She’d been born and raised in a small town in Iowa. The youngest of three, she’d left home as soon as she turned eighteen, took a bus across the country and arrived in LA with only ten bucks in her pocket, where she got a job hawking tickets for a comedy club while staying in a three-bedroom house with eighteen other people in what sounded like some kind of hippie commune. While there, she started taking acting classes. Expect the Worst, directed by Peter Wagoner and produced by Maxi Cohen, was her first feature film, but she did have some shorter-format credits: commercials and music videos and the like.

He went to her IMDb and clicked through the pictures he found online. Thanks to the incredible beauty of her eyes, Tia had been compared to Elizabeth Taylor. But in his mind, the comparison ended there. Tia had her own unique look, and it was far more exotic than Elizabeth Taylor’s.

As he stared at one photograph, his favorite of what he’d seen so far, he shook his head. Tia had been beautiful, all right—fresh-faced and innocent. What’d happened was a tragedy on so many levels.

So...why hadn’t she headed home after the accident? He felt she should be spending Christmas with her family, where someone could look after her. Did her parents and siblings realize she was completely alone? That she was hiding out in her producer’s guesthouse in California when he wasn’t even home?

Did they care?

With a sigh, he closed his laptop and rocked back. He had to go check on her. He was getting so worried he couldn’t make himself hold off any longer.

Ignoring Kiki, who was saying Shh...be quiet in between barking like a dog, he jogged downstairs and marched out the front door and over to the guesthouse. He was in an untenable situation, he decided. He didn’t want to live like this—worried about someone he didn’t even know—for the next two months until Maxi returned and he moved over to his mother’s house.

The food he’d bought was still on her doorstep. That was the first thing he noticed. “You couldn’t have put it in the fridge?” he grumbled.

Except he was pretty sure she’d left it there for a reason. She was sending him a message: I don’t need you. Leave me alone.

“Fine. I will leave you alone.” He grabbed the bag, intending to go back to the main house. But he hadn’t taken more than two steps before he reconsidered. If he didn’t at least speak to her, he’d stew about it all night.

He was going to knock whether she liked it or not.

He hit the door hard enough to make sure it would wake her up if she was still sleeping. “Tia? It’s Seth. Are you in there?”