In Bed with the Bodyguard

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This book was a long time in the making. So many amazing people have read it and offered feedback, and I'm grateful to all of you. To Keely Thrall, who drove me to the Boonsboro Inn where I wrote the first chapter of this book, to Chris Ganyard, who roomed with me and didn't yell when I insisted on giggling and repeatedly reading the first few pages aloud, and to Lisa Dyson, who invited me to the inn.

To the Muddling Muses, who read the first eighteen billion versions of this book.

To my agent, Jessica Alvarez, who believed in this book through all five of its titles, and the forty-eight hours it was a Christmas story.

To my cousin Bonnie, who got the ball rolling when she told me about her doctor's appointment with Bernie Madoff's niece.

To Kerri and Carlene, a glitter-free glitter toss.

To Megha Parekh, for loving Arianna and Lance.

To the Silver Divas, especially Tanya Johnson, thank you for all your support!

L
ast summer if you'd told Arianna Rose she'd be walking alone through her Georgetown neighborhood on a sultry Saturday night, she would've laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the forecast. And then gone on to flirt with the nearest man for another free drink, because Arianna Rose didn't
do
alone on a weekend. For that matter, she wasn't often spotted alone on any night of the week. But times change and people change. Which was why Ari was strolling solo up the incline of Wisconsin Avenue, past the Apple Store toward the art gallery she called home. Her life had changed.

Not everything had changed; she still didn't cook. A grocery sack full of the essentials—wine, takeout sushi, more wine, and bottled water—filled her arms and made navigating the brick sidewalk in her ubiquitous stilettos tricky. A lesser woman would've turned an ankle by now, and Ari might also if a cute guy were nearby and available to help with the grocery bag. But for now, she enjoyed her walk through the twilight and using the time to mentally make a to-do list for the upcoming gallery show.

She paused for a moment when she was about a block from home.

“Hi, Tom, your favorite Delivery Diva is here,” she said, forcing a smile on her face for the benefit of a homeless man who never returned the gesture and was wrapped in a blanket, despite the sweltering summer heat.

A narrow brown eye peeped out at her. “What's on the menu tonight?”

Skirting to the side of the overly stuffed, torn army duffel bag, Ari reached into her grocery bag and pulled out a takeout container. “BLT on wheat.” Gently she set the container down.

“Prefer white” came the usual gruff answer.

“Wheat's healthier. You're welcome,” she called, straightening and turning to leave.

“Something going on up there,” Tom said and jerked his head toward the direction of her place. “Looks like your place. Better go see.” Now he smiled in the face of possible disaster.

“Thanks.” Roughly five feet from her gallery, she stopped to heft the bag higher and peer at a crowd clustered around her front window. What was going on?

She pushed her way through the throng to her front door but stopped in horror. Her gallery. The glass from her big picture window lay in a million sharp shards all over the sidewalk like glittering fairy dust. The gathered crowd murmured and peered into her shop.

“What happened? Who did this?” She grabbed the shoulder of a boy wearing a navy Georgetown hoodie. “Did you see who did this?” she said on a wild accusation.

“Nope. I was walking by when I saw the damage.” He looked at her with interest and sudden insight. “Is this your place?”

She nodded blindly, no longer looking at Joe Hoya college boy. Were her paintings okay? Her precious canvases? It would be terrible to have to call her artists and explain that their babies were damaged.

“Damn, you better call the police.” He whistled and strolled off down the hill.

He was right. This was an act of vandalism. Or terrorism, and any other
ism
she could think of. “Excuse me.” Ari pushed by two other gawkers to her door. A quick turn of her key, and she entered her gallery, where she was able to see the damage more clearly. She spun on one heel, feeling tremors begin to climb up her spine. Most of the paintings looked safe enough, but bloodred spray paint slashed across her favorite painting depicting a lush modern view of a garden.

“Not
Club Lily
.” The grocery bag lowered to the wooden floor with a loud
thunk
. The words defacing the canvas registered. “Die rich bitch” marred the beautiful painting and made her shiver with fear. Her hands shook as she pulled out her cell phone to dial 911.

Thirty endless minutes later, two men in blue stood, pads in hand, taking in the scene of destruction. The crowd outside had dispersed, but as it was Georgetown on a Saturday night, there was a constant stream of gawkers, and of course a lot of flashes as strangers clicked photos on their cell phones. Great, with her luck of late, she'd end up trending on social media. Had they never seen vandalism before?

