The Escalade’s engine didn’t rev alive or peel tire out of the parking space to try to run me down. It just remained parked right there next to the van. With my back to the closed elevator doors, I took a closer look at the Escalade. After the double take, I could tell just by the bulky silhouette behind the wheel that this wasn’t Cyrus. My eyes widened with the realization just as the body fell over onto the steering wheel. The horn blared off the walls of the parking lot.
“AHHH!” I screamed, and then fell back into the elevator when the doors opened. I scurried back against the wall as the doors closed in front of me. I could still hear the car horn through the metal doors. Everything felt like a blur of motion. I jumped up and pushed any button but this level. The elevator doors swung back open and revealed the lobby where people were situated around a few small tables eating their complimentary breakfast. They were just as calm as they could be but I, on the other hand, was frantic.
I was just about to hit the button for the third floor when I remembered what Lizzie had said about Wayne and the SUVs surrounding the hotel so I dashed out of the elevator before the doors could close again. After racing past the reception desk to my left, I exited the automatic doors and was outside the hotel’s main entrance.
Once there, I didn’t see anyone I recognized. Maybe Lizzie was wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time, I thought to myself while scanning the small road in front of the hotel. Out of nowhere I felt someone grab onto me from behind. Screaming, I tried to break free from the firm grasp. A few people in the lobby turned to look in my direction with alarm.
“What’s wrong?” a gruff voice asked behind me. At first there was disbelief, and then I realized it wasn’t Cyrus. The man released me and I flung around, looking up at Hampton.
“Oh, my god.” I grabbed my chest. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Why were you running?” he asked with his brow furrowed together. “Is there something wrong?”
“There’s—” I gasped for air, but I couldn’t breathe from my throat tightening. It felt like I was having a full-blown panic attack.
“There’s a body…in a black Escalade.” I gulped. “I thought that it was Cyrus, but then it fell over the horn.” The outside of the hotel felt like it was suddenly spinning around before I turned and threw up on the side walk. Hampton signaled to someone in a darkened SUV which was halfway blocked from my view further down the street.
“We have a problem,” he radioed in and relayed my message to security.
“Are you okay?” he asked me.
“My friends are still in the hotel,” I explained while staying bent over.
“What room number?” Hampton asked as he relayed the message to the other security personnel around the hotel.
“They’re on the third floor in room 319.”
One of the darkened vehicles drove off in the direction of the garage. Men dressed in black quickly unloaded from the other vehicles. Apparently, some additional bodyguards were hired since most of the men didn’t look familiar.
“Stay here,” Hampton instructed me.
He rushed into the hotel with a few men tagging behind him. The one I did recognize stayed beside me. He was a large white man that I dubbed as Miller, Heath Miller, another player from the Steelers’ football team. Hunched over, I just stayed there with my eyes closed for a minute. Miller passed me a Kleenex and I wiped my mouth. Taking a deep breath, I finally got it together and stood back up again. Now that I had a moment to freak out, I pulled out my cell phone and texted Riley, “Stay in your hotel room until security can reach you.”
“What happened?” Riley texted me back.
“There’s a dead body next to our van in the garage.”
“Holy shit, are you okay?”
“No, not really.” I wasn’t even going to attempt to lie before I snapped my phone shut. My ears fizzled and my vision blackened for a few seconds so I bent over again. Please don’t faint, I pleaded with myself while looking down at the concrete sidewalk. Oh, god, I hoped whoever was left behind the wheel in the SUV wasn’t someone from the band.
“Get it together,” I mumbled to myself while trying to block out the horrific sound of the horn blowing.
Forcing myself up, I jumped when I heard the blaring music from my cell phone. Miller eyed me warily like I was the nut, not the victim. Looking down at my cell phone, a number flashed that I didn’t recognize. Hesitating for a moment, I then decided to answer it. God, please don’t let this be some kind of creepy message.
“Hello?”
“Are you okay?”
A world of emotions lifted off my shoulders as I recognized Hawkins’ deep, velvety voice.
