Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
A fter a weekend spent feeling like the bastard he was, Ward was in no mood for a Monday morning meeting. The two faces staring back at him on the video call didn’t look happy about it either.
“So what you’re saying is we’re no closer to our mark than we were a week ago,” he said in a carefully guarded tone. “That’s what you’re saying.”
“We're making progress.” Annie, elegant in a crisp pantsuit that probably cost more than his first car, sat in a hotel room that looked too expensive for their budget. “I admit it’s not as fast as I’d like.”
“Where are you?” he demanded. “Why do you look like you’re about to have brunch with the president?”
“New York.” Annie sipped her coffee. “And I look this way because in about an hour, I’m seeing the president of the Costume Designers Guild for background information.”
“For the record, I’m in a truck stop parking lot near Phoenix, Arizona,” Spencer said.
He was in their company van/tech support/mobile command hub. On the outside, the van looked like every other black, windowless barge, but on the inside it was the Bat Cave and Tony Stark’s lab shoved into a bread box. Spencer was in his element, surrounded by all the gadgets and monitors. His hair looked wild and unwashed, and Ward would bet money on his shirt being able to stand on its own.
They’d been rattling at him for ten minutes, but the words “we found him” hadn’t come out of their mouths.
He’d now spent more time in Wires Crossing than he had in a decade. People were getting used to seeing him.
He was getting used to seeing her .
His rule book mocked him.
“Ward?” Annie knocked on the fancy end table next to her. “Spencer, is he frozen? He looks frozen.”
Spencer peered at a monitor off to the side. “No. The connection’s fine.”
How long had they been talking?
Dammit.
“Run it by me again,” he said briskly, then pulled a pad of paper over and got ready to take notes old school. Writing things down made information easier to process, and it also forced concentration. It was a trick he’d learned in high school, and it still worked.
“I updated the shared spreadsheet,” Annie said. “All five primaries are listed with details of their past associations and any other information I was able to gather. Spencer’s filling in some of the blank spots, and we’ve managed to strike two from the list already.”
“Just two?” Frustration made him snap his words like a whip. “It’s been over a month. These people aren’t CIA or MI6, right?”
Spencer busied himself with something Ward couldn’t see.
Annie arched an eyebrow in a way that put CEOs and politicians in their place. “It’s not like we have a big team on this. I’m playing rover and Spencer lives out of his van so he can hijack protected servers and sift through ridiculous amounts of data. If you want us to move faster, we need more boots on the ground.”
Ward held up both hands in surrender. “Sorry. It’s been a lot of late nights this week. Tell me who you’ve eliminated and why.”
“Late nights?” Annie asked, then shook her head. “Never mind. We’ve booted the WWE guy, Stuart Ackleson, and Alban Markey, the second assistant director. Markey was in Paris with his new girlfriend during the concert in question. The night of the break-in, they were spotted at Viracocha. Remember, it’s that hot club where Dominic Prince and the lead singer from Starborn went at it.”
“The memes that spawned are legendary,” Spencer said. “I’ve used that image of them getting sprayed with water to generate a few myself.”
Ward crossed Markey off his list. “Great. What’s Ackleson’s alibi?”
“He was, shall we say, otherwise occupied the night of the concert.” Annie looked coy.
Ward raised his eyebrows at that. “What’s her name?”
“Oh no, it’s better than that.” Annie smirked. “He was having a procedure that lifted and sculpted his butt cheeks.”
Ward snorted.
“Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ass man,” Spencer deadpanned.
Annie beamed. “I love that this is something I know now.”
“Is that a rumor or verified?” Ward asked.
“It’s fact,” Spencer said. “I checked the surgical center records through a back door they really should have eliminated when they upgraded their servers. He arrived early that morning and remained overnight for observation. He was also on extensive pain medication for the first forty-eight hours, so I seriously doubt he would have the physical coordination to work his way through a locked window.”
Ward crossed Ackleson’s name off his list. “Good. That leaves Vitali, Hume, and Mandel.”
“Diggs and I met with Mandel,” Annie said. “He’s currently working on one of those royal family docudramas in New York. Gorgeous gowns.”
She held up a picture of one to the camera. “I should send this to Della. It would make a great stage costume. Anyway, he knows Della, in a roundabout way. They were both at the screening for Blake and Piper’s animated release.”
“That’s the day Della punched Blake on the red carpet,” Spencer chimed in. “You remember our stalker mentioned that in the letter he left in her dressing room.”
“I remember.” Ward made a note on his list of potentials. Inciting incident…Della punching Blake? “Do we think that’s what set this whole thing off?”
