Big T bent down to eye level with the roadie. ‘You’re being held under suspicion of attempted murder of both Ash Wild and Charley here.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just doing my job and this wild cat jumped me.’ He pointed an accusing finger at Charley.
Before Charley could protest, the door opened and Terry strode in. He stared at the broken-jawed roadie. ‘What the hell’s happened to Geoff?’
‘He had a run-in with my fist,’ explained Big T. ‘You see, Geoff’s the maniac trying to kill Ash.’
‘Geoff?’ exclaimed Terry. ‘But he’s been with the tour from the start. One of the hardest-working roadies – first to arrive and last to leave.’
‘Charley caught him sabotaging the toaster lift,’ Big T told him. ‘We suspect he was trying to rig another accident.’
‘That’s not true!’ Geoff turned to Terry with pleading eyes. ‘I was following your instructions. You asked for everything to be triple-checked.’
Terry nodded. ‘That’s right, I did.’
Big T held up the roadie’s mobile. ‘Charley has hard proof your phone was used to post the accident death threats against Ash.’
‘That’s not my phone,’ stated Geoff.
Charley gasped. ‘That phone was right next to him. He’s lying!’
Big T frowned and Charley saw his belief in her claims beginning to waver. ‘So why were you trying to kill Charley then?’ he demanded.
Geoff put on a wounded look. ‘What? She attacked me! I was trying to restrain her.’
‘That’s a lie too!’ cried Charley. ‘He repeated the “ashes to ashes” threat, then attacked me with a wrench! He’s a maniac. He wants to kill Ash and me. Big T, you saw him choking me!’
Terry held up a hand. ‘Enough! Big T, I told you to keep this girl on a leash. First it was the laser, then the backpack bomb and now this. Attacking one of my own road crew! She’s gone too far this time. I want her out and off this tour right now!’
‘But –’
‘No buts, Big T. You’re already on thin ice with Kay. Don’t give me an excuse to have you fired too!’ Terry put his arm round Geoff and helped him to his feet.
‘Thank you, Terry,’ slurred Geoff. ‘If she goes, I might not press charges.’
‘That’s more than they deserve,’ said Terry, leading the injured man towards the door.
Charley watched speechless as the killer roadie walked free.
Charley knew if Geoff stepped out of that door they’d never see him again and Ash would forever be in danger.
So would she.
As the roadie limped past, the malice in his steel-blue eyes was terrifying. Compelled to act, Charley ran to block the doorway but stopped as Kay marched into the room.
‘What’s this about Ash’s attacker being caught?’ she demanded.
‘Afraid not, Kay,’ said Terry, still supporting Geoff, who had his head bowed and a hand to his fractured jaw. ‘It’s yet another false alarm from your pet bodyguard.’
Kay glanced at Charley, raising an eyebrow at her split lip and bruised throat. She turned to Big T. ‘What’s going on here? And what’s happened to Charley?’
Big T glared at the roadie in Terry’s arms. ‘I just managed to stop that man strangling Charley with a wrench.’
‘My God!’ gasped Kay. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘Charley didn’t realize he was carrying out a safety inspection of the toaster lift,’ explained Big T. ‘It seems a case of mistaken identity. Things got out of hand and –’
‘NO!’ shouted Charley. ‘That man was sabotaging the lift to kill Ash. Why won’t anyone believe me?’
Big T laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Charley, enough’s enough. You’ve already accused one innocent person today.’
‘And you’re always crying wolf,’ Terry added. ‘Kay, I can vouch for Geoff’s innocence. In my opinion, Charley is the paranoid lunatic that should be locked up.’
‘Well, I don’t trust any man who beats up a girl.’ Kay’s eyes blazed. ‘Vince, radio a technician to check the lift.’
Vince nodded, thumbed his mic and made the call.
‘I was in the middle of fixing it,’ protested Geoff, his hand still pressed to his bearded jaw.