“Define okay.” I sighed. “Wait a minute, how did you get this number?”
“I had Lizzie’s phone that night, remember?”
“Oh.” If I hadn’t already shot all my adrenaline, I would have been elated that he got my number off Lizzie’s phone.
“Are you okay?” he asked me again.
“Yeah, I am now.” Then blushed because what I meant was, now that I was surrounded by so much surveillance. Quickly changing the subject, I asked, “Do they know who it is yet?”
“They just called me,” he murmured. “It was Jeff Monroe.”
“Is he?”
“Yes, he’s dead,” he said quietly and we were both silent for a moment.
“He parked him right beside the van,” I told him when my voice unexpectedly broke up. Tears filled my eyes. Why was I crying?! To Hawkins of all people!
“Oh, Joie,” Hawkins whispered.
“I’m fine,” I lied, feeling embarrassed as I wiped away a few tears. “I’m just glad that you had the hotel watched,” I sniffed.
“Oh.”
“I feel like the president.” I half laughed.
“Umm, that’s all Warren,” he said sheepishly. “You know how protective he is of Lizzie.”
“Oh, right.” I smiled while knowing full well that it wasn’t.
“You should probably thank him,” he offered, but his words were empty. He was probably debating whether or not I would go to such lengths and if he had to say something to Warren.
“That’s a good idea, I’ll definitely do that.”
“On second thought, why don’t I just pass it on for you?” he said somewhat tensely like he hadn’t thought this all the way through.
“Sure, if you think that’s best.”
“I really do,” he stressed and with frayed nerves I tried not to giggle.
Still smiling, I glanced over my shoulder and saw Riley coming out with Lizzie and the other bodyguards. “I have to go.”
“I’ll see you tonight,” he sounded hopeful.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I said before we hung up.
Riley came over to me with his arms stretched out and wrapped them around me.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Riley said over my shoulder. “You’re shaking.”
“Can we leave yet?” I mumbled into his shoulder while he held me in his protective embrace.
Hampton had me file a report with the police before I was allowed to leave. Thankfully, Miller pulled the van up to the front of the hotel probably knowing I didn’t want to have to retrieve it myself. Riley offered to drive, but I insisted that I was okay since I needed to do something that would keep my mind occupied from thinking about the bone chilling scene in the garage.
Out of an unspoken fear, we were silent with Lizzie sitting as close to us as possible. Riley wasn’t tapping away on his keyboard and Lizzie was pressing her shoulders against both of us like a puppy dog that needed comfort. It seemed that we were all quietly thinking about how I found the body of someone who was
supposed
to be our driver, but no one wanted to talk about it, not yet anyway.
I wondered how much protection the van could offer with The Grimm Reaper out to terrorize us. Not that I could part with the last thing that connected me to my father. That didn’t mean that Riley and Lizzie had to subject themselves to being stalked.
“Do you guys think that riding around in this van is your safest option?” I asked them out of concern.
“Are you sure this is
your
safest option?” Riley asked me, knowing that I would understand what he meant.
“Guess we’re all in this till the end,” I mumbled as I shifted the gears.
Pulling the van away from the sidewalk, I merged onto the nearby street. Looking through my rearview mirror, I saw that a line of dark SUVs were following behind us. It was funny since Hawkins was going to great lengths to say one thing to me when his actions were saying another thing entirely. Though I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was grateful that he wanted to protect me.
“You realize that for our best protection we should stay at more hotels?” Riley mentioned to me.
“It has crossed my mind,” I agreed.
“How are we going to afford everything?”
“Well, I’ll have to use the money that’s been piling up in my checking account from Hawkins’ record company,” I explained as the road dipped down past another slew of fast food restaurants.
“We can use the cash I get from writing the reviews, too,” he offered, but I wouldn’t allow it. He was going to put himself through college with loans and grants without the help of his unsupportive parents; a subject that we rarely ever talked about.
“No, we’re not using that money.” I waved him off. “We all know you’re saving that for college.”
“And you’re not saving yours for that?”
