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“About twenty minutes,” Oliver says.

“Great.” I fan my hand in front of my face. It’s hot out and it’s going to get hotter. I’m already regretting agreeing to this trip, even though we could all use a change of scene.

It’s been a hard three months for me, too.

Not that anyone’s asked.

I’m just telling you in case you were interested.

After we failed to get Emma to confess that Sunday morning, we went and found Officer Anderson and told her what we’d discovered. Then we went back to our villa and sat on the balcony until we saw the police boats arriving, two sixteen-footers that chopped through the waves and dispensed what looked like a small army of lab techs and officers and one older, grizzled detective who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but on an island where he had to arrest two major movie stars for trying to kill each other.

The media wasn’t far behind. By the time Fred, Simone, and Emma were led to one of the boats in handcuffs, there was a flotilla of them in Avalon Bay, long lenses at the ready. There might’ve been a few media frenzies like this one before, but it’s hard to remember them.

It was the 9/11 of celebrity stories, consuming everything.

It consumed me, too.

All I could do was spin and spin and spin, turning over every little detail, trying to convince myself I couldn’t have figured it out earlier.

That I couldn’t have stopped Emma from her course of action once she’d decided on it.

It’s taken me thirty-five years to realize you can still feel guilty about something you have no control over.

After a couple of days, Harper and I decamped to Oliver’s house in North Hollywood because too many people knew where I lived. But we couldn’t go anywhere. I’d never really been recognized in public before, and guess what? It’s not that fun! Especially not if it happens because your best friend killed two people.

Deep breaths, Eleanor.

Maybe one day that phrase won’t be a punch to the gut.

But not today.

Allison and David kept in touch with us by text—they were at some undisclosed retreat in Arizona where they make you hike ten hours a day for your sins. David was hard at work onWhen in Rome You Go to Catalina, because, yes, that’s exactly what Hollywood is doing with this.

Tyler’s at the forefront, bemoaning the indignity of his arrest and pressing a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.But he’s also going to be a star witness in Emma’s trial, which is something else I don’t want to think about right now.

Crazy Cathy became a minor celebrity when she did the rounds on TMZ and the other online tabloids. She and Inspector Tucci were the only ones who’d talk to them, but once they started spinning conspiracy theories, the more reputable news organizations stopped booking them.

I hear Inspector Tucci’s in talks to get his own Nancy Grace–type show on Fox News, though.

Enough said.

Oliver and I mostly spent the time together writing our book. No surprise that Vicki was happy to take the manuscript, which is a dramatization of what happened on Catalina.

We wrote it as a dual narrative—me writing Emma’s part and him writing Fred’s. Only we called them Emily and Ted.

Yes, yes.

Did younotget the part about us cashing in on a tragedy I was involved in?

It’s what I do, after all.

It’s not my fault you want to read all about it.

Let’s see, have I forgotten anyone?

Mr. and Mrs. Winter moved into one of those retirement homes for once-famous actors. It turns out Fred had gambled away their money, too. I’m not sure what the worst blow was for Mrs. Winter. Discovering that her precious baby boy was a murderer, or that she wasn’t going to be able to continue to live the lifestyle she’d become accustomed to.

Thank God for her SAG pension and her residual checks from the 1980s, which started multiplying once her old shows were added to every streaming platform after Fred was arrested.