Celebrity Skin

Contents CELEBRITY SKIN Copyright Prologue 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 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 83 Epilogue The Violet Darger Series Author's Note More From the Authors About the Authors CELEBRITY SKIN Violet Darger Book 12 By Tim McBain & L.T. Vargus Copyright © 2023 Tim McBain & L.T. Vargus Smarmy Press All rights reserved. V 1.1 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Prologue The compact car wheels into the long driveway, tires humming against the asphalt. A hatchback with peeling green enamel, shimmying and groaning like the whole thing might shake apart at top speed, the front end pointed at its destination like a missile. The driver adjusts his hands on the steering wheel. Leans forward to see the buildings rising up beyond the windshield. This is it. The big time. It’s all there just beyond the brim of his stupid Pizza Cottage hat. The studio lot. The hallowed halls, sacred ground practically, where so many movies and TV shows had been shot. All those dreams captured inside of a camera lens and then broadcast out to the masses or projected on a giant theater screen to become the shared fantasy of a whole culture. He takes the reality in. Soaking up the details. Rapt. It’s all surprisingly… what’s the word? Shitty. Up close, the buildings look like hell. Fifty shades of beige. Pockmarked like someone had flung gravel at the concrete exteriors over and over. The drive snakes toward the buildings in the distance, tightly packed rows of plain buildings the color of sand, cement cubes that look more industrial than artistic. In a way, he supposes, they are. These drab-looking dream factories crank out the sitcoms, talk shows, movies. Not art really. Entertainment. Commodities with all the hard edges ground down. All the strong flavors sucked out. Everything reduced to something polished and bland that goes down smooth for the whole audience. Non-offensive even to the cranky church lady types, who are always squinting in an effort to see evil intentions everywhere they look. The stack of cardboard pizza boxes in the passenger seat shifts as he rounds the gentle bend in the drive. He reaches out. Presses his hand flat to the top of the stack, sticks it there like a starfish suctioned to a boat’s hull, and the stack of boxes goes steady. He exhales. Feels a tremor in his breathing. The toll booth takes shape around that curve in the drive — a glass box with the dark silhouette of the attendant vaguely discernible within. He pulls up alongside it. The sunlight flares off the glass like a camera flash. Blinds him for a second. And then the attendant’s shape is moving inside the booth, and the window is sliding open. “Pass.” He hears the monotone voice before the face comes into focus. Male. Early 30s. Stubble. Bags under his dead eyes. Could be hung over. The name patch sewn into the breast of his polo says “Cliff.” “Huh?” “You got a parking pass?” “Uh… I have these pizzas for the audition. The, um, Peter Angell audition.” Cliff’s face somehow goes blanker as he interrupts. “Look, I’m gonna need a pass to let you into the lot.” “I, uh… Wait. They gave me a code. Hang on.” “That’ll work.” He digs a folded scrap of paper out of his left hip pocket, reads the code. Six digits. The parking attendant types the number into a tablet. Finger smearing over the glossy screen in fast motion. The driver’s breath still feels shaky. “I’m not seeing it…” “Not seeing it?” “The code. You’re not on the list.” The driver turns his head. Looks over at the stack of pizza boxes. Swallows. He can feel the attendant watching him watch the pizzas. “Shoot. I could take ’em off your hands. Call a page down to lug the stack up to the audition.” “The pizzas? No way. This is like $170 worth of pie. I need cash on delivery. Plus, I was hoping… I mean I figured a big movie audition… Peter Angell… Seems like I oughta get a decent tip, at least.” The attendant closes his eyes and huffs out a breath. Definitely hung over. “Let me try to call up. Angell's office, you said?” The driver nods. Watches the smart phone nestle against Cliff’s cheek. Waits. Cliff blinks a few times. Stares at nothing. Then he shakes his head. “Phone system is fucked. I think they’re doing maintenance or something.” He taps the phone screen to kill the call. Shakes his head again. “So… like… what do we do?” Cliff looks up at the driver, his eyes crawling to the Pizza Cottage hat and then the stack of cardboard on the passenger seat. “Well…” It sounds like he’ll say more, but he trails off there. Now the driver knows he has to seize the moment. Say