“Too late,” she broke in. “I just hung up with a man named Eddie Hoffman. He was pretty disappointed to hear what I had to tell him. Apparently, he doesn’t condone lying to the police. He promised me if I didn’t file suit against the magazine, he’d make things right.”

Ray’s heart sank. “You didn’t...”

“I did.”

With a groan, he dropped his head in his hands. He was so screwed. “What, exactly, did you tell him?”

“The truth,” she said and disconnected.

Ray let his hand fall from his ear and barely managed not to drop his phone at the same time. What was he going to do now?

He stared at the people who were coming and going at the gas station, without really seeing them. He had to come up with a good excuse, something he could say when Eddie called. But before he could even climb into his car, his phone buzzed with a text message.

He held his breath as he looked down at it. Sure enough, it was from his editor.

You’re fired.

After Tia hung up with Kouretas, she sat back in her car and stared out at the quiet city street where she’d parked. It’d grown dark since she’d arrived, which made her feel strange, but she could see Christmas lights and decorations not far away and found the sight comforting. Everyone who worked downtown had left for home, that was all. Christmas was right around the corner, so they had shopping and baking and wrapping to do. With a two-hour drive ahead of her, she needed to get on her way, too. But while she was alone and feeling empowered after conquering what had become one of her worst fears, she had another call to make.

She tried to reach her sister, but it was Rachel’s husband who answered.

“What do you want?” he barked into the phone without even saying hello.

She did her best to ignore the pique in his voice. “Is Rachel there?”

“Of course she’s here—no thanks to you.”

“If you want to blame me, Abram, that’s fine. But your marriage would probably be better served if you took a hard look at why she wanted to leave in the first place.”

Click. He’d hung up.

Tia leaned back and blew a long breath toward the ceiling. “That went well,” she muttered. But before she could start the car, her phone vibrated, signaling an incoming call.

She assumed it would be Rachel, that maybe her sister had overheard what Abram had said and called back. But it was her mother.

“Tia? Did you just call Abram?”

“I called Rachel,” she said. “Last I checked, she was still my sister.”

“And that would be fine if...if circumstances were different. But I’m going to have to ask you not to contact her again.”

Tia’s stomach knotted. “What do you mean?”