‘He’s lying again!’ cried Charley. ‘Look at him! He’s got guilt written all over his face.’
For the first time Kay properly looked at the roadie’s face. Her eyes widened. ‘I know you! Your name’s not Geoff!’
Dropping his hand from his face, the roadie snarled, ‘Screw you, Kay!’
Shrugging off Terry, he pounced on the music manager. His fingers dug into her throat as he slammed her against the wall. Big T and Rick were on him in seconds. But the roadie refused to let go. Charley stepped in and side-kicked his kneecap, targeting the same one as before. There was a sickening crunch and the roadie shrieked as he dropped to the floor.
‘Good kick, Charley,’ grunted Big T as he and Rick pinned the man down.
Running a trembling hand through her red hair and flattening her creased blouse, Kay looked scornfully at the squirming roadie. ‘You can tell that to the police when they arrive … Brandon.’
‘Brandon?’ said Charley, staring hard at the roadie. Now that Kay had said his name Charley vaguely recognized the man. She’d downloaded his picture into the operation folder. He’d been slimmer, blond-haired and with stubble, unlike the dark-haired bearded man now writhing on the floor at their feet. But his steel-blue eyes were unmistakable. This was Brandon Mills, the songwriter who’d accused Ash of copying the hit ‘Only Raining’.
Brandon squirmed in the bodyguards’ grip, spitting at Kay. ‘Ash stole my song! My life!’
Kay regarded him with contempt. ‘And you broke my heart, among other things.’
As she strode out of the room, her sharp stiletto just happened to stamp on his hand.
‘I blame myself,’ admitted Kay, standing with Charley and Big T at the side of the stage as Ash prepared for his encore at the Oakland Oracle Arena. They’d all been unnerved to discover Terry’s trusted roadie was Brandon Mills. However, since his arrest by the San Franciscan police, it looked as if Ash would be safe from any further murder attempts. ‘If I’d joined the tour earlier I might have recognized that psycho songwriter!’
‘None of us did,’ said Big T, ‘and he was right under our noses.’
Kay rounded on the veteran bodyguard. ‘Perhaps you should get your eyes tested?’
Big T’s jaw tightened and his nostrils flared.
‘Brandon was well disguised,’ said Charley, coming to Big T’s defence. ‘He fooled us all.’
Charley cast her mind back. She remembered the bearded roadie descending the wire-rope ladder just before the bomb scare and spotlight accident. And he was the one who’d yelled at Jessie for handling the microphone before he set it up himself on stage. After seeing the ‘ashes to ashes’ death threat, the police were going to review the hotel CCTV footage for any sign of Brandon before the fire. Charley had no doubt they’d find that evidence, just as they’d be able to link him to the ‘No more encores’ letter and the backmasking threat on Ash’s last single. Nor would she be surprised if the tyre blowout that caused the coach crash had been another of his deliberate accidents. Brandon was a nasty piece of work.
A technician had inspected the toaster lift’s hydraulic unit and discovered that it was primed to go off like a cannon. On its next use, the central piston would have shot strai
ght through the platform and speared Ash like a harpooned whale. It would have been a gruesome and very painful death.
Charley wondered how anyone could become so deranged over an Ash Wild song that he wanted to kill not only Ash but anyone else who got in the way.
A single glance at the hysterical audience clamouring for an encore answered that question. There didn’t appear to be a sane person in the whole venue. With mad eyes, wild hair and mouths fixed in permanent screams, everyone was going crazy for the rock star as he walked out on stage and began playing his worldwide hit ‘Only Raining’.
The familiar chimes of the song’s opening riff filled the massive arena and as the crowd roared their approval Charley thought her eardrums might burst.
‘Ash is on fire tonight!’ remarked Kay, tapping her thigh in time to the beat of the music.
She was right. This had to be one of the best concerts of the whole tour. And, though she’d missed most of it, Charley could finally enjoy Ash’s performance without worrying that some tragedy was about to hit him.
