matter what Dash typed in, though, his search came to a dead end after the wreck that took Craig Thompson’s life. Dash thought it weird, even for Hollywood, that a teenaged Sydney had married a man twenty-five years older, much less a close friend of her father’s. No wedding pictures seemed to exist but he found articles in Us and People after the fact, describing the couple’s spur of the moment elopement. Craig was quoted as saying their honeymoon had been spent in Colorado—hiking, fishing, and chilling.
Dash found photos from Craig’s funeral but not one of them contained Sydney. Speculation said she’d been injured in the accident that took her husband’s life, which would explain why she missed the funeral. Then nothing about her from that point on. No rumors. No thread to follow. Where had Sydney Revere gone? She’d faded from the headlines. Did she hide in a convent in Nepal? Retreat to a deserted South Sea island? Do volunteer work in some Third World country? Had she been hideously scarred and undergone years of plastic surgery?
He knew no one vanished in this day and age but somehow Sydney Revere had managed to do so.
Dash kept digging, going at it from the angle of the brother since he also seemed to be a mystery. He felt gut punched when he found Birch had OD’d at sixteen a year after his mother’s death.
Poor Sydney. She’d lost her mom and her brother within a year of each other. She would’ve been nine when Birch died. Dash tried to think what he was like at that age since he and Sydney shared the same summer birthday. He was playing Little League. Riding his bike. Protecting his brother.
Maybe the combination of those deaths made Sydney go off the rails during her teenage years, running with a much older crowd and going places she shouldn’t have been.
For some reason, Dash felt protective of her.
He continued scrutinizing her past, now approaching it through Monty. The director had a parade of women—some he eventually married—after the death of his wife and son. He must’ve been a lonely man, searching for a replacement for the most beautiful woman in Hollywood and never finding her. Dash found pictures of Monty over the years in Paris. Tokyo. Rio. New York. A different woman on his arm each time.
No Sydney anywhere in sight.
Monty probably left his daughter to her own devices. At home with live-in help while he gallivanted around the world and buried himself in women and work, marrying and divorcing and starting the cycle all over again as he made movies in-between marriages.
A flash of anger sizzled through Dash. Why was he so invested in Sydney Revere? He didn’t know her.
He was intrigued by her. Maybe more than that. Dash felt drawn to Sydney in some inexplicable way, like a magnet that couldn’t help being pulled in a certain direction. He didn’t understand it because he’d never felt this before so he wouldn’t try to. At least not yet.
His cell rang. Very few people had this number. He glanced and saw it read Unknown. Hope drizzled through him as he decided to answer the call.
“Hello, this is Jayla Jefferson, Monty Revere’s PA. If you’re still interested in Mr. Revere’s film, he’d like you to read for the part of Paul Hannigan.”
Dash suppressed the shout that threatened to erupt. Instead, he calmly said, “Yes, absolutely. Tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”
“Next Thursday morning at ten. At Mr. Revere’s home. He said you had the address.”
“I do,” he confirmed. “Will you send pages over?”
“No,” she said firmly. “You’ll have access to the scene for a few minutes before your audition. Mr. Revere said that would be plenty of time for you to prepare.”
Dash didn’t like Monty going all Woody Allen on him. The quirky director was notorious for keeping a script away from actors, usually making them sign on before they’d read a word of it. From what he knew, it didn’t seem like Monty to be so secretive but Dash didn’t want to blow this opportunity.
“Fine. Put me down. I’ll be ready.”
He disconnected the call and wished he knew something—anything—about the storyline or Paul’s character. This was the first time in a long time that he’d be nervous going into an audition. He had no clue what Cassie Corrigan’s screenplay was about. He’d only heard it existed because of Leo. Dash shared the trainer with Rhett Corrigan. Leo mentioned a while back that Cassie had completed