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And why can’t I shake the feeling that Victor Callahan is somehow part of this mystery too? Not just investigating it, but embedded within it in ways neither of us yet understands.

8

CALLAHAN

Elizabeth Short’s room at the Barclay is exactly as she left it—a testament to death’s sudden arrival, or perhaps to the LAPD’s indifference to a dead girl’s meager possessions.

I flash my credentials to Mrs. Rossi, the tired-eyed landlady who seems caught between macabre interest in her infamous former tenant and fear that the association might drive away future business. She unlocks the door with shaking hands before retreating back to her first-floor apartment, leaving me alone in the small, tidy space.

The room is impersonal, the way temporary lodgings often are. A twin bed with a worn floral quilt. A vanity with a cracked mirror. A small desk beneath the room’s single window. The LAPD has already been through it, of course, but cops miss things. They’re looking for sensational evidence—bloody clothes, threatening letters, murder weapons. I’m looking for the quiet details, the whispers between facts.

I begin with the vanity, methodically examining each item. Makeup, bobby pins, a brush with dark strands of hair still caught in the bristles. Elizabeth Short cultivated a certain image—the dark hair, pale skin, and bright lipstick that became her trademark. I wonder what she’d think of her nickname that is now outliving her.

The desk drawers yield more: unpaid bills, postcards from her sister, rejection letters from casting agents, a half-used book of bus tickets. In the bottom drawer, I find a small metal box containing several photographs. Elizabeth wearing bunny ears with a baby chick in her hands. Elizabeth posing in a swimsuit on the beach. Elizabeth with Lena Reid, seems the same day as the other photo Virginia had given me.

I examine this photo more closely. The two women are laughing, arms linked, standing outside what looks like a diner. Casual, genuine happiness—not the posed glamour of Elizabeth’s other photographs. I pocket it, telling myself it’s evidence.

The closet contains a modest collection of mostly black dresses, a suitcase, and several shoeboxes. Nothing unusual. I continue searching, finally finding what I’m looking for tucked inside a copy ofThe Postman Always Rings Twice—a small address book. I flip through, noting names, most unfamiliar. Lena Reid’s name has a star beside it. Several entries are marked only with initials.

And on the back page, a single address with no name attached. The same warehouse district location Lena and I visited yesterday.

I pocket the address book alongside the photograph and continue my methodical search, looking for anything that might connect to the Europeans Lena mentioned. Nothing obvious presents itself, though I do find several matchbooks from high-end establishments—places a struggling actress shouldn’t have been able to afford. I wonder how often she was cadging at those places, trying to get a free meal or drinks from a generous—or not-so generous—soul.

As I prepare to leave, a wave of dizziness hits me without warning. I grab the edge of the desk, waiting for it to pass.

Stress and lack of sleep, I tell myself.Nothing more.

Can’t be anything more.

Grief has funny ways of haunting you, my doctor had once said.

But I’d done my grieving.

I check my watch. Just past three. Plenty of time to follow up on a few more leads before darkness falls.

The darkness iswhat wakes me.

I open my eyes to find myself in my car, engine off, parked on a street I don’t immediately recognize. My watch reads 1:17 a.m.

What the fuck?

Nearly ten hours unaccounted for now.

Panic rises in my throat as I orient myself. North Ivar Avenue. I’m parked across from the Alto Nido apartments.

Lena’s building.

I have no memory of driving here. No memory of anything after leaving Elizabeth’s boarding house. Just a blank space where hours should be.

Jesus Christ.

My hands grip the steering wheel, knuckles white in the dim glow of the streetlamp. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost hours, but it’s the longest blackout yet. And the first time I’ve woken somewhere with no recollection of why I came.

I check myself for injuries, for blood—anything to explain this episode. Nothing. Just the lingering metallic taste in my mouth that always accompanies these blackouts.

A light comes on in a third-floor window of the apartment building. Through the thin curtains, I can make out a silhouette—a woman’s form, her hair loose around her shoulders.

Lena.