Fade to Black by Wendy Corsi Staub

paid for—even though he was making far less money than she was by that time—she fucking moved out of their one-bedroom Long Beach apartment. She relocated to a rented house in the Valley with her friend Rae, a real phony whom Brawley had never liked.
    And from there Mallory went straight to Malibu, to the Mediterranean-style beachfront mansion with the fancy gates and the picture-perfect landscaping and the professional decorating inside.
    Not that he’d ever been inside—as an invited guest anyway.
    How many times, in the years that followed, had he threatened to reveal her deep, dark secret to the press?
    “Go ahead,” she would say, looking at him with those fake blue eyes, making him wonder whether she was as undaunted as she appeared.
    But he had never been able to bring himself to do it. He was saving that secret as a last resort. He couldn’t use it to win her back—only to destroy her. He hadn’t had the chance.
    But it’s never too late....
    “Mr. Johnson?”
    It’s the production assistant again, smiling and gesturing. She has a speck of something dark caught between her front teeth.
    “We’re ready for you,” she says.
    He nods and gets up, following her into the adjacent dimly lit studio, where he will once again tell the world, in a halting, grieving voice, how much he still misses his dead lover, Mallory Eden.
    “R ae darling.”
    “Hello, Flynn.”
    They embrace, the golden-haired starlet and the flamboyant retired agent, beside the table at Mitsuhisa, the trendy nouveau Japanese restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills.
    Flynn Soderland casts a shrewd eye over her well-sculpted features and thinks that she has aged; well, who hasn’t? His own hair is fully white-gray now, he reminds himself, and his hairline seems to be shrinking back from his face at an alarming rate.
    Still, he is no longer in the business—at least, not technically.
    But Rae Hamilton is still a working actress—for the most part. Until recently she had played the role of dim-but-adorable Rainbow Weber on the soap opera Morning, Noon, and Night . But poor Rainbow had been hacked to death by a machete-wielding serial killer during May Sweeps.
    “How have you been, really?” Flynn asks Rae after they’ve ordered—sashimi and salad for her; a shrimp dish in wasabi butter sauce for him. He leans forward and lays a gentle hand over hers, finding it icy.
    “Do you mean since my character was killed off?” she asks, her blue eyes narrowing at him as she sips her club soda.
    “I mean since your best friend was killed off. Five years ago today, to be exact. Isn’t that why we’re here?”
    They get together for lunch every year on this date—at first to console themselves over her lost friend; his lost client. Now that the grief has waned and they have little in common, they continue the tradition out of habit. He suspects Rae is as reluctant as he is to let go entirely.
    “Oh. I didn’t realize you were referring to Mallory.” She shakes her head and echoes, “God. ‘Killed off.’ You always were blunt, Flynn.”
    “Well, it was your phrase.”
    “I was talking about Rainbow Weber, who, in case you aren’t a soap fan, met her maker a few months ago.”
    “I’m not a soap fan, but I watched.”
    “What did you think?”
    “You were very good.”
    A white lie never hurt anyone in Hollywood, that’s for damn sure.
    And anyway, it wasn’t that she was so awful. It was the writing, the melodrama … just not the kind of scene that’s conducive to an actress’s reputation.
    He can tell, by the world-weary expression in her blue eyes, that she’s perfectly aware of that truth.
    He continues. “But I was more concerned that you might be upset over Mallory, even after so many years. I’m just … worried about you.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’re out of work, and because you look …”
    “What?” she presses when he trails off.
    Never criticize an actress on her appearance .
    He may have