Page 1 of Crossing the Line
CHAPTER ONE
Waverly Sinner timed her escape perfectly so that the glossy Mercedes slid through the opening security gate at the foot of the driveway with inches to spare. Heart pounding, head aching, she accelerated past the two photographers, one next to a street bike and the other leaning against a dented Toyota the color of the pollution that clung to L.A. like a wool blanket in the summer.
She made it through the gate and down the street before they’d even shifted into drive, feeling like a small victory had been won. The element of surprise was the only way she could get a head start on the photographers that followed her everywhere these days.
She heard the whine of the motorcycle engine and spotted it in her rearview mirror as it came over the crest of the hill.Damn it.The Toyota she could lose, but that beat-up bike was going to be a problem.
She shouldn’t have taken the car. Ruby red, it was an attention magnet, which is why it usually sat in the garage unless her mother was feeling convertible-ready and took it on a joy ride for the gossip sites. But it was the first set of keys she’d blindly grabbed while trying to unsee the naked bodies sprawled on her couch. The couch that she would now have to burn.
The car handled the corner as if it were a straightaway, and the guy on the street bike behind her leaned into the turn, but she heard the squeal of the Toyota’s tires.
Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? What was it she had that they needed so desperately?
She snaked her way through the hills, disappointing the photographers when she headed away from town. Away from the chaos that had invaded every aspect of her life. Away from her father and the brunette he’d decided to undress in the pool house where she lived. Away from her mother and her never-empty glass of vodka that fooled no one.
Waverly just wanted to be normal. She wanted a house that didn’t need security. A family that didn’t spend their entire lives pretending for the cameras. She wanted a job where people didn’t follow her around demanding to know what she had for breakfast and who she was sleeping with. Where no one wanted a piece of her or maliciously hoped to witness a very public and humiliating downward spiral.
It was the real Hollywood story. The industry built you up so the audience could gleefully tear you back down.
She’d never had a chance at normal. Not the daughter of two Hollywood legends whose volatile love story was more fascinating than any film. Their partnership had cemented a renown more permanent than their side-by-side stars on the Walk of Fame.
After a conception timed perfectly to coincide with one of her parents’ movie premieres, Waverly joined the Sinner clan. She’d inherited her mother’s golden looks and her father’s acting range. But their desire for the spotlight seemed to have skipped a generation. However, not following in the family footsteps was not an option.
At twenty, she already had twelve movies under her belt. She’d won an Oscar at fifteen, been gifted this very Mercedes from a studio at sixteen, and filed her first lawsuit against tabloids at eighteen. She had her own star on the Walk of Fame. She’d never attended a day of school, instead getting her education crowded around tight tables in trailers with on-set tutors. Prom and Homecoming had been traded for hundreds of red carpets.
She wasn’t ungrateful. The opportunities that this life, this career, had provided for her were immeasurable. But they came at a price.
As the rarified air of Bel Air fell away behind her, the wind, dry from the desert with just a hint of salt from the Pacific, whipped over her. Estates and lush, green country clubs gave way to rows of Spanish style houses crowded along congested roads that snaked their way around canyons. She wasn’t sure where she was going. Maybe the canyon, maybe the coast? But she knew exactly what she was leaving behind.
All those demands that piled up on her shoulders were beginning to take a toll. She had a family legacy to live up to, her mother liked to remind her. And her success provided for others. She couldn’t just walk away from agents and assistants and stylists and attorneys. They depended on her.
An image of her mother flashed into her mind as she squeezed into traffic on Sunset Boulevard. Waverly didn’t know whether her father’s philandering had spurred her mother’s drinking or vice versa. But the two had fed each other’s vices for years now. It didn’t surprise her to find her father in such a compromising position, however, his decision to bring his date intoherhome did.
A glint in her rear view mirror caught her attention. The motorcycle was splitting the lanes to get to her while the dented Toyota struggled a few cars behind. They never gave up. She was either going to have to give them what they wanted or lose them. And she was tired of giving.
Waverly swooped off of Sunset and wound her way through a neighborhood of dust-colored townhomes with orange tile roofs. Two careful turns later, she was on a lonely highway that climbed through desert and hills.
The motorcycle stuck with her and, on a straightaway, swerved out around her to speed alongside her car.
“Geez, got a death wish?” Waverly muttered, hugging the edge of the pavement. As much as she hated giving this crap sandwich a shot he could use, it would be worse to see his body splattered all over the road. She gripped the leather wheel a little tighter and slowed down. The idiot shoved his camera at her and snapped away.
He was wearing a half helmet with a scarred visor that looked more appropriate for bicycle use. Stringy brown hair curled limply around his face. His Pantera t-shirt and black denim shorts had both seen better days. He was grinning like the winner at a cock fight.
Reluctantly Waverly slowed to a crawl as they crested another hill.
“Get back in the lane,” she yelled, hoping she wasn’t about to witness a vehicular homicide up close and personal.
He flipped her the bird and swung his bike in front of her car, cutting her off.
Waverly jammed on the brakes and swerved across the double line narrowly missing him. Her fingers gripped the wheel in a rigor mortis grip. Death Wish wasn’t just going for pictures, he was trying to create a story. One where she got hit head-on.
Her heartbeat was thudding in her ears as adrenaline surged through her system. She made sure the world’s stupidest man was still upright before stomping on the accelerator. The second she was clear of the photographer, she cut the wheel to the right, squeaking back into her lane just as a silver Range Rover sped around the turn. The driver laid on the horn as she narrowly avoided his shiny bumper of death.
“Holy shit. Holy shit. Oh my God,” Waverly chanted. This guy was trying to get her killed. She hit the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel and, through clenched teeth, called 911.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“I’m on Promontory Road and there’s a man on a motorcycle trying to—”
