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“SHE WAS TALKINGabout everything changing,” Vicky said. “She was outta here. She asked me for some money so she could get set up, and said she’d pay me back when she came into her big win.”

“What was the money for?” I asked. We were sitting in the Diabolic Videos dressing room. I’d caught sight of myself in the mirror and realized Vicky’s hug had covered my face and neck in body glitter. It was proving difficult to wipe off. Tox stood nearby, examining bottles of perfume.

“I don’t know. But I saw her near Potts Point wearing some pretty flashy clothes. I was driving by and she was with another girl. Maybe she had a job or something.”

“Who was the other girl?”

“I don’t know that either. They were shopping for handbags. On Macleay Street. Damn, girl must’ve hit something good.”

“Why did you say out there that Claudia was ‘bad news’?” Tox asked.

“Oh.” Vicky looked embarrassed, turned to the mirrors and started braiding her hair. “I feel bad now. She’s dead. You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

“You should if it’ll help us.”

“She was just a slimy character, our Claudia.” Vicky sighed. “The kind of girls who end up in this industry aren’t usually your silver spoon types. But I’d met Claudia’s parents and they seemed like nice, quiet people. Regular people. I couldn’t figure out how she ended up the way she was. So deceptive. She always had a scam on the go.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, like she’d tell you she knew where to get cheap ecstasy or something, you know, for the weekend. She’d take your money and come back crying, telling you the dealer had robbed her, smacked her around. She’d show you bruises that were nonexistent, or days old. That sort of thing.”

“Right.”

“She lied like you wouldn’t believe, so she made a good actress for Diabolic. I think her parents thought she was a waitress or something. But she lied about things that didn’t matter. She exaggerated and exaggerated until you were basically being asked to believe she had this crazy, wild, extravagant life. She was dating movie stars and international spies.”

“How sad,” I said.

“She was always on the verge of a ‘new life.’ The big money she was supposed to be coming into? I don’t know.” Vicky shrugged. “Sounds like bullshit to me. I think she’d applied to the university. She was going to buy an apartment, transfer up into a law-school program, be a criminal lawyer. She kept watching clips from legal dramas on her phone, practicing them out loud. I mean, please—girl could barely read.”

“How’d she get into school if she could barely read?”

“I’d say she had a friend fill in the application form for her. She’d have paid them to pack it full of lies about how she was ready to knuckle down and study.” Vicky looked at me. “I can see why she was so determined to live a ‘new life.’ The life she was living here was a total fabrication.”