After Image, page 1
PRAISE FOR AFTER IMAGE
“Thrilling and seductive, After Image sucks you in with irresistible twists and holds you with its wrenching portrait of difficult love. Years after the disappearance of her wild party-girl stepsister, Natasha can’t let go, and her search for the truth leads her straight into Allie’s dangerous world of drugs, Hollywood parties, and reckless privilege. With gripping, confident prose, Jaime deBlanc offers readers a powerful vision of sisterhood, found families, and the lies that protect our deepest secrets. A must-read debut.”
—Amy Gentry, bestselling author of Good as Gone and Bad Habits
“A cold case comes calling in Jaime deBlanc’s debut novel about the ties that bind and shatter. Four years ago, Natasha’s stepsister, a member of a Hollywood power family, vanished. Now clues as to what really happened to Allie—or what Allie might’ve done—start to surface, and Tash is the one to hunt them down. Because, as deBlanc’s suspense novel proves, there is something stronger than money or fame: the unyielding force of sisterly love.”
—Jenny Milchman, Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author of Cover of Snow and The Usual Silence
“The notoriously troubled child of a Hollywood star disappears and her stepsister struggles to uncover what really happened in Jaime deBlanc’s sharp and propulsive debut. After Image kept me riveted from the first page to the last, deftly exploring distorted perception, the weight of secrets, and the dark side of fame.”
—Allison Buccola, author of The Ascent and Catch Her When She Falls
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2024 by Jaime deBlanc
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781662520945 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 9781662520938 (digital)
Cover design by David Drummond
Cover image: © Klaus Vedfelt / Getty
CONTENTS
START READING
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
afterimage (n): an optical illusion in which an image persists in the eyes after the original stimulus is gone
CHAPTER 1
January 2017
They’ve found a woman’s body in Turnbull Canyon. Yesterday, on New Year’s Eve, a hiker strayed from the trail while chasing after his dog and stumbled across the remains.
I sit on the sofa in my shoebox of an apartment, watching the TV coverage and clutching my phone in my hands. On-screen, a grim-faced police officer speaks to the crowd of reporters gathered at the entrance to the preserve. “From what we can tell, the remains have been there for some time. Years, probably.”
A reporter pushes her microphone closer to his face, her manicured fingernails glistening in the sunlight. “Do you think this could be the body of Allie Andersen?”
Allie Andersen. Her name has been spoken so often that it no longer feels private, personal to me. Allie. Al. Als. My sister.
The officer frowns, then glances over his shoulder at the scene behind him. Some policemen are making their way up the trail; others are trudging down. “It’s really too early to speculate.”
Too early for him. But not too early for the reporters who are swarming, hungry for scraps of a story. Four years ago, the Allie Andersen investigation dominated the news cycle for a solid two months. And if this really is her body—well, that spells higher ratings, doesn’t it? The story of the year.
The reporter persists: “The hiker who discovered the body described long, dark hair—”
Against my will, a picture materializes in my mind. Allie’s body. Allie’s face. What it must look like now.
“We really can’t say anything else at this time,” the officer says sharply. He shifts restlessly on his feet. It’s clear he wants to get back to work. “We’ll need results from the lab before we can make any formal identification.”
Something about the way he says it—a slight emphasis on the word formal—makes me think he knows what they’ve found. He knows the body is Allie’s. He just can’t say it out loud.
The reporter turns to talk directly to the camera, her eyes alight. “Four years ago, Allie Andersen—the daughter of acclaimed actress Isabel Andersen—vanished without a trace. At the time, police investigated several people close to Ms. Andersen, including her best friend, Greg Novak, and her college professor James Macnamara. But no charges were ever filed.”
Now they’re showing footage from the days right after Allie’s disappearance. Police cruisers parked outside the yellow stucco apartment building where we lived in college. Me, being walked up the front steps of the building by Detective Ruiz. And of course, no montage of the case would be complete without that clip of Isabel, the interview where Diane Sawyer asks her, “And what would you say to Allie if you could see her now?” As if on cue, Isabel’s face crumples, and she covers her face with her hands.
On the TV screen, the reporter chatters on: “The Andersen investigation stirred public interest in a way we hadn’t seen in this state since the Laci Peterson case in 2002. In the years since Allie’s disappearance, her case has inspired a made-for-TV movie, two podcasts, and several popular online forums.”
