A
t the sound of my name, my head automatically turned. Too late I realized my terrible mistake.
Vulture.
I recognized the face at once. Mom and I had given him the nickname. Ed Whisk, a tall, gangly man with extra skin on his neck and beady eyes. He works for that lying, down-in-the-dirt tabloid
Shock.
“Found you, Shaley.” He smiled, showing yellow teeth, and clicked his camera.
I gasped and stopped in my tracks. Brittany grabbed my arm.
“It’s okay, girls,” Bruce said in a low voice. “Just keep walking. We’ll head for the nearest exit.”
From all points, more photographers descended. Someone had tipped them off. One camera became two, three … five … six … I knew over half the faces. Frog, the ugly woman with the wide mouth and googly green eyes, who’s with the tabloid
All That’s Hot.
And Cat, a gangly, effeminate man with bleached white-blond hair and two inches of black roots, working for
Cashing In.
Plus two freelancers we called Frodo and Gollum, after the characters in
Lord of the Rings.
I pictured the Abercrombie clerk on his cell phone and wanted to strangle him.
It would only take one call to bring these people running. They’d probably all flocked to San Jose as soon as the news about
Tom’s death broke. Once one of them discovered our trail, the others had followed like hounds.
My heart tripped over itself. Being caught among a crowd in a limo was bad enough. But exposed like this — so open and vulnerable — I felt absolutely crushed.
The exit seemed a million miles away.
“Hey, Shaley, love the wig!” A photographer I didn’t recognize darted close to me like some mosquito. He gave me a smarmy grin. The man was short and skinny with wild brown hair and deep-set, coal-black eyes. His nose wrinkled as he clicked his camera again and again.
Brittany held tighter to my arm. Carrying two bags, I didn’t have an extra hand to shield my face. I turned my head this way and that, but every time found myself staring into a camera.
At the commotion, shoppers looked around and exchanged comments. I heard the words
black hair
followed by
wig
as people saw past my disguise. A young couple ran toward me. Two girls. Three guys. Five more girls. Women and men and kids — like an avalanche picking up speed, rolling toward us.
“Shaleeeeey.” Brittany pressed against me, her eyes wide.
In seconds, they swarmed over us.
“Get back!” Bruce shouted. He moved in front of us, right hand up, palm out. “Let us through.” He pushed forward, parting people like a gunboat through water, the two of us in his wake.
The crowd pressed in tighter, hands reaching to touch me and trying to snatch off my wig. I thrust both bags into one hand, ducking down to cover my head with the other arm. Feet stepped on mine, people jostling me and calling my name. Someone pushed into me, and I stumbled to one side. Brittany and I screamed.
No, don’t fall!
If I went down I’d be trampled.
Bruce turned and caught my arm in an iron vise. He pulled me up straight. “Hold onto me. Keep moving.”
Shoppers thrust cell phones in my face, snapping pictures. Others shouted into their phones, “Get over here right now. Shaley
O’Connor’s here!” More and more people rushed over, the paparazzi cursing and shoving.
My mouth hung open, dragging in air. All these people around me, sucking up oxygen. I couldn’t
breathe.
New voices yelled my name, the shouts ricocheting throughout the mall. Reporters materialized with microphones. “Shaley, is it true you found Tom Hutchens’s body?”
Flash.
“Did you see his blown-out eye?”
Flash, flash.
“Who do you think killed him?”
Flash.
“Was he a good friend of yours?”
Bruce yelled in their faces and pushed them away. It did no good. As big as he was, he was outnumbered by a hundred. The crowd swarmed in tighter. I could hear Brittany crying behind me. I tipped my head up toward the ceiling, desperate for air.
A dozen flashes went off.
Bruce’s hands rose. Cat shoved in beneath one of his arms and stuck his camera in my face. The flash nearly blinded me. I cried out and ducked my head back down.
“Get outta here!” Bruce surged between Cat and me. One of his hands fumbled to pull out his cell phone. I knew he was trying to call the limo driver. If he dropped the phone, he’d never be able to get down and pick it up.
“Shaley,” a reporter called, “what did Tom look like when you found him?”
Something hit the base of my neck. The wig knocked down on my forehead, half covering my eyes. I shoved it back.
“Where was he?”
“Is the Rayne tour going to continue?”
