Exclusive Excerpt
“Are we going on a ghost tour?”
“Indeed. I hear Hollywood is full of haunted shit, huh?”
Hayden’s boots scuff beside me, and he buries his hands deeper into his pockets. “Are you trying to woo me into doing your show?”
“Is it working? Are you wooed?”
“I said I’d think about it.” His voice is terse, but he offers a soft laugh that sends a shiver down my spine.
We pause as we reach the tour kiosk. When we halt, our eyes lock. I reach deep into the part of my brain that’s watched a lot of interrogations on cop shows. I narrow my eyes. “I need you to think about it faster. I need to have something by Friday morning. A pitch deck, episode plans, something.”
“I’m thinking about it—”
The tour guide — a chirpy, middle-aged man named Gary — interrupts and leads us through the cavernous back halls of the Chinese theater to a gaudy, topless van painted to look like a hearse, which does not, in fact, look like a hearse.
A couple in matching Ghost Adventures shirts funnel into the back seat. Another two pairs take the middle, leaving Hayden and me to the front row. The smallest row. Thankfully, I’m small, but Hayden is not. I’m already daunted by the proximity I’m about to be sucked into.
“Ladies first,” he says.
I hop into the van, sliding all the way to the window as he climbs in after me. His long legs hardly fit behind the passenger seat and the tip bucket placed between the driver and Gary. As he readjusts, our knees brush — worn denim against my thin, patterned tights. The van itself smells like plastic and cigarette smoke, but Hayden smells like amber and whiskey with a note of old books.
The touch sends a tingle up my back. It’s been a long time since I’ve been attracted to someone and in the past, I’ve experienced it so rarely that I’ve started viewing men as paint swatches in various neutral tones. When I look at Hayden, I see deep forest greens and warm browns like mulled wine and fall leaves. Color, for the first time in so long.
There is something about Hayden that interests me, and not just because of the odd way he came into my life. It feels like either untapped horniness or the feeling that I’m on the right track in learning to feel something again. It also comes with the fear of something new and the boundary of keeping my professional distance.
“Sorry,” he mutters, yanking his leg away. He shoves his hands back into his vest pockets and bites down on his lip. He looks out the window and feigns fascination at the Baja Fresh across the street. Gary loads into the van with us and sits in the passenger seat, tapping on his tinny microphone a few times.
“Hello, ghouls, gals and other ethereal pals. Welcome to Haunted Hollywood, the best tour of Tinsel Town’s dark side. My name’s Gary and I’ll be your crypt keeper as we visit several notoriously haunted locations around the city. So…buckle up and please refrain from screaming.”
The tour bus takes off, explaining the history of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the native ghosts Fritz and Annabelle and how Marilyn Monroe haunts the halls of the Roosevelt Hotel. Hayden listens intently, and I watch him just as intently. It’s obvious he already knows all of this. So much for wooing him with my ghost tour.
We snake further into the Hollywood Hills, catching an illuminated look at the Hollywood sign. The tourists behind us snap photos religiously, but I look at the Hollywood sign from the Skroll offices every day.
“While it might preside over Hollywood like a calling, the sign has a grisly history. It was originally built as an advertisement for the Hollywoodland housing development.” Sinister music plays beneath Gary’s narration. “In 1929, a young actress—”
“It was 1932.”
I turn to Hayden. Gary scowls. “What was that?”
At first, I think he might be nervous with the attention on him, then I realize Hayden’s not nervous. He’s frustrated. I mean, how could we not know this? We are absolute fools.
“It was 1932. Peg Entwhistle jumped off the H in 1932, not 1929. Now hikers see her apparition in her 1930s clothing haunting the park.”
“Anything else to share?” Gary prods.
“It’s also just a legend that, the day after her death, she received a role offer. It’s never been proven.”
Gary throws a fiery stare Hayden’s way. “This guy’ll take tips at the end of the tour, I guess.”
Hayden rubs the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses while the bus leads us deeper into Griffith Park. He grumbles to himself as Gary feeds the tourists an overdramatic story about the random body parts that showed up in the park over the years. Gary alleges that the mysterious body parts were credited to the Night Stalker, to which Hayden hisses a soft “no” under his breath.
I already know this man will do half of my job for me. He’s a hot, human encyclopedia of weird knowledge.
