Guarding Hearts (Living Again #3)

by L. L. Collins

  “Well, actually, that’s why I’m calling. There’s a change in plans.”

  “That’s crazy,” Andrew responded after Ellis told him what had happened the night before. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and Ellis was nursing another cup of coffee. He wouldn’t rest until they saw those tapes. They were still waiting. “So there’s nothing so far?”

  “Nothing,” Ellis said. “We’re waiting on tapes from the hotel manager, who wasn’t here overnight. That should give us more information than anything else. The police have shaken down the entire floor, checked her room, nothing. Whoever this is, they’re good at covering their tracks.”

  Sam had woken up and was now sitting next to him, clutching his hand. For such a small hand, it sure was strong. She hadn’t said much of anything, looking up at him every once and a while with her big, watery brown eyes. Her parents were alternating between pacing, talking to detectives, and making phone calls.

  “Stay as long as you need to,” Andrew said. “We’ll be fine. Let me know if we can do anything to help you.”

  Samuel came in and indicated for Ellis to join him. “Thanks. I have to go, Andrew. I’ll keep you updated.” Sam stood as he did, still holding his hand.

  “Stay here, Samantha,” Samuel ordered, indicating for Brian to stay with her. “I need Ellis for a few minutes.”

  Ellis turned to Sam when she still didn’t let go of his hand. “It’s okay, Sammi,” he whispered so just she could hear. She smiled slightly at the use of his nickname for her. “Nothing will happen to you.”

  Sam’s eyes left his and scanned the room. He could feel her shaking, and he hated it.

  “I’ll be right back.” Ellis nodded at Brian, and he came over to Sam.

  Ellis followed Samuel into the hallway. “The manager is here and wants us to go look at the video. The detectives are already down there with him.”

  “I hope to God that bastard is on those tapes,” Ellis growled.

  “I can’t see how he couldn’t be,” Samuel said. “There are cameras everywhere in here. Even if he was disguised, this has to be the trip up that we need to find him. They will plaster his face all over the country. This shit stops here.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I don’t understand,” the manager shook his head, looking back at the screens.

  “You don’t understand?” Ellis wanted to punch something. “How do recordings of a few hours of time just disappear?”

  The manager, Jose Rodriguez, looked back at Ellis, then Samuel and the detectives. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, we know,” one of the detectives, a mid-thirties guy named Spencer, spoke up. “Someone tampered with them. I need a record of all of the people that were working last night, as well as their personnel files. If any of them have as much as a speeding ticket, we’re going to interrogate them.”

  “We aren’t going to find out who this was, are we?” Samuel asked.

  “We’re going to do everything we can,” Spencer answered. Ellis couldn’t talk for fear of losing control.

  “So let me get this straight,” Ellis seethed. “We have a guy, presumably, that walked into a hotel, into an elevator, and somehow got into someone else’s hotel room, yet we have no idea who that person could’ve been. He had every intention of doing something to Samantha Kerrigan. From our estimations, he probably was going to take her with him. So, he had to have had a plan or someone to help him. Yet, no one in this hotel saw anything out of the ordinary, and we have nothing to go on at all.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Samuel agreed. “Mr. Rodriguez, if we have to interrogate every member of your staff, we will do it.”

  “I will cooperate with anything you need in order to find out what happened, Mr. Kerrigan.”

  Ellis, Samuel, and the two detectives left the room and walked to the elevator bank. Ellis scanned the area. The elevators were right out in the open, and the only way he could’ve gotten in was the front entrance, where any number of people could’ve seen him. He had to figure out who it was, and how the guy was smart enough to make a few hours of time completely disappear from the video system. He wouldn’t rest until Sam was safe again. This asshole was going to get her over his dead body.

