by Julia London
Audrey smiled at Jack. “No,” she said. “He’s . . .” She seemed to have trouble explaining him. “He’s my—”
“Bodyguard,” Jack said.
Audrey laughed. “Well I was going to say friend,” she said, “but okay, bodyguard.” And with another laugh, she leaned down, still looking at Jack, and whispered something into Katie’s ear. Katie was instantly giggling and turned to tell the girl sitting next to her.
“Great,” Jack drawled to the woman standing next to him. “Even at the age of eight, females have the ability to make me squirm.”
They stayed for three hours; Jack had to force Audrey to come away. He was loath to do it, but they were running out of time. She hugged all the girls good-bye, thanked their parents again, and finally, with Jack’s hand on her arm, walked outside—and right into the arms of Lucas and the media coverage.
“Lucas!” she exclaimed as two television reporters put mics in her face.
“Your generosity needs to be seen by the world, baby,” he said, and kissed her on the mouth.
“Miss LaRue! Can we speak to you about your foundation?”
“Ah . . . sure,” she said, glancing nervously back at the blue-trimmed bungalow from which they had just emerged.
“It’s okay,” Lucas said, and gripped her hand tightly. “I cleared it with Katie’s dad.” And with that, he turned around, so that he and Audrey were facing the cameras together.
It wasn’t long before the house had emptied and all the girls were swirling around, trying to be in the camera shot with Audrey. As Jack watched Lucas bundle Audrey into the town car he’d arrived in a few minutes earlier, leaving Jack to the Taurus, he figured that Lucas, in a snit, had figured out a way to get some of that much-needed Audrey LaRue fairy dust today after all.
He had to hand it to Bonner—he’d even managed to sneak in a reference to his own CD, which would debut next week. To the world at large, it looked as if Audrey LaRue and Lucas Bonner had set up the Songbird Foundation to help girls get into music.
How magnanimous of the pair. What a lovely couple they made.
He drove back to Atlantic City alone, fuming.
Jack didn’t get a chance to talk to Audrey again that day, but he did speak to Lucas. Or rather, Lucas spoke to him.
“You pull a stunt like that again, and I’ll kill you,” Lucas said heatedly in the corridors around the stage.
Jack grinned and looked Lucas up and down. “If you think you can, big shot, bring it on.”
Of course, Lucas backed off, but not without telling Jack what he thought of him, which went in one ear and out the other.
It wasn’t until the rush before the show—they were late getting started because of a lighting malfunction—that Jack saw Audrey across a large, crowded reception room. She was dressed in black leggings, heels, and a studded leather bra, and had her hair piled high on her head. She caught his eye and smiled, and mouthed the words Thank you.
Funny how those two little words and that smile calmed the fury in him.
For the time being.
AUDREY PAYS A SURPRISE VISIT
(Celebrity Insider Magazine) Audrey LaRue is determined that young girls with talent and who are interested in learning music will have access to music education and lessons. She has set up the Songbird Foundation, which awards scholarships to girls with promise and desire but without the resources necessary to improve their talents. On Friday, boyfriend Lucas Bonner (Speeding to Hell, August) surprised Audrey with a visit to one of her scholarship students, Katie Parmer. They enjoyed a morning of music, games, and cake. As a result of her surprise visit, and the reports that followed, the foundation reports applications for funding are up thirty percent. Insiders say Audrey can sing, but she is a loser when it comes to playing LocoRoco with a group of 8-10-year-old girls. Rock on, Audrey!
Audrey Late for Tour Date!
(Famous Lifestyles) Insiders are rumbling about what’s going on with Audrey LaRue’s Frantic tour after Audrey showed up late to a performance in Atlantic City recently. Handlers say Audrey is exhausted from the grueling tour schedules, but a personal friend tells Famous Lifestyles that Audrey was late returning from a party in a nearby town. “Audrey can’t handle the pressure of touring,” the friend says. “She tends to drink when she is stressed, and lately, she’s been stressed a lot.” The source reports that Lucas Bonner, an aspiring rock artist and Audrey’s longtime boyfriend, is concerned about her and is monitoring the situation closely. (Reps for LaRue and Bonner deny the story.)
Fifteen
The Audrey LaRue entourage was in high spirits when they moved on to Baltimore and Washington, D.C., after two very successful shows in Atlantic City. With the changes to the set list, everyone was happy, the show was really streamlined, and Lucas’s CD had opened to a decent start.
Everyone was happy except Audrey, who had received a lot of “We’re on it” responses from law enforcement about the letters. But even more stressing was getting news about trouble at home.
Granted, there was always trouble at home, but Audrey was usually spared the daily drama because of her job and notoriety. Her family called when they needed money, and even then, they usually put Gail up to it. Allen, her brother, the freckle-faced tagalong who had grown into a man with a horrendous substance abuse problem, called every once in a while to assure her he was doing great.
Audrey had no doubt in those instances on the phone he was great—but it never lasted. Gail would call a few days later and tell her that Allen had screwed up again.
The grip of his addiction was impossible to break—even monthlong stints Audrey had put him through in some of the best treatment facilities in the United States couldn’t seem to break him of the desire to abuse his body and spirit. She worried that Allen just didn’t have the strength of character to stop.
