Kouretas couldn’t imagine he’d have to hang around Silver Springs much longer. He was so confident he was close to getting what he wanted that he was at the gas station, filling his tank so he could head home. His wife was expecting him. She’d had another blowout with their teenage son, who’d taken off with his loser friends even though she’d said he couldn’t go anywhere.
“Who cares about Seth’s mother?” he said to Lois Ivey, who’d called him just as he’d pulled up to the pump.
“I care,” she said. “Everyone in town respects Aiyana. And you should’ve heard her. She was angrier than a hornet. She stood on my front porch, shouting questions at me like a lawyer—questions I had trouble answering and certainly couldn’t handle in court.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I told you this thing isn’t going to last that long. It’s a misdemeanor, anyway. It’s not going to court.”
“She said Seth will fight the charges, and I believe he will.”
“We’re going to drop the charges, remember? Just as soon as I can get a good picture of Tia. She has to let someone take one sooner or later. It might as well be me. Then she can save her new boyfriend at the same time. Believe me, this will be over before he can even hire an attorney.”
“But you said you haven’t heard from Tia.”
He grabbed his phone since it was starting to slip, and he didn’t want it to fall and crack on the cement. “I haven’t. Not yet. But I will.”
“Surely, she knows Seth is in legal trouble by now. Maybe we were wrong, and she doesn’t care. Maybe there really is nothing going on between them.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” he said. “The way he defended her? You should’ve seen it. I know what that kind of protective behavior means.”
“Seth is still in love with our daughter.”
“Which is why you should be pissed that he’s fooling around with someone else.” He hated having to hold Lois Ivey’s hand like this. She was what he termed a Nervous Nellie, all uptight and atwitter and constantly fearful and whining. But if he didn’t talk her down she might go to the police and admit she’d lied, and he couldn’t allow that. Not yet.
“Shiloh’s dead,” she said flatly. “I’ve already told you that.”
So? Was he supposed to care? He hadn’t even known her daughter. “Right. Sorry.”
“I don’t like doing this to my son-in-law,” she said. “Shiloh would never forgive us.”
“If your daughter’s dead, she has no idea what you’re doing, for one. And for another, I’m not even certain Seth would still be considered your son-in-law. They didn’t have any children together, did they? If not, he’s technically no relation.”
“They would’ve had children. They weren’t married long enough, before—” she choked up “—before it happened.”
She was growing maudlin, and he had no time or patience for that. After today, he never planned to talk to her again. “Look, now’s not the time to grow a conscience. Just sit tight. Like I said, this will all be over soon.”
“Grow a conscience?” she echoed.
“You know what I mean.”
She sighed into the phone. “Just let me know the minute you hear from her.”
Another call came in before he could say anything else. He returned the gas nozzle with his left hand while pulling the phone away from his ear with his right so he could see who it was. It was a blocked number. That didn’t necessarily mean it was Tia, but it was a definite possibility.
“This might be her now,” he said, with a surge of excitement, and switched over before Lois Ivey could even respond. “Hello?”
“Mr. Kouretas?”
“Yes?”
“This is Tia Beckett.”
As he’d guessed. He couldn’t help grinning triumphantly as he said, “Am I happy you’ve called!”
“Actually, I don’t think you’ll be very happy when you hear what I have to say.”
He sobered. This wasn’t how he’d imagined it going. “I’m sorry if you’re upset. But what I want won’t take more than a few minutes. It can be that easy. Then you’ll be rid of me for good.”
“Except it won’t be that easy after all.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s too late.”
“For...”
“That picture you want.”
“Maybe you don’t understand. The only way you’re going to get me to drop the charges against Seth Turner is to allow me to take one good photograph. That’s it. Just one.”
“You’d be stupid to continue to press charges against Seth.”
This took him aback. She didn’t sound upset, which was odd. She sounded determined, and that was never a good thing—not in a game of chicken. “Because...”
“There’s no longer anything to be gained. Well, the big prize is gone, anyway. You’ll have to decide if you’re willing to continue to stay in the fight, hoping for a few scraps.”
He began to sweat despite the cold weather. “Scraps? What are you talking about? All I need is a picture,” he reiterated.
“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—”
“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?”
“It made Rachel mad that Abram won’t let her talk to you, and now they’re arguing again.”
Tia sat up straighter. “It should set her off. He has no right to decide who she can talk to and who she can’t.”
“He’s her husband!” her mother cried as if he had every right.
“That doesn’t make him her prison warden!”
“Listen to you! Listen to how you’re talking! We taught you better than this.”
She let her head fall against the steering wheel. She could try to explain, but her mother would never understand. She’d assume that Tia was in the wrong, that the devil had hardened her heart and made her reject their beliefs and traditions.
“Tia?” her mother said.
Tia summoned as much calm as she could muster. “Never mind. I won’t try to call her again.”
“You could write her a letter. I don’t think anyone could have any complaint about that.”
“So Dad and Abram could read it and censor it before giving it to her? No, thanks.” She almost hung up but stopped herself at the last second. “Before Dad gets mad at you for talking to me, can I ask you one question?”
Her mother hesitated. “What is it?”
“Have you told anyone where I am?”
“Told anyone? Like who? Our friends all know you’re in LA. They knew where you were going when you left.”
“I’m not talking about Mennonites, Mom. I’m talking about the paparazzi.”
“The what?”