Images continue to flash across the screen, photos they’ve pulled from the archives. Allie at fourteen, walking down the red carpet with Isabel at the Golden Globes. Allie in our freshman year at the LA College of Science and Arts, sitting on Greg’s lap at a table outside Café Bijou. Allie at twenty-one, leaning up against the brick wall of the school’s theater department. This is the iconic photo, the one featured on the cover of People when they ran a story about the investigation. In it, Allie stands with one foot propped up against the wall behind her, a cigarette resting between the middle and ring fingers of her left hand. A wisp of smoke leaks from between her lips. She’s looking directly at the camera with an expression that’s angry—or is it flirtatious? It’s hard to tell.
It’s one of the better photos I’ve ever taken.
The reporter yammers on: “After four years of heartache and unanswered questions, the family of Allie Andersen still has no closure. Is it possible, with the discovery of a body in a lonely canyon, that we may now finally—”
I mute the TV, then force myself to loosen my grip on my phone. I’ve been holding it so tightly that red lines have become etched into the palms of my hands. Shakily, I press a finger to the phone’s screen. I already have Detective Ruiz’s number pulled up; I did that as soon as the news clip started playing.
More than anyone, it’s Ruiz I want to talk to, Ruiz who will be able to tell me what’s going on. He’ll be calm but straightforward. He’ll tell me what I need to know.
My finger hovers over his number. All I have to do is press it, and I’ll hear his voice on the other end of the line. Instead, I find myself glancing down at our call history. My last call to him more than two years ago. Ruiz doesn’t want to hear from me, not anymore. And I’m not sure, after everything that’s happened, that I can bear to reach out to him.
I stare at his number for a full minute before I set the phone down on the coffee table and let the screen go dark.
CHAPTER 2
January 2013
In the interview room, Detective Ruiz slid a Styrofoam cup across the table to me. Coffee, watery and weak.
His partner settled into the seat beside him, a pair of green-rimmed spectacles perched on top of his bald head. Detective Golanski was in his late fifties and built like a prizefighter. The expression on his face said that nothing had ever surprised him. Ruiz, on the other hand, looked like someone who might sit next to me in classes at LACSA. He looked too young to be a cop, let alone a detective. His button-down shirt was a size too large, and his wrist bones jutted out from under his skin.
“So,” Golanski said, sliding his spectacles down over his forehead and settling them on the bridge of his nose. “Let’s get a few things clarified. When was the last time you saw your stepsister?”
Sister, I wanted to say. Stepsister sounded so . . . distant. I thought of the night, a few months before, when Allie had come home drunk and wanted me to stay up with her, talking on the couch, even though I had an exam in the morning and really needed to sleep. Settling her head in my lap, she’d clutched my hand, her rings pinching my skin. “Don’t go,” she’d said. “I’ll feel so much better if you stay.” So I’d stayed that way until she fell asleep, her breath warm against my legs.
“Four days ago,” I told Golanski. My voice echoed against the walls of the room, sounding small and thin.
He looked at me, then clicked the top of his Bic pen four times. “And the two of you live together?”
Ruiz had a notepad and pen, too, but he wasn’t taking notes, just observing me.
“Yes. We share an apartment,” I said.
The interview room we were in now wasn’t as nice as the first room I’d been ushered into when I came to make my report. That room had been decorated with cheerful posters, couches with yellow cushions. This one contained only one scratched-up table and three metal chairs.
“And you two are close?” Golanski asked.
When I managed to speak, my voice was strained. “She’s my best friend.”
He frowned. “And you’ve only just noticed she’s gone?”
“No. I noticed before.”
Golanski lifted his head from his notebook. “So, when exactly was the last time you saw her?”
“Thursday night,” I said. “Around ten thirty.”
Another scribble on his notepad. “And where was this?”
“At our apartment.” My mind skittered back to that moment, when Allie and I stood in the kitchen, and then I forced myself to pull my focus back into the room. “I thought she was just going out to a friend’s house or something.”
“A friend? Anyone in particular?”
“Um. Greg, probably,” I said.
“Greg Novak?” Ruiz asked. This was the second time he’d heard this story from me. The first time we’d spoken, just the two of us, in the nicer room, his tone had been gentler, more concerned.
I nodded. “He lives about ten minutes away from us.”
“Anyone else she could’ve gone to see?” Golanski asked.
I didn’t want to say Macnamara’s name aloud. I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. On the other hand, Allie had been gone for four days. “Um, James Macnamara, maybe?”
“Who’s that?” Ruiz asked.
“Her English professor.”
That got Golanski’s attention. “You’re saying she went to his house?”
I shrugged, warmth rushing to my cheeks. “I mean, she might have.”
“They’re close, are they?”
