The camera pulls wide. Kaley stands up. “This is the last episode of Kaley’s World. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be silenced after this. Shut down after today’s live feed. But I’d like to send one last message to my dad, Alan Manzone. I’d like to call the remainder of this feed ‘Denial is a Terminal Addiction.’ So here is our live family therapy.”

A link appears at the end of the video. Linda clicks on it and the computer is redirected to a streaming video.

“This has been streaming for over an hour,” Linda informs me anxiously.

The video loads.

Kaley is shaking a can of spray paint. The wall. That’s my Malibu house. In big, bold red letters she’s already tagged: Fuck off Daddy. Entire walls tagged with brief offensive comments. She is filming live from inside my house.

I can’t collect my thoughts enough to wonder how she got in, what my next move should be, how the fuck to shut this down…or even that other part…Fuck off Daddy. She is crying and destroying my bedroom with a bat and cans of spray paint for any idiot on the Internet to see.

What do I do?

What do I do?

I need to stop the live feed.

Shut down the website.

Oh fuck, everything on the Internet lives forever…no, don’t think about that. And don’t think about what’s going to happen when Chrissie sees this.

Why would Kaley do this?

“Are the tweets still posting?” Linda asks anxiously.

Len scrolls through his phone. “Yep. Girl is trending at number one. New tweet every twenty seconds. Oh God, you don’t think our Bobby is there with her helping her do this? She can’t tweet, film and swing a bat all at once.”

They lock eyes.

“Kaley has help,” Linda announces. “It’s probably that airhead Zoe Kennedy. That girl does anything Kaley asks.”

“So does our boy,” Len reminds heavily.

Linda runs her fingers through her hair. “Oh fuck.”

My temper explodes. “Who the fuck cares if Bobby is the one helping her? I have problems here. We need to stop this. Now.”

They both look at me.

Oh fuck, they don’t know what to do either.

Not encouraging.

“Linda, stay here,” I order. “Keep Chrissie here until I get back. If she hasn’t seen it yet, don’t show it to her. Len, get in the fucking car. We need to get to Malibu.”

We climb into my Porsche and shoot out of the driveway, cutting at high speeds through Pacific Palisades only to be brought to a near stop on Highway 1. Fucking LA traffic. Shit, twenty miles to my house. How fucking long is it going to take? Len is still on his phone watching everything.

I hit the voice button on my car. “Call Goldman, Loeb, and Fisher.”

Len stares at me.

The receptionist answers.

“This is Alan Manzone. Put me through to Goldman. Now!”

“I’m sorry, sir. He’s in a meeting. Would you like—”

“Put me the fuck through now. I don’t care what he’s doing, who he is talking to—”

Click. Did she put me on hold? Then hideous Muzak.

“Sorry about the misunderstanding, Manny. What do you need?”

Ah, Goldman.

Sounding anxious.

Greedy cunt. You better sound anxious.

“I have a problem. I need to get a streaming video pulled from the Internet, a website taken down, a Twitter account frozen…” I look at Len. “What else?”

“Wait, wait, wait. Slow down. What are we talking about here?” Goldman says.

Len leans forward. “Go to www-dot—all one word—Kaley’s-World-dot-com. Click on the tab, ‘Denial is a Terminal Addiction.’”

Lots of noise in Goldman’s office pours through the car speakers. Sounds of action. Good.

“OK,” he says in an abrupt, focused way. “I’ve got Loeb with me, and our best technology and intellectual property rights litigator. Hold on.”

Silence. They’ve muted the call. Oh fuck. Not good.

“Who is the girl?” Goldman shoots through the speakers, lawyerly suspicious and insulting. The way he says that is repulsive and leaves little doubt what he’s thinking.

“Kaley Stanton. My stepdaughter, you asshole.”

Paper rustling. Voices in the background. God, how many of them are in the office now? Fuck, did someone laugh?

“There isn’t much we can do about the video and shutting this down. We can try to copyright it, prohibited it from future upload, but we can’t destroy what’s already out there, the existing downloads.”

How is it possible there’s nothing they can do to stop this?

“What the fuck is the good of paying you a ridiculous retainer every month if you can’t be useful once?” I say, weaving through traffic.

“We’ll do all we can here to shut it down, contact the hosting company, Twitter, Google directly, YouTube, anywhere else this is popping up, but, Manny, the girl is your stepdaughter, right? Do you want to press charges against her?”

My anger goes from overdrive into something catastrophic. “Are you fucking out of your mind? Press charges? Do you think I’d toss the girl in jail? She’s Chrissie’s daughter. No. Hell no.”

“I didn’t think so,” Goldman responds quickly. “Have you called a criminal attorney?”

My blood stills. “A criminal attorney. Why?”

“We’re watching the network news, Manny. Your Malibu house is surrounded by spectators, fans, and police. I’ll send Lawrence Walker to meet you there. He is our best criminal defense attorney. I need to see what I can do with the DA to prevent her from being arrested. It’s a long shot trying to keep this is a private family matter. I’ll do my best, but no promises here. I’m hanging up now so we can get to work stopping events before they go any further. Don’t do anything to inflame the situation when you get there.”

Click.

Don’t do anything to inflame?

How the fuck could I inflame this?

Heavy silence fills the car.

The highway becomes clogged again less than a quarter mile from my house. Oh fuck, have they shut down the coastal route? Barricades. Oh no. There are hundreds of people, media, and what looks like half the cops in LA spread down the road in front of my house doing crowd control. More cops in my driveway.

Oh fuck.

Kaley must have tweeted my address, and now every loon in LA is here for the party. She’s made it a happening.

“Fuck,” Len says, staring out the windshield. “We can’t leave the car here. We can’t go through that on foot. Maybe we should just hang back until the cops get everything under control.”

“Are you fucking out of your mind? Whatever is going on with Kaley I am not letting someone else take care it.”

I pull into the curb, park, and climb from the car. A few seconds later, Len springs out of the passenger seat and catches up to me.

I glare at him. You better fucking follow me, you wanker. Your boy is in there. He’s part of this nightmare.

I’m almost to the police line. People start to scream. Shit. Recognized. I block out the shouting, the voices of the police and I try to step around the sawhorse.

A uniformed sheriff stops me. “You can’t go in there, sir. It’s an active crime scene.”

Crime scene?

Is he fucking kidding?

Criminal attorney.

I get it, Goldman.

Maybe I won’t fire you, after all.

“That’s my house,” I announce, furious and anxious. “My attorney is meeting me here. That’s my stepdaughter inside. Take me to my house. You can’t prevent me from entering my own property.”

OK, that was pure bullshit since I’m pretty sure law enforcement can prevent me from entering the house, but he looks unsure. He turns away and speaks into a shoulder radio. Fuck, I can’t hear.

“What’s happening?” Len whispers.

I shrug.

Oh fuck. A line of cops in front me. Are they fucking arresting me? All I asked was to be permitted into my own house.

The sheriff moves the barricade, making a walk-through space. “The commander at the scene said to let you through.”

I’m escorted into the crowd surrounded by cops. That’s a fucking strange turn of events in my life not worth examining at present. In my driveway, I’m taken to what looks like the officer in charge, deep in conversation with another man dressed in Armani, probably Walker the attorney. How did he get here before me? They’re arguing. Yep, he’s my attorney.