“Yeah, the colonel insisted that I keep calling.”
“And I was beginning to think you cared.”
“Not a chance,” Jason replied. “Report in later.” Then, before signing off, he added, “Stay safe, Charley.”
“Will do,” she replied, unable to suppress a smile at his note of concern.
Putting the phone back in her bag, she hunted through her suitcase for some clean clothes that didn’t stink too much of smoke. She was now grateful for Bugsy’s foresight in supplying fireproof clothing. As she pulled on a pair of jeans, she noticed a white hotel envelope on the carpet behind the door. She picked it up, frowned at the blank front and peeled open the seal. Inside was a clipping from a tabloid magazine: Gonzo’s photo of her with Ash at the restaurant in Dallas. Pasted beneath it in letters cut out from a newspaper were the words
22
Ash was certainly a trouper. Despite a sore throat from smoke inhalation and another failed attempt on his life, he was resolved to perform for his San Francisco fans at the Oakland Oracle Arena that night. He burst onto the stage with a kamikaze-like energy, his gravelly voice more than suiting his style of rock music. As Charley watched him literally rip one of his guitars apart during a solo, then set it on fire, she wondered if Ash’s third brush with death had tipped him over the edge. He was acting as if this might be his last ever concert on earth.
Then again, she thought, his extreme performance might be his way of letting off steam. Whatever, this gig was jaw-dropping, and his fans, sensing Ash’s desperation, were going wild for him.
Behind the scenes, Kay had taken up the reins alongside Terry as tour manager, her presence an iron rod to the band and crew alike. Nothing was being overlooked in terms of stage management or venue security. Everything had been triple-checked. The gigs were being run like a military operation.
But Charley knew someone had slipped the net.
The newspaper threat she’d received couldn’t be clearer. The fire had been a premeditated attack on her and Ash. And if she needed any more proof, she’d subsequently read in a news report that the arson investigators had found the burned-out remains of a housekeeper’s cart wedged behind the fire door on their floor of the hotel.
Charley had harbored a tiny hope that the message on the mirror had been a prank, a hoax or at the most a knee-jerk reaction by a jealous fan at the Dallas concert. But she could no longer delude herself.
The homicidal maniac was on the tour with them.
How else could that person know the hotels they were staying at, discover which rooms she and Ash were in and pass unquestioned through their security checks?
In order to carry out the crimes, the culprit had to have access backstage, to the hotels and to the tour bus. Only somebody with an official pass could move unseen and undetected. The idea of it chilled her blood and made her more paranoid than ever.
The enemy was definitely within!
Charley had her suspicions who the perpetrator might be, but no direct proof. The envelope with its newspaper clipping was now in the pocket of her jeans. She hadn’t yet told Big T or Guardian about it. She knew that Colonel Black would instantly pull her off the assignment, and she didn’t trust anyone else, not even Big T, to keep Ash safe. She had to see this assignment through to the end. It was her duty.
Besides, if the maniac was who she thought it was, then she could handle them easily enough when they showed their hand. But when would that be? And would she be in the right place at the right time to stop them?
Any mistake, delay or miscalculation in her reactions could result in Ash’s death.
Charley remembered the tattoo on Big T’s inner forearm. A pair of weighted scales and the words Guilty until proven innocent.
She couldn’t afford to wait. She couldn’t risk Ash’s life any longer.
Pete was standing beside Jessie, bobbing and weaving in time to the music, mouthing the words in sync with Ash, as he did every night. Jessie was gazing in reverential awe at her hero on the stage, her hands clasped to her chest in deep devotion. Both had an unnatural obsession with Ash, but only one had a motive to kill him.
Convinced who it was, Charley made up her mind to act. She radioed for backup, then confronted Ash’s stalker.
23
“What’s all this about?” demanded Jessie as she was shoved into a chair in an empty dressing room.
Vince stood by the door, while Rick kept a hand on Jessie’s shoulder and ensured she stayed seated.
“Don’t play innocent with me,” said Charley. “You know exactly why you’re here.”
Jessie’s eyes flicked from Vince’s impassive face to Rick’s stony expression and back to the furious glare Charley was giving her. The startled girl looked like she might burst into tears at any moment. Charley thought Jessie was putting on a convincing act. But of course she’d have to be a good actress in order to con her way into everyone’s trust.
“Charley, what have I done?” she pleaded.
“Aside from set fire to the hotel? Try to kill Ash.”
“What?” exclaimed Jessie. “Why would I want to hurt Ash? I love him.”
“That’s exactly why. That’s your motive. You’re obsessed with Ash to the point of madness.”
“No, this is madness. I haven’t done anything but support him!” said Jessie angrily. She tried to rise, but Rick firmly pushed her back down.
The door to the dressing room opened, and Big T stormed in. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
“This is who’s behind all the threats and attacks on Ash,” said Charley, stepping aside.
Big T stared at the frightened girl in the chair. “What, Jessie?” he said, his thick brow creasing in skepticism. “But she runs Ash’s US fan club. She’s his biggest fan.”
