SLEAZE: A Hollywood Comeback Story (Book #1)

Chapter 41

When Michael came into my office the next day and tossed a tabloid onto my desk, I felt overcome by a strong sensation of déjà vu. "What's this?" I asked, reaching for the magazine and wondering if I'd somehow become stuck in a time loop.

"Look at the picture." Red-faced and seething, I got the impression that the older Donahue brother was on the verge of internal combustion. I glanced down at the photo and shrugged.

"So, it's a photo of Sophie and Richard," I said, holding the cover up to my face. "Big deal, they're on the front page of nearly every rag mag these days."

Michael's face and neck had gone the shade of a perfectly ripe tomato and I half-expected him to begin hopping up and down. "Look at the photography credit," he said through gritted teeth.

His jaw was so tightly clenched that I could hear his teeth grinding together from where I sat. I looked down at the page again and felt a jolt of surprise. There, beneath the picture of Sophie and Richard walking in front of their lawyers, was a name I recognized. "What the hell? Marc Corona? Seriously?"

"Exactly." Michael leaned against the ancient photocopier that Melanie and I had pushed to one corner of the room and took a deep breath. "Richard and Walter are feeding info to him, I'm sure of it."

"How do you know?" I asked, hesitant to believe that the photo was the product of anything other than coincidence. "Maybe he just got lucky."

"Not a chance. I told nearly every paparazzi agency in the city that Sophie and Richard would be meeting for a late lunch in Venice. He should've been waiting for them with the rest of the vultures on the west side." Michael ran a hand through his hair and I noticed for the first time that he hadn't used any gel to slick it back. With his dark blonde hair laying flat, he could've easily passed for Scott's twin. "His office is in Silver Lake, for God's sake, so what was he doing in Beverly Hills at the exact time that Richard and Sophie showed up at Armada's office, huh?"

"Getting lunch?" I offered but Michael shook his head with disgust.

"Are you kidding me? No one is that lucky. He knew."

"What are you going to do about it even if they are tipping him off? You can't prove it, can you? All confronting them would do is make them even shadier about it."

Michael's shoulders slumped forward and I watched his anger slowly begin to fade. Even when he'd still been in college, Michael had always been the most put together guy in his class. Seeing him now with day old stubble covering his cheeks and a small coffee stain on the cuff of his sleeve felt strange-wrong, even. With a defeated groan, he said, "I know, okay? I'm just frustrated. Even when I'm working totally straight he still finds a way to outplay me."

"Yeah, well," I said, trailing off. "Maybe it was a one time thing."

"I doubt that," Michael said with a mirthless chuckle. "There's no way Walter-or Richard, for that matter-would work with Corona willingly. He's got to have something on them."

"Like what?"

Michael shrugged. "Maybe he caught a picture of Walter hooking up with some movie exec's wife. It doesn't matter what he has on them, it matters that it's there."

"This feels like the plot of a bad spy movie," I said while I set down the magazine and reached for the new rubber band ball that I'd started. It fit neatly in the center of my palm, no larger than an egg. Making a fist, I squeezed it between my fingers. "I don't know, maybe we should just see what happens."

A thought crossed Michael's mind and he frowned. "You'll let me know if he approaches you again, right? Corona, that is."

"Of course."