“Are you out of your bleeping mind?” Nicola’s voice flew out of the phone when Shelby called her back ten seconds later.
Shelby sat gingerly on the bed beside Lexi. “What are you talking about?”
Nic paused. “What do you mean, what am I talking about? Are you living in a cave out there? Do you not see the news? Do you not see yourself on the news?”
Lexi’s jaw dropped as she grabbed for the remote on Shelby’s bedside table, clicking on the television as Shelby pushed her suitcase aside.
“Find the Today show, Shelby. You’re on the freaking Today show.” Nicola’s words shot like ice picks, and Shelby felt a chilly fear creep down her body.
Lexi flipped channels, obviously hearing Nic loud and clear even though the phone was clamped to Shelby’s ear. When she finally stopped at the local NBC affiliate station, Shelby’s free hand flew to her chest. Her face—her real face—was splashed across the screen, right next to what must have been Cooper’s original mug shot.
“You see it now?” Nicola half-screeched.
Shelby had never once seen her assistant lose her composure. Not once had she heard her raise her voice. Not once had she pictured her storming back and forth across a plush carpet from windowed wall to windowed wall in her corner office in L.A.
But this time, she was definitely doing all of those things. And Shelby was the reason.
“I see it, Nic, but I don’t get it.”
“Well, keep flipping. Each network has its own theories. You might learn something.”
Lexi frowned at her tone, then put her arm around Shelby’s shoulders as she pressed buttons on the remote. But the picture didn’t really change from station to station. Shelby was top news, and she had no idea how she’d gotten there.
“We talked about this forever, Shelby. Your one job out there was to lie low and stay invisible.”
Shelby sighed, then sat up straighter. “I take exception to the forever part, since I had a whole twenty-four hours’ notice that I was even coming here, but I did lie low. I did stay invisible. Mostly.”
“Except for the part where you went into town and put on a concert? That part?”
Oh, God. The night at Jasper’s.
“It wasn’t a concert—just a little open mic thing. There wasn’t even anybody there.”
Nicola growled. “Well, apparently there was. And apparently he took videos of your performance. And pictures of you cozying up to one particular guy afterward—one particular guy who just happens to be charged with multiple counts of manslaughter, Shelby!”
“He’s not—it’s not—oh, my God.” Shelby buried her head in her hands. “He’s innocent, Nicola.”
“I’m sure that’s what he said, yes.”
“He is. He was framed, and he already stood trial, and he was already cleared. But now someone’s coming back for more. He’s innocent.”
“Well, no guilty person ever claimed to be framed. That makes me feel so much better.” Nic blew out a loud, frustrated breath. “There is simply no way to turn this story around and make you look like anything but a naïve, stupid teen-pop idiot. Or an accomplice.”
“What? How is that possible? First, he’s innocent, so there isn’t even an accomplice thing, and secondly, even if there was, I didn’t even know him until a few weeks ago! Nobody could put the two of us together for anything.”
“No? You think not? Have you met a reporter lately?” Nic practically yelled. “Hold on a second. I need to send you some pictures that just came through.”
Shelby closed her eyes. How in the world had things gone so quickly crazy?
The phone buzzed with an incoming text, so Shelby put Nic on speaker and tapped to see what she’d sent. First came the mug shot she’d just seen on television. Second came a picture of her at Java Beans, singing into the mic. Next was one of her and Cooper that same night, their arms around each other, looking as if the rest of the world had faded to black around them.
Who had taken these pictures? Who had sent them to the networks?
Why?
Lexi gasped when the next picture came through, and Shelby closed her eyes, trying to tamp down a sudden rise of nausea. It was a side-by-side shot—on the left was Tara Gibson smiling widely with a young teenaged fan a year ago at a meet-’n’-greet somewhere along her tour.
And on the right?
On the right was the headline from the Boston paper the morning after that same fan became the third runaway to have her body identified, with the same OD cocktail running through her veins as the previous two.
“Did you get them all?” Nic’s voice startled Shelby as she stared at her phone, her hands shaking.
“I don’t—how—who would do this? Why?” Shelby’s voice sounded like a child’s as it fought its way out of her mouth.