“Gives her the perfect cover,” argued Charley. “In order to stage these so-called accidents, she needed to have complete access to all locations. Her tour pass is the ticket to her crimes.”
“You’re insane!” spat Jessie. “You’re making accusations without any shred of proof!”
Big T cocked his head at Charley. “She’s got a point. Where’s your evidence?”
“Well . . . there isn’t anything that directly incriminates her,” admitted Charley, “but there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to Jessie.”
“Go on,” said Big T, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.
Charley took a deep breath. She’d been thinking hard since the discovery of the envelope that morning. “I can’t say whether any of this links back to the original letter bomb or the ‘no more encores’ death threat. But I do know that I found Jessie sneaking around backstage the night of the spotlight accident. She was hiding behind the drum riser, right next to one of the wire-rope ladders that led up to the lighting rig.”
Jessie rolled her eyes. “I told you at the time I wanted to see the stage setting like Ash does.”
“I believe she’d just come down the ladder after rigging the spotlight and was checking that it was aligned with the toaster lift,” Charley continued, ignoring the girl’s incredulous laugh. “Next, a little before Ash was shocked, Jessie took his microphone for the acoustic set. I think she may have switched it for the faulty one.”
Jessie snorted in disbelief. “Oh, come on! Really? You were there with me. How was I supposed to do that? I’m not a magician.”
“But you were the only one to handle it, apart from the crew. Joel also complained that you had touched the gear before. That in itself is suspicious,” responded Charley. “Then there’s the fire last night. A few things have struck me as odd. First, it’s funny how you knew not to go to the closest fire exit, the one that was blocked.”
“I didn’t know which way I was running,” argued Jessie. “I don’t think anyone did. It was chaos.”
“But at breakfast Zoe said you made
her run your way. Why?”
“I—I . . . don’t know. I thought that way was the closest exit.”
“But you just said you didn’t know which way you were running. You’re lying!”
Jessie began to cry, her mascara running down her plump cheeks in black lines.
Charley wasn’t going to let herself be swayed by crocodile tears. “Second, I found it strange that you were fully dressed in the middle of the night. That indicates you were ready for the fire.”
“I—I don’t go to bed until late,” sobbed Jessie. “I was updating Ash’s fan website . . . Honest . . . You can look at my posts. You’ll see the times I uploaded them.”
“Posts can be scheduled in advance.”
“Oh, you have an answer for everything, don’t you?” snapped Jessie, glaring at Charley through tear-filled eyes. “You just want to get rid of me. You’re the one who’s paranoid. You’ve got your claws into Ash, and now you want to make sure no one else has him.”
Charley laughed. “That’s exactly what you’re trying to do. You’ve admitted you love him many times. You even said that you’d kill to be in my position. You’re jealous. And because you can’t have him, you’ve decided no one will.”
Leaping up from her chair, Jessie swiped her false red nails at Charley’s face. “You liar!”
Charley barely managed to evade the razor-sharp points. Instinctively defending herself, she aimed a knife-hand strike to the girl’s neck.
“Enough!” barked Big T, grabbing hold of her wrist. Rick seized Jessie in his arms and pulled the two girls apart. “Charley, this is all very thin. Pure speculation. Don’t you have any firm proof?”
Charley took out her phone. “The day after Ash and I were photographed in the restaurant, I too started receiving death threats. Most were online, but this one was written on my bathroom mirror.”
Charley brought up the photo she’d taken of the lipstick threat:
TO BE AN ANGEL
U NEED 2 DIE FIRST!
“Recognize your handwriting, Jessie?” she asked, tilting the screen in her direction. Jessie’s eyes widened, and she shook her head vigorously in denial.
“Why the hell didn’t you bring this to my attention sooner?” said Big T, his jaw tensing.
“I thought it was a tour prank,” Charley replied. “But then I got this.”
She pulled out the newspaper clipping and showed it to him.
“I’m sure this’ll be familiar to you too, Jessie,” said Charley.
Jessie stared at the picture in horror. “I didn’t do that,” she replied, her voice small and quiet.
Big T grabbed the clipping from Charley’s hand. “This is no tour prank! When did you get this?”
“I—I only just came across it . . . earlier this morning,” explained Charley, stumbling over her words.
“This morning!” Big T threw his hands up in disbelief, then waved the clipping in her face. “This changes everything. This confirms the fire was a direct attack on Ash! The police need to be told. If I’d known you were under threat too, I’d—”
Charley’s phone rang. She turned away from Big T and answered it. “Hello?”
The voice on the other end of the line declared, “I’ve done it.”
24
“Done what?” asked Charley, pressing her phone to her ear.
“I’ve traced the accident messages—”
“Who are you speaking to?” demanded Big T.
“Amir,” Charley quickly replied under her breath. “He’s a wiz at IT at Guardian.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long, but you didn’t give me much to go on—” The excitement in the new recruit’s voice was matched only by the speed at which he tried to explain his findings. “A couple of Internet posts with different accounts! But I managed to hack into them both easily enough and dig up more messages. Of course, they were dummy accounts, created with false e-mail addresses that led to fake personal information. Pretty much a dead end for your average hacker. But I reverse-tracked how the messages were posted.”