“Okay, Ms. Rose. I think we have everything we need.” Officer Reese shut his notebook with a snap.

“That's it?” Ari asked. “How soon until you make an arrest?”

The officers exchanged a look, and the younger, almost handsome one turned to her. “It's unlikely an arrest will be made.”

“What…what do you mean? Didn't you get fingerprints? Is there DNA on the painting?” They had to find the culprits. Someone had to pay for this despicable crime.

Again with the looks, this time accompanied by stifled grins. “Ms. Rose, that's spray paint on the canvas. Not blood. No DNA involved.”

“But can't you find some evidence
somewhere
?” she asked, annoyance and fear threading her tone. Mostly fear. The threat spray-painted on the canvas scared the bejesus out of her.

“Sorry, the guy was too good. Check out your surveillance cameras.” The officer pointed up at one of the three surveillance cameras in the gallery. Red spray paint covered the camera lenses with tiny drops spattered onto the floor below them. “I'm guessing the culprit entered through the back door”—he looked at her pointedly, and she flushed at the not-so-subtle reminder that she'd left her back door unlocked—“sprayed the paint, then tossed the brick through the window and ran. Spray paint can come from anywhere.” He pointed in the direction up the street. “Could've come from Monarch Paint. Or from the Home Depot across the bridge. Nearly impossible to track.”

“But what about the death threat? Shouldn't you take that seriously?”

“Look, Ms. Rose, we'll see what we can do, but in all honesty, it's probably someone blowing off some steam. Maybe someone's taking their anger toward your father out on you.”

Tears threatened to spill but she blinked them back and swallowed hard. This was why she was alone on Saturday night. Because, thanks to her infamous, criminal father, her friends, save one, had abandoned her. It was bad enough no one wanted to come close enough for the taint to rub off, including her own mother, but now people were taking the cold shoulder to the next level. Getting ignored by people she could handle. Outright violence was no-go, but it looked like she'd have to suck it up.

When the whole mess had started, she'd made the choice to put on a brave front. She hadn't shown an ounce of weakness to the authorities investigating her father, and she didn't plan on starting now. “That's not fair,” she told the police. “
I've
done nothing wrong. I learned about my dad's scam the same day as everyone else in the country. My only perk was that I got to hear it directly from the FBI, not
The Washington Post
.” Her words ended on a hiccup. So much for disguising her fear.

“That's life,” the officer said. “It's not fair that my cousin can't retire next year because he lost his savings to your dad, but that's the way it goes.”

“But your cousin's not throwing bricks through my gallery windows and threatening to murder me in my sleep,” Ari said, motioning toward the horrible words sprayed across the painting.

“No,” he agreed, “but he sure would like to.” He turned toward the door, the other officer close on his heels. “You've got insurance, right? I recommend you sweep up the glass and make a claim with insurance. Here's the police report for them.”

“That's it?” Ari fisted her hands on her hips and spoke over the other officer's obvious warning coughs and throat clearing. “My dad wrongs your family, so you're going to basically ignore this crime?” she asked.

He frowned and shook his head at her. “We'll be in touch if we gain any leads. In the meantime, get your window fixed and use your alarm,” he said and exited.

Ari glared at the closing door, then headed downstairs to hunt for a broom. Hiding upstairs in her bedroom for a good cry and uncorking the bottle of wine currently lying on its side in the middle of the room would have been her first choice, but she didn't get to have a pity party now. Instead, she unearthed a rarely used broom from the oft-used basement. She headed back upstairs to start cleaning up the disaster. The sun came down in roughly half an hour, and sleeping alone in a wide-open Georgetown row home was not her idea of fun.

“Val, please be home,” she said, dialing her cell phone with one hand and sweeping haphazardly with the other. A few rings and her longtime BFF finally picked up. Valerie was the one friend who'd stuck by her side when the news of Stanley Rose's grand Ponzi scheme had broken. For that she was forever grateful.

“Ari, are you okay?” Valerie Moore answered with an urgency that had Ari wondering whether Val had a sixth sense and knew how bad her day was.