  He watched them scurrying around the hotel like rats, looking for him. They would never find him, because he was smarter than them. Looking at himself in the rear view mirror, he smiled. No one would recognize him. He looked just like one of them. Getting access to the room and the tapes had been as easy as flashing his fake detective badge. These idiots at the hotel would never know he wasn’t actually one of the fleabags running around the hotel trying to find him.

  ‘Sammi’ would be his. He hated that that cop Ellis called her that. She wasn’t some little girl, she was a beautiful woman. He would treat her right once she was with him. His plan was coming together. He would’ve had her tonight if it wasn’t for him. Ellis Warner. He was going to have to be taught a lesson. But that’s okay, he would wait. She was worth it. They were soulmates, and it was only a matter of time before they’d be together. Forever.

  Sam paced back and forth, waiting for Ellis and her dad to come back. She thought back to the night before, when she and Ellis had been right here in this room. She closed her eyes as she thought about the way he touched her, the way he looked at her like she was the only person on the planet.

  She wished she could be back there right now, lying on the very bed that she was pacing in front of, losing herself in Ellis. It had been the most magical hour of her life, the time she had spent in here. She had finally gotten him to tear down one of the walls he kept up around himself. If she hadn’t been brave enough to come into his room last night, she had no idea where she would be right now. Would this crazy wacko just have taken her with him? Drugged her? Or worse, killed her?

  An uncontrollable shudder took over as she thought about what might’ve happened. Ellis saved her life. Not in the way he was hired to do, but by allowing her to be in his room, she hadn’t been in hers. She had no idea if she would ever feel safe again.

  “Samantha,” her mom called from the couch. The very couch that she and Ellis had been on mere hours ago. “Come sit down, honey. Your dad and the team will take care of everything. Please stop worrying.”

  “Stop worrying, Mom? Really? How can I do that? Someone is either trying to kill me, or kidnap me! Tell me, how am I supposed to stop worrying?”

  “Honey, I know. I’m just trying to help.”

  “The only thing that can help right now is for them to come back in that door and tell me they know who this is and are going to arrest him right now.”

  The door swung open and she jumped. Realizing it was Ellis and her dad, she felt relief spread through her. “What did the video show? Do you have any idea who it is?”

  Ellis and her dad exchanged a look, and her stomach dropped. “Sam,” Ellis began, taking hold of her hands. “The videos were erased.”

  “Erased?” Her mind wasn’t understanding what he was saying.

  “Whoever this is, they’re very smart, Sam,” her dad interjected.

  “So we have no idea who is doing this still?”

  “We’re not giving up,” Ellis said. “We’re working with the hotel to find out what happened.”

  “Are we leaving here today?”

  “You don’t have any choice,” her dad answered. “You have a show tonight in Georgia before we head to South Carolina tomorrow. We’ve got to get on the road now if we have any chance of making it.”

  Sam shook her head. “I can’t do a show tonight.”

  “You can’t cancel the show, Samantha. Not only is that horrible to do to your fans, then you’re also telling this idiot that you’re afraid. That’s what people like this want, honey. He wants to make you so terrified that you stop doing what you love.”

  “Well, it’s worked. I’m terrified. I can’t fathom going out on a stage and performing, knowing that I was mere feet away from this freak last night and somethi
ng horrible could’ve happened.”

  “But it didn’t,” Ellis stepped up. “And it isn’t going to, not on our watch. We’ve made some security changes. For the rest of the tour, you won’t have a room by yourself. If we aren’t staying in the tour bus, either Brian or I will be with you at all times.”

  Sam looked up at Ellis, and despite the seriousness of the circumstance, she couldn’t help but be over the moon. Brian wouldn’t be staying with her, and everyone in the room knew it. Last night was part one of convincing Ellis that he could be in a relationship with her, and she was now entering part two.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” Lacey shouted, causing Sam to pull the phone away from her ear. “Ohmigod, Sam. I’m shaking! Thank God you weren’t in your room! Wait, where did you say you were?”