Tia felt ridiculous for even asking. Her mother couldn’t have contacted Ray Kouretas. She had limited access to technology, didn’t even own a TV anymore. Naomi wasn’t sophisticated enough to figure out how to find him. “There’s a man named Kouretas. Ray Kouretas. Have you ever heard of him?”
“No. Never.”
“What about Rachel?” Tia said. Every once in a while, her sister pushed through the oppression. It wasn’t beyond belief that she’d picked up a copy of The Lowdown, or seen one at the grocery store they frequented on occasion, and asked the checker to Google the number for her. From there, the receptionist at the magazine could’ve patched her through to Kouretas.
“Tia, Rachel wouldn’t know him, either. What business would she have with a strange man? Why are you trying to start trouble?”
She could hear screaming in the background and knew that her mother hadn’t been stretching the truth when she’d said that Rachel and Abram were having one of their many arguments. “I’m not trying to cause trouble,” she said and hung up.
She sat there for a few minutes before picking up her phone again, this time so that she could send a text message to her sister’s husband:
Did you do it?
But, of course, he was otherwise occupied, so she received no response.
Tia began to feel lighter and lighter as she drew closer to Silver Springs. As negative as her conversation had been with her mother, she’d spoken to Seth right after, and that had been much more enjoyable. She’d also conquered her fear and allowed her picture to be taken for the world to see, and now that hurdle was behind her. It felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She had no idea how the public would respond. She couldn’t even say if Miguel had gotten a decent picture. But she was grateful for the professionalism with which Nina Miles and her team had handled the shoot. None of them had shown her an ounce of pity. They acted as if pity wasn’t even warranted, and that had made Tia feel more normal than anything else.
Although this part of California didn’t get snow, even at Christmas, the cold air coming through the vents of her car smelled crisp and clean. She filled her lungs and let her breath go. Although she’d never experienced the kind of excitement most children did at the approach of Christmas—there’d been no Santa, decorated tree or presents where she came from—she was beginning to feel the stirrings of a childlike wonder.
She was alive. She had her whole life ahead of her despite the accident. She had enough savings to carry her for a couple of years, if necessary, until she could find work she enjoyed, even if it wasn’t acting. And she was free of the ties that bound her poor sister to Kalona, Iowa. As much as she missed her family and some of the other members of the community and mourned the loss of those connections, at the end of the day, she was grateful to be where she was. She had to forge her own path. At least she’d managed to escape the constant guilt and shame that her parents and their strict teachings had heaped upon her. That was more than she could say for a lot of Mennonites. It wasn’t easy to overcome the indoctrination, the lack of education and a general unfamiliarity with how the rest of the world worked. And yet she’d done it.
The holiday decorations blinking brightly in store windows and the manger scenes in the yards of the houses she passed made her want to buy a few gifts—a complete reversal from trying to hide from the world and ignore the season entirely. Tomorrow was the twenty-third. She was running out of time.
If she was still feeling as brave in the morning, she’d visit a few stores and get some shopping done, she decided. Maybe she’d even go to Aiyana’s on Christmas with Seth. She might as well enjoy him and his family while she could. She had a feeling her days in Silver Springs would come to an end long before she wanted them to.
The closer she got to Maxi’s place, the more anxious she became to see Seth. She expected him to be in Maxi’s office sculpting or painting when she arrived. He already knew what’d happened with Kouretas and People magazine, and it was night, when he usually tried to get some work done. But as soon as she let herself inside, he came from the living room to greet her.
“Finally,” he said.
She didn’t respond. She just walked into his arms as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“I’m glad you’re back safe,” he murmured, his lips at her ear as his arms closed tightly around her.
“I did it,” she told him. “It’s over.”
His fingers slid into the hair at the back of her head as he looked down into her face. “You got the cover of People, Tia. That’s no small thing. And I bet you’re going to look great.”
“I might look okay,” she allowed. “Thankfully, they took a completely different approach than the one Kouretas and his rag would’ve used.”
“How so?”
“They weren’t looking to make it too sensational. They were actually trying to make me look good, as if my face isn’t everything, you know?”
“It’s not everything. There’s so much more to who you are. But you don’t have to worry, regardless, because there’s no way you could ever look bad.”
He seemed so sincere she was tempted to believe he really thought so. “I’m relieved Kouretas is going to drop the charges. Have you heard anything?”
“Not yet. But I’m not worried. From what you told me, his editor won’t let him renege.” He tucked her head under his chin as he continued to hold her. “Did you ask him who told him you were in Silver Springs?”
“No. I was reluctant to let him know he had something I wanted. I didn’t want to provide anything for him to gloat over. I doubt he would’ve told me, anyway.”
“It might be best just to let it go. It’ll only hurt you to find out.”
“I’m pretty sure I already know who it was.”
“Who?”
“My brother-in-law. He hates me,” she said, but if Abram was the one who’d called Kouretas, he must not have revealed anything about himself or her background, or Kouretas would’ve tried to hold that over her head.
“Better him than your sister or your friend,” Seth said.
“True,” she agreed, trying to convince herself it was possible that Abram had called anonymously.
“You tired?”
“Yeah.” She covered a yawn. “It’s been a long day. I think I’ll head to bed. What are you going to do? Are you going to work?”
He rested his forehead against hers. “That depends.”
“On...”
“Whether or not you’ll let me join you.”