“Shaley, come on! What do you know?”
Tears bit my eyes.
“Stop
it! Leave me
alone!”
Camera flashes pummeled me. I covered my face.
Dimly, I heard Bruce shouting into his phone for the limo.
“Shaley, how well did you know Tom?”
“How do you
feel
about the murder?”
Panic and anger and fear gnawed at my chest. My legs weakened. I wasn’t going to make it. Any second now I’d fall.
A new bright light poured over me. I swung around to see a TV camera. A female reporter shoved a microphone at me. “Shaley, do you think the killer is part of your tour group?”
“No!” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Go away!”
“Hey, hey, get back!” Two mall security guards rushed to the crowd, trying to help.
Through blurred vision, I saw the exit in the distance.
Bruce pulled us up in front of him, me on one side of his chest, Brittany on the other. He wrapped his huge arms around us. “Move toward the door!” he shouted in our ears.
Inch by inch we battled our way, jostled on every side. The mall security guards fought past crushing bodies and cameras and arms and legs to reach us and form a front barrier.
“Shaley, tell us about Tom!”
“What did his face look like?”
“Where’s Rayne? How does she feel about the murder?”
After an eternity, we reached the exit.
The mall guards pushed through a door, holding it open for the three of us. As we passed through, they wedged in behind us. The limo waited nearby, back door ajar. I threw myself inside, sliding over my bags and ending up on the floor. Brittany came right behind me, followed by Bruce. He slammed the door shut and locked it.
The limo took off.
Breathing hard and crying, I nudged myself up on the seat next to Brittany. We clung to each other. Bruce collapsed on the seat opposite us, facing backward. His cheeks were beet red, a thick vein pulsing in his forehead.
Bruce surged forward on his seat, craning his neck to check through windows on both sides and the back. “No one’s following.
Yet.” He swiveled to push back the small sliding door in the barrier between us and the driver. “How far to the freeway?”
“Real close, sir.”
“When you get on it, take the first exit, and do some double-backs on surface streets. We can’t have anyone follow us to the hotel.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bruce huffed back in his seat, facing me and Brittany. Seeing our tears, he snatched two tissues from a built-in holder and pressed them into our hands. “Sorry, Shaley.” His voice was low, eyes narrowed. He looked like he wanted to punch a hole in somebody’s face.
“You don’t have to apologize.” I hiccupped, wiping at my face. “You got us out of there.”
He made a sound in his throat. “Barely. Good thing the mall guards came along.”
Brittany clutched her tissue. “All those
people.
I just can’t believe how fast they came.” She shuddered.
One of the shopping bags sat half on my foot. I kicked it off. “I
hate
that Vulture. And Frog, and Cat, and all the rest of them.”
Brittany made a face. “Wasn’t it Vulture’s tabloid that said your mom found you in a dumpster when you were a baby?”
“Yeah.
Shock.
They’re also the ones that ran that fake story about Mom’s wild sex parties. Vulture’s the one that took the pictures of the outside of our house and of us coming and going. He camped out on our street for days.”
“Your mom should sue them for lying.
You
should sue them all for what they just did.”
“It’s too hard.” My words were bitter. “We’re famous people.”
“So?”
“So the courts have hard standards for proving lies if you’re famous. We don’t have the time or energy.”
“That’s not
fair.”
I gave Brittany a humorless smile. “Yeah, I know. Welcome to the Rayne tour.”
She shook her head and glared out the window.
My tears had stopped, but my limbs still shook. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and gazed unseeing into the shopping bag nearest my feet. The reporters’ questions battered my head.
Didn’t you find Tom? What did his face look like? Do you think someone on tour killed him?
Anger rippled through me. I wanted to tear every one of those people apart.
A dark rectangular shape in the shopping bag punched into my consciousness.
I blinked, stared at it.
A photo?
Where had that come from?
Slowly, as if it could bite, I reached into the bag and drew it out.
It was a picture of me from last night—getting out of the limo in the hotel parking lot.
My mouth hinged open. Who could have taken this? We hadn’t seen
anyone.
And why had it been put in my shopping bag?
Somehow, I knew there was more. My fingers flipped the picture over.
On the back, in block red letters — the words that chilled me to the core.
Always Watching.
How disgusting,
he thought,
the way Tom Hutchens’s murder plasters the news.
