Page 4 of Possess Me

“I’m fine. Lightheaded.” It’s not a lie. I’ve eaten too little and drunk too much. “It’s probably a fascinating read, though,” I say as I point to the description: Private Journal, Vivien Lorainne. November 3, 1945 through January 12, 1946.

I shoot a glance toward Damien. “This was the journal she kept when she was filming Carousel and also when she moved back here after the film wrapped. It ends the day before she was murdered.”

I shiver, on one hand, not wanting to touch something that feels tainted by the way she was so brutally beaten just one day after she’d completed this journal. But on the other hand, wanting to get into her head. To read in her own words what was going on in those last days.

The truth is, I’ve already read some of the entries in this journal. One of her biographers quoted from journal entries in The Tragedy of Vivien Lorainne, an unauthorized biography that was published a few years ago. But to now have the opportunity to read all of her thoughts, and not just those the biographer chose … well that seems like an opportunity I can’t pass up.

“You want it,” Damien says.

“Is that morbid?”

He shakes his head. “She’s your favorite actress. You’ve read, what, all of her biographies?”

I nod.

“That’s not morbid. It’s curiosity. And caring.”

I want to tell him that I feel like the journal is supposed to be mine. That once I have it, I’ll be able to find answers. More, that I’m supposed to find answers. As if it’s up to me to finally tell the world what happened to Vivien. What secrets she hid. And why her husband snapped and killed her, beating and stabbing her. If, in fact, it was him who did it.

She’d managed to run from the house, but escape did her no good. She was found dead on the nearby beach early the next morning. Carlton, her husband, was raving when the police arrived, begging them to believe that he didn’t kill her. That the murderer was someone named Basil.

But neighbors testified that there was never any guest named Basil at the cottage, and the police were unable to find any evidence that such a man existed. On top of that, neighbors reported that the couple had recently been having frequent, violent fights.

In the face of all of that, the police determined that the crime was a murder … quickly followed by Clayton’s suicide while in custody. A suicide that convinced the police that Clayton was guilty and that he’d killed himself out of guilt and shame.

But there were others who knew the couple from when they’d lived in Beverly Hills, and every one of them swore that Vivien and Carlton were devoted to each other, that they’d never been violent with each other, and that Basil must have been a real person who burst in to destroy their lives, then slipped away, never to be heard from again.

No concrete answer was ever found. More, some now say that anything surrounding her has been cursed.

“She was a kind and talented woman who cared about her work and the industry,” Damien says when I tell him as much. “If I believed in curses, I’d say that hers has long faded. And the circumstances of her death certainly expanded her name recognition. Her films are all excellent, but there’s no denying that the murder is one of the reasons she’s still in the public eye after all these years. Did the mysterious Basil kill her?” he adds in an announcer-style voice. “Did her husband? Did they work together? And if so, why?”

I shake my head, grinning a little at his showmanship. The truth is, I have no idea. But my eyes go to the journal.

I know it’s silly, but I can’t shake the feeling that the journal is somehow calling to me. As if it wants me to have it. As if all the answers are hidden in those pages.

Which, of course, is ridiculous since the journal has been reviewed by several biographers.

Still….

With a shrug, I tell Damien that I’m going to bid on it. Hell, maybe it is calling to me. Maybe Vivien wants me to have it. Maybe my fascination with all things Vivien Lorainne makes my purchase inevitable.

Maybe I just need retail therapy.

“Go right ahead, baby,” he says, the words and his tone making clear that I can bid as much as necessary to ensure that the journal is mine.

2

Two hours later, I’m the proud owner of the small, leather-bound journal into which Vivien Lorainne once poured out her secrets. That simple fact makes me giddy, and I can’t wait to dig in and lose myself in the story hidden within those pages.

Sadly, I don’t yet have it in my hands. The auction’s policy is for each guest to pick up their items as they leave the gala, presumably so as to not interrupt the festivities, and also to prevent the confusion and headache if someone sets an item down and then can’t find it again.

I understand the rule, but now that I’ve won it, I want to hold it. I know I’m just excited by having placed the high bid, but I can’t shake the feeling that once the journal is in my hand, I’ll understand my Hollywood idol so much better. Maybe I’ll even learn all of her secrets.

And maybe—just maybe—I’ll find a clue as to why she was murdered … and by whom.

“Nikki!”

I turn to see Sylvia—Damien’s former assistant and now sister-in-law—waving as she navigates through the crowd, her silver gown complementing her short, dark hair and giving her a polished, regal look.