Purview of Flashbulbs (Alexis Parker Book 15)

by G. K. Parks

  “If you knew it was a harmless drone,” she gestured at the machine which looked rather sinister with its gleaming black metal legs, broken and askew, “you wouldn’t have forced me into cover. The only time Scar ever did that was when he thought there was an active shooter.” The color drained from her face. “You thought someone shot out my window.”

  “It crossed my mind, but you shouldn’t worry. You’re safe.” I said it to keep her calm, but I didn’t believe it. From the look on her face, she didn’t either.

  Thankfully, I was saved by Scaratilli and Cross storming into the room like two paratroopers on a black ops mission. Cross glanced in my direction, gave Dinah a brief apology, assured her Cross Security was on top of it, and surveyed the broken drone. He pulled a RF reader from his inner jacket pocket and scanned the device to make sure it wasn’t emitting a signal. The thing was dead as a doornail.

  “Nice shooting,” he said sarcastically to Scar. “My techs will take it from here.” Cross pulled me into the hallway and nodded at the two techs. “It’s on the table, gentlemen.” They entered, and while Dinah’s security team was occupied, he asked, “What the hell happened?”

  I gave him a rundown. “Once we know the distance for the remote control, we’ll need access to security footage. With any luck, the drone operator was caught on camera, and if not, a dozen paparazzi are outside filming everything. One of them must have seen something.”

  “Go talk to them. They’ve been on Dinah’s tail since her arrival. They’ve been outside the set, outside the hotel, and outside the club. It’s possible one of them knows who is stalking her. Get everyone’s name.” Cross reached into his pocket and pulled out a money clip. Peeling off two dozen hundred dollar bills, he handed me the cash. “Try to buy their memory cards. They take photos to get paid. It shouldn’t matter who pays for them.”

  “They stand to make a lot more by selling to the tabloids and internet sites.”

  “Then promise them more where this came from. You know how to be persuasive, and you know what to do if that fails. Now get to it.”

  I went downstairs, surprised to find hotel security had taken the liberty of placing the paparazzi inside one of the conference rooms. I couldn’t be certain they corralled all of them, but Scar must have overseen it. He wouldn’t let anyone slip away.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, entering the room, “how are you doing today? Did any of you get my good side?”

  A couple of them chuckled. They were used to being hassled and harassed. “Do you have a bad side?” one of them asked.

  “I do,” I smirked, “and you don’t want to get on it.”

  “Ooh, snap,” another one retorted.

  “Who are you?” another asked.

  “I’m someone who might just make those hours you spent standing outside this hotel worth it. First, let’s get the introductions out of the way, and we’ll take it from there.” I pointed to the one at the end of the table. “You first, sir.”

  By the end, Cross was $2400 in the hole and I was in possession of half a dozen memory cards. No one saw the drone operator. They didn’t notice the device until it came crashing down. Based on the camera gear slung around their necks and thrown over their shoulders, none of them was in possession of a telephoto lens. Their focus had been the front door, not the windows of the suite. It was also reasonable to assume they didn’t know if any of the actors were at the hotel. This group must have just stayed behind in the hopes of getting lucky.

  “What about Reaper?” the one known as Pat asked. “He’s always been a bit crazy. I bet he has a drone.”

  “Reaper? Is that his real name?” I asked.

  “No. It’s,” Pat’s brows scrunched, “fuck, what is his name?” Pat turned to the rest of the group, hoping someone could help him out.

  “Isn’t it Chaz something?” another replied.

  Pat shrugged. “Sorry, lady.”

  “When’s the last time any of you saw Reaper?” I asked.

  The group exchanged glances. “Um, I guess it was outside the club two nights ago. We got a tip everyone was going out to party, and twenty or twenty-five of us showed up, hoping to catch a glimpse. Reaper was one of the first ones there, but he left early. It was weird. It’s like he couldn’t wait to take some pictures, but he didn’t stick around long enough to get anything good.”

