“You’re not going to get it—not if I can help it. And whatever picture you get without my permission certainly won’t be the first. I just had a photo shoot with People. I’m going to be on the cover of their next issue.”

Shit. Pressing his eyes closed with a finger and thumb, he bowed his head as he leaned up against his car.

“Mr. Kouretas? Are you there?”

“A more candid shot might still be worth something,” he said. “Just give me that much, and I’ll drop the charges.”

“After what you’ve done, I’m afraid I won’t work with you at all.”

“You don’t care about your new boyfriend?”

“I suggest you drop the charges against Seth and get out of town. There’s a security system on Maxi’s house. We have proof that Seth never went to The Blue Suede Shoe the night you claim he was there, and giving false information to the police is a crime. You might be interested to learn, ironically enough, that the penalty happens to be the same as the battery charge you now have against Seth—up to six months in county jail. Only there’s one important distinction.”

“What’s that?” he said dully.

“You’re guilty, so you won’t be able to win, even if you try to fight it.”

“I have a witness. A credible one.”

He realized he wasn’t going to be able to bluff his way out of this when she said, “Video footage is much more reliable.”

As he thought of his last call with Lois, he knew Tia was right. Lois wouldn’t hold up under any kind of pressure, anyway. She had to live with the folks in this town after he was gone.

He’d made a valiant effort, but he’d tried and failed. “Fine. It’s over,” he said. “I’ll drop the charges.”

“Great, because that’s what your editor said, too.”

He was used to confrontations with various movie stars that sometimes turned nasty, was used to losing more fights than he won, too, but this statement caused him to jump to attention. He couldn’t let her talk to Eddie. It was going to be bad enough that he didn’t get the shot. “I don’t have an editor. I—I freelance.”

“That’s not what I found out.”

His mind raced as he tried to imagine how she’d come up with this information. He hadn’t told anyone in this town that he was associated with The Lowdown. It wasn’t on his card. He’d searched his own name on the internet, several times, and nothing had come up. “Where?”

“Maybe you should’ve checked the small print on your magazine’s website.”

He tightened his grip on the phone. “Look, there’s no need to contact the magazine—”