Chapter 1

This is Murder on Sex Island. Written by Joe Firestone. And read by Joe Firestone. That's me. That's both of those of me. Chapter One Like my forefathers, Gene Simmons and Christina Aguilera, my life began in Staten Island, the borough of New York most known for its landfills.

The first 25 years of my life were going somewhat according to plan. I was an underpaid social worker, I got married to a man I knew from high school, and to top it all off, I was dead inside. What can I say? It's a Staten Island way. When most grown people get bored, they cheat on their spouses. They start buying lottery tickets. They develop a drug habit. Not me, though. No, sir. When I need to fill a gaping void in an otherwise predictable, monotonous life...

I like to think outside the box. So I made up an alter ego named Luella Van Horn who solves crimes. Is that the worst thing in the world? In theory, no. When I slap on a blonde wig, fake white teeth, and some red lipstick, I become Private Detective Luella Van Horn. Suddenly, I'm a woman who knows what she wants and gets it. People start paying attention to me. They tell me things they're not supposed to.

The powerful see me as an ally and the weak see me as a threat. I think it's probably because of the teeth. Growing up, all I wanted was to be someone like Luella Van Horn. To have people finally look at me like I have something to offer. something they want. When you're mousy, nobody cares where you're going at night. When you come back to the house at 2 a.m. and your husband sleepily asks, were you going? You can say no and he'll believe you, turn over, and go right back to sleep.

Nobody bothers to ask why you're spending thousands of dollars on blonde wigs made with real human hair and going to the dentist for teeth molds and maxing out your credit cards at Sephora. They've barely noticed. I began Luella's private detective agency a little over four years ago. The cases were small to start, like who stole the cookie from the cookie jar, as it turns out it was the local police commissioner.

I ruffled feathers here and there, but only enough to get a certain amount of notoriety around Staten Island. The local blogs describe Luella as intuitive, smart, and savvy. A rising star, a private detective, a bombshell. Me, a bombshell. In retrospect, I'd been lucky. Then the bell case happened. It was around this time the whole double life schtick had started to wear me down. My husband was becoming suspicious. He couldn't understand why there wasn't a hot dinner on the table every night.

Things were getting a little tense in our marriage. I'd hurry home after a long day of social work, make him a dry pork chop, grab my duffel bag, and change in the car. Then Luella would take it from there. I was tired, but I was happy.

I was simply not prepared for the monster that is Taylor Bell. If you only read the news reports, you'd think Luella Van Horn was good at her job. You wouldn't know she almost convicted the wrong man, nearly lost her social worker's license, and essentially ruined her marriage.

All the papers said was, thanks to the elusive Luella Van Horn, Taylor Bell was now in jail awaiting trial for murdering his wife. That was enough to comfort the masses. Gotta love lazy journalism. After the bell case, I kept thinking what it would be like to be Luella full-time. Maybe I wouldn't mess up so much if I wasn't stretched so thin, doing two jobs, living two lives.

Soon after that, I left my husband and decided to quit social work altogether. I moved to Manhattan with what was left of my savings, turned 29, and adopted a cat. And then another cat. To keep the first cat company, of course. Using this logic, I understood how quickly someone could end up with 40 cats in a one-bedroom apartment to keep the other 39 company. Duh. So now I exist as two women. One is who I've been most of my life.

Marie Jones, a mousy ex-social worker divorcee with frizzy brown hair and an addiction to bad reality TV. The other is Luella Van Horn. A glamorous private detective who has yet to find a case she couldn't solve, even if it was messy as hell. It's like I'm Sherlock and Watson rolled up in one. I am jealous Sherlock had a friend to take notes.

The hope is that I can one day leave Marie Jones by the wayside, exist only as Luella Van Horn. I guess time will tell. That Staten Island ferry runs to Manhattan a little more regularly than I would like. Tuesday. This particular case began, like most of them do, with a missing person. New York City hadn't seen the likes of Luella Van Horn for a while. There were small cases here and there, but after the Bell case, I felt like I needed a breather.

I usually told callers Luella was on an extended vacation in the Keys. This translated to me sitting in my apartment talking to my cats, named Meatloaf and Meatball, if you're curious, and watching Sex Island like it was a religion. If you're not familiar, Sex Island is an incredible reality television show. They take the country's sexiest 22-year-olds and fly them to a tropical paradise while we, the viewers, watch them have sex and emotionally destroy each other.