He paused, clearly expecting Charley to be impressed at this flash of hacking insight.
“Okay . . . and?” prompted Charley, holding up a hand to keep Big T from interrupting the call.
“All of them were posted using the same phone,” he revealed. “Obviously, the IP addresses were dynamic, so I couldn’t discover it that way. And the suspect kept changing the SIM card so the phone number wasn’t fixed or traceable. They’re being very careful to cover their tracks. But the IMEI number of the phone itself is constant.”
“IMEI number?” asked Charley, bewildered by Amir’s technical lingo.
“IMEI stands for International Mobile Equipment Identity number. You can easily find out your own phone’s IMEI by typing *#06# into your keypad. The number is used to identify any device that uses terrestrial cellular networks. By that, I mean nonsatellite communication. Each number is unique to its device and coded into the hardware, making it virtually impossible to change.”
“That’s all very informative, Amir, but how does any of that help me?”
“It means the device can be tracked!” said Amir, a broad smile evident in the tone of his voice.
Charley smiled too. She eyed Jessie. She had her now!
“Since the suspect is using prepaid SIM cards, we obviously don’t know who the phone belongs to,” continued Amir. “But I managed to hack the network carrier and source the current cell phone number associated with our suspect’s IMEI number. I’m texting you both of them now.”
Charley’s phone beeped with a received message.
“I’m also updating your phone remotely with a tracker device,” Amir explained. “It’s a program I’ve designed. It’ll take a minute or so to upload, but then you’ll be able to pinpoint the suspect’s phone to within ten feet—”
“Charley!” cut in Big T, his wrinkled face hard and unforgiving as granite. “We need to talk about this threat now. And I think we can let Jessie go, don’t you? There’s nothing credible linking her to the accidents, apart from your rather tenuous speculation.”
“Guilty until proven innocent,” Charley reminded him, pointing to the tattoo on his arm. She waved her phone in the air. “I’ve got the proof we need right here.”
Turning to Jessie, she ordered, “Give me your phone.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.” Charley snatched the cell phone from Jessie’s hand and typed in *#06# to reveal its unique IMEI number. She compared it with the one on her screen, confident of exactly what she’d find.
It didn’t match.
Charley checked it again and an awful, sick feeling weighed heavily in the pit of her stomach.
Wishing the ground would swallow her up, she handed back Jessie’s phone. “I’m sorry . . . I’ve made a mistake.”
“You most certainly have!” snapped Jessie, her eyes shooting daggers at Charley as she stomped out of the dressing room.
Big T let out a heavy sigh and shook his head in disappointment. “Charley, we have some serious talking to do.”
In her despondent daze, Charley heard Amir’s voice drifting up from her phone. “Hey, Charley, are you still there? The tracker app should be working now. The green dot is you. The red dot is your suspect.”
Charley studied the screen. A map of the venue was displayed. The app correctly located her in the dressing room.
A red dot appeared right next to the stage.
25
How could she have been so stupid! Of course Jessie wasn’t Ash’s stalker. Barging past Big T, Charley ran for the door.
“Where are you going?” shouted Big T.
“It’s Pete!” Charley cried, dodging Vince’s attempt to grab her and sprinting down the corridor.
To her horror, Charley realized the killer had been left all
alone and unguarded. She wasn’t there. Nor were Vince, Rick or Big T. Ash was completely vulnerable to an attack . . . and she was responsible.
Shouldering a roadie aside, she rounded a corner at speed and dashed down the hallway that led to the stage. The sound of twenty thousand fans screaming echoed off the walls. Her heart was pounding in her chest almost as loud as the heavy bass thud blasting from the venue’s speakers.
She’d always suspected Pete. Why hadn’t she listened to her gut instincts? Yes, Jessie was the obvious and logical candidate for the infatuated stalker. But Pete was the deluded and dangerous one. His copycat behavior was a clear sign of his mental instability. What sane person would imitate their idol to the point of changing their appearance entirely and getting the exact same tattoo on their arm?
It only struck Charley now that her death threats had started right after Pete had joined the tour in his semiofficial capacity as a decoy. With his ability to pass as Ash, he could have easily accessed her room without question from security, especially since she and Ash were perceived to be a couple. Similarly, Pete had the golden opportunity to wander around backstage without anyone so much as batting an eyelash. He was Ash the rock star! He could go anywhere he wanted. Not only could he have swapped the mics, but Pete was likely the one who’d started the fire at the hotel.
And at any moment Pete could strike again.
Charley ran up the steps to the wings of the stage. In the dimly lit recesses, a couple of sound technicians were prepping gear and a small group of VIP guests huddled to one side watching the show. But where was Pete?
Charley hunted around for him. He was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he’d moved over to the opposite wing? She checked Amir’s tracker app. Her green dot was now situated beside the stage; the red dot was on the stage.
She was too late!
Traitor Page 8