  Sam laughed, despite her fear. She was pacing in her dressing room, minutes away from taking the stage. She hadn’t even had time to rehearse in the arena today, only getting here with enough time to get ready for the show. “I was in Ellis’ room.”

  “You. Were. In. Ellis’. Room?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said.”

  “And what in the world were you doing there?”

  “Well…”

  “Samantha Kerrigan! You didn’t!”

  “Well, no, not that. But, we were rather involved.”

  “So are you two an item now?”

  Sam sighed, looking at herself in the mirror. She looked the part, and she knew it. But she surely didn’t feel the part. “No. I don’t know what we are. He’s determined to keep saying that he’s not good for me. He won’t tell me anything about himself except he’s not a good guy.”

  “Hmmm, he can be bad with me anytime,” Lacey joked, and they both laughed. “Well, you know as your best friend I’m going to tell you to be careful. It seems that you’re already pretty attached to him.”

  “I know,” Sam admitted. “When he goes home, I’m going to be crushed. I doubt he will keep in touch with me, Lace.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Lacey said. “I haven’t met him yet, but it sure seems like he’s dedicated to you.”

  “I’m a job,” Sam said, verbalizing her fears for the first time out loud. “That’s what he’s dedicated to.”

  “Don’t let anyone make you feel second rate, Sam. If he doesn’t see you for who you are, then let him go. If you learned anything from the situation with Gage, let it be that you don’t take anything less than the best.”

  A knock on her door made her jump. “Showtime!” Ellis shouted through the door.

  “I have to go,” Sam said. “Showtime.”

  “Go knock it out of the park, Super Star Sam,” Lacey joked. “I love you, and I miss you so much. I can’t wait until you get home. How much longer?”

  “A week. I can’t wait, either. I’ve had enough of all of this craziness.”

  Opening the door, she put on her best show smile. Ellis smiled back at her, offering his arm. She had toned down her outfit tonight, still wearing a sexy red dress, but not nearly as provocative as the one in Florida. She had paired it with a jean jacket and a pair of brown boots. Her hair was up in a playful ponytail. It was the best she could do with the time she had.

  “You look beautiful,” Ellis said into her ear as they walked. She shivered as his words registered.

  “Thank you,” Sam said, trying to smile but failing. She had no idea how she was going to do this tonight.

  “We checked the whole perimeter,” Ellis said, reading her mind. “No one is getting back here tonight. We doubled security, and everyone is being checked as they come in.”

  Sam nodded. “Thank you.” Brian had stayed in Florida to work with the detectives there, but Sam refused to go anywhere without Ellis. Brian would rejoin them tomorrow or the day after, depending on if they found anything on this guy.

  They reached the part of the stage where he would let her go and she would go on herself, so she let go of his arm. “Sammi?”

  She closed her eyes briefly. He knew what saying that did to her. She didn’t turn around. “Yes?”

  “I’m right here, the whole time. Knock ‘em dead.” He pulled her back a little so her back was resting against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing a kiss to her cheek. She turned her head slightly so she could see him, and when she did, he kissed her lips. She sucked in a breath, his gentle kiss igniting her insides and taking her back to the previous night. “I’m thinking about it, too.” She swore that he read her mind. “The vision of you lying in my bed last night is burned in my memory forever.”

  She blushed, closing her eyes at the memory. He was being so bold tonight, she couldn’t believe it. “Me too,” she whispered, turning in his arms. “Could we do it again?”

  Ellis laughed, giving her another soft kiss. “Get out there and do your thing, Sammi.” He gave her a gentle push and she walked out on the stage, her smile genuine this time.

  “So what’s going on with Ellis, Sam?” Jason asked. The three of them were sitting backstage after another fabulous show. She didn’t have any fans coming backstage this time, and she was very grateful for that.

  Luke looked at Jason, then at her. They had been her friends for as long as she could remember, and they knew her well. They hadn’t questioned her yet about the whole thing, but were very concerned about what was going on with this disturbed person after her. Luke was always the quiet one, letting Jason voice his opinion. They both looked at her like she was their sister.