I don't know why or how the FCC allows them to broadcast intercourse, but I'm not going to be the one to raise a red flag. Maybe because the contestants are always under covers? Who knows? The show was somehow both addictive and completely unwatchable. There is something oddly comforting about sequestering our nation's sexually active youth to a landmass in the middle of the ocean.

It aired every night for one full hour, and the ratings were, as you might imagine, very high. I did my part. This season of Sex Island was quite compelling already. Every night there was sex, screaming, fighting, and more sex. I mean, what more could one ask for? Smell-o-vision? Each season of Sex Island started out with 15 men and 15 women, all straight, all cisgendered, all 19 to 23 years old. This was the type of show where a 25-year-old was considered geriatric.

As the season progressed, contestants were eliminated for anything, really, from not having sex good enough to having an odd-smelling anus. Sure, it was dystopian, but have you watched the news recently? It's about on par with the news. Suffice it to say, as Marie, I wasn't in a great place emotionally, financially, or otherwise. The last two episodes of Sex Island had gotten strange. My favorite cast member, David G., was suddenly absent.

No other cast members had addressed it, which was even more off-putting. Cast members would frequently leave the show, but their exodus would be decided upon by the group. Plus, it would be all anyone could talk about the next day in their confessionals. The last contestant to tearfully leave the show of her own accord was a professional cheerleader from Dallas, Texas named Rachel. The show's official statement? Rachel suffers from Crohn's disease. We wish her well.

I wasn't the only one to notice David G. was gone. The message boards were abuzz. Kidnapping was a popular theory, but one Reddit user was adamant she'd seen him in her local grocery store in Tampa, Florida. Another commenter claimed he was sending her signals through her air fryer.

This is all to say the show had a very devoted following, and David G. was a unanimous favorite. Before his disappearance, David G. had been sleeping with a contestant named Tasha, a tall woman with long black hair who hated wearing clothes. In the most recent episode, Tasha had been acting very strange. Take this little nugget from her confessional that had the Sex Island fans reeling. The off-camera interviewer asked, are you okay? And then Tasha said, bitch, shut up.

I had a feeling something weird had happened, and usually, sadly, I'm not wrong about this stuff. David G. was a rare type of contestant in that he was hot, but he also seemed like he had a soul. He was called David G. because there was another David on Sex Island called David N. And let me tell you, David N. could not hold a candle to David G.

Anyway, it might have been his cleft chin or his close-cut beard or the fact that he was a nurse before becoming a reality TV star. Whatever it was, David G. was a straight-up catch, and his absence was extremely noticeable. I remember very clearly the night I got the call. I just poured myself a second bowl of generic Frosted Flakes.

Technically, it was my fifth bowl of the day, but my second after-dinner bowl. I had taken a very large bite just as the phone started ringing. I chewed and looked at the phone, milk spilling down my chin. No caller ID. I knew what that usually meant. A case. I looked to Meatloaf, the more spiritual of my two cats. His green eyes said, answer it. I picked up on the third ring.

Hello, I said with a mouth full of cereal. Is this Luella Van Horn? A man's voice asked. I managed to chew and swallow. This is her secretary, I can take a message, I said, coughing up a rogue flake. It landed gracefully on my couch cushion. I picked it up and ate it again. Meatloaf stared at me in horror. This is strictly confidential, but I work as a producer on the reality show Sex Island, and we'd like Miss Van Horn to look into the disappearance of one of our cast members.

His name is David G., the man said. I bit down on my knuckle and kicked my legs. The cats darted away from me. Internally, I was squealing. A case on Sex Island? Was I dreaming? Externally, I oh so calmly replied. Okay, and what's your name? Finally, the man spoke. My name is John, uh, John Murphy. So, John Murphy, when was David G. last seen, I asked. It's been about 48 hours, John said.

Can Luella come track him down? Is she available? There was a growing urgency in his voice. A second producer spoke up then. Already she seemed more confident than John, less shaken. Hi there, I'm Stephanie Hilson, another executive producer on the show.

Listen, we've scoured the island, we've talked to the cast and crew, nobody knows anything, which leaves us between a rock and a hard place. We've done everything we could other than contact his family and call the police. We just don't want to alarm anyone unnecessarily, you know. His family would be hysterical, John added. And of course, the viewers, I added sarcastically. Yes, the viewers are our number one priority, Stephanie agreed. I hoped she was joking, but it didn't seem that she was.

