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Chapter One

Reporters had been circling the event for days now Headlines flourished Innuendo about drug use and illicit behavior nipped at the heels of the celebrities who’d congregated in the son town It was a wrap party for a s like this didn’t take place in LaGrangeville The Elks Hall hadn’t been used for anything other than quiet ht it pulsed with loud, discordant raphers swar themselves in thefor so totally Hollywood, to happen

But even so, even with all the articles and interviews and paparazzi, no one kne close to the truth the Enquirer’s headline sentence would be: It was a party to die for

Angel DeMarco eed froh a blur of cigarette sathered across the street Faceless bodies huddled behind a long, yellow police line

“It’s him, DeMarco!”

Caht The rain looked surreal, streaks of prisht on the black street

“Angel… look this way! AngelAngelAngel…”

Their adoration swept through hi wave God, how he loved his faarette and exhaled slowly, then flashed theazine had labeled the “twenty-thousand-arette sh the air

He stepped sideways to allow his date—he couldn’t reet out of the car

She surfaced slowly A high-heeled black leather shoe and long, slinky leg shot out of the darkness Her heel clicked hard on the pavement She leaned forward, thrust her teased pile of peroxide-yellow hair forward, followed it with a e, and thrust out of the car Instinctively she turned to the crowd, adjusting her pink rubber dress as she smiled and waved

Angel had to give her credit: the woman kne to make an entrance

He took her hand and pulled her toward his adoring fans Her ridiculous heels clicked and skidded on the slick pavement, but the sound was soon drowned out by the roar of the crohen they realized that he was co toward them

Young girls screanized—they were the saers who had skipped school to watch the fil of his ether behind the barricades, screaed from his trailer to shoot a scene

They asked nothing of hi except his presence He could be wild and immature and s

elfish, and they didn’t care—they only cared that he gave his all to the screen He gave theaze to scan the crowd He presented each girl aat her alone