He promised her he did. He promised her each time that he was done with drugs, that he was going to stay clean. And just like he always did, Allen relapsed at the worst possible moment. He’d gone missing right when she’d started out on the tour, but he’d surfaced a few days later—again, like he always did—a little beat up but relatively unscathed. His probation officer, Farrah Jakes, told Allen and the family in no uncertain terms that if he pulled a stunt like that again, she would throw him in jail for violating the terms of his probation.
So once again, Allen had tried to walk the straight and narrow and had almost succeeded.
Until recently.
Until just about the time they hit Atlantic City, which was when Gail and Mom started calling, telling Audrey she needed to do something, that Allen was out of control.
“What can I do?” Audrey demanded of her sister. “I’m in Atlantic City. I am on a nationwide tour. I have a huge responsibility to a lot of people, so I am not sure what I can do to help him now.”
“Great,” Gail said curtly. “Thanks a lot. Leave all the family shit to me.”
“I’m not leaving it to you, Gail, but I don’t know what I can do. Do you think I should cancel my tour and come home because Allen has relapsed again?”
“No, but I think you could do something. Can’t you get him into that rehab place again? What is it, Hazeltown?”
“Hazelden,” Audrey said. “He’s been there twice now. Do you really think a third time will magically do it?”’
“Just call them and talk to them,” Gail urged her. “And then maybe you can come down one weekend and talk to Allen.”
It was a never-ending battle. Audrey’s family seemed to think she should drop everything—in spite of the countless number of livelihoods that depended on her—and rush home every time Allen was teetering on the brink of ruin, even though Allen had been teetering on the brink of ruin for two decades. If she had run home every time there was a close call, she would never have achieved what she had.
At least that’s what Lucas kept telling her. “Forget him, baby. He’s a loser.”
“That’s my baby brother you are talking about,
” Audrey said. “He’s not a loser. He’s really a good guy—he just can’t seem to get his shit together.”
“That’s because he doesn’t want to,” Lucas said. “He feeds off the drama.”
His dismissal of Allen angered her. “That’s just stupid, Lucas. Of course he wants to do better. But he lacks the skill or whatever it is that makes normal people say no to drugs.”
Lucas had given her a very condescending smile and patted her on the shoulder like she lacked the skills to understand a loser when she saw one. “Don’t let that bullshit get in your head, baby. We’ve done half of this tour and things are going great. Just shut that noise out until we land in L.A., and then you can send them more money and clear everything up. All right?”
It was a callous thing to say . . . but it was also true. They wanted her money. They wanted her to send Allen away so they didn’t have to deal with him. She couldn’t blame them—she wasn’t in Redhill, Texas, her hometown, like they were. She didn’t have to face the dysfunction every day.
Yet Audrey couldn’t turn it off like that. She remembered the chubby-faced kid who followed her everywhere, the one who thought she’d hung the moon. He was her little brother, the one she’d practically raised in those years after Mom and Dad had split up and they were bouncing from house to house.
There was good inside Allen. She just wanted to find the right person to help him rediscover himself. Her family didn’t seem interested in that anymore.
She tried to get Allen on the phone, but he avoided her—he knew what she was going to say. So Audrey continued on with the tour, trying to do what Lucas suggested and keep the noise from her head.
After the Baltimore show closed, the band took Audrey and Lucas to a club, where they jammed with local musicians. That was recorded in the papers Monday morning as they headed for Washington.
In Washington, Courtney found another letter addressed to Audrey. You are such a slut, Audrey, the madman wrote. How much longer should I let you live?
This time, the letter was delivered by a bellhop in a bouquet of flowers. The police were working on tracing the delivery and who might have had access to it, but as with the chocolates, the flowers were ordered on-line, and the delivery van left unattended in several locations before arriving at the hotel.
“These things are really hard to trace,” the cop said, just like the cops before him had told her.
“Weird,” said Rich, who gathered with the rest of the crew when the letter was discovered. “You’d think he’d be easy to catch. It’s almost like he’s stalking you. I wonder why he wants to harm you? I wonder what he thinks you did to him?”
“Rich,” Jack said with quiet warning. “Maybe now is not the time to voice your thoughts.”
Rich shrugged. “Maybe.” He shifted his gaze to Audrey again. “It just seems very odd to me.”
“Okay, pal,” Jack said. “Why don’t we give her some space?”
Jack didn’t have to do that—Rich hadn’t said anything Audrey hadn’t already thought of.
Only Jack could assure her, in that quiet way of his, that she was safe. There was something about the way he said it, something about the look in his eye and the set of his jaw, that made Audrey believe him. So she went on with the show in Washington on Tuesday night in confidence and did two encores.
The crowd always enlivened her, made her blood pump, made her feel invincible. So much so that when she was leaving the MCI Center that night, a large crowd had gathered at the exit to wait for her. Still riding a euphoric high from the show, she strode to the barriers the city had erected and reached for the notebook one young woman held out to her for an autograph.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Krista.”
“Are you into music?”
