Trama

Mick's latest client is an actress who is plagued by the paparazzi, she is murdered and Mick investigates. Soon Mick is followed by the paparazzi. Beth tries to help, and deal with her new editor.

Now that he's a vampire again, Mick has taken a job as security to celebrity actress Tierney Taylor. It is Mick's duty to screen Tierney's acquaintances, keep her schedule private, and shield her from the many fans and paparazzi that follow her everywhere. Not an easy job when Tierney drives a hot, silver Audi R8 and is gearing up to shoot a new movie called Lusitania that producer Jason Abbott predicts will become a billion dollar franchise. Then there is the added problem that, because Mick is constantly at Tierney's side, he has now been thrust into the public eye, dubbed Tierney's new "hottie," and become the focus of many a paparazzo's photo. Just stopping for lunch is a pain in the neck as Tierney is forced to outdrive the paparazzi waiting for her this morning, almost as though they knew when she would be leaving the house, even though Mick distributed fake schedules to her manager, her agent, and her publicist. Mick has begun to suspect that there is a leak among her close friends, possibly her musician boyfriend, Scott Walsh, who may be trying to drum up publicity for his band's new album, but Tierney poohpoohs that idea.

As they take their seats at the sidewalk cafe, Mick can't help but notice Beth lunching with the new district attorney, Ben Talbot. Neither can Beth miss the arrival of Mick, Tierney, and dozens of paparazzi. When Tierney goes to use the ladies' room and Mick and Beth get a chance to talk privately, Mick assures Beth that there is nothing between him and Tierney and that he still wants to date Beth and get to know her better. Beth reminds him that he's known her since she was four. Suddenly, Tierney comes racing from the rest room and wordlessly heads straight for her car. With only a shrug, Mick follows her, and they drive off leaving Beth standing there.

Later that day, Mick pays a visit to Josef at his penthouse, which is still undergoing remodeling. Josef points out an online photo of Mick and Tierney having lunch together, and Mick explains that he's decided to become more visible in order to drum up business. Josef is concerned that Mick is endangering himself with this kind of public exposure, and Mick replies, "Don't worry, Dad, I'll be careful." "Don't call me that," Josef shoots back, and Mick reminds him that he was the one that turned him. "Re-turned," Josef corrects. "I'm not your sire." "Step-sire?" Mick wonders.

Meanwhile, Beth has returned to BuzzWire, where she and the other reporters are being briefed by their new editor, Grant Lewis. Unlike Maureen, who preferred that her reporters research their stories to assure they are true before printing them, Grant is concerned that such a policy has caused BuzzWire to be scooped in the past. His philosophy is to print a story immediately and retract it later if it proves to be false. Beth is visibly put off by this new policy, but Grant takes a particular shine to Beth when he learns that she has an in with Tierney Taylor's new hottie. He notes that the start date for Lusitania has been pushed back three times due to mishaps on the set, and he wants to run with the headline that there is a supernatural curse on the movie. He informs Beth that he has obtained a ticket for her to attend a movie party tonight and wants her to come back with a "hot" story.

The Lusitania party is being held on a large boat docked in the harbor. As Mick stands on the dock looking at the boat and remembering the last time he was on the real Lusitania, he suddenly realizes that he's being photographed. Paparazzo Dean Foster assures Mick that he's stalking Tierney only for the money he can get from her photos, not because he cares anything about her, an admission that seems to irk Mick so much he almost takes a swing at the guy. Fortunately, no paparazzi are going to be allowed at the party, so Tierney tells Mick to simply have a good time, maybe spend some time with Beth who is seated at a table with Jason Abbott and several of the movie's investors.

A bit later, as Mick and Beth stroll on deck, talking about Mick's not having a romantic relationship with a human since he was turned, they notice Tierney and Scott chatting with some friends. As Mick bends down to kiss Beth, he suddenly hears Tierney and Scott fighting. "I'm not the one keeping secrets!" Scott yells at her and walks off. Mick rushes over, but Tierney assures him that she's okay and wants to go to her stateroom to freshen her makeup. Mick rejoins Beth at the bar just in time to hear a splash and lots of screaming. He races back out on the deck to find Tierney floating in the water. Mick immediately leaps overboard and retrieves her body.

As Tierney is being taken away in a black bag and the paparazzi are having a heyday with their cameras, Mick rushes down to Tierney's stateroom, Beth in tow. She wasn't drunk, Mick assures Beth, but who would want to kill her? As Mick searches for a clue, he smells Tierney's blood on a small, rusted anchor in a display case. Suddenly, Ben Talbot enters the stateroom and orders Mick and Beth to leave. They comply, but not before Mick points out the anchor and tells Ben that it was the murder weapon.