I'd say off the top of my head, the two main things you're supposed to do at a workplace when an employee disappears is contact their family and the police. But this was Hollywood, baby, and I knew they did things differently over there. They heard Luella Van Horn was the person to call when you wanted crime solved quickly and quietly. That was the big one, quietly. With the ratings so high, John and Stephanie didn't think police interference was necessary at this point.

but they wanted the problem solved. We're certain it's simply a matter of David G. hiding somewhere, Stephanie insisted. Right. Sometimes these actor types really do take off for a few days. They only tell the PA, who forgets to tell us, and then they come back, and everyone's okay. For all we know, David G. is sun tanning on a boat somewhere right now.

John chuckled nervously at his own joke. I noticed Stephanie didn't join him. David G. was a frontrunner on Sex Island, and his star was on the rise. If he was hiding, there had to be a really good reason for it. John and Stephanie hoped Luella could do some hush-hush private investigating, find David G. alive and well, and be on her merry way. You might be wondering how someone could actually disappear in the age of social media.

While the geniuses running Sex Island had a moratorium on posting, liking, and even sharing during the filming months, and that applied to all cast and crew. In fact, all contact with the outside world had been actively discouraged. David G's and everyone else's social media had been untouched for weeks. How much will you pay, I asked. For some reason, it was always easier to ask about money when it was for Luella.

The producers got cagey but said they'd make it very worth her while, plus a first-class ticket both ways. I hung up the phone and took the next three minutes to jump around my apartment screaming. Meatball hid under the bed while Meatloaf hissed at me from on top of a bookshelf. I know most sane people would ignore this vague offer with no concrete money on the table. They'd go on with their regular, sanity-drenched lives.

But seeing as my life actually revolved around watching a reality show that was now a potential crime scene, I felt that doing something was the right thing to do. Call me an angel from heaven. An angel tracking down the very attractive David G. on the set of her favorite television show.

This could be the turning point I'd been hoping for. If Luella could solve this case, I might become so busy I'd never have to live as Marie another day in my life. I called them back. John picked up after the first ring. Hello, did you talk to Luella? She'll do it, I said. Amazing. Okay, just book her on the next first-class ticket out. We'll wire you the money now. I thanked him, then promptly got an airplane ticket that left New York in two hours and cost approximately $14 million.

There was so much to do in so little time. Next, I called my 75-year-old neighbor, Sophie. Sophie, hi, how are you? Cut to small talk. Sophie cleared her throat and spit up a loogie, which thanks to advanced technology, I could hear very clearly. What do you want? She screeched. If you can believe it, she was always this pleasant. Could you take care of my cats for a bit?

She coughed twice directly into the receiver. How long this time? Not sure. Maybe two weeks, maybe a little more. She treated me to another throat clear and then a very wet-sounding snort. All right, have a bottle of Bailey's waiting for me in the fridge. Always, I said. If anyone in the city knew of my double identity, it was likely Sophie wet-snort-de-plaza. But she never said a word about it, and neither did I.

Is that considered a friendship? With the cats taken care of, I took a shower, which was something I hadn't done in some time. Seeing as I was going to visit a tropical island, I tried to remove as much of my body hair as possible. But in my haste... There was no telling which tufts I missed. Next, I put on my Luella face. Red lipstick, a blonde wig, a smoky eye, and a set of fake white teeth. I've always had a chipped front tooth, which is a lot like a car accident.

Nobody can stop themselves from staring at it. Wearing the perfect Luella teeth changes my whole face. Putting a nice blonde wig over the frizzy brown curls doesn't hurt either. It's not that my goal is to be pretty, but I have found pretty gets you places plain wouldn't dream of. What? It's a sick world and I'm just living in it. I looked at my reflection and for a moment I forgot I wasn't her.

Then my eyes wandered down to the rusty edges of the mirror, the growing pile of dirty laundry near the foot of my bed, the double-wide litter box I hadn't cleaned in a week. Glamour. I quickly packed a suitcase, tossing in a few backup wigs and some sunscreen. I looked at the time and temporarily panicked when I realized I'd missed that night's Sex Island episode. I'd been devoted to this show for weeks, developing what some might call a dependency. Now Luella was actually going to Sex Island.

