American Diva (12 page)

Jack put his hand firmly on her shoulder and turned her around. “No detours,” he said, and gave her a nudge instead of a boot, which, for a moment, he seriously contemplated doing.

He felt a rumble of concern. “I’ll check in with you later,” he said to Ted, and started for the hotel.

In
the hotel, Audrey had surrounded herself with Lucas and anyone else who could form a shield between her and any lunatics lurking in the halls at that very moment.

She was seated at a table, mindlessly autographing a stack of photos to be mailed out through her fan club, but her mind was on the chocolates and the note that the bellboy had delivered early this morning. As Lucas was digging through the box in search of truffles, Audrey had opened the note and read a horribly vile wish to see her dead. She stopped Lucas before he bit into a chocolate.

Now the police had come, taking away the box of chocolates to be tested, reading the note, asking her the same questions she’d been asked in New York when she received the last letter.
Did she know anyone who would want to harm her? Any problems with the family? The boyfriend? The lover?
She hated the questions—hated even worse that they seemed to believe there was a never-ending well of people who hated her. Worse, they didn’t seem to think there was much they could do about it. “These things are almost impossible to trace,” one officer said.

And to add insult to injury, one of the policemen had left a newspaper on her table. She’d made the mistake of opening it while they waited for someone to make some calls—she’d forgotten who or where—and had happened upon the review of her show.

Unfortunately, the reviewer was perhaps the one person in the arena who hadn’t enjoyed the show last night. He said her music was derivative of Mariah and Kelly, that the lighting was intentionally dark to cover up the fact that she was a little too old to be embarking on a career in pop, and that the only song that had stood out was the ballad she sang and played on acoustical guitar, backed only by a violin.

That was an old song of hers, the only one Lucas and her label had allowed her to keep on the new album.

“I’m only twenty-eight!” she said when she read the paper and tossed it across the table. “They make it sound like I’m
forty
-eight.”

“It’s Omaha,” Lucas said absently. “Who cares what Omaha thinks?”

Well . . .
she
did. And so did the cop standing next to Lucas, judging by the way he was looking at Lucas. The review wouldn’t have stung quite so bad if Audrey didn’t believe she’d done really well last night.

She groaned, paused in the autographing to push her hands through her hair. She just wanted to leave Omaha for Minneapolis, just get the hell out of here and move on, move forward. With a sigh, she began to autograph again as Lucas, wearing his distressed jeans and a faded blue T-shirt that said ROLLING STONES FORTY LICKS on it, ranted to one of the officers in the room.

Audrey glanced out the window—it looked like a blistering morning, and reminded her of a gig she’d had in Austin once, at The Backyard, an outdoor music venue. It had been blistering that day, too, but it was one of the best sets of her life. It was all acoustic, just her and a guitar—no pop—just the ballads she loved to write in alternative folk style and then transform into alternative rock when she got bored with them. Those were the songs she loved creating, the songs that made her want to get out of bed every morning.

Sometimes she felt like she wasn’t supposed to be where she was now, like she was living someone else’s life. If it hadn’t been for Lucas’s idea to turn her into a star, she might have stayed in the safety zone of her old music the rest of her life. Left to her own devices, she probably never would have jumped out to experience all that life had to offer.

Oh, but she would have missed so much—she would have missed the taste of fame and the chance to sing to twelve thousand people. Her new release was sitting at number 4 on the charts, right behind Kelly Clarkson and just ahead of Pink. Wasn’t that what every musician dreamed of happening?

But then again, if she’d stayed in Austin, she probably wouldn’t have some freak scaring the shit out of her.

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts; Lucas, still talking, opened the door, and without speaking, without even a gesture, turned around and walked back into the room, his mind on his conversation with the officer.

From across the room, Audrey’s eyes met Jack’s. He was standing at the threshold, his arm up and braced against the door jamb, the other hand on his waist. What surprised her was how she instantly felt safer with him in the room.

One thick, dark strand of hair hung over his eye as he took her in. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Audrey nodded.

He straightened up and walked into the room, closing the door softly behind him, ignoring the cops. He glanced briefly at Lucas’s back, and Audrey did not miss the slight, but unmistakable look of disdain that glanced his features. “You should have called me,” he said, reaching her at the table.

“I sent Courtney.”

“I would prefer you call me the moment something like this happens. So you want to tell me about it?”

Audrey shrugged and glanced out the window. “There’s really nothing to tell. A box of chocolates was delivered with a note from someone who thinks I am teasing him by sending signals to him, coded in my songs. And that he thinks I am such a whore and I should die. You know, the usual. I’d show you the note, but the police took it.”

“When did the chocolates arrive?”

“About nine this morning. A bellboy brought them up from the front desk. They are tracking that down now, but they won’t find him. Look at all the flowers,” she said, sweeping her arm around the living area. “They’ve been running stuff up here every hour since we arrived.”

Jack nodded, but he didn’t look at the flowers. He just kept looking into her eyes, making her feel strangely exposed. It was almost as if he could see inside her somehow and knew how miserable and vulnerable she felt at that moment, how close she thought she was to crumbling. His scrutiny made her nervous and she abruptly stood up, tossing down her pen.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again.

