No Stone Unturned (23 page)

“No! Stop!” Elizabeth yelled as Gemma swung the door open.  Gemma screamed the moment she got out to the hall, Elizabeth’s running footsteps just paces behind her.

“Help!” she cried out as she ran barefoot down the hall, limping harder with each step.  “Someone help! Please!”  Andro turned the corner abruptly.  Gemma sighed in relief as she let herself fall to the ground again, her ankle throbbing with a stabbing pain.  “Andro, thank God!” She felt his arms around her, scooping her up as two security guards rushed in from behind him.  They grabbed Elizabeth by the arms.

“
She
came after
me
!” Elizabeth yelped.  “She broke into my room and stole my laptop! That’s my laptop she has! That’s
mine
!”

“Bee?” Andro looked at Gemma.  “Are you okay?"

“It’s been her the whole time,” Gemma gasped, struggling to catch her breath.  “I have the proof.  Everything’s here.  I got her.”

- Chapter 12 -

“Are you still up for this?” Penelope asked as Gemma sat in the makeup chair.  She stared at her cut lip. 

The previous night felt like an awful dream despite the fact that she hadn’t slept at all.  She had spent the night at the police station answering hours of questions after Elizabeth’s arrest.  Though she was taken in for assault, the police informed her that her suspicions had been correct.  Elizabeth had hidden pinhole cameras into the crystal paperweight and planted them in Gemma’s hotel rooms to gain more information about her.  She was from a wealthy family, an heiress to the Clarke Securities Group who knew her father’s products well.  While she had somewhat lied about her name – her full name was Elizabeth Tara Clarke – she hadn’t lied about The Hoerner Group internship.  Elizabeth’s mother was indeed well-connected in the publicity world and it wasn’t difficult for her to land the internship the moment she realized how involved Damian would be in Queen Bee’s life.

“She knows my name.  She knows who I am,” Gemma whispered.

“I know, sweetheart.  But what can we do now?”

“Nothing.  Her parents are going to bail her out by the end of the night and she’s going to put up that post.  Aunt Mira’s trying to get the site shut down but Elizabeth’s probably going to publish everything before she gets to it.”

“We’ll worry about that later.  Right now, you have a speech to make at a very important event and we need to get you ready.”

“The blogs are all talking about the incident last night.  It was even on the news this morning, did you see?”

“No, sweetheart.  I’m trying to stay focused on what’s important.”

“The whole point of this event was to bring attention to Kick Bullying and everything we stand for.  But it’s being drowned out by all the drama and insanity.  We made a total mockery of the cause.”

“You know that’s not true, Gemma,” Penelope said sternly.  She pulled the ivory Thierry Marc gown out of the closet and draped it over Gemma’s body.  “So what do you think? Shall we make you blonde today? I was going to use the jet-black one but I kind of want a softer look.”

“Actually, Pen,” Gemma said, meeting Penelope’s eye in the vanity mirror.  “I was thinking we’d try something different.”

~

Gemma stood in the darkness of the wings.  Tyler held her as they looked out onto the stage where Zoe had just finished her speech.  The guests exploded into thunderous applause.  Damian stood next to her, clapping along with the audience.

“Nervous?” Tyler asked.  He ran his fingers through her hair.

“No,” Gemma replied.  “Not anymore.  I’ve never been so confident about anything.”

“Good,” Tyler smiled.  “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”  Out on stage, Damian took the mic, thanking the sponsors, contributors and fans that were in attendance.  He smiled his dazzling smile, peering out of the corner of his eye at Gemma in the wings.

“As Zoe said, your presence tonight means the world to us.  The road here was a bumpier one than we had expected and your continuing support is what the Kick Bullying campaign needs to stay alive and focused to complete its mission.”  Damian paused as the audience applauded.  He and Zoe turned to look at Gemma.  They nodded at her, sending all their support in the form of smiles.  “It’s my pleasure now to introduce the two who got this whole thing started, though neither need an introduction.  Please help me in welcoming Queen Bee and Tyler Chase.”  The audience roared with cheers.  Tyler walked out first, approaching the mic and murmuring his thanks.  He greeted Zoe and Damian with a hug.  The cheers continued to grow as Gemma waited in the wings.  She took a deep breath, smoothing out the silk, ivory gown before rushing out to join Tyler.

The crowd fell to a hush.  Tyler beamed at her, audibly laughing at the audience’s stunned silence.  Zoe and Damian leaned in to hug Gemma before walking off the stage and taking their seats at the tables set in the front row.  Just as quickly as they had fallen to silence, the cameras began to snap and the cheers returned, more raucously this time around.  Gemma smiled, nodding at both the reporters and supporters that filled the floor before her.  She looked at the front table where Penelope was sitting with Perrin, Zoe, Damian and Nicki.  Penelope’s eyes brimmed with tears.  Gemma had managed to convince Penelope to let her do her own makeup.  She barely supervised as Gemma swept on a couple layers of mascara and smoothed on some tinted lip-gloss.  The masks and wigs were left in the trunk.  Her natural, light brown curls were simply brushed out and sprayed to frame her undisguised face.

