Hollywood on Tap (Sweet Salvation Brewery 2)

“Fella came in the other day flashing an old photo of a young man.” Ruby Sue watched him from over the rim of her glass. “Thought at first he was some sort of private investigator looking for a deadbeat, then he gave me his card.”

She fished a business card out of her purse and slid it across the table. Hollywood and Vine Reports was written in purple calligraphy across the top. He didn’t have to look closely at the photo in the bottom left corner to see the man’s botox–injected forehead, blinding–white smile, and empty eyes.

Sean’s time in Salvation was up.

Rupert Crowley had found him and was closing in for the kill.

Everything inside him froze in place and he automatically clicked over into a sort of detached survival mode. He knew it well. It’s exactly how he’d survived the first years of his life. He’d won an Oscar at twenty–one for a very good reason. He’d been acting his whole life. It had been the best way to avoid his father’s fists.

“I gotta go.” He stood and was reaching for his wallet before the sentence was even out of his mouth.

“This Rupert fella said he was tracking down an actor who’d fallen off the face of the earth.” Ruby Sue didn’t make a move to stop him, but her flinty blue eyes took in his every move. “Said he was working on a where–are–they–now piece and would pay good money to anyone who could point him in the right direction.”

“Huh,” he grunted. Whatever the sleazeball gossip reporter was working on, Sean sure as hell wasn’t interested.

“Asked me if I knew of a Sean Duvin. Told him I’d never met anyone by that name.”

She may not know exactly why he was hiding or who from, but she wouldn’t give him up. Of that he

was one–hundred–percent confident.

“And you won’t.” Sean tossed a ten and a five on the table. That should cover the sandwich he wasn’t going to eat and Ellen’s tip. “Sean Duvin doesn’t exist anymore.”

Sean’s SUV idled at the stop sign on the edge of Salvation. His left turn signal ticked in a steady rhythm like a time bomb.

The savvy move would be to turn left, go home, pack up, and disappear in another small town. Crowley wouldn’t have left the bright lights of the big city and traveled across the country to small–town Virginia unless he was damn sure he’d find Sean here—and he wouldn’t leave until he’d confirmed he’d found him.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

There was plenty of gossip in Tinseltown, but the reporter had dogged Sean’s footsteps for years, writing too many magazine articles and televised reports to count and even publishing a book about the “talented young actor who’d vanished from the face of the Earth.” Crowley had built up Sean to be this generation’s James Dean just without the dead body inside a twisted car’s wreckage.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

A car horn blared behind him. Sean rolled down the driver’s side window and waved the minivan around. The soccer mom gave him a one–fingered salute and peeled off toward the right. Following the van with his gaze, he leaned forward until he could see the Sweet Salvation Brewery turnoff. Natalie waited two miles down that asphalt road.

Long answers to short questions. Soft sweaters with tiny little buttons. The clipboard always at the ready. Hungry lips and soft moans. Tightly wound hair. The teasing scent of honeysuckle that followed in her wake. Five–billion–point plans. Endless possibilities.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

He glanced the other direction at the open highway. Freedom and anonymity lived along that road. All he had to do was turn left and Sean Duvin would stay buried. Maybe forever if he did a good enough job of running. He was good at disappearing. Always had been. He’d been eight years old the first time he’d lost himself in a role, escaping his frustrated actor slash domineering stage father and the backhands that came out of nowhere for no reason. After that, he’d never looked back.

He couldn’t afford to now.

But the idea of leaving Natalie while someone was doing their damnedest to sabotage the brewery left a foul taste in his mouth, sour without any hint of sweet. He couldn’t fucking do it.

Truth was, he was tired of play acting at being himself.