Before Julian could even utter a word, Brooke opened the glove compartment and handed Julian a copy of For the Lost. They had stashed a brand-new copy in there to see if Julian’s parents would actually listen to it before next summer, but she realized this was a far better use. She dug in her purse and unearthed a pen.

“Her name is Kristy,” the officer said, carefully spelling it twice.

Julian tore the plastic wrap off the CD, removed the liner notes, and scrawled, “To Kristy, with love, Julian Alter.”

“Hey, thanks. She’s going to freak out,” O’Malley said, carefully placing the CD in his side jacket pocket. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“Arrest those guys?” Julian said with a half smile.

“ ’Fraid I can’t do that, but I can definitely tell them to back off and remind them of private property rules. You two go on ahead. I’ll brief your friends back here. Give a call if there are any other problems.”

“Thank you!” both Brooke and Julian said at once. They said their good-byes to O’Malley and without looking back, pulled into the garage and closed the door.

“He was nice,” Brooke said as they walked into the mudroom and kicked off their boots.

“I’m calling Leo right now,” Julian said, already halfway to his father’s study in the back of the house. “We’re under siege and he’s stretched out on some beach.”

Brooke watched him go and then walked from room to room, closing all the blinds. The early afternoon had grown dark gray already, and she could see the flashbulbs firing directly at her as she moved from window to window. From behind one of the guest room shades on the second floor, she peeked out front and nearly shrieked when she saw a man with a zoom lens the size of a football pointed directly at her. There was only one room with no window coverings—a small powder room no one ever used on the third floor—but Brooke wasn’t taking any chances. She duct-taped an industrial-strength garbage bag over it and then headed back downstairs to check on Julian.

“You okay?” she asked, pushing the study door open after receiving no response to her knock.

Julian glanced up from his laptop. “Yeah, fine. You? Sorry about all this,” he said, although Brooke couldn’t quite identify the tone in his voice. “I know it’s ruining everything.”

“It’s not ruining anything,” she lied.

Again, no response. He continued to stare at the screen.

“Why don’t I go build us a fire and we can watch a movie. How does that sound?”

“Fine. Good. I’ll be out in a few minutes, okay?”

“Perfect,” she said with forced cheerfulness. She gently closed the door behind her and silently cursed those goddamn photographers, that miserable Last Night column, and—only partially—her husband for being famous in the first place. She would do her best to be strong for Julian, but he was right about one thing: their blissfully quiet, much-needed retreat was over. No one dared drive down the driveway or walk across the lawn, but the crowd on the street only continued to grow. They slept that night to the distant sounds of men talking and laughing, engines turning on and off, and although they tried their best to ignore it, neither of them succeeded. By the time the snow melted enough the next day to leave, they’d only dozed an hour or two and felt like they’d run two marathons, and they barely spoke at all on the drive back to the city. They were followed the whole way home.

12

Better or Worse Than the Sienna Pictures?

“HELLO?” Brooke said into her phone.

“It’s me. Are you dressed yet? Which one did you choose?” Nola’s voice sounded breathy, eager.

Brooke sneaked a look at the thirtysomething woman standing next to her and saw the woman sneaking a look right back. The security guards at the Beverly Wilshire were doing their best to keep out the paparazzi, but plenty of reporters and photographers had circumvented the rules by booking rooms at the hotel. She’d caught this same woman watching her in the lobby before when she’d run down to see if the gift shop had Altoids, and sure enough, she’d slid onto the elevator with Brooke just before the doors closed. Judging from her appearance—silk tank top tucked into well-tailored pants, expensive pumps, and elegantly understated jewelry—Brooke deduced she wasn’t a blogger, gossip columnist, or secret paparazzo à la the guy who sat outside their building and the supermarket stalker. Which made her something even scarier: a real, live, thinking, observant reporter.

“I’ll be in my room in one minute. I’ll call you back then.” Brooke clicked the phone off before Nola had a chance to utter another word.

The woman smiled at her and revealed a beautiful set of pearly white teeth. It was a gentle smile, one that said, I understand what it’s like! I too get pestering phone calls from my friend, but Brooke had honed her instincts the past few months to perfection: despite her unthreatening appearance and her sympathetic expression, this woman was a predator, a scoop-seeking, always-on-the-record vampire. Stay and you’ll get bitten. Brooke was desperate to escape.

“You here for the Grammys?” the woman asked kindly, as though she was all too familiar with the rigors of preparing for such an event.

“Mmm,” Brooke murmured, unwilling to commit to anything more. She knew, just knew, this woman was about to spring a series of rapid-fire questions on her—she’d seen this disarm-and-attack routine before with a particularly aggressive blogger who’d approached her after Julian’s Today show performance pretending to be an innocent fan—but she still couldn’t bring herself to be preemptively rude.

The elevator stopped on the tenth floor and Brooke had to endure an “Oh, is this going up? Well, I’m going down” conversation between the woman and a couple who had that telltale European look (both the man and the woman were wearing capris, his tighter than hers, and each had a different version of the same neon-colored Invicta backpack). She held her breath and willed the elevator to move.

“Must be exciting going to your first Grammys, especially considering your husband’s performance is so highly anticipated.”

There. Brooke exhaled and felt, oddly, momentarily better. It was a relief having her suspicions confirmed; now neither of them had to fake it. She silently cursed herself for not letting Leo’s assistant run the errand, but at least now she knew what was expected of her. She fixed her eyes on the button panel above the doors and did her best to pretend she hadn’t heard a word the woman said.