Chapter 34
Chapter thirty-four
Carter
One more day.
As much as I’ve enjoyed this whirlwind international tour, I need to get back to Wild Bluffs.
I’ve connected with the nursing home in town, and even though I don’t think my mom or I am ready for that level of care yet, I feel like I need to be there in person so I can talk to potential caregivers and see the places where my mom might be stuck living for decades.
If I’m lucky.
I have meetings set up with two different women who might be able to stay with my mom while I’m working once she has to stop her shifts at the diner, but again, I can’t really move anything forward until I can meet with them.
I feel like everything with my mom is in a parallel universe. I know she’s going to need care, but she doesn’t need it today. I need to be prepared for it, but I can’t do anything about it at this time. It’s frustrating, and I feel overwhelmed by the need for action when there is nothing I can do.
I’m sitting at a small table in the lobby, writing down a to-do list, generally feeling overwhelmed. I’m also drinking my third coffee of the morning, which may be contributing to my anxiety levels, but I need the caffeine to get through this last day of the tour.
The team is on high alert after the location of our hotel went viral, and my eyes are locked on the line of people outside waiting to get in.
The crowd is two people deep leading up to the entrance, where a doorman and one of our security guys are making everyone show either a room key or a confirmation number before they’re allowed in the building.
I must be getting old because there’s a part of me that wants to go out there and yell at everyone to get off my grass, but I don’t think it’d have the desired effect.
I glance at my phone to check the time—almost ten now.
With tonight’s show being the last one Jaxon has scheduled for the foreseeable future, the crowds are going to be extra chaotic.
Kelsey and her team have already alerted me that six different big-name actors and actresses will be in attendance tonight, and her team is working on coordination plans as needed.
I’m sure there will be more who decide to join last minute—especially with the ticket prices for this show reaching well over two grand.
Recognizing there’s nothing else I can do for my mom until I get back to Wild Bluffs, I head back to our hotel room. Kelsey is frantically typing on her laptop when I walk in, her fingers moving a million miles an hour as usual.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I run my hands through my hair, forcing myself to focus on the work that’s in my control, not the people hundreds of miles away in Colorado.
“I moved up our flight home tomorrow,” Kelsey says without looking up or pausing her typing. “Weston and Eddie will take care of packing everything up and will work with the logistics team to make sure all our equipment ends up in Wild Bluffs.”
“Thank you,” I say, breathing a sigh of relief. “You can stick around too if you need to.”
She stops typing, looking over her right shoulder just long enough to shoot me a “yeah, right” glare.
“What?” I ask. “What if Jaxon decides he needs to meet with you tomorrow to give you the long-term contract?”
“So you’ve finally accepted that I’ll be winning it?” Kelsey teases.
And, damn it, I know she’s saying it just to get my mind off my mom.
Kelsey has all but given up on the competition after Sydney.
She still works hard and does an outstanding job, but she doesn’t comment on it anymore.
I bring it up occasionally just to see if she’ll fight with me about it, and she still will, but I can tell the spark is gone. She thinks she’s lost.
“You know you still have just as good of a chance at winning this thing as we do, right?” I say, though the truth is, I don’t know if I believe it. I know she should have just as good of a chance.
And maybe, just maybe, if she and her team had found the person behind the attack on the camera system in Sydney, they’d be back in the running, but it’d be hard to justify the choice.
“Sure,” she says, rolling her shoulders as if one is bothering her.
“You okay?” I ask, moving behind her to give her a shoulder rub.
When my mom was working all the time when I was in high school, I used to do this for her regularly. She claimed my large hands were only good for one thing: shoulder massages.
“That feels good,” Kelsey says, her tone so close to a moan that my dick perks his head up in attention.
Not now, I silently reprimand my blood flow.
“Why are you so stressed?” I ask.
I get the over-the-shoulder look again. “Really?”
“Yeah, talk to me about it.”
“It’s the same reason I was stressed yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.”
“Well, tell me about it again. Maybe talking it through will help.”
“Okay, but you have to keep rubbing my shoulders,” she says.
“Deal.”
“Tampering with our cameras doesn’t make sense.”
“Why?” I ask, prompting her to keep going with her train of thought.
She taps her fingers on the table in front of her laptop. “Because there is no reason to have done it.”
“I mean, the security cameras cover the entire venue. And there are a lot of people and money in there on a concert night,” I say, playing devil’s advocate.
“Yes,” Kelsey says slowly, though I can tell her mind is moving much quicker. “But that would only make sense if they’d targeted the venue’s monitoring system too.”
“So what does it tell us that they didn’t?” I ask.
“Well, the only reason to have targeted our system and not the entire venue’s is to get to Jaxon.”
“Which someone did,” I add.
“Which someone did,” she repeats, clearly thinking.
“But it was just a streaker. I mean, between our two teams, we stop multiple people a night from getting up on the stage with Jaxon. If my team is watching looped videos for long enough, one of the crazies is bound to make it through.” She pauses, considering.
“Plus, the hack was impressive. Why would someone spend that kind of time and money just to have a possibility at streaking onstage? And we both saw the tape of the streaker’s interview—that guy had no idea about the cameras being out. ”
We both sit in silence as my thumbs continue to dig into the tight knots in her shoulders.
“It can’t be about the streaker,” she says finally. “That has to be a coincidence. Right place, right time.”
“Then what’s it about?” I ask.
“Well, if we take the streaker out of the equation, then it looks like…then it looks like a penetration test.”
“You think someone was trying to penetrate you?” I tease. “Am I going to have to kick someone’s ass?”
Kelsey doesn’t laugh. She’s thinking so hard, I can almost feel the genius pushing through.
She whirls around to face me, her mane of curly blonde hair whacking me in the stomach as she turns. “What if the earpieces going out wasn’t just an accident? What if it was sabotage too?”
“But who would want to sabotage you?”
Her face tells me she thinks I’m an idiot for asking the question.
“Okay,” I concede. “But you know I’m not doing it.”
“You do have a half brother who has far more to gain from this than you do.”
“Don’t love that you didn’t acknowledge that you know it’s not me…” I pause.
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. I know it’s not you.”
“Ahh, thanks, babe. Your confidence means so much to me,” I tease.
“It could be Trent,” she says, staying focused on the discussion at hand.
“I’ve thought about it,” I admit. And I have. Everything that has happened has made Kelsey’s team—just Kelsey’s team—seem like they’re dropping the ball. Of course I’ve considered Trent, the person with the most to gain from Kelsey looking bad.
“I just feel like sabotage isn’t Trent’s style.
He’s far more likely to try to convince Jaxon with golf trips or drinks at some fancy club, or to try to piss you off when you’re in the same room as Jaxon.
Then there’s the tech side of things. The man can’t respond to his own emails.
The earpieces—it’s not likely, but he could handle spilling water on something.
But with the video? I just can’t imagine he’d be able to handle the tech side of the infiltration.
We don’t have anyone on our team who could. ”
“If it’s not him, though, who could it be?” she asks, not even attempting to mask her frustration. “Why would someone try to make me look bad?”