“You do?” Riley and Kraig asked at the same time.
She looked at Riley. His focus was still locked on her, and she resisted squirming under his concentrated gaze. She faced Kraig, still surprised at his recent adoption of the hipster craze even though he was far too old to fit in. His brown hair laced with silver was sleeked back into a man bun, and he had a full gray beard and oversized black glasses perched on a pointy nose.
“Who is it?” he asked. “Who was murdered?”
“Jill Stevenson.”
“Jill. Oh my.” Kraig pushed his glasses up. “You didn’t...”
“Kill her?” Leah shouted, horrified. “Of course not!”
“But you wanted to.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No. We may be on the outs, but I didn’t want her dead.”
Riley stood, his expression questioning and suspicious. “Who’s Jill and why were you on the outs?”
“She was one of my backup singers.”
“Until she broke up Leah’s relationship with Neil,” Kraig added before Leah could speak.
She clenched her jaw and looked up at Riley. “I dated Neil Yohman for a short time and caught him with Jill in the tour bus. I ended things with him and fired her.”
His expression changed but she couldn’t interpret it. “When was this?”
“A little over a month or so ago.” She glanced at Kraig to confirm her timeline.
“Yeah, it was at the last Portland concert in August.”
“Then if you fired her, why would she be at your concert, and how did she get backstage?” Riley asked.
“I don’t know.”
Riley shifted his questioning gaze to Kraig. Thankfully. She was wilting under his intensity.
“Don’t look at me.” Kraig held up his hands overloaded with rings. “I know better than to let one of Leah’s enemies backstage.”
Riley shot her a look. “One of your enemies? Do you have a lot of them?”
She shook her head. “But the music business is pretty cutthroat. You can’t make everyone happy.”
Kraig snorted. “Not even most of them.”
“Maybe Sal let her in,” Leah said, bringing them back on track.
“I’ll go ask him.” Kraig spun and raced out of the room as if he couldn’t handle Riley’s intensity either.
With Kraig gone, the full weight of Riley’s blistering focus was back on her, almost as if he had x-ray vision, seeing inside her brain and figuring out he was a father. How on earth was she going to tell him?
He took a step closer. “Do you think the murder is related to the reason you called me?”
“To the stalker? I don’t know. Maybe, but I don’t know.”
Riley leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Tell me about him.”
“It started a few months ago with creepy emails and Twitter posts, but I blew it off as part of the job. After all, this wasn’t the first stalker I’ve had.”
Riley drew in a sharp breath. “There were others?”
“Just harmless virtual ones. Infatuated fans who took it to the extreme in social media and using the contact form on my website to profess their love. They stopped right there and never did anything else.”
“But not the guy you called me about?”
She nodded, and he took another breath. This was really bothering him. She knew he’d want to protect her because that was the kind of man he was, but she didn’t think after all these years and their bitter breakup that he would take these threats personally. But she had no doubt he was doing so.
She tried to hide her surprise and went on. “I blocked his emails and blocked him on Twitter. But then I started getting letters at home. I don’t know how he got that address, but it freaked me out, and Sal arranged security to remain outside my house.”
“The stalker probably searched property records,” Riley said. “You can find most everything online these days if you’re tenacious enough, but it sounds like Sal’s good at his job.”
“He is, and he’s very loyal,” she said, but the fact was, she didn’t trust him completely. Since skyrocketing to fame, she’d been lied to and misled by too many people with ulterior motives. Now she couldn’t trust anyone.
Well, except Riley and her mother. They knew her before she was famous, and if Blackwell Tactical agreed to take on her protection, she would be glad to have someone she could completely trust in charge of her security.
Riley shifted on his feet, looking like he wanted to say something but then reconsidered. “If Sal has your security under control, why did you call me?”
“The situation escalated and I didn’t feel safe anymore. The letters weren’t enough for the stalker. He started showing up at my last few concerts and tried to get backstage. When Sal didn’t let him through, he waited by the stage door and tried to get to me when I left venues. But what sent me over the edge—and why I called you—was that he started showing up in my personal life. I knew you worked for Blackwell and thought you could help.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Once upon a time, she could predict his thoughts enough to finish his sentences, but now? Now she didn’t know what was going on in his brain, and that bothered her. Bothered her more than she could have imagined.
“How did you know I worked for Blackwell?” he asked.
She’d made a point to stay informed on his activities as a precaution against him learning about Owen, but she sure couldn’t admit that. “I…my mom…told me. She keeps up with all the gossip from our old friends. She said she saw information on the Blackwell group in the newspaper when a reporter did a story on you.”
“An unauthorized story,” Riley muttered. “They wanted to do a hometown hero kind of thing. No one on the team would ever seek out publicity for what we do. I tried to convince them not to run the story, but they wouldn’t listen.”
He’d always been so modest when he was a police officer, and it was nice to see that hadn’t changed. “Real heroes like you don’t brag about what you do, but we all like feel-good stories about a hero.”