“Someone who made a boatload of money selling those pictures, that’s who.”
“But…why?”
“Who knows? It doesn’t matter. They’re out there, and your name is now irrevocably tied to this Cooper Davis, whoever he is. How could you possibly let this happen, Shelby?”
I didn’t mean to were the words that leaped to Shelby’s mind, but they certainly weren’t going to help right now.
“He’s innocent, Nicola. He is.”
“Oh. My. God. Are you not seeing this? He could be the Pope, Shelby! It doesn’t matter! He’s been accused of crimes that make people sick. Maybe he’s innocent, maybe he’s not—”
“He is.”
“It. Doesn’t. Matter. People now associate him with these crimes, whether he’s eventually cleared or not. And now, they associate you, as well. Your audience is these teenagers, Shelby. And you’re being accused of screwing around with someone who drugs teenagers before—God! There is no way to unspin this.”
“Screwing arou— Oh, my God.” Shelby held her stomach as Nicola reduced the beauty and magic of their time at Whisper Creek to a sordid, short-term physical act.
“If you didn’t sleep with him, now would be a really good time to tell me.”
Shelby paused. Could she lie? Would it help?
“Your silence gives me that answer.” Nic sighed. “Never mind. Unless he pressured you?” She brightened for a second. “Did he? Because that could totally work.”
“Stop it! No! He didn’t. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He’s a good person, Nic. And he’s innocent. You’ll see. They’ll see. Everybody will see.”
“No, they won’t. Because that’s not news, Shelby. You know it, and I know it, and I have a feeling that even Cooper knows it.”
Yeah, Cooper knew it, all right. And that’s why he’d sliced off their relationship at the knees, so that she wouldn’t get drawn in, exactly like this.
Shelby’s head spun like a merry-go-round without brakes. He’d predicted that the worst could happen, and here it was.
He’d been right.
“What do we do?” She hated that her voice had gone small and childlike, but it was an automatic reaction.
“I’m so glad you asked.”
Shelby felt her shoulders twitch at the calculated chill in Nic’s voice, but she forced herself to take a deep breath and close her eyes. It was going to be all right. Somehow, this was all going to be all right.
“We’re going to go in hot,” Nic started. “I’ve sent a plane to you. You’ll be back in L.A. just in time for me to get you on camera before the evening news.”
“Camera?” Shelby gulped.
“It’s the only way. They need to hear you and see you.”
“Who?”
“Everyone, Shelby. Every-freaking-one. All the people who’ve seen the other headlines this morning.”
“But—what am I supposed to say?”
“Easy. You are appalled by the speculation that you have anything to do with this man. Mr. Davis was a Whisper Creek employee you barely knew, and those pictures from the coffee shop were just you being polite to a fan. You hope that if he is guilty of these heinous crimes—insert dramatic shiver—that he will be punished to the full extent of the law.”
“He’s not guil—”
“Also, you are setting up a fund, to be managed by the wonderful people at yadda yadda runaway organization that I still need to dig up, and you hope that out of this terrible, terrible tragedy, some good can come.”
“But—”
“And then you’ll mention that you were in Montana recovering from your dear father’s death, and if you could work up some tears, that would be helpful.” Shelby heard Nicola scribbling something. “Actually, we should lead with that. Grab the sympathy bone from the outset. Yes. I’ll have it printed and ready for you by the time you get here.”
Shelby swallowed, but couldn’t speak.
“You didn’t even know his last name until you saw the news this morning, understand?” Nic’s voice was sharp. “You do not know this man.”
“But I do.”
Shelby’s voice caught on a quiet sob as she pictured the hours they’d spent sitting on his porch, riding the trails…tangled in her bed.
“You don’t. And if he claims anything more than an employee-guest relationship, we hit him in the balls. Hard. Nobody’s going to take his word over yours right now, but only if we get out in front of it. If we wait till tomorrow on this, it’s going to look like we engineered a cover-up. As it is, the timing works. You saw the news, you got on the next possible plane to L.A., and you called a press conference to make sure the world knows the truth. It could work.”
“Except that I’ll be standing up in front of that world telling a bold-faced lie.”
