American Diva (19 page)

She recognized the font and caught her breath; she instantly began to shake as fear bled into her veins.

Trystan looked up when Audrey gasped and walked over to stand beside her. “What is it?” he asked, looking around the table like he was looking for a spider. Several moments passed before he noticed the letter.

“Oh,” he said, grimacing. “Is it one of
those
letters?”

Audrey nodded and put her hand on his arm. “Pick it up.”

“What? No!” Trystan protested.

“Pick it up,” she said again, pushing him.

With a groan, Trystan shoved his dreadlocks over his shoulder and very daintily picked up the letter between two fingers.

“Open it!” she urged him.

He very reluctantly did so, wincing when he pulled out the paper. “No anthrax,” he said, shaking the paper open. His brown eyes skimmed over the note, his frown deepening as he read, and then his eyes went wide. “
Eewe!
Now that is just
vile
,” he said, and clasped a hand over his heart as he looked up at Audrey. “This guy needs to be locked up.”

“
Shit!
” Audrey exclaimed, surprised and ashamed by the tears that sprang to her eyes. She whirled around, grabbed her cell phone from the end of her bed. She quickly dialed a number, but it wasn’t until she’d told him that a letter had come that she realized she’d called Jack instead of Lucas.

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

She took a breath, then called Lucas. “I got a letter,” she said breathlessly when he answered.

“Goddammit,” he said, sounding irritated. “When?”

“I don’t know. It was just . . .
here
,” she said, gesturing wildly to the table.

Jack and Lucas arrived at the same time. Jack took the letter from Trystan; Lucas came to Audrey’s side and wrapped his arms around her.

“Don’t pay any attention, baby,” he said. “That sick fuck can’t get near you.”

She wished she could believe him, but he’d obviously gotten close enough to leave another letter threatening to kill her, and she turned her face into Lucas’s shoulder.

“When did it come?” Jack asked, fishing his cell phone from his pocket.

“I don’t know,” Audrey said, lifting her head from Lucas’s shoulder. “I saw it lying on the newspaper that Rich brought me earlier.”

“Rich? The business manager?” Jack asked, frowning a little.

“
Yes
, the business manager,” Lucas said with a roll of his eyes.

“I thought he headed back to L.A. a couple of days ago,” Jack said before turning around to talk into his phone.

“I honestly didn’t think he was due back until this weekend,” Audrey said to Lucas.

“He came back early,” Lucas said. He put his hand against Audrey’s cheek. “Now listen, you can’t let this sick fuck get to you, because that is what he wants. He wants you to be so rattled that you won’t do the show.”

“Christ, the show!” she exclaimed. Lucas was right—she couldn’t allow this maniac to push her off the stage and into hiding. “But what about security? It’s an amphitheater. Anyone can get backstage—”

“He can’t touch you, Audrey.” This was from Jack, his voice clear and strong and determined, falling over her like a protective blanket. She pushed away from Lucas and looked at Jack, wanting to feel his arms around her, his breath in her hair.

“He can’t come near you, I promise you that.”

There was such hard determination in the way he said it that he made Audrey believe him. He smiled, his expression full of confidence. “I promise,” he said again as Lucas’s phone rang.

Lucas flipped open his cell and moved away from her.

Jack seized the opportunity to come near her, his smile radiating warmth and security as he walked across the room. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding.

“Right now, we need to get you to sound check.” He put a hand on her arm and squeezed it. “No worries, all right, starlight? We’ve got this completely under control. The only thing you need to worry about is putting on a kick-ass show.” He turned his smile to Trystan, who seemed as mesmerized by him as Audrey. “Can you help her get her stuff together?”

“Sure,” Trystan said, and began moving about the room, picking up a couple of bags.

“Better give him a hand,” Jack suggested, and Audrey nodded, scooping Bruno up in her arms, her eyes following Jack around the room. When Trystan had her things together, she looked at Jack once more. He gave her a reassuring smile as she and Trystan went out the door. They were met in the hall by two of Jack’s guys, who flanked her as she stepped across the threshold, sandwiching her between them.

“How you doing today, Ms. LaRue?” one of them asked.

Audrey glanced over her shoulder. Jack was watching her, his eyes full of reassurance. “I’ve had better days,” she said, and turned around again, managing a weak smile for the bodyguards.

 

 

The local police conferred with Jack and the hotel staff, but they seemed to be getting nowhere. “Maybe it’s a disgruntled employee,” one of the detectives mused. Jack sighed—they’d been through this in Omaha. His own questioning of Rich Later left him wondering, but he couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly.

“Can’t help you,” Rich said cheerfully when Jack asked about the letter. “I just dropped the paper off and went to the gym. Someone else must have brought it in.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, eyeing him curiously. Was he nuts, or was the guy wearing eyeliner?

“Weird, huh?” Rich remarked, and at Jack’s look, he laughed.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, pal. Why would I want to hurt Audrey? She’s my meal ticket.”

It was true, and Jack had nothing, really, but a funny feeling. At the same time, he hadn’t ruled out Lucas. That guy was intent on exploiting Audrey, and Jack wasn’t sure how far he would take it.

As usual, the letter was handed over to law enforcement, who made lots of noises about looking into it, but Jack knew full well that the minute the tour left town, the letter would drop to the bottom of their priority list.

Fortunately, in spite of the letter—and the inability of law enforcement to catch the bastard—Audrey’s show went off without a hitch.