We weave through the hills past the Old Zoo in Griffith Park and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where stars are laid to rest. As we round out the tour, the van leads us up Benedict Canyon, past commuters stuck in traffic heading into the Valley.
Poor suckers.
“As idyllic as these hills might seem, they are home to one of the grisliest murders in history. In August 1969, cult leader Charles Manson and his followers murdered actress Sharon Tate and four friends. Manson’s orders were to ‘do it as gruesome as you can’. And boy did they! The world was horrified by the images of ‘pig’ written in blood on the front door and to hear of the death of Tate, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time. The house remains a tough sell for real estate agents all over Los Angeles. Can’t imagine why—”
“The house isn’t even there anymore,” Hayden interrupts. “It was torn down in 1994.”
“It’s still there, kid. 10050 Cielo Drive. Plug it into Google.”
Hayden slips his glasses off, dropping them into his lap. Years come off his face instantly. I note the small indents on the bridge of his nose left behind from the frames. I don’t get to fixate on his oddly charming features before I realize that Hayden taking his glasses off is akin to a cowboy cocking his gun before a duel.
Hayden is about to throw it down over Charles Manson.
I can’t tell if I’m horrified or horrifically amused.
Hayden digs the bases of his palms into his eyes. “No, it’s not. The house was demolished. Now, the David Oman House is the closest location to the site of the murders. A hundred and fifty feet away. That is where most of the hauntings take place now. Apparitions of the murder victims have been seen in the house and in the area. It’s one of the most well-documented paranormal locations in Los Angeles. Plug it into Google.”
Oh my god. Oh my god, no.
Not only is Hayden not enjoying the ghost tour, but we are about to get banned from every ghost tour in Los Angeles. I doubt he’ll want to work with me in any capacity if this is the first hangout activity I come up with. However, I am beginning to wonder if I did get ripped off with these tickets. Gary hasn’t known a rat’s ass about any of the places we went.
“Did you write the script for this tour, kid?”
“Obviously not,” he replies. His voice slips into a lilt of a Boston accent. It should not be hot, but boy, is it. “But I could have. If I did, it’d at least be factually correct. At least people would be getting their money’s worth.”
“Who are you going to trust?” Gary poses to the rest of the van. “Me, a professional, or some nit-wit millennial?”
I clear my throat. “Uh… the nit-wit millennial.”
Hayden stifles a laugh beside me. His smile is a bright but hidden secret, and when his gaze reaches mine, I feel like I’ve been let in on it.
Excerpted from Love and Other Conspiracies by Mallory Marlowe Copyright © 2024 by Mallory Marlowe. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
LOVE AND OTHER CONSPIRACIES by Mallory Marlowe
The hardest thing for a paranormal conspiracy theorist and a web series producer to believe in is finding love in this swoony debut romantic comedy.
Hallie Barrett’s life has imploded after she’s dumped by her hotshot ex, who also happens to be her coworker and the star of the online series she was producing. Without a new show to present for the company competition, she’ll be out of a job. But inspiration can come from the strangest places . . . like the most handsome guy she’s ever seen passionately discussing Bigfoot on a late-night docuseries.
Hayden Hargrove made a name for himself as a cryptid expert on his hit podcast, and is intrigued by the plucky, blue-haired producer who offers him the opportunity to lead his own web show. When the production team sees that Hayden’s solo on-screen presence is bad enough to make a ghost blanch, Hallie jumps on camera too, hitting him (and his cryptids) with a healthy dose of skepticism—and enough chemistry to electrify their show to the top of the competition.
As Hayden and Hallie investigate the unknown, they unearth feelings for each other that shake their beliefs to the core. In their search for Mothman, aliens, and the truth, the most elusive discovery might just be learning to love again.
Romance Comedy | Paranormal [Berkley, On Sale: August 20, 2024, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593640081 / eISBN: 9780593640098]
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About Mallory Marlowe
Mallory Marlowe is an author and video game writer living in Los Angeles, CA. Seriously right-brained since childhood, her love of telling stories began with highly elaborate plots for her Barbie dolls and taking elementary school writing projects too seriously. She studied Writing for Film and TV at Emerson College. While romance is her truest love, she also loves to write across several genres from paranormal to fantasy to horror. When she isn’t writing, she’s likely reading, stuck in L.A. traffic, or fallen down a weird internet rabbit hole.
Love and Other Conspiracies is her debut novel.
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