THE WOMAN WHO NEVER DIED August 4, 1962. Los Angeles simmered in the final hours of a summer night thick with the scent of jasmine and smog. The city’s heartbeat was a low murmur of distant car engines, late-night chatter, and flickering neon signs along Sunset Boulevard. The moon cast a pale silver light over a quiet Brentwood neighborhood, where behind the walls of a modest, softly lit house, one of the world’s greatest icons lay still. Marilyn Monroe. But not really. The world would soon mourn her as dead. Newspapers would run headlines filled with grief and speculation. Fans would light candles in her memory. But none of it was true. Tonight was only the beginning.