“Maybe,” Annie said thoughtfully. “But he said he was disappointed, not angry, and that he understood. That doesn’t sound very inciting incident to me.”
“Were any of the others on our list at the red carpet that night?” Ward asked.
“Not that we’ve been able to figure out so far,” Annie said. “Mandel’s the only one I know was physically present. He did some of the costumes so he was working that night, and he remembers seeing all the sisters there.”
Ward nodded and jotted down loose connection next to the guy’s name. “Your take?”
“Not sure yet. That’s why I’m meeting with the president this morning. I need more background.” Annie looked doubtful. “Honestly…it seemed to me like Mandel was more impressed with Blake’s outfit than Piper’s, if you get my meaning, but that might not mean much since he’s a designer. He says he was at a weekend wellness summit during our concert window. We tried to verify, but the place was uncooperative.”
“They also keep their digital records on pretty tight lockdown,” Spencer said. “They have more security than the Pentagon.”
“Diggs is still foraging,” Annie said. “He might get lucky, but I have to admit it’s a long shot. Unless you want to spring for a weekend for me to get pampered and snoop onsite?”
He gave her a deadpan look.
Annie shrugged. “Can’t blame a girl for asking.”
Ward checked his notes. “What about the stunt guy?”
“Hume’s been in Greece setting up stunts for Blake Ryan’s new action movie,” Spencer filled in. “Both Blake and his mother gave Hume a glowing recommendation. He’s known as one of the best in the field, and he’s worked with just about everybody, although Piper couldn’t remember if she or Della had met him personally. You might check with Della. She could have met someone while Piper was busy.”
“We couldn’t find anyone who would say a bad word about him,” Annie said, “other than one of the low-level staffers. She said he was rude to her once during one of the shoots for Ultimate Redemption . But several others hinted that he rejected her attempts at a hookup and she was just an angry bitch. Their words.”
“Are they right?” Ward made a note.
“Until I meet him in person there’s no way to know,” Annie said. “He’s missing in action. He’s either in transit to Portugal, or on location in Greece, or he’s taking a break on a beach somewhere. Behind-the-scenes guys don’t post online the same way the stars do, and we can only be in so many places at once. Unless, of course, you change your mind about taking on some extra help.”
Ward shook his head. “No. Keep it tight. We already have too many ways for information to leak out. Besides, we don’t have any solid evidence that our stalker is any of these guys.”
“Hume isn’t totally clear,” Spencer said. “He was back in the country for a couple of days surrounding the second concert, according to TSA. He had opportunity.”
“Not much of one,” Annie pointed out. “He was in meetings for his next gig. If he was our guy, his window was incredibly tight. And during the first concert, he was on location in Arizona. I mean, it’s one state over but that’s still quite a distance to cover.”
Ward tapped the pen on the desk as he visualized. “He could have flown to LA.”
“It’s only a six-hour drive,” Spencer said, nodding in agreement. “But there’s no way to track him if he used a company car.”
“Maybe.” Annie looked doubtful. “Yan Vitali seems more the type to me. He’s a rabid-dog kind of fan, and he tried to bust into a concert before.”
“I can’t find a trace of him online since just before the bedroom break-in,” Spencer said. “According to his publicist, he’s on a deep-woods fishing trip with a couple of buddies, but there hasn’t been any chatter about it.”
“Fishing,” Ward mused. “Sounds like code for something to me. Rehab?”
“Maybe,” Annie said. “From what Diggs found, Vitali is brilliant but unstable. Could be drugs, or maybe he’s getting ready for a new role. He’s the method-actor type. He throws himself into a character and stays there until shooting is done, according to the tabloids.”
“Yeah, he played an escape artist for the Legends reboot, and he actually studied with Anthony Martin.” Spencer’s enthusiasm lit his face. “He’s the guy who does those escape-or-die stunts. According to IMDB, that big scene at the end wasn’t a stunt double. Vitali did the whole thing himself, including the jump from the fifteenth floor.”
Now that was interesting information.
Ward leaned forward. “Could Vitali hack websites, or pick the lock on a window, or mess with the electronics on the gate?”
Spencer flicked a few keys. “Martin is a bonded locksmith, so Vitali certainly could have learned how. And Vitali once played that creepy cable guy, which would have given him technical skills with surveillance cameras and wiring if he followed through on the whole method approach. One more thing that’s interesting is that his linguistics are a close match to the headlines posted in the last two weeks.”
Spencer’s face vanished, replaced by a website. “This thread is all about possible Della sightings. I’m pretty sure that Vitali is BellBelle42.”
If we don ’ t see her sweet sunny face soon, we need to demand proof of life from her sisters and her manager. Why are they hiding her?