“No.” It wasn’t like I was against getting a higher education, but it would be a waste of everyone’s money and time right now since I didn’t actually have a clue as to what I wanted to do.
“I have Warren’s allowance for this week.” Lizzie held up a thick roll of cash.
“Holy crap!”
He was giving her an allowance?! For doing what? On second thought, some things were just better left a mystery. Not much of a mystery, but still… Turning up the air conditioner, Riley and I rolled up our windows when the van was finally blowing cool air instead of hot steam.
Looking over at the signs for the highway, we crossed over a bridge and came to a stop at a red light. My eyes casually drifted down to the six lane highway beneath us. It was like the Indy 500 all over again as cars and semi-trucks flew by below. When the light turned green we pulled onto the entrance ramp for the highway. Flooring the gas, I prayed for a break in the speedy traffic. There was just enough time to inch over into the first lane before a blue Mazda quickly closed in the space behind us. The driver jerked the car over into the next lane. Glancing through my rearview mirror, I saw the entourage of black Escalades. It was kind of embarrassing with all the official attention since we really didn’t have a plan as to where we were going.
“The Underground Mall, anyone?” I asked because I couldn’t think of a better place to kill time.
“Sure,” Lizzie murmured.
Somewhere in all the confusion on the highway I took the wrong exit and ended up in what I knew was spaghetti junction. The darkened SUVs tailed the very end of my back bumper easily because we were moving too slowly. (Shocker.) Half an hour later, we finally found a parking garage near the signs that indicated that the mall was close by. I swear there was a little extra effort in the slamming of the doors to the Escalades surrounding us when we got out of the van. I shrugged at Riley; he seemed to have noticed as well. A few of the men stayed behind with the van. The others walked behind us as we followed the tourist attraction signs.
The place didn’t look like your typical mall. It looked like any other city street with sidewalks and signs, but where there should have been cars driving along it, people were walking. Stores were lined side by side and where there should have been the sky there was a concrete ceiling. The tunnel effect made the soft white lights from within the stores cast off a radiating glow onto the street. I couldn’t tell where it started or ended. It was like someone dug a huge hole in the ground and dropped a Tanger Outlet inside.
We wandered from shop to shop while nibbling on chocolate-covered strawberries that we bought from a fudge store. We entered into a store that made customized ball caps because Riley wanted to browse. After a couple of hours of window shopping, we left The Underground Mall and I swear the bodyguards all seemed collectively relieved.
Once the “motorcade” was ready in the parking garage, we got back on the highway. Hampton offered to lead, but I declined, knowing that the van couldn’t keep up. After I took the wrong exit and we ended up on spaghetti junction again, I stole a glance in the rearview mirror when I noticed that we had lost one of the Escalades and the remaining SUVs peeled tire around us as we finally approached the entrance to the venue. They were ushered in like the freaking pope while we sat in concert traffic. The Escalade we had lost earlier came up and tagged behind us.
“Oh, thank goodness,” I said, exhaling once I realized it was Hampton. Still, the darkened Escalade was playing tricks on my mind. Though I knew that they were here to protect us, I wasn’t exactly a fan of the vehicle anymore.
Looking over at Riley as he wiped the sweat off of his brow, we were roasting in the van. The Grimm Brothers Band music boomed out of all the vehicles in the parking lot beside the highway. Hawkins’ voice was all around me, like I needed any help thinking about him. I flipped the radio on to drown out his voice and Lizzie went to argue when I simply said, “Shut it.”
While everyone else was listening to Hawkins, we were listening to Chicago at the maximum volume. Riley grimaced from the deafening sound of the radio. He slightly slumped down in his seat while burying his face in his hand.
“What?” I looked over at him. “Chicago is cool.”
“Sure they are,” he mouthed.
We pulled up to pay the general admission parking fare and then entered into a huge field. By the time we parked, we were at least a mile away from the venue. The Volkswagen Van stood out among the other packed vehicles around us, but what once was a positive, was a negative now that I knew that The Grimm Reaper seemed to also be looking for it.