I hugged the cats as much as they would tolerate and headed to JFK, my head spinning. I'll skip the gruesome details, but I'll sum it up by saying the two words you never want to hear when it comes to air travel. Tiny plane. Three long hours later, I landed on the island frazzled and ecstatic to be back on land. It was almost 1 a.m. when I arrived. Even inside the airport, the air was warm and muggy. Everything smelled like salt water.

I started to doubt whether my wigs would hold up in this weather. A short man and a tall woman greeted me at arrivals. They revealed themselves to be the producers I spoke to over the phone. The short one was John Murphy, a nervous man in his mid-thirties with a receding hairline and blue eyes I didn't quite trust. He tried to smile. Welcome to the island. How was your flight? He asked. A little rough, I said. Good. Sounds good.

Well, welcome to the island. Gave me three consecutive pats on the shoulder. One of us was having a nervous breakdown, but I couldn't tell who. The tall one, Stephanie Hilson, was a striking brunette in her early 40s. I noticed she wore a large diamond ring on her left hand. Her nails were perfectly manicured with light pink polish, a color I exclusively associated with suburban moms and cotton candy. I looked down to see she was wearing the same stupid four-inch heels as me.

At 1 a.m. in an airport. Why do we do this to ourselves, I was about to say, but she was already on her phone. We made our way to the arrivals parking lot. John got in the driver's seat of a 12-seat passenger van, and Stephanie sat shotgun, which I sort of took personally. I sat in the robe directly behind them, even though I had my choice of nine other seats in the vehicle. I hoped it conveyed I was committed to the cause.

School bus politics from 20 years ago were still fresh in my mind. We made small talk on the right over to the Sex Island compound. Over the years, I've gotten better at talking with the Luella teeth in, but I still have trouble with certain letters.

All in all, I try not to speak as Luella more than is necessary. People assume Luella is standoffish or sensitive or even flirty. Their interpretations run the whole gamut. But if there's one thing I've learned masquerading as a minimally speaking hot woman... It's the less you talk, the more they do. How was your flight? John asked for maybe the eighth time. His brain must have been elsewhere. A little rough, I repeated. You know, we really appreciate you coming out here, Stephanie chimed in.

If you don't mind, we have a non-disclosure agreement we'd like for you to sign right away. Sure thing, I said. Stephanie passed back a clipboard, and I carefully initialed LVH as the van bumped along the road. We eventually pulled into a parking lot in front of a sprawling one-story building. Only a few lights were still on, but it was very late. Most people had probably gone home for the night. They led me inside.

The hallways had wall-to-wall beige carpeting and the building smelled like it had just been cleaned by that pink stuff they use in elementary schools after some kid pukes in the gym. We walked past an older woman vacuuming as they led me into a room with five metal folding chairs and no table.

Stephanie offered me a chair, then sat down across from me. She looked nervous. Luella, you don't need anything, do you? Water or coffee? No, thanks, I said. Well, I'll tell you what we know, she proceeded. We already spoke to your secretary. Did she happen to fill you in?

A little, I said. If there were a camera, I would have winked at it. One of the show's contestants, David G., has been missing for two days, but of course we're still optimistic, she said. I nodded. The briefest of silences followed. John remained standing in the doorway. We've heard about your work and thought you might be able to find him, he said. The island is fairly small and the cast and crew all live within a couple of designated buildings, so it should be a fairly simple task.

We just want you to work fast. Ideally, you find David G., he's alive, and his family and friends back home are none the wiser. Do you watch the show? I nodded. I've seen it. Then you'll know David G. was very well-liked among the cast and crew, Stephanie added. Any unknown visitors, I asked. Never, Stephanie answered quickly, which is why your presence here may raise some red flags. So we're proposing that you... John, how do I put this?

We're proposing that you join the cast, John said. I was struggling to contain my combo plate reaction of shock, slash excitement, slash about to barf. Hope the cleaners have more of that pink stuff, I thought. Oh? I asked as nonchalantly as I could. John continued. We've given this a lot of thought. We often bring in wildcard cast members to shake things up, and this will be the only way to lift total access to the cast and crew without raising suspicion.

I'm sure you're well known within your profession, but to the general public, we think you'll come across like any other contestant on this show. I hope you don't mind me asking, but how old are you? Instead of answering, I opted to stare at him silently. He got the message and moved right along.

As this is a very sensitive situation, we didn't want to tell you over the phone. We hope you'll understand and accept. Of course, you'll be compensated well, and no one will know who you truly are except for Stephanie and me, and presumably your secretary. John handed me the contract as smoothly as he could muster. Was he trembling? I glanced down at the figure at the bottom and did a double take. This would be by far my biggest case to date. I quickly signed the contract.

