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autographs, and motioned them forward impatiently.
    “Free my mom! Free my mom!” Sid began to chant.
    Kiley could feel the colonel's glower from fifty paces away. She really, really disliked the man. According to Lydia, the colonel was cheating on his wife with Lydia's nonhetero boss, Anya Kuriakova. Lydia claimed to have caught them red-handed on the club golf course, with his marine-saluting palm on Anya's tush. Kiley liked Susan, Platinum's sister. The idea that her asshole of a husband was cheating on her—
    “Free Platinum now! Free Platinum now!” the crowd chanted in response to Sid, who was pumping his fist in the air.
    Kiley tugged the kids forward. “Come on, we have to go.” The kids might feel at home in this circus, but Kiley's churning stomach told her she had a long way to go.
    “Bruce, is it true you did drugs with your mom?”
    “Sid! Serenity! This way!”
    “
Entertainment Tonight
—if I could just talk with you a moment!”
    Kiley tried to tune out all the voices coming at them and urged the kids forward.
    “Kiley! Hey, Kiley!”
    She recognized that voice, and turned to try to locate it in the crowd. Tom Chappelle, the six-foot blond model who by somefluke of nature Kiley was dating, was muscling his way toward her. In an old blue tennis shirt and faded jeans, he looked better than anyone else looked in a tux.
    “Tom!” she shouted back, and the reporters pressed closer to her.
    “Are you and Kiley a couple? Did you see kids doing drugs at Platinum's house?” one reporter shouted.
    “No comment,” Tom called over his shoulder. “Hey.” He hugged Kiley. All around them, people snapped their embrace with cameras and cell phones. Tom, after all, was famous. Kiley felt utterly, hopelessly self-conscious.
    “What are you doing here?” Kiley asked him.
    “Same as everybody. I'm here to see Platinum,” Tom teased.
    Kiley whapped him on the shoulder.
    “I came for you, Miss McCann.” He gave her a dazzling smile. “But if you want me to head back into that teeming crowd—”
    “God, no!” Kiley exclaimed. “Thanks for coming. It means a lot to me.”
    “McCann!” the colonel boomed, hands cupped to his mouth. “Front and center, double-time!”
    “That guy so rubs me the wrong way,” Tom muttered.
    Kiley's reply was lost in the roar of the crowd, which began chanting Platinum's name. Kiley turned. The rock star had just emerged from her silver stretch limo with a burly bodyguard on each side, and they, the sheriffs, and her trio of attorneys began to move toward the courthouse steps.
    “Mom!” Serenity cried. “Wow. Why is she dressed so weird?”
    It occurred to Kiley that by “weird,” Serenity meant “normal.” Kiley could not remember Platinum looking more businesslike.In a gray skirt suit and wide Chanel sunglasses, she looked about as serious and determined as her lead lawyer, Richie Singleton. Richie was straight out of central casting. African American, with a trim mustache, wearing an immaculate Ralph Lauren suit with a yellow power tie, he was all business.
    “Mom!” Sid yelled, jumping up and down and waving his arms.
    Platinum spotted her children pushing through the crowd toward her. Richie gave his lawyerly nod of blessing, and Platinum scooped up Sid in one suited arm and Serenity in the other while Bruce hugged the three from the side. If it wasn't for Kiley's knowledge of Platinum's underappreciated acting prowess, she would swear that the rock star's joyous tears came from the heart and not from the opportunity for good press.
    Then Platinum motioned to Kiley, blinking teary false lashes. “Come on in here! You're part of the family, too!” Sid and Serenity opened their arms to welcome Kiley as the photographers did their thing.
    Kiley obliged, even though she felt absolutely ridiculous.
    Someone pushed a microphone into Platinum's face. She turned to address the throng. “I just want the members of the media and the whole city of Los Angeles to