Page 107 of With Stars in Her Eyes

I snatched the photo out of his hand. “This is not someOne Hour Photopsychopath situation. I’m not a stalker.”

“I didn’t think that you wer—”

“I’m a photographer.”

“Clearly. And a very talented one.” The twinkle in his eye as he looked from the photos to me several times was infuriating.

“The tattoo studio is also closed. Why did they send you up here?”

“Because I’m very handsome and charming.”

“And humble.”

“And looking for Courtney Starling.” He plucked a photo from where one had lodged itself between the cushions on the small futon. “It seems I’ve found her but not exactly the way I wanted to.”

“She’s probably setting up for the book fair.”

“I went to the brewery where they’re holding it, and they said she hadn’t arrived yet. They thought she might be here helping you. I couldn’t find the door but knocked on the tattoo shop, and they showed me how to find it.”

“Oh.”

“But she’s not here.”

“Clearly,” I said, in a slightly rude but passable mimic of the tone he’d used about my photography.

“You’re angry at her.”

“I’m just an angry person in general.”

“No.” His eyes narrowed. “No, I don’t think you are actually.”

I could not think of a single response to that presumptuous pronouncement.

He still held the photo of Courtney with the star trails in one hand and he held out his other to me. “I’m Demetrius Adeyemi.”

“Thea Quinn,” I said, proud of myself for not hyperventilating.

His gaze scanned my small studio before settling back onto the photo. It was as if he were reading it, with the keen way his eyes moved over every detail.

I was supposed to be at the book fair in forty-five minutes, but I had a rock star standing a foot away from me.

What in the holy Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” was I supposed to do about this?

“So, as it happens, I’ve recently lost a photographer.” This sentence was more inscrutable than it should have been.

“Lost, like misplaced?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Have you checked the last spot where you remember seeing them?”

“The last place I remember seeing them was in my bed in my London flat with someone I did not invite into it.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“Indeed, they were doing just that.” He handed the photo back. “Is that typical of your work?”

“Is it typical that photographers are cheating dingleberries? I mean, damn, people suck in general, but I can’t say that photographers particularly are—”