  “Nothing really,” she answered truthfully. She really had no idea if anything was going on with them.

  Jason laughed. “Sam, I’ve known you a long time. I’ve seen you with him. And last night you were with him instead of in your own room? This isn’t like you. We’re just worried.”

  Luke nodded. “We don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  Sam looked at the door, knowing Ellis was probably right outside. She wondered if he could hear what they were saying. “Yes, I was with him. I would like there to be something with us, but I’m not sure what exactly is going to happen. The fact of the matter is, he lives in Florida and I live in Nashville. And as much as I like him, we really don’t know each other very well. So right now, while he’s here, I’m enjoying being around him, but that’s really all I can say right now.”

  “You aren’t a fling type girl,” Jason said. “So it’s just surprising that you are allowing yourself to be degraded like that.”

  “I’m not having a fling with him! It’s not like that!”

  “You have feelings for him,” Luke observed. “But, does he have feelings for you?”

  “It’s complicated,” Sam said, standing up. She loved both of them for being concerned, but she didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m exhausted and am going to call it a night. You guys want to ride with us to the hotel?”

  “No,” Luke said, standing up too. “We’ll get there a little later. I think we’re going to hit the town a bit, right, Jason?”

  Jason stood, his eyes still warily watching her. “Sam,” he started, coming closer. “Just be careful, okay? I know you are a grown woman and all that, but I don’t want to see you hurt. Be careful, okay?”

  The door opened and Ellis stood there, successfully making her drool. The man could look completely gorgeous in just about anything. Tonight he was wearing a dark pair of jeans that hugged him in all the right places, a snug gray tee shirt, and black boots.

  “Ready?” He looked over her to Jason and Luke, standing behind her. “Hey guys. You rocked it tonight, all of you. You want a ride to the hotel?”

  “No,” Jason answered. “We’re going to go out for a little bit. Thanks, man. Take care of Sam.”

  Sam knew there was double meaning in his words. Ellis nodded. “You got it. See you guys tomorrow. We roll out at six a.m.”

  They rode to the hotel in silence. There was an identical car in front of them and behind them, filled with the rest of the security team and the extra t
hey hired for the rest of her tour. She hadn’t even met some of them, but it didn’t matter.

  When they were almost there, Sam felt Ellis’ hand cover hers. She looked over at him, the shadows dancing over his features as they passed under street lights.

  “Are you okay? You’re being really quiet.” He rubbed her palm with his thumb, and she swore she felt it all the way through her body. His fingers touching her made her think of him doing that to her most sensitive areas, and she started squirming.

  “I’m okay,” she answered. “Just exhausted. I can’t wait to get some sleep.”

  Ellis stopped at a light and took his hand from hers, tracing her lips with his thumb. “We’re staying together tonight.” The way he said it made her tremble inside. Was that an invitation, or a statement of fact? She was afraid to ask.

  She nodded. “I know.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to you, Sammi. You believe me, right?”

  “Yes,” she breathed. It felt like all of the air was sucked out of the car with the way he was looking at her right now, like she was the only person on this earth. The traffic light shone on his eyes, and she couldn’t stop herself from taking her fingers and running them along his eyebrows, down his chiseled cheekbones, and to his full lips.

  A honk from behind them shook them both out of their reveries, and Ellis took his hand from her face and covered her hand with it again. They said nothing as he pulled into the hotel, parking the car right in the front. The other security would make sure the car got where it was supposed to be.

  “Stay here until I come around,” Ellis commanded. She watched as he walked around the car and opened her door, holding his hand out to get her. She looked around as she stepped out, but knew Ellis would’ve never let her out of the car if he hadn’t checked.

  They bypassed the check in counter and went directly to the elevator banks. She could tell Ellis was scanning the lobby and the hallway for anything out of the ordinary. She hated this feeling.