They loaded me down with a box of HR files on the cast and crew and took me to an apartment building across the lot. We rode the elevator up to the seventh floor. Stephanie handed me a key file with 7E neatly written on it in white marker. while John went on and on about the building's cutting-edge security system. John and Stephanie each thanked me profusely for coming out on such short notice. Get some rest, because tomorrow's your first on-camera day, John added, giving me a double thumbs up.

Oh boy. I swiped the key fob and walked into my temporary apartment. It was minimally furnished and clean enough. There was a kitchenette with a few cooking supplies. In the bedroom, there was a queen-sized bed with a black-and-white pattern comforter. Based on a few faint but large stains, I gathered this thing was covered in all kinds of dried bodily fluid, so I gingerly scooted it off the bed and onto the ground. In the living room, there was a couch, a chair, and a small flat-screen TV.

The remote control was wrapped in plastic. It was a real hygienic operation they were running. I checked the time. It was already 2.30 a.m. I got undressed, unpacked my things, and brushed my wigs. Sometimes when I'm away from home, I worry that I treat the wigs like my cats, but honestly, who could blame me? They kind of looked like long blonde cats if you squinted hard enough and pretended cats didn't have faces. I popped out my fake teeth and scrubbed the makeup off my face.

De-luellifying after a long day always felt incredible. I checked my messages. Only one from Sophie. Your cats stink. Just her charming way of saying she was taking care of them. What a freaking doll. I got out my reading glasses and brought the box of files into bed with me. There were profiles on each of the cast members, most of the information I already knew from watching the hour-long show every night. I perused background checks for a few of the crew members.

There were some misdemeanors here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. Next, I looked at David G.'s profile. He'd been a college swimmer while getting his nursing degree from Penn State. He was born in Philadelphia. He loved the roots. His last relationship was with a woman named Chloe, which ended once he was cast on the show. Why would a nurse in a stable relationship go on a reality sex show?

Maybe this Chloe had some involvement in his disappearance. I paged through a few more crew profiles and paused when I found Johns. He was also from Philadelphia. I perused his resume. Up until now, he'd only worked on true crime shows. Murder on the Stairs, A Husband's Poison, The Angry Uncle. I'd seen a few of these, and I could attest they were bleak.

How did he end up being a producer on Sex Island? Apparently this was John's first season and a missing cast member probably didn't bode well. I made a mental note to watch John closely. My eyes were closing, so I shut the box of files and turned off the light. My body was exhausted, but my mind kept racing. I lay there studying the cracks in the popcorn ceiling until 4 a.m.

What felt like a minute later, I woke up to the sound of aggressive knocking. I looked at the clock. It was somehow already six in the morning. Miss Van Horn, someone bellowed from the other side of the door. I jumped out of bed and tried my very best to remember where the hell I was. Just a minute, I yelled. I scrambled around the small apartment trying to locate my wig and Luella teeth. I must have tripped over my own suitcase a dozen times.

Out of breath and half put together, I finally answered the door to a perky 20-something holding a clipboard, the accessory you never, ever want to see first thing in the morning. She had long red hair she'd braided and wrapped around her head a couple times for good measure. Her youthful face was covered in freckles, most likely a side effect of working long hours on a sunny island. She chewed a wad of gum that looked to be about three sticks worth.

Good morning, Ms. Van Horn. I'm Issa, the first team's production assistant, which means I'll be your main contact here. Welcome to Sex Island. Time to get you into hair and makeup. Oh, no. I'd forgotten about hair and makeup. I stare at the alert creature before me, knowing whatever I said next could make or break both my investigation and my secret identity.

I was already undercover as Luella, and now I was somehow supposed to go double undercover as a random Sex Island contestant? I was trying here, but I'm no Cindy freaking Sherman. I do my own, part of my contract, I said. Issa seemed to believe it, or maybe she just didn't want any extra hassle today. Either way, I had avoided Luella's first obstacle. Her second obstacle? Find out who wanted David G. gone and why.

This has been Chapter 1 of Murder on Sex Island, read by the author, Joel Firestone, who is me. It's produced by Barry Finkel. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions. Want to know what happens next? Tune in to episode two where I read chapters two through five. Can't wait. Buy the book. Till next time.