I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the table. When they heard the word professor, they probably thought of some old man with a beard. Not someone whose RateMyProfessor profile read like a fan page for a boy band. Go for the lectures; stay for the baby blue eyes.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Golanski frowned, deep wrinkles appearing on his forehead. “They seeing each other?”
“I mean . . .” I shrugged again. “I don’t know.” It was a flimsy lie, and I could tell that neither of the detectives bought it.
On his notepad, Golanski made a sharp mark by Macnamara’s name. “And you first noticed something was amiss . . . when?”
I took a sip of the terrible coffee, hoping it would ease the tightness in my throat. “The next morning.”
“So, Friday?”
I nodded.
“And you looked for her then? Texted her? Called around to friends and family?”
I shook my head. Despite my shivering, I could feel my shirt starting to stick to the small of my back.
“Why not?” Ruiz asked.
“I just . . . didn’t.”
“Was she in the habit of staying away all night?”
“I mean, sometimes she did,” I said.
“And the next day?” Ruiz persisted. “You didn’t start calling around then?”
“No.”
“Saturday, then?” he asked. “When you saw she was still gone?”
I flushed. It was like he wanted to believe in a better version of me than the one that existed. “No.”
“Why not?”
I lifted my hands, a helpless gesture. How could I explain to them the way Allie had left the apartment? The things she’d said? They wouldn’t understand. “Allie isn’t the most reliable person in the world,” I said. “I thought she was just . . . doing her thing.”
Golanski raised his eyebrows. “For four days?”
I blinked rapidly, then stared up at the ceiling.
“Has she ever gone missing like this before?” Ruiz asked gently. “Have there been previous incidents like this?”
I wiped at my face, embarrassed by my tears. “No. No.”
Golanski’s gaze felt like a laser on my skin. “So, let me get this straight. Allie goes missing, and you wait four days to report her missing.” He paused, resting his pen against his lower lip. “Your best friend.”
CHAPTER 3
The images on my TV are still moving silently, people mouthing words I don’t want to understand. I slump back against the couch cushions, a familiar sense of nausea washing over me. That day at the police station, I didn’t need Detective Golanski to tell me how badly I’d failed Allie. I knew. I knew. That was the reason I couldn’t sleep through the night those first six months after I’d reported her missing. As the investigation dragged on, I’d lived with the knowledge that I could have helped the police find her, if only I’d acted sooner. If only I hadn’t assumed, that week, that Allie was just being Allie.
That Friday morning, when I’d gotten out of bed, I’d seen Allie’s closed door at the end of the hall and figured she was holed up in her bedroom, sleeping off a hangover. At noon, I’d ventured down and cracked open the door, leaning my head inside. It was the usual mess in there, but Allie wasn’t in her bed. Her rumpled comforter and a pile of pillows had been pushed against her headboard. Quietly, I closed the door and walked away.
She’d probably gone to Luxe the night before, to blow off steam, to join the mash of bodies on the dance floor. And after that, she’d gone home with some guy. Or maybe she’d crashed at Greg’s. She and Greg had been fighting recently, but maybe they’d made up. They had that kind of friendship—one minute they were mortal enemies, and the next they were laughing hysterically over margaritas.
A third possibility: she was at Macnamara’s. Allie and Macnamara had broken up a few days before, but that wouldn’t mean much to Allie, not if she felt like rekindling things. She could be extremely persuasive when she wanted to be.
Since there were a lot of options for where Allie could be—and none of them seemed particularly worrisome—I did nothing.
By Saturday, her absence had become more striking, but I still didn’t mention it to anyone. Instead, I went for a long hike in Runyon Canyon. To be honest, I was pissed at her. Staying away from the apartment so long was a cheap stunt. I knew she’d expect me to freak out. She’d anticipate that I’d call around to her friends, maybe even reach out to my mom, or—God forbid—hers. And once Allie returned home and found me worried sick, she’d laugh at how uptight I was being. After all, she was an adult, wasn’t she? Couldn’t she take off for a few days if she felt like it?
When I got back on Saturday evening and she still wasn’t there, I felt a flicker of concern. But I quickly squashed it. It’ll do her good, this time, not to get a reaction. Let her realize, for once, that she’s not the center of the universe. That she’s just like everyone else.
It wasn’t until Sunday, when I heard a faint buzzing sound coming from down the hall, that I walked back into her bedroom. The room was the same mess it’d been on Friday, but now the disorder seemed unsettling. Without the scent of her perfume and her ever-present cups of coffee, the room smelled stale, abandoned.