“Val, I need your help.” That was the other thing that had changed: admitting weakness. She'd lived all twenty-seven years of her life play-acting that everything was fine. When Mom moved out to live with her new boyfriend when Ari was seven, she'd been “fine.” And when Dad had pulled her from her school to enroll her in an exclusive prep school in a new city? Fine with her. She'd been so fine at age twenty, she'd slapped on a smile and a new dress to play bridesmaid for her mom's third marriage. But seeing her beloved father's name and face on the cover of every newspaper and blog in the world next to the headline “Criminal” had forced Ari to reassess her definition of “fine.”

“Absolutely, what do you need?” Val said without pause, reminding Ari for the trillionth time why she was her best friend.

“Can you send…hang on a sec.” She lowered the phone as a flash of light shone through the storefront's shattered glass. “Enough with the pictures. It's just a freaking broken window!” she yelled to the people hovering around outside her gallery. Then she noticed these weren't the average pedestrians taking an interest. This was a full-blown news crew.
Shit.
Word had spread, and the press had obviously decided her vandalized gallery was more interesting than her father's McLean home where he was under house arrest until the trial.

“Arianna.” Valerie's voice came sharply on the line. “What's going on? Is everything okay?”

Arianna turned her back out of view of the prying camera lens and answered Val. “I've been better. If you turn on channel five, you'll see what's going on.”

“Sweetie, it'll be okay. They'll find your dad.” Val's annoyance came through loud and clear. “I can't believe it.”

Ari froze, phone in hand, suddenly not caring that the press was having a field day capturing her image like she was a deer in the headlights. “What do you mean they'll find Dad? What are you talking about?”

There was total silence, and then Valerie said, “You don't know?”

“Know what?”

“He pulled a Harry Houdini act. He's gone, Ari.”

“What?” she screeched. “Is that why I have news cameras in front of my gallery?”

“Unless you put the porn picture up again, I'm guessing yes.”

“It's not porn. It's art,” she protested. “And, no. The press is here because some jerk decided to take his anger at my dad out on me. He tossed a brick through my window and defaced a painting.” The events of the day caught up to her, and she left the broken window to run to her back office and collapse onto her office chair, letting the broom fall against the desk with a loud clatter. “I have a gallery full of glass shards and a possible stalker gunning to kill me. And now my dad's missing,” she wailed.

“Oh, Ari, no,” Val said with deep concern. “I'm calling Jason,” she said, referring to her firefighter hottie husband. “We'll be right over.”

“Really? That would be amazing, although I hate bothering you,” she said, feeling instant relief wash through her at the thought of reinforcements.

“Don't be ridiculous, friends bother one another. It's in the job description. We'll be there soon.”

“Great. I need someone to sit in the gallery while I make a Home Depot run.”

“You stay put. Jason and I will go to Home Depot. What do you need?”

Ari's stomach unknotted with relief at not having to navigate the huge box store after hearing her dad had pulled a runner. “Are you sure? I hate to ask.”

“Of course I'm sure. What to you need?”

“Um, let me think…a wooden board to cover the broken window and a vacuum cleaner,” Ari said. “A big one. What do they call it? A shop vac?”

A pause from Val. “Okay, got it.”

“This is great of you.” Ari hung up feeling slightly less depressed. Val's capable, handsome firefighter husband would solve the gaping window hole problem, and she could deal with everything else that now had to be dealt with, such as the insurance company and her big gallery show plans. There was also the tiny but significant detail of her missing father. She instinctively grabbed her cell phone to call her father. They'd had one brief conversation ten months ago when this whole disaster began, but it had been radio silence since. Dad said he was protecting her, that he'd messed up and didn't want her to get caught up in his mistakes. Well, good going, Dad. As the only remaining member of the Rose family, she was buried in it now.

She dialed the old cell number and it went straight to voice mail as usual. A few months ago she'd called daily, wanting her father to protect her, to tell her the FBI was mistaken, that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. But he'd stopped answering her calls, and she'd had ten long months to adjust to the idea of her father as a thief. She'd finally gotten the message loud and clear and stopped calling. Until today.

She waited for the shrill beep. “Dad? It's me. Ari. I…heard you're missing. I'm, um, calling to…”
To what? Beg him to come out of hiding? Talk about your Disney fantasies
. “I'm just calling.” She hung up and sat in silence for a long minute until the noise outside her gallery forced her into action. Her father's business was her father's business, and she refused to take the fall for him. The paparazzi had to go.