Page 122 of The Unknown

“I thought it might be a good idea to hold on to it,” I say. “Just in case the police want to watch it someday.”

“You’re in that video, too,” Violet says, remaining unfazed.

“Am I?” I say, shoving the SD card back into my pocket. “Or am I sitting just out of frame? Always know where the camera is placed, Violet. You taught me that.”

“They’ll still be able to hear you,” she says. “You spoke, too.”

“I did. But my voice could belong to anyone. You’re Violet Wright. Instantly recognizable. I’m just a nameless, faceless unknown who, thanks to you, will likely remain that way.”

Violet’s eyes narrow. Just enough to let me know she’s paying attention.

And that she’s scared.

“What do you want, Marin?”

A very good question. One I’ve been turning over in my head for decades. All that time, I assumed it was a mix of something material and emotional. Enough money not to have to worry about it. An unflagging sense of self-worth. A perfect balance of mind and body. The love and respect of my parents.

It turns out my desires are more basic than that, more sadly, predictably ego-driven.

Because only now, with the sensation of blood still on my hands and Violet staring at me with that contradictory mix of fear and disdain, do I have the answer I’ve been seeking my entire life.

“I want,” I say, “to be known.”

Four Years Later

A man dressed in a black tux and white Adidas turns my way, a handheld camera perched on his shoulder. I know I’m supposed to pretend he’s not there. That I’m used to cameras swiveling in my direction. That it’s not strange at all to be filling an aisle seat in the second row at the Oscars as last year’s Academy-anointed Best Actress includes my name among this year’s nominees.

But the cameraisthere, the blue-black gleam of its lens staring right at me. So I stare back, just for a moment, treating the billion people watching around the world to a tiny wave and anI can’t believe this is happeninglift of my brows.

In truth, I expected to be here. After the past six months, it had become a given. Ever since my latest movie premiered in Venice, I’d been considered a shoo-in for a nomination. “The first of many,” I’ve been told so often that I’ve lost count. Others have been even more bold, saying, “I hope you’ve written a speech, because you’re going to need it.”

Seeing how I’ve won every precursor award this season, I suspect they’re right. And so a hastily scrawled thank-you speech currently sits in the clutch purse on my lap, tucked next to lipstick, gum, and a wad of hundred-dollar bills to be doled out to all the bartenders and serversI’ll encounter tonight. You’d be shocked by how stingy A-listers can be with their tips.

Across the aisle and several rows behind me sits Violet Wright. She’s not a nominee this year, despite campaigning heavily the entire awards season. As a consolation prize, she was asked to present Best Picture. An honor, sure, but if I know Violet, she would have preferred a nomination.

I wonder if, like me, she’s thinking aboutDarknessand how we might have ended up in this same position a few years earlier if the movie had gotten made. To appease me, she and Loretta tried to keep it going, but since production hadn’t technically started, the studio decided to cut their losses, shut it down, and collect an insurance payment.

The wisest choice, really. No one wanted to be attached to a project that spawned a lawsuit from Ronan’s parents—quickly settled out of court, despite the waiver he’d signed—and rumors about a preproduction cursed by spirits. Rumors, I must add, that were stoked by Susie Hutchinson, the only one of us to speak publicly about our experience on the island.

At first, no one talked, bound to remain silent thanks to that NDA Loretta made us sign. Rather than dwell on it, most of us chose to get on with our careers. Julianne returned to the stage, working intermittently in the Chicago theater scene. Heather booked another cop show, which was canceled after five episodes, then joined a reboot of a law show that’s still running. Brad is still working his magic in various special effects departments around Hollywood. Only Susie struggled to find work, which is likely what prompted her to go to the press. It helped a little, raising her profile enough to snag a season onDancing with the Starsand a godawful rom-com that went straight to Netflix.

Since she couldn’t tell the truth about what happened, the interviews Susie gave toDeadline,Variety, and theHollywood Reporterwere filled with vague, ominous mentions of séances, the sensation that we weren’t alone, and how she got a bad feeling the moment she set foot on New Avalon.

“There’s something wrong about that place,” she said. “Looking back on it, I’m not surprised at all that it ended in tragedy. Poor Ronan. I still can’t believe it happened.”

The “it” she was referring to is how, while conducting an elaborate acting exercise in which history seemed to be repeating itself on a remote island in Vermont, Ronan Peters, the most talented young director of his generation, accidentally fell to his death in the dark of night.

That’s the official story, given to the police by Violet Wright and corroborated by yours truly. The police believed everything. They did find Ronan’s mangled body at the base of the cliff on the island’s northern end, after all, just like we said. Besides, no one dared doubt the legendary Violet Wright.

For Violet, the only downside to getting away with murder was that no one wanted to report the accusations that the late, great Ronan Peters had seduced a young actress, recorded the encounter, and distributed it to his slimy group of friends, driving the woman to suicide. Sure, people in Hollywood whispered about it at parties and over long lunches at the Ivy, but no one would go on record about it, thereby denying coverage in the same trade papers that were so eager to print Susie’s story. To most of the world, Ronan remains a genius who tragically died too young.

I once asked Violet about it during the one and only film we made together. It was a tearjerker in which she played a painter dying of cancer and I had my breakout role as the daughter still bitter about being neglected in favor of her mother’s art. Finding myself alone with her in the hotel bar after a sixteen-hour shooting day, I asked Violet if she regretted it. That if, in her mind, it was better to have killed Ronan than have the truth about his actions come out.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marin,” she said before downing her drink and walking away.

Violet has made sure that we haven’t been alone together since.

Still, both of us know our secret is safe with each other. It’s far toolate to change that. We’re bound to each other for life, whether we want to be or not.