What the fucking fuck?
Bryan’s paper cup full of coffee splattered to the floor behind me.
After a few gasps from the studio audience and an awkward silence only made worse by both the hosts’ sprayed-on smiles—who fucking smiles when you’re talking about sex with underage girls?—Hugh was the first to recover.
He frowned and shook his head. “Leah, that’s a very serious accusation. I can tell you it’s absolutely not true. Where did you hear such garbage? What sort of reliable source do you have that makes it okay to say something so inaccurate and so disgusting?” he said in a steady voice.
Stone didn’t move, keeping his gaze glued to Hugh. It was as if he were begging for a lifeline.
Dripping with confidence, Leah laughed lightly. “Oh heavens, you know we journalists never reveal our sources. It’s just not done.”
She looked at her co-host, Pete, who nodded enthusiastically, like a bobble head.
Then Hugh burst forth with exactly what I was thinking. “You call yourselves journalists?”
Leah’s eyes widened, and the smile slithered from her face.
Hugh looked at the audience and shook his head. “These two should be ashamed of themselves, propagating a disgusting rumor that they either made up or accepted at face value from someone with an axe to grind against Dirty Bandit.”
Damn. He was good. If music didn’t work out for him, a career in politics could be the perfect fit.
All three guys jumped to their feet at the same time.
Leah turned to the camera like nothing had ever happened.
“Thank you, Dirty Bandit, for visiting with us today—”
But Hugh was not done. “This is not the end of your bullshit, lady. You’re going to be hearing from us about your desperate attempt to boost your lousy ratings.”
Pete stepped forward as if he could defuse the situation, but Ennis lunged in his direction. “Back off, asshole,” he growled.
The showrunner screamed commercial, and the guys stormed off the stage.
I grabbed Hugh’s arm. “Oh my god, I love how you handled that—”
He shook me off him. “You know what, Coral? Fuck you too. You sent us into that den of middle-America mediocrity.”
Did someone just slap me across the face? Because it sure felt like it.
“Excuse me, Hugh—”
Stone was still shocked into silence, but Ennis was not. “No, Coral. This was a bad idea.”
I was getting blamed for this?
Ennis looked at the guys. “C’mon. Let’s get the fuck out of this dump.”
“Guys, guys, wait a minute,” Bryan called after them.
But they ignored him, storming toward the exit when Hugh turned around and faced us. “Are you coming? Or do you want to hang out with these douchebags?” he asked, gesturing toward the producer who was hustling in our direction.
I grabbed my bag and caught up with them, Bryan tight on my heels.
Hugh flagged down a cab—who knew where the car that brought us had gone? We sure weren’t going to wait for it—and we squeezed in, this time with me grabbing the front seat. As soon as the driver entered traffic, I twisted to face the back seat.
“Stone, what was that?”
He just shook his head and looked out the window.
“Yeah, Stone, what the fuck is going on?” Ennis asked, pulling his unruly hair back into the ponytail holder he kept on his wrist.
“Seriously, Ennis? Are you seriously asking me that?” Stone growled.
Hugh held his hands up. “Okay, guys, let’s stay calm. We gotta figure out what we’re gonna do.”
“Stone, was anything she said true? I have to know. Be honest with me. It’s the only way we can fix things,” I pleaded, working to keep the anger out of my voice.
His gaze back at the window, he cleared his throat. “I got a text last night that something like this might come up. And then I got a call this morning, just when we were leaving.”
“What?” Ennis shouted. “You knew this might come up? And you said nothing?”
“It’s not true,” Stone said in a small voice. “And I thought that if it wasn’t true, it didn’t matter what anyone said.”
We were silent all the way back to the hotel until we reached the guys’ suite. They didn’t invite me in, so I just followed them.
Stone fell onto the sofa with his head in his hands and Ennis headed to the wet bar where he opened a bottle of scotch, looked at his watch, then put it back.
It was barely ten a.m.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Stone murmured, rocking back and forth.
“I could use some scotch,” Bryan said, looking out the window at the Manhattan skyline.
I pulled up a chair right in front of Stone and took his hands. “Tell me the whole story. Right now.”
He took a deep breath. “I got a text and then a call. No idea where either came from, but they said they knew of something terrible I’d done, and that I was going to be in big trouble. The only way to keep it quiet was to not go on the show Good Day New York. They gave me a date for when I supposedly did it, you know, with the girl, but it was all bullshit. When I looked at my calendar, I saw I’d been at a high-stakes poker game that night. An illegal one.”
He hung his head.
I never thought I’d see Stone defeated.
“Jesus, Stone—” Bryan started.
But I cut him off. “Bryan, give me a minute.”
Stone raked his fingers through his hair, agony etched across his face. It was hard to be mad at someone suffering like he was. “I told whoever it was to fuck off, and they said I’d be sorry. Guess I should have listened. They knew I couldn’t talk about the poker game because it was illegal. If I said anything, the guys running it would be in big trouble. So I can’t even use my alibi unless I can talk one of the guys into vouching for me.”
“Who would have it out for Dirty Bandit like this? Can you think of any enemies? Rivals?” I asked.
Ennis snorted. “You know how long that list would be?”
Christ, how many people had these guys rubbed the wrong way?
“Coral, I have an idea,” Hugh said urgently, taking a seat next to Stone.
“What’s that?”
“Remember when we went to lunch and there was that guy trying to photograph us?”
“Yeah. The weird guy with the spray-on tan and blond tips.”
I’d gotten a picture of him on my phone. I started scrolling through my photo library.
“He seems to have a bug up his ass for us. Not sure why, but he follows us everywhere in LA, and is always trying to goad us, yelling things like who’s your ugly girlfriend and why did your last album suck so much?”
Oh my god. He was trying to get a rise out of the guys to make them look bad. But why?
And more importantly, how could he be stopped?
Chapter 30
STONE
The Good Day whatever-it-was host who laid her accusation on me was lucky she was a female. I’d been known to punch out assholes for far less.
That’s how I’d ended up in jail last time. And the time before. Possibly even the time before that. I couldn’t really remember any more.