Ash was safe now, his stalker destined for a lifetime in jail.
The threat of ‘no more encores’ was no more.
Leaning close, Kay spoke above the music into Charley’s ear. ‘You certainly lived up to your word and protected Ash. In fact, I intend to speak with Colonel Black at the end of the tour about extending your –’
From the opposite wing, they both saw Ash dash on to the stage.
But that was impossible since Ash was already performing.
Before Charley or anyone else could react, the new Ash shoved his other self violently off the stage. The assaulted Ash flew through the air and disappeared into the security pit. It happened so fast that many fans wondered if they’d seen it at all – especially since the band played on and their idol still stood on the stage, haloed in a spotlight, no break in his performance. But when the new Ash began singing it was obvious to everyone that he was a fraud.
Sprinting over, Charley leapt down from the stage, reaching the real Ash at the same time as the other security guards. He lay in a heap, having fallen head first more than two metres on to the concrete floor.
‘I think I’ve broken my neck!’ Ash gasped.
Charley knelt down beside him.
‘Keep still,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll call an ambulance.’ Tears clouded her vision and her throat choked with a sob. After all she’d been through that night, she’d failed to protect him from the forgotten threat – Pete.
‘I don’t need an ambulance,’ explained Ash. ‘I need a new guitar.’
He held up his busted instrument, its neck cocked at a severe angle, only held on by the steel strings. ‘I had to let it go to break my fall.’
Charley burst into relieved laughter and hugged him. ‘I thought you were really hurt.’
‘Nah, I’m fine,’ said Ash, sitting up.
She helped the dazed rock star back to his feet. On stage Big T had seized Pete in a headlock and the band finally stopped playing.
‘I am Ash!’ declared the boy, struggling in Big T’s crushing grip. ‘He’s the impostor!’ He pointed an accusing finger at Ash in the pit with Charley.
‘Save it, Pete. We all heard your lame attempt to sing,’ said Big T.
‘But … I’ve got a sore throat from the fire,’ Pete pleaded as he was dragged away.
Ash clambered back on stage to the rapturous applause of his fans. Shouldering a new guitar, he joked to them, ‘Fame must have gone to his head!’
As the audience laughed, Charley called up from the pit, ‘You sure you’re OK to go back on?’
Ash nodded and grinned. ‘You’d have to kill me to stop me doing an encore.’
As the tour bus headed south on Route 101 to Los Angeles the following day, Kay called a meeting in the upper-front lounge. Ash, Charley, Big T and Terry settled themselves into the leather sofas while Vince and Rick stood with the band to hear the update on Ash’s demented double.
‘The doctor says Pete is suffering from grandiose delusions,’ Kay explained. ‘The boy is convinced he’s Ash Wild. No one can persuade him otherwise.’
‘What if he is? And we’ve got the wrong one?’ The bassist scrutinized the Ash sitting beside Charley on the sofa.
Ash’s lip curled. ‘Ha ha! We’d soon know if you were replaced. The bass playing would be better!’
‘Dissed!’ The drummer laughed, punching the bassist’s arm at Ash’s joke.
Kay silenced them with a glare. ‘According to the doctor, Pete has a history of mental health issues, usually kept in check with medication. But it appears he’s been forgetting to take his.’
‘Where’s Pete now?’ asked Charley.
‘He’s being held in a secure psychiatric clinic,’ Kay replied. She turned to Ash. ‘The question is, do you want to press charges?’
Ash gazed through the window at the passing traffic. ‘Pete did me a favour. As my decoy, he gave me the space that I needed.’ Ash glanced fondly at Charley, who felt an unexpected flush rise in her cheeks. She still wore the white-gold bracelet he’d bought her in Las Vegas. ‘Besides, I wasn’t hurt badly. Let’s call it quits.’
Kay looked surprised. ‘That’s your final decision?’