Frankly, Jack was amazed by Audrey’s ability to adapt to anything in the course of a performance. He’d heard grumblings from the band and the dancers about the song “The Roar of an Angel” not coming off right. It seemed to him that it had sounded rougher each night, but in Cleveland, Audrey substituted one of her old ballads for the song. She walked out onto the stage wearing a long silky dress, carrying a guitar. And with just that guitar to accompany her, she sang a lusty, soulful song about secret love. It was, at least to Jack’s way of thinking, magical.

He knew the letters frightened Audrey, but when she was working, she seemed okay, focused and determined to put on a good show. And over the next few days, she seemed to work around the clock. On the way to Pittsburgh, she rode in the bus with the musicians and changed out “The Roar of an Angel” with the old ballad, but put the ballad to a different beat. In Pittsburgh, she and the dancers revamped the routine to fit the new song, practicing up until show time.

She was completely engrossed in the change to her set, and the latest letter seemed to be a distant memory. The only thing that visibly upset her was the phone calls she had been getting from her family. This, Jack surmised from the number of times she said, “
Mom!
” into the phone.

Jack heard and witnessed it all—he was loath to leave her, given that two letters had found their way to her—but he was just as loath to hang around. The truth was that after that fabulous night in the park, he and Audrey rarely had a moment to speak. It was impossible—they were surrounded by assistants and hairdressers and dancers and managers and talent agents and musicians and a whole host of people with official titles whose names he could never remember.

He began to think that maybe it was better this way. He was realizing that it was damn near impossible to be near her and not want to touch her. He had no idea when he had crossed over from being mildly attracted to aching for her, but it had happened, and he wanted to kick his own ass for it. He couldn’t help admiring the shape of her face, the curve of her hips, the gentle slope of her shoulders. He’d come to detect her scent among so many, the faint smell of magnolias, just like those that grew in his grandmother’s garden and marked the memory of his youth.

He wanted her, just like the world wanted her. He wanted her so much that he was beginning to have very erotic dreams of her, of Audrey on his lap, gloriously naked and riding him with enthusiasm. Worse, he was having daydreams of her, imagining them in various settings—walking in Central Park in New York, or running on the beach in Malibu, or even at dinner with his friends.

Such daydreams were uncharacteristic, and in this case, really out of the question. He wanted her, but he worked to convince himself that the want was the product of being in close proximity to a beautiful woman. This was not something that could ever work out between the two of them. There was the problem of Bonner, and her fame, and so many other things that it made Jack crazy to think about it.

So he kept his emotional distance.

But on the way to Atlantic City, where she was scheduled to do two shows, Audrey made a call to someone who made her smile, and when she hung up, she asked Courtney to arrange a car for her when they reached the hotel.

“A car?” Lucas asked from his perch in the living area’s captain chair, where he was strumming on a guitar. “Why do you need a car?”

“One of my scholarship kids lives near the shore. I want to surprise her.”

Lucas shook his head. “We haven’t got time for that, baby.”

“I have time for it. I am free tomorrow morning. I don’t have to be at the theater until three.”

“We’ve got airtime on two radio stations in the morning,” Lucas said. “You don’t have time to go running off to pat little kids on the head.”

Audrey’s hands stilled. She slowly turned and gave Lucas a look so cool that even Jack flinched a little. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” she said softly. “And just so we’re straight,
you
have two radio stations in the morning, Lucas—not me.”

“No,
we
have two radio stations in the morning. They both expect you to be there.”

“Only because you told them I would be there. But the spots are about your music. Not mine.”

All of the bus inhabitants, smelling a good fight, looked from Audrey to Lucas and back again. Courtney was the most interested, and Jack had the feeling she fed off these arguments. Personally, he wished for once Audrey would plant a stiletto up the guy’s ass, but in the end, Audrey did what she always did—she pressed her lips together and remained quiet.

He hated Bonner.

Hated him so much that he got the name of the kid from Courtney, and called and arranged the whole thing, including a car to drive Audrey the next morning.

If Bonner wouldn’t take her, he damn sure would.

At
five-thirty the next morning, Audrey’s cell rang so obnoxiously loud that she almost killed herself trying to get to it so that it wouldn’t wake Lucas.

“Hello?” she hissed into the phone. “
Gail
?” It had to be Gail. Only her family would call at such an ungodly hour, probably needing money or something.

“Hey, sweet cheeks.”

The sound of Jack’s voice made her pulse surge, and she quickly fought off the covers. “
Jack?
” she whispered as she retreated to the bathroom. “Has something happened? Did I get another letter?”

“No, Audrey, no,” he said. “Everything is cool. When is the car picking you up to take you to the radio station?”

“Six-thirty. Why?”

“Wanna play hooky?” he asked softly.

A dangerous, inappropriate image swam through her head. “What did you have in mind?”

“Be downstairs in half an hour and I’ll show you.”

She wanted to, ah God, she wanted to. But how could she? “I don’t know,” she said, her voice full of the disappointment she was feeling.

“Do you want to see your scholarship girl?” Jack asked. “Because if you do, I have arranged everything.”

Audrey gasped with surprise and delight. “You did
what
?” she squealed. “Are you kidding?” She instantly sobered. “Shit! I can’t go. We’ve got radio this morning—”

“No, Bonner has radio. Let him do his own airtime without you for a change.”

The suggestion was strongly appealing. She didn’t like the way Lucas booked these sorts of things and then told her after the fact. And she would give anything to see her scholarship girl.

She couldn’t believe Jack had done this for her, and smiled. “I’ll be down in twenty minutes.”

She had no idea how she did it—brushing her teeth and hair, dabbing on a little makeup and dressing at the same moment, then dashing off a note to Lucas to tell him he was on his own and to please feed Bruno. That would infuriate him. Nevertheless, in twenty minutes, she was striding through the slot machines to the front door.