“We’re not heroes. Just people doing our jobs.” He waved it off. “Back to your stalker. Do you know his name?”
She shook her head. “He uses a Yahoo email account and the name is leahfan. He signed the letters that way, too.”
“Okay, first, where are these letters?”
“In my office at home.”
“The murder could be related to the stalker and Blake will want those, but I need a copy of them first.”
“I’ll make sure you get them,” she said, but she couldn’t let him or Blake go to her house before she told Riley about Owen. He’d see the pictures and toys, and that would be the worst way to find out he had a son.
“Whoever makes the copies needs to wear gloves and be careful not to smudge any potential fingerprints.”
“You can get fingerprints from paper?”
“Blake’s team will do that,” Riley said. “We have a forensic specialist on our team—Samantha Willis—who could do it, too, but I’ll have to ask her if she should process them before law enforcement has a shot at it.” He paused for a moment. “We also have a cyber expert on our team. Her name’s Eryn Calloway. I’ll have her trace the emails, but Yahoo will only hand over the stalker’s real contact information to Blake, and then only after he provides a warrant.”
“So it’s possible that will give us the stalker’s ID and he can be arrested?”
Riley shrugged. “The contact info could be bogus.”
“It’s all so creepy to me.” She shuddered, thinking of the man as he lurked in wait for her. “Thank you for coming.”
He nodded. “Have you reported the stalker to the police?”
She bit her lip. “Yes, but not at first. Like I said, I’ve had stalkers before. Or more like very enthusiastic fans. But when this guy showed up in person, multiple times, I did contact the police after my concert in Minneapolis. But honestly, th
ey couldn’t do much as it was my last night there. I figured because I travel a lot and his stalking spans several states that you all would be better able to deal with this.”
“You’re right there.” He narrowed his eyes. “Did you read these emails on a phone? Tablet? Computer?”
“All of the above. Depended where I was or what I was doing.”
“Blake and Eryn will want to look at every device then.”
Her heart dropped. She had pictures of Owen on her computer. Not her phone or tablet. She worried about losing those when traveling and whoever found them would be happy to broadcast her personal life on the Internet. So she transferred everything to her home computer. She’d be glad to give them access to that, too. After she’d told Riley about Owen.
The full magnitude of what she was going to disclose to Riley weighed heavy on her, and she closed her eyes for a moment to gain enough calm to respond to him. “I’m happy to provide my phone and tablet, but I have personal files on my computer. Being a celebrity, I can’t be too careful about my private information getting out, and I’d rather keep that private for now.”
Riley watched her like a vulture tracking its prey. “Blake won’t give you a choice. If you refuse, and he thinks it’s needed for the investigation, he’ll get a warrant to seize the hard drive. He would typically have the regional computer lab process it, but they’re always backlogged. Eryn has taken hard drive images for him in the past. Hopefully, I can convince him to let her do it now, too. That way she can make a copy for us, and we’ll have access to all of your info.”
“Who is it?” The shrill voice of Leah’s assistant cut through the open door.
Leah heard Sal mumble a response.
“I don’t care what Riley said,” Felicity snapped. “I need to see with my own eyes that Leah’s okay.”
Leah appreciated Felicity’s protectiveness, but her outburst wasn’t necessary. “That’s my assistant, Felicity. You better authorize her to come back or she’s going to hurt Sal.”
“I’ll go get her.” Riley exited the room, his steps sure and strong like the kind of man she’d always known he was. A man who was a keeper. She’d known that from day one, too, and yet, she’d chosen to pursue her dream over him.
She was suddenly back on that day. In his studio apartment with the ratty old couch and scarred tables he’d bought at a thrift shop when he was trying to prove he didn’t need his father’s money. He thought he was slumming, but for her, it was a palace compared to the places she’d lived in with her mother after her father abandoned them. A music recording contract for a major record label sat on the table between them. A contract for both of them. A couple. Not just her.
Riley had towered over the table, glaring at her. His arms folded over his chest. His stance wide as he declared, “No way. Absolutely no way I’m signing that contract. I’m not living like a nomad. I always wanted to be a police officer, and I love my job. I won’t quit. You have to choose. A career in the music world or me.”
And so, she chose—her decision fueled by years of living on welfare and despair after her father’s disappearing act. Incredible amounts of despair. Not having enough food to eat. Having to wear discarded clothes given to church charities and tattered shoes from the same bags. Teasing and bullying at her school because she didn’t dress right.
Her mother was always busy working and had no time for Leah. For family things. For fun. Just the darkness of poverty. So dark—bleak.
She had to make something of herself to erase those horrible memories. To reach an income level that guaranteed she wouldn’t live in poverty as an adult.
All because a man walked out on her. On her mother.
And yet, she’d fallen for Riley. Trusted him. He seemed different. Caring and dependable. Rock solid. Life was easy for him. He’d come from money, a ton of money, and he didn’t understand how her past influenced her. Drove her to succeed.