Ash shrugged a yes. ‘He’s a super-fan, and they can all get a little crazy sometimes.’
‘Fine. I’ll let the clinic know, so he can be sent back to the UK.’ Her tone hardened. ‘But what I want to know is how a mentally disturbed fan was allowed backstage in the first place?’
Her eyes raked across Vince, Rick and Charley before settling on Big T. Just as she was about to rip into the veteran bodyguard, Ash cut in. ‘That was my idea,’ he admitted. ‘As I said, Pete made a great decoy.’
‘Still,’ said Kay, her glare returning to its original target, ‘it was Big T’s responsibility to security-check everyone on the tour.’
‘I did do a background check on Pete. It came up with nothing,’ said Big T.
‘Well, you obviously didn’t do it thoroughly enough,’ said Kay. ‘How could you miss –’
‘I got the same result when I ran a separate check,’ Charley interrupted, trying to take the heat off Big T as he’d so often done for her. ‘There’d been a huge database crash and Pete’s medical records were corrupted. From what was available, he appeared normal, aside from his obvious fixation on Ash.’ She held up a picture on her phone of a room wreathed from floor to ceiling in Ash Wild memorabilia. ‘Pete posted this online. As you can see, his bedroom’s a virtual shrine to Ash.’
‘Jeez, that guy is beyond a super-fan! It’s creepy,’ remarked the bassist. ‘He’s even got Ash Wild duvet covers! Now that is terrifying.’
Kay stabbed a gold-ringed finger at the photo. ‘Shouldn’t that have rung alarm bells?’
Charley winced at the sharpness of her tongue. ‘Like Big T, I was always suspicious of Pete, but his room isn’t any different from countless other fans’ bedrooms around the world.’
‘That may be so –’ Kay turned on Big T again – ‘but Pete was the second danger to slip through your fat fingers last night.’
The bodyguard puffed up his chest. ‘Kay, we all missed Brandon. Terry hired him! Even defended him, for heaven’s sake!’ The tour manager said nothing, but shrank into the sofa, hoping not to attract Kay’s wrath. ‘Brandon was a devious psychopath. He altered his appearance, faked his ID and credentials, and even fooled you for a while.’
‘It still amounts to a major oversight in secu
rity,’ snapped Kay. ‘You and I will revisit this issue at the end of the tour. In the meantime, please reassure me that it’s within your capability to keep Ash alive for the final two dates in LA.’
Big T bristled, but he kept his cool. ‘Yes,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Ash is safe as houses.’
‘Ash, five minutes to show time!’ called Terry, knocking on his dressing-room door at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.
Charley stood with Big T either side of the door, ready to escort Ash to the stage.
Security was super-tight. No one was allowed in or out without a pass and faces were being checked against computer records. The entire security team was on duty and in a state of heightened alert. Only an hour before Ash was due to perform, Kay had received a disturbing call from the San Franciscan police. Brandon Mills had escaped earlier that morning after the vehicle taking him to the courthouse was involved in an accident. An official manhunt was now under way.
On hearing the news, a heated argument broke out among the team whether to go ahead with the gig. But Ash had been adamant that he wouldn’t be terrorized into cancelling. These were the final two dates of his sell-out tour, his fans were waiting and he wouldn’t disappoint them. Terry had backed this decision, pointing out that Brandon’s pass had been confiscated. And, after repeated reassurances from Big T that his security could handle the threat, Kay had reluctantly agreed.
Terry glanced at his watch impatiently. ‘Ash?’ he called. He was about to knock again when the door opened and Ash emerged, shades on and stage ready.
‘You all right?’ asked Terry.
‘Yeah,’ replied Ash, his voice still hoarse from the fire. ‘Just a little nervous, that’s all.’
‘No need to be,’ said Charley, offering him an encouraging smile even though she was as tense as a wire. ‘You’re safe as houses.’
Bodyguard: Target Page 27