“That’s between you and your Maker, or whatever. Right now, you’ve got zero choices. You let yourself be tied to this guy, and your career is over. Over, Shelby. Can you afford to let that happen right now?”
Again, Shelby didn’t answer—just shook her head miserably. Nicola knew damn well she couldn’t.
And why she hadn’t let herself tie these threads together before buying a ticket to Boston was something she’d probably never forgive herself for.
“Pack up and get your ass to the airport, Shelby. And when you get here, you come down the steps of that plane as Tara Gibson. Got it? I’ll pick you up, and I’ll get you where you need to be.”
“Okay.” It was all Shelby could say, but Nicola was already gone.
She hung up, but didn’t move from her seat on the bed for a full minute. To her credit, Lexi didn’t move or say a word, either, but the poor woman was probably in shock.
“Shelby?” She finally leaned to look in Shelby’s eyes.
“It’s okay.” Shelby took a deep breath and dug deep for her pasted-on smile. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Can you really deny—everything?”
“I don’t have a choice, Lex.”
“Really? Because I think you do.” Lexi stood up. “She’s telling you to lie to the world, and you’re okay with this?”
“Of course I’m not okay with it.”
“Then—”
“It’s what Cooper would want me to do, Lexi.”
“Why?”
“Because if I went public with the truth about our relationship, the media circus that followed would be a complete, utter nightmare for both of us. They’d dig back till we were in diapers, looking for connections and secrets and crimes and stories. And if they couldn’t find any, they’d make them up. This would be just the beginning, and instead of Cooper being able to focus on figuring out how to get out from under this bullshit case, he’d be watching his back twenty-four/seven, waiting for another axe to fall. I can’t do that to him.”
“And you don’t think it’s going to kill him to see you stand up and deny you ever even knew his name?”
Shelby closed her eyes, remembering how his had looked the day he’d left her cabin for the last time.
“Pretty sure he’ll hold his own press conference first, Lex. He’ll deny knowing me before I even get a chance to deny knowing him.”
“This isn’t as good as yours.” That night, Phoebe poked at the sweet ’n’ sour chicken in the take-out box, a frown on her face.
“Thanks.” Cooper forced himself to swallow some rice, then caught a fortune cookie as it started to slide off the tiny motel table. “I’m a little short on kitchen space here.”
“And a lot short on your ability to go to the grocery store. I know.” Phoebe sighed, looking around the motel room with its one bed, two chairs, and aforementioned table. A dorm-sized fridge sat under the television, and a microwave doubled as a coffee stand in the bathroom. That was the sum total of Cooper’s current amenities.
“It’ll be over sooner or later, Phoebs.”
“Aren’t you going completely stir-crazy here? Did they build this place before they’d heard of insulation? I can hear every single car on the interstate from this chair.”
He rolled his eyes. “I have a white-noise app on my phone. It helps. And I keep the TV on low.”
“White noise—sure. You and I both know you’ve been playing my Tara Gibson playlist nonstop since you got back.”
Cooper grimaced. Busted.
“And how can you even watch TV right now?” Phoebe continued. “It makes me sick.”
“You and me both, squirt. But since it’s pretty much my only contact with the outside world, what’s a guy to do?”
“Switch to a cooking channel?” Phoebe winked, but then her eyes widened as she looked over his shoulder at the television. “Holy shit, Cooper.”
“What?”
She pointed with her chopsticks. “Look! It’s her. It’s Tara!”
Cooper spun so quickly that he bashed his knee on the bed. He felt his mouth fall open as he grabbed for the remote to turn up the volume.
“It’s her, right? Isn’t it?” Phoebe crowded closer.
“Shh.” He put up a hand, cranking the volume higher. The woman on the screen barely resembled the person he’d spent the past few weeks with, what with the jet-black hair and hot-pink lipstick. She had on sky-high heels and—for Tara Gibson—what probably would be considered a demure outfit.
Cooper felt himself leaning closer to the screen, desperate to find Shelby under all the makeup, and when the camera panned closer, he felt his gut squeeze. Her eyes weren’t that color, dammit.
