Untouchable ~ A Jared Leto/MARS Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-Five

Because I don't know jack shit about makeup or hair or any of that stuff, I've called Flora to the compound to help me get ready for the meeting at Bouchon tonight. Not that I give a damn about what Katia and Ivan Valkov will think about the way I look. But this restaurant we're going to calls for at least an effort, and I wouldn't know how to begin to make myself look the part. Lanie McCarty appearing in public on the arm of Jared Leto and looking glamorous? The very idea is madness.

Madness? Yes. That's what this whole thing is. Complete and utter madness.

"You know, I'd hoped you'd wear this dress for a date night," Flora murmurs as she works on my eyeliner. She frowns in concentration, then nods and smudges it with a sponge-tipped wand. "I don't think this meeting with the Valkovs counts as a date."

"It's not," I mutter, trying my best to hold still and not blink. "I don't know why that bitch even wants me there at all. It's weird. This whole thing is weird."

"Yeah, it is. I don't like the sounds of it, Lanie.  This sounds like a setup. Katia is one thing and she's bad enough, but Ivan Valkov is in another league." She finishes the liner, steps back, and her eyes dart back and forth, nodding to herself.

"What do you know about Ivan, anyway?" I venture. "Jared's told me some things about him. He sounds like a disgusting creep."

"A rich disgusting creep," Flora says, putting the liner back in the makeup kit she's brought along for me. She rummages through the contents and comes up with a tube of mascara. Cracking the seal, she pulls out the wand and steps close to me again. "Eyes wide open and hold really still," she instructs. "Ivan's a shady guy, obviously. I don't know exactly how he makes his money besides what he puts into films. Foreign investments, import-export, it's all very vague. But the guy shits gold bars and I for one don't believe it's all legit. My guess is he's either involved in the Mob, drugs, human trafficking, or all of the above. God, you're so lucky to have these natural long lashes. I have to wear false ones to get this look. Don't blink."

"I'm trying not to."

A few minutes later Flora moves on to my lips. Applying lip-liner, she says, "You really think Todd is the one who got onto Pharrell's property and took  those pictures?"

I can't answer her until she's finished. "I know how far-fetched it sounds. If he's really here, why didn't he just take a shot? He had the perfect opportunity. Why take pictures? But look at how it was done, Flora. Since when do paparazzi know how to circumvent secure perimeters? Since when do paparazzi poison dogs? And there's the fact that I didn't hear a thing up there, and I should have, unless the guy knew how to move silently. Yeah the kids were noisy, but I still should have heard something." I shake my head. "Maybe my senses have been dulled since I'm not using them like I usually do. I don't know. But I do know this has Todd all over it. I only wish I'd realized it right away, as soon as I learned about it. He's probably long gone now."

Flora quickly applies lipstick to my lips and blots it with a piece of tissue. "From what Jared said, they haven't gotten far with the tabloid that first published the pics."

"Yeah. The tabloid got the pics from an anonymous source using a..." I trail off as I try to remember what Jared told me the police said. "I don't know what it's called, but it's something where the sender can't be traced. A computer thing."

"A VPN, probably," Flora nods as she plugs in a curling iron. "He uploaded them using a Virtual Private Network."

"Yeah, that's what he said. Someone sent the photos to them through a tip-line on their website using a VPN." I look down at my fingernails, now polished with a beautiful mauve color and looking nothing like my own. "So there was no money involved—which also makes me suspect Todd. Paparazzi would want a good payment for photos like those."