Beth's new editor is ecstatic that Beth was on the boat and scooped the story of Tierney's death. He's already got the headline figured out. WILD CHILD TIERNEY TAKES DRUNKEN PLUNGE. When Beth points out that Tierney was not drunk, Grant says that they'll retract the story later if that's the case. When Beth reveals that there's a chance it was murder, Grant decides that he likes the murder angle even better and shows Beth some photos of Tierney's body that he bought from Dean Foster. Later, when Mick tells Beth that Guillermo confirmed that Tierney's blood alcohol was zero and that she was killed by a blow to the head with an instrument that matches the shape of the anchor, Beth shows Mick the photos of Tierney that Grant bought from Foster. She points out that, to get these photos, Foster had to have been on the boat, so someone must have gotten him through security.

As they leave the courthouse together, Mick and Beth are confronted by hordes of paparazzi, all after photos of "Tierney's boyfriend." Beth takes off in one direction and Mick in another, leading the paparazzi down an alley. He quickly climbs to the top of a building and watches the paparazzi running past. As Mick is about to exit the roof, he is confronted by two teenage paparazzi. Mick demands their camera. When they refuse, he vamps out and hisses at them. Surprisingly, they do the same to him, but they hand over the camera. After learning that no one has seen Foster since Tierney's death, Mick goes over to talk with Tierney's boyfriend Scott. Scott denies killing her, and explains that the argument arose when he found out that Tierney got her business manager to pay $50,000 to Dean Foster to keep some photos off the market. Scott was afraid they were photos of Tierney fooling around with some other guy.

Meanwhile, Beth is at the studio lot interviewing Jason Abbott for an article about the Lusitania curse. He reveals that the movie is dead now that Tierney is gone and that the studio refuses to consider casting anyone else. That evening, after Mick and Beth regroup and head for Mick's apartment so that they can share information, Mick is suddenly hit by a car speeding down the street. It knocks him off his feet and high into the air. He falls to the ground, stunned at first, until Beth helps him up and into the apartment building. Unbeknown to either of them, Foster has caught it all with his camera. Just to be safe, Beth spends the night at Mick's apartment, she on the downstairs couch, he upstairs in his freezer.

The next morning, Beth asks Ben to run the license plates on the SUV that tried to run them down the previous night. She also informs Ben that she suspects Dean Foster may have been involved. Surprisingly, Ben is already investigating Foster but hasn't picked him up yet because Foster has disappeared. Meanwhile, Mick has Logan hack into Tierney's bank accounts. They find the check written to Dean Foster for $50,000, but they also find that every month her business manager, Ryan Gold, was writing himself a check for $20,000. Suspecting that Gold may have killed Tierney because she found out he was smuggling from her, Mick pays Gold a visit. At first, Gold is reluctant to talk, but he finally explains that the $20,000 was being sent monthly to support Tierney's mother, who suffered a breakdown and killed her husband after years of abuse. The $50,000 went to pay off Foster when he learned about Tierney's mother, snapped photos of her, and used them for blackmail. Mick also learns that Tierney was subsidizing "Lusitania" while banking on Abbott's promises to repay her, which he never did. One more thing: it was Abbott, not the studio, who shut down the movie.

Things are beginning to add up. Mick tells Beth to get in touch with Logan and see what they can dig up on Abbott. As Beth is shutting down her computer, however, she notices an email from Dean Foster. She opens it to find photos of Mick from last night's accident. Then she receives a phone call from Foster, asking her how Mick could get plowed down by a car, then get up and walk away. Foster threatens that, unless Beth lets him in on every big story coming into BuzzWire, he's going to start pursuing Mick with the same voracity that he pursued Tierney Taylor.

From Logan, Beth learns that Abbott was broke. He spent all of the investors' money before even beginning to shoot the film. Apparently, the only way that he could recupe the money was by getting rid of Tierney, shutting down the movie, and making the insurance company repay the investors. Mick and Beth go to the studio to talk with Abbott. He tries to run away from Mick, but Mick easily catches him and turns him over to Ben Talbot, who tells Beth that it was Abbott who tried to run her down. As they leave the studio together, Beth asks Mick what a vampire does when he's about to get exposed. Move away, change names, start up a new life, Mick replies. Afraid that Mick is about to be exposed, Beth consults with Josef. Josef agrees to handle it but warns Beth that, as long as she is involved with Mick and works at BuzzWire, Mick is in danger of being exposed.

Later that evening, as Beth eats dinner at the Arbor Bistro and Mick watches, Beth informs him that she has quit her job at BuzzWire. Meanwhile, outside the bistro, Dean Foster is snapping photo after photo of Mick and Beth when he is suddenly felled by two teenage vampires. Alone in his office, Ben Talbot looks through a stack of Foster's photos of Mick and stuffs them into a case file with Mick's name on it. [Full synopsis by BJ Kuehl]