“Thank you all for coming,” Gemma said into the mic.  The cheers once again fell as the guests sat silent, eagerly waiting for an explanation.  Gemma ran her tongue over the cut on her lip.  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  “Thank you to Damian Evans for the lovely introduction.”  Gemma looked down at Damian who smiled up at her with a glowing pride.  “Most of you may know him as the Golden State Warriors’ very photogenic rookie guard.  And most of you know the story going around about how I met him on The Pop Source’s photo shoot, where we supposedly became fast friends.  While it’s true that our paths crossed once again on that shoot, it was hardly the first time we had met.  Damian first met me as Gemma Hunter, the shy new girl at Beauford High in New Jersey.”  Gemma watched as the audience literally lit up with the glow of cell phones.  She laughed.  “I’ll wait while everyone finishes tweeting.”  The crowd laughed with her.  She looked at her table in the front.  Perrin and Penelope were nodding with approval.  Even Nicki cracked a smile.  Gemma met her glance, holding eye contact as she returned the smile.

“Working with Damian on Kick Bullying is especially poignant to me because he was my support when I was the victim of a vicious bully at Beauford High.  He was the only person who wasn’t afraid to stand up to this person.  He was and continues to be my best friend, a person I can always count on.  It is something I wish for all those who feel like they’re being targeted.”  Gemma cleared her throat as she stared down at her hands gripping the mic stand.  She felt her heart pound.  “I realize that I was lucky to have someone strong in my life who continued to offer his unwavering support, but the fact of the matter is that there were times when even that was not enough.  When I found myself feeling this way, I would escape to my other identity of Queen Bee and when things got tough there, I’d go back to Gemma Hunter.  It is an option that most people don’t have and by no means a solution to this problem.  I knew I couldn’t continue talking about this subject when I myself was still running and hiding from everything.  I hadn’t planned to make this announcement at this event or anytime soon, really.  It was just something that dawned on me about an hour ago.  I’m tired of running, and I don’t want to hide anymore.”

~

“You have three hundred notifications,” Tyler said as he sat in bed, his laptop flipped open.  He refreshed the page.  “Three hundred-thirty.”

“I just cleared them a half hour ago,” Gemma laughed as she slid under the covers beside him.  “I’m not checking any more.  Log me out.”

“You might want to just go ahead and deactivate the whole thing while you’re at it,” Tyler said.  “It’s just going to get crazier.”

“I don’t care.  I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

“What do you want me to do with your phone?” Tyler held it out to Gemma.  The screen was covered in notifications.

“Is this Gemma’s phone or Queen Bee’s phone?”

“Well, not that there’s a difference anymore, but I believe this is the Gemma one,” Tyler said.  Gemma opened her text message inbox.  The first couple were from Leah and Kate.

“Of course,” Gemma laughed.  “So it begins.”

Tyler nodded.  “So it begins.”

* * * * *

Titles by India Lee Coming 2012

Hidden Gem Series

Book 4: Every Pearl Has its Oyster

New Series by India Lee

How Dare You?

Perfect/Fit

Tasteless

Turn the page for descriptions of the upcoming books

Every Pearl Has its Oyster

Now that Gemma Hunter’s identity is as public as her alter ego Queen Bee’s, her career faces great changes and challenges.  While there’s a new demand for her undisguised personality in the form of movie and book offers, Gemma struggles to retain the mystique and draw of Queen Bee as she prepares for her world tour.  And just when she thought all the figures of her Beauford past had resurfaced, an old foe shows her face in a rather unexpected place.

How Dare You?

Amanda Nathan, best known as PrettyKitty29, is an unemployed college graduate with the thankless job of moderating the internet’s most popular gossip community, “How Dare You?”  When a late-night conversation with fellow moderator, FilmFreak11, reveals his jealousy for a former-girlfriend-turned-celebrity, the two meet to commiserate over the disappointment of their own directionless lives.  Armed with their extensive entertainment news knowledge, they realize their power in deciding what is or isn’t newsworthy in the celebrity world.  Together, the duo conspires to remedy their monotonous lives by creating two celebrities – themselves.

Perfect/Fit

Isabelle Kelly has long accepted her role as the token plus-sized buddy in both her D Network television series, “Buckled Down,” and in real life.  But now that the show is being canceled and her contract with D Network has expired, Isabelle is having a hard time finding employment anywhere else in image-conscious Hollywood.  With her former cast members moving on to bigger and better projects, Isabelle finds herself lonely and dejected and an easy target for gossip blogs.  However, an unlikely friendship is forged when Isabelle meets reality show trainer, Daniel Quon, known best for the most extreme success stories on his hit weight loss television show.  With a longtime crush on former co-star, Joshua Lee Miller and a major audition for her dream role looming on her calendar, Isabelle can only hope her new friendship will be the key to the Hollywood life she had always dreamed of.

Tasteless

For seven seasons, cameras followed The Somerville family as they ran their quaint, upstate New York restaurant.  Olive and Warner Somerville and their six children were images of the American Dream but when the cameras stopped rolling, they found their thirst for fame was not yet quenched.  The Somerville name quickly became synonymous with fine foods and fashion thanks to the eldest siblings Sage and Poppy’s new designer line and Porter’s status as a go-to celebrity chef.  When eighteen-year-old Angus, the youngest of the Somerville clan, finds his own success as a coveted deejay, twenty-year-old fraternal twins Rye and Basil find themselves with the rather undesirable title of The Somerville Duds.  When Basil decides to join his older brother in opening a new restaurant, Rye finds herself truly alone.  Determined not to ride the coattails of her famous siblings for the rest of her life, Rye resolves to do something extreme to prove her own worth.

* * * * *

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