Headlines scrolled across the bottom of the screen, and he forced himself to rip his eyes away from Shelby to read them. Obviously this was a hastily called press conference, and it looked like she was back in L.A. already.
He nodded painfully. Could have predicted as much, given what had hit the news this morning. He’d tried to call her ten times today, but she wasn’t picking up, and who the hell could blame her? This was exactly what he’d feared—that the media would grab one tiny morsel of a non-story and blow it up into a scandal—and this was why he’d left when he had.
But clearly, he hadn’t gone soon enough. He’d been so wrapped up in Shelby that he hadn’t even noticed somebody taking pictures that night. He’d had his eyes so glued to her on that little stage in the corner that he hadn’t even clued into the fact that somebody in that café had been filming the entire set, prepping to release it online in some sort of sick attempt to bring her down by connecting her to him.
The whole thing made his skin crawl, and he couldn’t imagine what was going through her head as she stood nervously behind a bank of microphones, the breeze catching her hair.
Her wig, he corrected.
“She doesn’t look so good, Coop.” Phoebe grimaced carefully. “Hope she doesn’t throw up.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” So he wasn’t imagining the green pallor under the makeup, maybe.
Then she cleared her throat and spoke, and though Cooper could have predicted the exact words that would come out of her mouth—could have practically spoken them before she did—every syllable of her denial still cut jagged holes in his heart.
She hadn’t written the speech. He knew that. They weren’t her words, and she wasn’t a good enough actor to make him believe they were true.
But the world would, and that’s what counted.
He should be happy for her. She was separating herself from him, just like he’d advised. She was denying she’d even known him, really, when in truth, he knew very well that she knew every inch of his body. Knew it with her hands, with her lips, with her tongue.
But right now, up on that stage, she delivered her shock and confusion like she’d been practicing it all the way from Montana to L.A. She even threw in her dad for good measure, with a perfectly timed tear that pulled the cameras into her cheek.
Damn. Actually, she was good. If he didn’t know better, he’d be one hundred percent sure they’d hardly met.
He should be happy for her, he repeated to himself. Relieved. Grateful she’d followed his advice without arguing further. Now she could move on, revive her career, live her life. And this would be a tiny blip—the cost of celebrity—on the radar of her past.
“That bit—”
“Phoebe.” He spoke her name harshly, unable to bear hearing the word come out of her mouth.
“Did you hear that?” Phoebe’s eyes were wide. “Seriously? She just denied even knowing you!”
“She doesn’t have a choice, Phoebs.”
“Oh, yes, she does. Everybody has a choice.”
“She has a job. And her job is dependent on her image. Her contract is dependent upon her image. And when you’re an entertainer with a teenaged audience, you obviously can’t let yourself be connected with—me…with what’s going on here.”
“This is all bullshit.”
“Language.”
Phoebe stopped pacing. “Really? We’re going to talk about my language?”
“Only if you continue to speak like you were raised by animals.”
“Shut up, Coop. Just—shut up.”
Cooper felt his chest compress as tears poked their way out of Phoebe’s eyes, and he reached out for her. Aw, damn it all.
“Hey, squirt. Come here. It’s going to be all right.”
Phoebe crossed her arms, refusing to be comforted. “How do you know it’s going to be all right?” She pointed at the television. “They’re saying some really scary stuff. What if it doesn’t turn out all right?”
He closed his eyes, pulling her into his chest, then squeezing as her shoulders shook. “I have a good lawyer, Phoebe. He’s doing everything he can.”
“And if that’s not good enough?”
“It has to be.”
“You can’t go to jail, Cooper.” She sniffed. “Oh, my God. What if that’s what h-h-happens?”
“Then I’ll get some bad-ass tattoos and a really bad-ass attitude to keep me safe. And I’ll do my time, get paroled, and come back home.”
Yeah. Sounded simple, right? Because a cop with a bad-ass attitude lasted longer than a whole minute and a half in prison, right? Hell if he knew what his chances of survival were, let alone his chances of probation someday.
He sighed, hugging her tightly, settling his chin on her head so she couldn’t see the fear in his own eyes as he watched Shelby—check that—as he watched Tara Gibson leave the microphone bank and step into her limo.
And out of his life.