunting for an anarchist, then she would be able to see anything the Whitebird attempted. As she passed through one of the archways, she told herself it would be fine.