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defending her was distracting him from his main objective. He should be thinking of Julie.
    But he couldn’t stand by and watch Rafe De Luca and the tabloids rip Maggie to shreds. If he had to take them on one by one, he would. He stood, looming over the reporter and forcing him back in his chair. “Listen, asshole, if you write one word that isn’t true—”
    Grady held up both hands. “I’m not writing anything. I’m not interested in the lady.”
    Cal frowned. The guy looked sincere, but you could never tell with his species. They’d rat out their own mothers for a good story. “Then what the hell are you doing?”
    “Looking to burn Rafe De Luca’s sorry ass. Without collateral damage—that means I don’t care about you and your girlfriend.”
    “Right. You just happened to be eating here while keeping an eye on the Lost Canyon Lodge, where I just happen to be staying.”
    “I eat here because I like the prices. And I’m watching the blue car over there, same as you. That’s Rob Ventner with The Hollywood Scene . If he’s still there when we’re done talking, I’ll get rid of him for you.”
    Cal eased back, more puzzled now than angry. Grady pointed at the chair across from him. “Have a seat. I think we might be able to help each other out.”

Chapter
Four
     
    C al didn’t see how a reporter could help him, but Grady obviously wasn’t the typical tabloid stringer. Not unless he was lying about not being interested in him or Maggie, and Cal didn’t think he was. He pulled out the chair across the table and sat. “Who do you work for, and what makes you think you can help me?” he asked.
    “I don’t work for anyone. I freelance. Mostly I do articles for online news sites.” His superior look revealed what he thought of the tabloid reporters. “But about a year ago I happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I took a picture of Rafe De Luca arguing with a woman—a girl, really, about sixteen—outside a club in Acapulco. No one else was there, I was the only one who caught it. I sold it to a tabloid for fifty thousand dollars.”
    “Holy shit.” No wonder those photographers were on De Luca like leeches.
    “No kidding. That was way more than I made on my articles that year. And I only took the picture because two seconds before that I saw Rafe hit her. He looked like he was going to do it again, and if I couldn’t scare him off I wanted to at least document it.”
    “Son of a bitch,” Cal muttered. He gave Rick a hard look, noting the decently muscled build and flat stomach. The guy was no wimpy pencil pusher. “Why the hell didn’t you do more than take a picture? He was abusing a girl. You look like you could handle yourself in a fight.”
    “I was in a parking lot, separated from them by a chain-link fence. But I yelled, and he saw the flash from the camera. That was enough to stop him. Caught him with his arm raised and a look of desperate fear on the girl’s face.”
    Cal raised his eyebrows. “I remember that picture. It caused a brief stir, but he explained it, and the girl backed him up. Something about practicing a scene for a TV show.”
    “At two a.m. behind a Mexican nightclub?” Grady gave a derisive snort. “He bought her off.”
    Cal grunted, not surprised. But the story was nothing without proof. “You know that for sure?”
    “Sure as I could get. I tracked the girl’s family to a little run-down apartment across town, but I couldn’t talk to them. They’d moved away. Left town the day before in their brand-new pickup truck, the neighbors said.”
    Cal believed it. But that didn’t mean he trusted Rick Grady. Gesturing at the camera and zoom lens on the chair between them, he said, “So you moonlight now as a tabloid photographer to pay the bills?” For that kind of money he could hardly blame him, but he still found it distasteful.
    “Not exactly.” Rick fiddled with his water glass, his expression grim. “I’m hoping to catch him in