How could he understand? It wasn’t his fault. Music was a fun hobby for him, and he was glad to get by on his cop salary because being a police officer was his dream. But she’d seen the families of his coworkers break up over the stress of the job, then struggle because they didn’t have enough money to live on. The couples suffered. Their children suffered.
She couldn’t risk that and implored him to reconsider and sign the recording contract. He said no again, declaring she should go it alone. She’d left then. Her throat clogged with emotion. Hurried to their manager’s office and tried to have the contract altered to include only her. But the label executive wanted both of them. Not her alone.
Her world crashed, and poof, they’d broken up. No warning. Nothing to prepare her. Only the cold light of the end of their relationship.
Riley—just like her father—walking away. Like every man in her life.
She was to blame. She trusted in a man when she had firsthand knowledge from her father that it was foolhardy. She vowed to go it alone from that point on. Work hard at her career. Succeed and take care of herself. No man needed.
And then…then she found out she was pregnant.
She let out a sigh so long she felt as if she was deflating.
“I was shocked when Leah said she planned to call you,” Felicity’s voice came from right outside the door. “She told me about your past, and you’re the last person I thought she’d want to see.”
“She needs help with the stalker,” Riley replied.
“Sal could’ve handled it. He’s quite capable and would’ve figured out who it was.”
“Obviously, Leah thought otherwise.”
Felicity snorted and stepped into the room. Leah spirits lifted knowing her staunchest supporter was nearby. Felicity started as a backup singer then moved to be Leah’s assistant, and they’d become close over the years. But even she didn’t know about Owen.
Felicity tucked bleached-blond hair behind her ear, ran across the room, and knelt beside Leah to take her hands. “Riley told me it’s Jill out there. How are you holding up?”
Leah looked into her friend’s deep blue eyes. At least her best friend at work. Leah didn’t allow people into her private life, and that included Felicity. “I’m kind of numb.”
“A shock like this will do it to you,” Riley said, but kept his focus on Felicity. “Did you let Jill in the building tonight?”
“No. I didn’t even know she was here. I was…well, let’s just say I’m having some issues and have been in the bathroom for the last hour.” She blushed bright red. “How embarrassing to have to admit that.”
Leah patted Felicity’s hands. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been dealing with this stomach bug for the last few days, and I appreciate you coming to work anyway. And besides, it’s nothing we all haven’t experienced.”
“Look at you, comforting me when you’re the one who needs sympathy.” She squeezed Leah’s hands and let go. “Now what can I do to make things better for you?”
“Do? I don’t know. I mean it’s not like this has ever happened before, and I don’t know what would make it better.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe it’s Jill…and now she’s dead. How awful for her family. For Neil, too. How will they cope? Us, too. How do we move forward?”
“Someone will have to manage reporters when they get wind of it,” Riley said.
Leah nodded, but as long as the reporters weren’t circling her because they’d learned about Owen, that was the least of her worries. “Kraig will team up with my publicist Gabby Williams, and they’ll handle that.”
Riley looked at her in disbelief.
“What?”
“Just wondering what it’s like to have people to handle things.”
She frowned. “Your parents ‘had people’ so I know you’re familiar with it.”
“Yeah, but I can’t picture you in that position. I need to though, right? You’ve achieved your dream and are living the life.” He sounded disgusted by her choice, but then, she couldn’t blame him.
The life of f
ame wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. If she didn’t need financial security for herself, Owen, and her mother, Leah would leave the business. But she had no other skills and had to keep working at being the success Riley seemed to disdain.
“Kraig will be busy talking to your concert promoters, too,” Felicity added. “And working on the schedule if it needs to change.”
Her schedule. Right. She had concerts booked for the next three months. “I haven’t even thought about that yet. Seems callous to go on tomorrow as if nothing happened. We need to show Jill some respect.”
“Of course…sure.” Felicity patted Leah’s hands. “It’s just...there’s so much money riding on these concerts. Your career, sweetie. You know that.”
“Why’s that?” Riley asked.
Another thing Leah didn’t want to share with Riley, but he would find out anyway. “The sales for my last album weren’t as large as we expected, and this Small-Town America Tour is a last-ditch effort to bring them back up before my label drops me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said sounding sincere.
“No worries. It is what it is.”
He frowned. “Still saying that, I see.”
She’d forgotten that he hated when she used that phrase. He was a take-charge, take-control kind of guy, and he believed she had a defeatist attitude. But her childhood of poverty often left her feeling beaten down by the world. That was the way she coped when she couldn’t do a thing about her situation.
He was the opposite. He could do anything if he set his mind to it. Including turning his back on his family’s money and living off a cop’s salary when he could have much more.
She’d worked hard to build her career, but despite doing all the right things—everything her manager and record label asked of her—it was failing. They’d decided to add smaller venues this time around, bringing her music to people who didn’t have the opportunity to attend concerts in big arenas in hopes of drawing in additional fans. So far, the tour had been well received, and the current album sales were back on track with projections, but if the tour was cancelled for any reason, her label would likely drop her, and her career would be over in a flash.
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