“I’m
fine
,” she said, and turned away from his probing eyes so abruptly that she collided with the table there. “I just want to know when we are leaving. There is a lot I need to do in Minneapolis—we need to rehearse ‘Frantic’ because I am screeching the last few notes, and someone needs to do something about the lighting—”

“No, no, no!” Lucas interrupted loudly from his perch on the edge of the couch. He held one finger up to the officer as he spoke to Audrey. “The show is
fine
. We are not going to change things because some pimply-faced punk reviewer in Omaha thinks your set is too dark. Get a grip,” he said sternly. “It’s one fucking review.” And just as abruptly as he had snapped at her, he returned to his conversation.

Audrey was so taken aback she couldn’t even speak for a moment. Not that it mattered—Lucas was absorbed in his all-important conversation with the police and was not the least bit concerned with her feelings, which were, at that moment, edging toward a total meltdown. She despised that about herself—over the last couple of weeks she couldn’t seem to get away from the feeling. It reminded her of her mother, who could fly into a fury without the slightest bit of provocation. Audrey had always thought her mother was highly fragile and that
she
—singer, artist, balanced soul—was the even-tempered, thoughtful one.

But at the moment, she could feel the heat of shame, embarrassment,
something
, creep into her neck, spread up to her face, and it was all she could do to shift her gaze to Jack.

His eyes said it all, blue eyes filled with loathing and pity and . . . and that was it, about all she could take for one morning. “When do we leave?”

“An hour, maybe a little longer.”

“Great,” she said, and moved for the door.

“Hey!” Lucas shouted after her. “
Audrey!
Where in the hell are you going?”

She answered by throwing open the door and striding through, her arms swinging, her gait determined. She had to get out of there, to go someplace where she could be alone and melt down in private.

Audrey reached the elevators and punched the down button. Several times. Over and over again in rapid succession until she was convinced the door was not going to open for her, at which point she turned and ran to the stairwell. She had made it down one flight when she heard the stairwell door open and close above her, and assumed it was Lucas coming after her to smooth things over.

Only she didn’t want to smooth things over. She just wanted to be alone, and she didn’t think that was asking too terribly much. Just someplace Lucas wasn’t hovering and no one was demanding anything from her.

She made it as far as the sidewalk before he caught up with her, grabbing her arm and wrapping thick fingers around it to stop her. But it wasn’t Lucas as she expected—it was Jack.

“Wow. You’re fast. I’m impressed.”

“Why are you following me?” she snapped, jerking her arm free of his grasp.

For some reason, that made Jack laugh, but upon seeing her murderous look, he instantly put up an apologetic hand. “It’s a strange question, you have to admit. There is some freak out there who wants to hurt you, so it seems fairly obvious to me why I am following you. And besides, you almost killed your poor little rat.”

Audrey gasped—he was carrying Bruno in the crook of one arm, like a football. She’d forgotten about him. She took Bruno from Jack and glanced across the street, where a mall with an actual green and trees and beautiful plants and a trail and a little river stretched for several blocks. It looked so pretty, so peaceful—and she’d almost made it, had almost escaped to privacy. “Can’t I just go for a walk?” she asked, her voice depressingly small.

“Sure. But I’m going with you.”

Audrey shot him a dark look. “I meant
alone
.”

He shrugged. “Sorry, kid. You know the only way I can let you walk over there is to go with you. Especially after getting the chocolate and another letter.”

She knew it, but knowing it didn’t aggravate her any less. “Fine,” she said irritably. “Then come on.” And with that, she began striding down the street, to the crosswalk. Jack was instantly at her side, walking along like he was on some Sunday stroll while Audrey marched faster and faster to outdistance him.

She couldn’t do it.

When they reached a light, she shot a look at him. He was as fresh as a daisy, even though it had to be ninety degrees and very humid. Audrey stifled a scream and pounded on the pedestrian button several times. When she finished, Jack arched a brow.

So did Audrey.

He calmly reached around her and pressed the button on the front of the light post.

It dawned on her that she’d been pounding the pedestrian walk button for the wrong direction. She ignored his smile of amusement, and as soon as the light turned—which took a while, given her impatient button-pushing—she practically sprinted across the street.

Jack easily kept pace with her, and even put a firm hand on her elbow to slow her when they reached the green.

“Okay, all right, I won’t run away,” she said, pulling her arm free and stooping to let Bruno run. “But could I just have a little privacy?”

He gestured for her to walk ahead of him.

She walked on, her skin melting where his hand had touched her, her mind racing around thoughts of his hand on other parts of her body. It was ridiculous—after what she’d been through this morning, she was thinking of
sex?
Yet it wasn’t just sex. It was something more than that, something like what she had felt on the beach that night.
Comfort
.

After a few minutes, she grew weary of trying to clear her thoughts of Jack and stopped dead in her tracks. Jack was apparently following fairly close behind because he collided with her back, catching her shoulders in his hand and twirling them both around to face the water. With his hands on her shoulders, his body against hers, he said into her ear, “You might warn a person next time,” and let go.

Audrey didn’t move. She took great gulps of air to calm her nerves and her racing heart as Bruno bounced around her feet, wanting to keep going.

She closed her eyes, willed herself to stop thinking of Jack. She wasn’t supposed to be attracted to him. She had a boyfriend. Sort of. Even if Lucas was a colossal jerk sometimes, she was still with him. And besides, even if there had been no Lucas—and there was definitely a Lucas—Jack was an employee. No one got involved with their employees unless they were in a sitcom. Wait . . . what was she thinking?
Involved
with Jack? She’d made the mental leap from attracted to
involved
?