The post had generated over five thousand responses so far, and resulted in the suggestion that they storm Belhurst Castle.
“Keep Renic informed,” Ward said. “He should think about additional security in case they follow through on that idea.”
“Already done,” Spencer said.
Ward leaned back in the chair and studied his notes. “Primaries now are Vitali, then Mandel. Hume’s not off the list yet unless you can pinpoint where he was during the break-in.”
“I’ll have more information after brunch today. Maybe it’ll eliminate Mandel,” Annie said as she smoothed the jacket of her suit. “Speaking of…I need to leave in thirty.”
“Almost done here.” Ward mulled over all the information they had so far. Nothing quite fit. There were pieces of the puzzle missing, and without them, they’d never get the big picture. The short list seemed weak. “None of these guys are making my gut happy. We need to kick things up. Let’s switch sides. Spencer, how hard would it be to plant a false trail on those forums?”
Ward wrote Trap? and circled it.
“Super easy. I just need to create a new account.” Spencer started tapping on his keyboard.
“Good.” Ward glanced at Annie. “What would make our stalker take the bait?”
Annie leaned back. “Fake a picture of her out and about somewhere believable. Nothing too obvious, like anywhere near her sisters. Our psycho’s probably watching them. He’d know it was fake.”
“Agreed,” Ward said.
“What about New York?” Annie said. “She used to live here. It’s easy to believe she’d come back. I could get some shots while I’m out today that Spence could doctor.”
“I can deepfake Della into whatever you send.” Spencer turned to another monitor and typed something. “Maybe you should get shots around her former apartment. One of the letters mentioned how unsuitable it was for her several times in his letters and emails. It might make him comment on her being back there.”
“Good point.” Ward doodled arrows around the word trap . “Let’s take it one step further. See if you can find anything for sale or rent that’s similar to what Della used to own and post that along with the doctored photo. Make it look like she’s moving back to the Big Apple. He didn’t like her living there. Maybe that’ll trigger him into something stupid.”
“On it.” Spencer sounded distracted. He’d probably already drafted the fake post and had moved on to writing a follow-up news story. “I’ll text you when it all goes live.”
“Good work. Both of you.” Ward reached for the button to end the session.
“Hang on. I need to run something by you,” Annie said. “I’ll text you updates, Spence.”
“See ya.” He waved and signed off, leaving Ward and Annie alone on the call.
“So,” Annie’s face was a mask of calm concern, “is there anything going on in that sleepy little town that we should know about?”
Ward leaned back in his chair and kept his face neutral. “No.”
“Let me rephrase.” Annie looked like she was chewing her words. “What happened? You have that tick along your right temple that you get when you’re wrestling with something. Did Della have another party?”
“You know me too well. We should work on that.” He did his best to smooth his face, but he could tell she wasn’t buying it. “There’s nothing for you to be concerned about.”
He put his hands behind his head and leaned back so he could scowl at the ceiling. Della had gone upstairs to take a shower when he jumped on this call, which meant right now, above him, she was wet and naked.
Christ, he wanted to see that.
“Interesting.”
He glanced down. Annie had one leg crossed over the other like a very expensive therapist.
He dropped his arms. “Do you have a point? Because I have other things to do and you have somewhere to be.”
“You seem…edgy. The longer you’re in that town, the crankier you get. Why? What’d she do?”
He thought about how to answer that, but all he came up with was a non-answer. “Nothing. She’s coping pretty well, all things considered, but we can’t keep her here forever. Sooner or later, her cover will break. We don’t need that kind of shit storm. We need to get this wrapped up. Now.”
Annie considered him. “You know what I did for a living before you found me, Ward. You know my background.”
“Meaning?”
“I know what it’s like to have to play a role a little too long. It gets confusing. Lines get blurred.”
“What are you trying to say?” He kept his gaze steady and his tone neutral.
“You know what I’m saying.”
“Why don’t you spell it out.”
“Have you slept with her?”
“No.” He wanted to. Hell, he wanted to right now.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you had. It’s a high-stress situation for both of you, and you are spending a lot of time together. You wouldn’t be the first to?—”
“I have not slept with her.” He gave her a look that used to make his recruits shake in their boots.
It didn’t do a damn thing to Annie. “Uh-huh. If not that, then what? We’re a team. What affects you, affects us, so spill.”
“You know I’m your boss, right?”
She blinked at him. “And?”
“I tell you what to do, and you do it. You don’t interrogate me.”
“Right. So you didn’t sleep with her, you, what, saw her naked? Did you peek at her while she was in the shower?”
