The Podcast

Chapter 2

Tuesday Morning

Twelve minutes before her daily 5:30 AM alarm, Sumner West is wide awake. Her eyelashes rub gently against the silk underside of a sleep mask she received from a podcast sponsor. A light sleeper since she was a child, no meditation app, magnesium supplement, overpriced tea, or Mulberry silk face covering was going to change that. But the sponsors pay for the show with their ads and the ads come with contracts that require Sumner to personally vet whatever she's slinging that week. No one wants to appear disingenuous. Especially when they're trying to sell you something.

Sumner waits until the alarm goes off, her mind wandering uncomfortably to the note still folded inside her purse. The third one she's received in the last six weeks. It had been tucked under the tall rectangular cement planter by her front door, a stiff cream corner protruding like a taunting little wave. It had distracted her a moment as she scooped down in her slinky silver Rick Owens mini dress, a car waiting to take her to a brand event. She read the note from the backseat, its penmanship immaculate and message cryptic—just like the others.

Discarding the envelope into the side door of the vehicle, she folded the note and placed it at the slouchy bottom of her Cult Gaia purse. Sumner West doesn't spook easily. And she's received plenty of eerie fan mail over the years to blunt a more normal visceral reaction. But these notes felt different. More personal. Calculated. Like the beginning of something.

The event itself had been filled with the usual West Hollywood cocktail of trivial small talk, upturned noses, Instagrammable backdrops, and explicit tagging instructions. She'd been seated among the elite, their social handles printed on themed silver placards, separating them from grinding influencers who packed themselves tightly into open seating couches, slithering together like a U-shaped can of metallic sardines. To be there at all was everything compared to not being invited. But there's a hierarchy to this game. And Sumner is seated at the top.

The event's theme was a botched modern take on the Roaring '20s for La Mira's new designer fragrance, Cloche. Sumner was contractually obligated to attend. She expertly shot her required social content within fifteen minutes of arriving, facing another two hours of fake pleasantries and humble brags. The Capri Club was fully rented out for the private event. Without having to place an order, a well-dressed bartender with ringlets of black curls falling across his forehead, a hopeful Hollywood gleam in his crystal blue eyes, brought her a mocktail: spiritless 74, lemon, bergamot simple syrup and a splash of ginger. Courtesy of an industrious La Mira PR intern, no doubt.

When the inevitable stares swiveled her way, Sumner reached her hand down into the ill-defined bottom of her purse, running a finger along the sturdy cardstock. She kept herself aloof, unapproachable but never outright rude. She liked to think of herself as serious without being cold. But in the words of her agent, Akari, the approach didn't always land in her favor.

The constant attention, the hushed whisper-squeals at being at the same event as the Sumner West left a queasiness in the pit of her stomach, a sheen of sweat on her palms. She knew they admired her, but more it was simply masked envy. Or self-absorbed aspiration—an unachievable goal. Sumner didn't have the big-sister energy to tell them that the only thing left waiting on the other side is the neurotic panic that the intangible content-driven attention monopoly you've somehow managed to conjure up will slip right through your fingers, just when you finally feel the weight of it in your hand. Instead, she smiled back in her patented close-lipped way, mouthed 'thank you' when carbon copies gushed at how much they loved her podcast.

Sumner swings her legs over the side of the platform bed, slipping a pair of slides on her feet before taking off her face mask. Over the sink, she splashes her face with cold water, struggling to locate all of her morning skin routine items in the various drawers. The master en-suite bathroom is larger than the entire studio apartment she lived in when she first moved to Los Angeles. The 4,500-square-foot, $6 million Hidden Hills home had been purchased sight unseen, her items moved in while she was recording an episode in the studio. Sumner has no use for five bedrooms or a movie screening room. But she needs the twenty-four-hour security offered by the gated community. Her realtor purchased the staging furniture along with the house since Sumner had nothing from before that she cared to keep with her now. On the surface, the decor is all sophisticated-chic. Off-white walls and black-trimmed windows, deceivingly casual oversized furniture that inadvertently gives physical scale to loneliness. Money bought Sumner a photogenic house, not a home.

Pulling on a navy blue matching workout set, she gathers her dark straight hair into a sleek ponytail that spills like ink between her shoulder blades. There are two places Sumner West feels most at peace: in a recording studio and on her Pilates Reformer. With a view overlooking the Hollywood Hills, a pink-rimmed sunrise greets Sumner as she expertly flows through full body movements. In her mind, she's scanning through today's episode script, the same one she read through two times before going to bed last night. She had learned from a failed but kind-hearted actress—whom she briefly roomed with when first arriving in LA—that if you read something before bed, it sticks like honey between the fingers.

But as she twists her torso and extends her left leg into a reverse elevated lunge, it's the third letter on cream cardstock that flashes through her mind, interrupting her pre-recording preparation ritual:

BLACK. BROWN. OFF-WHITE. TWO DEAD IN ONE NIGHT.

Heart racing, Sumner squeals as she slips from position and falls to the ground, pain and shock radiating up through her palms.