She didn’t hear Krista’s answer, didn’t hear anything but Krista’s angry “Hey!” at the very same moment someone grabbed Audrey’s arm with two hands and tried to yank her into the crowd.
The sick feeling of being grabbed filled Audrey with hysteria. But Jack was there instantly, coming between her and the man who tried to grab her. The only thing Audrey saw was her attacker’s cold black eyes before Jack dragged her away. Everyone was pushing and shoving—the crowd was yelling and barriers were going down. Jack moved her away from it all, his massive arms lifting her up and around and away from the crowd.
“Calm down,” he said. “Take a breath.”
“Jack! Oh, thank God! Was it him?” she asked frantically. “Is that the letter guy?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But the police have him.”
Audrey twisted in his arms, peering over his shoulder as two policemen manhandled the guy away from the crowd.
“It’s him,” she said frantically. “I know it was him! He was going to kill me.”
“He wasn’t going to do anything like that, sweet cheeks. We were right there—he never would have had a chance.” He tightened his embrace around her, two steel bands that felt unbreakable, and still, she trembled. “Now listen to me, Audrey. He doesn’t have you. He isn’t going to get anywhere near you. Right now, he is headed for a little R&R behind bars. Relax.”
“I’m okay,” she muttered into his shoulder.
“No you’re not—you’re shaking like you shake your booty during ‘Frantic.’ And while I am personally a huge fan of that particular number, you have no reason to shake like that now because I have you and no one is going to get near you. So stop before you make me do something stupid.”
She smiled into the hard wall of muscle that was his shoulder and lifted her gaze. “Like what?”
He smiled a little crookedly. “Use your imagination, girl.”
“Audrey! Jesus, what the hell?”
She felt a huge wave of disappointment as Lucas suddenly appeared from nowhere. Jack’s grip of her loosened, and with a murderous look, Lucas put his hand on Jack and shoved him.
“Hey, watch it,” Jack said coolly.
“Will you just step back and let me speak to my girlfriend?” Lucas snapped, and instantly turned toward Audrey. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know . . . I was signing autographs and somebody grabbed me—”
“Where the hell was your security?” he asked, flashing a menacing look at Jack.
“Right there, Lucas, they were right there. I—it was my fault. I went running over there to sign autographs and the guy grabbed me so fast.”
“From now on, I don’t want you to let her out of your sight for a moment!” he railed at Jack.
“Listen, Bonner—”
“He won’t!” Audrey said, her voice pleading. She looked at Jack, held his gaze. “He won’t leave my side, he promised.”
Lucas grumbled something about how he’d better not, and with an arm around her shoulders, he marched her to the tour bus.
In their hotel room, he tried to comfort her in his way, but his attention turned to groping, and Audrey pushed him away. “Come on, Lucas. I just had the scare of my life!”
“Turn a negative into a positive,” he said, his eyes on her breasts. “A little reconnection never hurt anyone who just had a scare.”
“Funny that this is the time you choose to reconnect. We’ve had sex once in three months, maybe longer, and that was a big grope under the stage.”
“And that is my fault? It’s not like you’re ever in the mood! You’re always tired or bitchy—”
“Bitchy? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Aud. You know how you can get after a long rehearsal or a show.”
“No, Lucas, how do I get?” she demanded.
“You can be a bit of a diva, okay? Not tonight, Lucas, I am so tired, or, turn out the light, I have a headache,” he said, mocking her voice. “Sound familiar?”
“Hey!” she exclaimed angrily. “I said that once. Most of the time, you’re jamming somewhere. It’s not like you’re in here with me.”
“Maybe that is because you hav
e an attitude.”
“Maybe the attitude is, I’m tired. It’s grueling being on tour.”
“Like I don’t know that? I’m on tour with you, remember?”
“You’re backstage somewhere, Lucas, but you aren’t the one performing!”
His eyes narrowed. “I would be if you would lighten up a little. I don’t care what your talent manager or the label says, Audrey. It wouldn’t hurt you to give me a couple of spots in your show.”
“Oh Jesus, here we go again,” she sighed, and fell into a chair. They’d had this argument more than once—yet they kept going around the same thing. It wasn’t Lucas’s show. It wasn’t even his style of music. To give up “one or two” spots on the concert list would be giving up one or two songs people had paid to hear her perform.
“No, we’re not going again,” he said, and swiped up a denim jacket.
“So where are you going?” she cried, panicky at the thought of being alone after that scare.
“Out,” he said, and let the door slam behind him.
Tears suddenly filled Audrey’s eyes. She grabbed a pillow, buried her face in it. She had never wanted this. She had never wanted to be afraid of strangers or to fight with Lucas, but that seemed to be all they did nowadays. When they were driving a Honda around Texas, they’d been happy. The moment she’d hit it big, something had changed, and it felt to her like it had been a steady downhill slide between them since then. She didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. She no longer knew how to get her thoughts and wants and feelings across to him.
There were so many little things that bugged her. Things that were beginning to add up to something big and weighty, and she didn’t know if she could live with it or not.
But she didn’t know if she could be alone anymore. And when had that happened? When had she become so dependent on everyone else for her happiness and well-being?