“No.” He closed his eyes and spit the words out. “I took her to see the sunflowers. We had a…moment.”
“Uh-huh.” Annie leaned closer. “Did this moment involve less clothing?”
“No.” He glared at her. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“If you want my mind somewhere else, it’s going to take details.”
“We almost kissed. That’s it.”
It hurt to say it. Physically hurt. Because it put him right down there with Diggs and all the other people who’d let their personal feelings get in the way of the job. All the scathing commentary he’d had for those people came rushing back to him, magnified through his own you-should-know-better lens.
“Almost,” Annie said. “But not quite?”
“No.”
“No body parts actually touched?”
“No, dammit. No.”
“Okay.” Annie nodded as if she were working through a complicated problem. “It could be worse. This is fixable.”
“There’s nothing to fix.” He reached for the bottle of aspirin he’d had on standby. “I should go.”
Annie peered at him. “One question.”
“Just one?” He popped three pills.
“Do you like her?” Her expression told him she already knew the answer, she just wanted to hear him say it.
He shifted, uncomfortable with this entire conversation. “She’s doing a fantastic job blending in. My family loves her. The whole town thinks of her as Lucy Carmichael. Nobody suspects anything. They all think she’s my girlfriend.”
“It’s a simple yes or no question.” Annie’s careful tone made him feel even more awkward.
He wished like hell that he could scrub the image of the Della standing in a field of sunflowers out of his head. He was attracted to her. He couldn’t deny that. His body responded every time she was close.
“Silence will be taken as a yes.” Annie made a tsk sound. “I get it now. You’ve committed the cardinal sin of falling for your own cover. You’ve started thinking of her as your actual girlfriend, but a part of you knows what a bad idea that is, so you’re flogging yourself for it.”
“No.” He didn’t sound nearly firm enough, so he stared straight at her and said it again more emphatically. “No.”
“Denial. The first sign of truth.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You like her. You really do.” She said it with certainty and more than a little concern. “I’m sorry, Ward. I should have said something sooner.”
“I don’t need to hear a lecture about boundaries, Annie. I know where the lines are. I made the lines.”
“This kind of cover has a way of erasing those carefully constructed lines. It messes with your head. Believe me,” Annie said. “There are tricks for handling this kind of assignment. I just didn’t think you needed any because she’s a celebrity and we all know how you feel about celebrities. I should’ve realized all that bluster was foreplay.”
“We’re not doing this.” He readied to hit the End button.
“It’s understandable, you know. She’s pretty, and perky, and she has that it factor. It’s how she gets so many people screaming at her at concerts.”
“I’m not some groupie.” The idea made him recoil in disgust.
“No, you’re not. It’s worse than that. You don’t like Della the pop star, you like the small-town girl Della’s pretending to be. She’s not that girl, Ward. She never will be.”
“You haven’t seen her lately.”
Annie’s serious eyes lasered a hole right through his denial. “I told you in our first prep meeting that she’s a skilled performer. An entertainer. She’s spent a lifetime perfecting her craft, and she’s damn good at it, but that’s all it is. You’re caught up in the fantasy right now, but trust me reality is waiting just around the corner to kick you in the ass and take your lunch money.”
“I know.” He looked out the window at the clouds rolling in. “Believe me, I know. Christ, what the hell is wrong with me?”
“Nothing, actually. It turns out Donovan Ward is human. These things happen. Hell, they’ve happened to me several times.” She picked up her cup and held it up in salute. “Welcome to the Shit Happens Club.”
“Not helping.” He leaned back in his chair, feeling defeated. “I need a drink.”
“You can push past this, you know. The last time I mixed a little business with pleasure, I told the man we had to keep things professional until the op was over and that we could hook back up after.”
He’d basically done that, but he had to admit he hadn’t been as nice about it as Annie probably had been. She’d probably let the guy down nice and easy, with a sexy little kiss to seal the deal. “Did you get back together with him?”
“Are you kidding?” Annie scoffed. “Of course not. He was a stodgy, middle-aged Russian mafia guy with a nasty temper. But it worked. Kept him cooperative and compliant. He didn’t find out the truth for at least a week after I shipped out to Milan.”
He heard footsteps on the stairs and leaned forward, hand hovering over the End button. “Got to run. It’s almost time for her shift.”
“Wait. Just one more thing.” Annie held up a hand. “If you want to pursue something with Della—not Lucy , Della—do it after this job is done. That way you’ll have a clear head and you can sort out what was real and what was just pretend. She’s not a small-town girl at heart. She’s a big-city, spotlights girl. Remember that the next time she flashes those sweet baby blues at you.”