The man had been worth nothing in life. Why now so important in death?
Regardless of where they were right now, he knew every person on the tour would see the coverage. The main entourage staying in the San Jose hotel had much of the day free. The stage manager and roadies on the way to Denver could watch the small satellite TVs on the specially outfitted bus.
What a frustrating day—with the tour members split up. No way to keep his eye on everyone. If only he could be two places at once.
As superior as he was to the rest of humanity, even
he
could not manage that.
Tomorrow they would all be reunited.
A second death could wreak havoc with the tour. That was not his intent. Nor was it in his own best interest. If other killings became necessary, his best approach would be to make them appear as accidents.
The world was indeed a savage place. Accidents occurred every day.
When he was five, he’d witnessed the freak incident that took his own father’s life. They were in the workshop area of the garage, his father wielding a buzz saw against a plank of wood. The saw hit an unseen nail and jarred. In a split second it jumped out of the cut line and shot straight toward his father’s left arm.
The deadly blade sliced through just above the elbow.
Blood flew in all directions. Spattered on his own upturned face. His father dropped the saw as the severed limb bounced against the wall and fell. The blade stopped whirring.
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. Could only stare as his father sank to both knees, then collapsed on the cold concrete.
His mother was out running errands. He knew he should get to the phone, call 9 – 1 – 1. At five, he was already intelligent enough to do that. But as he gawked at his father’s unconscious form, disappointment stirred within him. What a
stupid
accident. How could his own father do something so dumb?
Still, he had to save him.
He glanced toward the door — the one that led into the kitchen and the life-saving phone — and cold panic overtook him. His body turned to lead. Try as he might, he couldn’t move his legs.
Helplessly, he watched his father bleed to death.
When the garage door opened to his mother’s car, he melted into a puddle of shaking and tears.
Days later when he cried to her about his guilt, she told him it wasn’t his fault. But he could never forgive himself. As he grew he could only harden his own spirit to keep from
feeling.
He’d pushed the memory into a corner of his head, far away from his heart.
Yes
, he thought now. Accidents happened. Bloody, deadly, horrific accidents. Many times they were no one’s fault.
But the time might come when he had to help one along.
L
ook.” I shoved the picture into Brittany’s hands. She looked at it, front and back, and gasped.
“Let me see that.” Bruce leaned forward, arm stretched out. Brittany thrust the photo at him as if it burned her fingers.
He examined the picture, then the words on the back.
Brittany and I looked at each other. No one else knew I’d already received another, similar message that morning on a card along with a white rose, and not seeming nearly so threatening. Even if it had hit me as a little creepy, I could have argued it was harmless. I so wanted to believe my father had sent it.
Until now.
Two “watching” messages within hours of each other. And those within a day of Tom’s murder. Was the same person behind all this?
Bruce dropped the photo back in my shopping bag. “You need to show that to the police. Looks like some kind of stalker.”
Bruce worked for my mom, not me. He would tell her as soon as possible. No way could I keep this from her.
My cell phone rang. I fished it from my purse and checked caller ID.
Mom.
What timing.
Flipping open the phone, I worked to steady my voice. No need to upset her right now. She’d hear soon enough.
“Hi, Mom. Aren’t you in your interview?”
“Just finished.” Mom used her clipped business tone. “I’m headed
back to the hotel. Just got a call from Detective Furlow. He wants to meet with you now, ask you some more questions.”
Dread filtered through me. All I wanted to do was get back to my room and hide from the world. “Why?”
“Evidently they’ve found some new information they need to ask you about.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. We’ll hear soon. I’m not letting them talk to you without my being there.”
The white rose.
My eyes closed, and I leaned my head against the seat. I’d have to tell Mom. Because I’d have to tell the detective about its message and now the photo in my bag.
“How far are you from the hotel?” she asked.
“Close.”
“Good. We’ll meet with the detective in my room.”
“Okay.” I bit my lip. “Before the detective comes, I need to talk to you.” I wasn’t about to show him the white rose without telling her about it first.
“Okay.” She sounded distracted. “We’re pulling into the hotel. See you soon.”
She clicked off the line.
I held the dead phone to my ear, Mom’s words trailing through my mind.
New information they need to ask you about.
The way things had been going, it couldn’t be good.