  “Okay, thanks for your time and the memory cards. If anyone remembers anything, please leave a message with the hotel, and we will get in touch. Like I said, any information will be handsomely rewarded.”

  “Exclusive photos?” one of them asked.

  I smiled. “I promise it will be worth your while.”

  As they walked out, I made a mental note about each of them. Since I entered the room, I’d scribbled down their descriptions, their names, and their alleged whereabouts at the time of Dinah’s previous threats. They all seemed outgoing and personable, which I imagined was a necessity in their line of work. They did this long enough to know how to get in and out of places without being seen or stopped. I greased their palms, but that didn’t mean they didn’t do plenty of greasing themselves. I couldn’t trust a word any of them said.

  Cross waited in the lobby, watching the group file out. He appeared to be a businessman playing with his phone, but he was taking photos of each of them in the event they lied about who they were or where they were. I collected business cards, but those were easy to fake. As the last of them staggered out under the watchful eye of hotel security, I made my way to Lucien.

  “Here.” I held out the memory cards, each in a separate envelope with the photographer’s name. “No one said they caught anything of value, but we can’t be too careful.”

  Cross took the envelopes and flipped through the names. “I’ll have these analyzed. The techs moved the drone back to the office. They’ve dealt with that particular model. It has a range of a hundred meters. HD video capabilities. It broadcasts the feed directly to the controller, but the techs are hoping something might be saved on the internal drive.”

  “So this wasn’t an attempt to video Dinah naked?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. We’ll know more once they get it opened up, but if that was the point, the operator wouldn’t have broken the window.”

  “Unless it was causing a glare.” A hundred meters was in the ballpark of three hundred feet. Dinah’s room was on the fifteenth floor; that was at least half the distance. Damn, this might be the first time I ever used trigonometry in real life to determine the angle and distance. My brain was already drawing triangles from her window outward when another thought invaded my mind. “He could be in a nearby building or on a roof, even this roof.”

  “I’m aware.” Cross looked outside and then back at the elevator. “Dinah’s being moved to a different floor.”

  “Good idea.”

  “However, she has another thought in mind.” From his tone, I knew I wouldn’t like it, but he didn’t give me a chance to protest. Instead, he took my elbow and steered me to the stairs. “While I’m here, we should make the most of it. According to the hotel footage, it took two minutes and fourteen seconds for Dinah’s security team to return to the stairwell after Scar evacuated Dinah to her room. Let’s see how much time it takes to get to the roof.” He glanced at me. “I’ll race you to the top.”

  We made repeated attempts, or at least I did. Cross was far too fond of maintaining an accurate time count and had zero desire to get sweat stains on his shirt, so he left me to run the stairs alone. At a full-out run, we reasoned it was possible someone could make it from the twelfth floor to the roof in the time allotted. He had to be in great shape or utilizing some kind of wicked vaulting technique. That would help narrow our suspect list; unfortunately, it didn’t rule out many of our known potentials.

  Twenty-one

  “Anything?” Dinah asked.

  Resisting the urge to look up from my desk, I said, “Not since you asked five minutes ago.”

  “It’s been more th
an five minutes.”

  I massaged the bridge of my nose. This was pointless. Dinah insisted on coming back to the office with me, saying it would be safer and less conspicuous than if she stayed in the hotel. Scaratilli agreed after being assured Cross would exercise the utmost care with the movie star’s safety, and since yours truly was stupid enough to dive on top of her when the glass shattered, she decided I would make an excellent temporary bodyguard.

  “Alex,” she whined, and I dragged my focus away from the computer screen and watched her flop lazily on the shorter end of my l-shaped sofa, “talk me through it. What do you think?”

  That I should have tossed her out the window after the drone. “Whoever launched the drone knew which suite was yours and was paying enough attention to know the window was made of tempered glass in the event it needed to be broken in an emergency.”

  I closed the search box I’d been using to research the paparazzi. They each had an assortment of charges, including trespassing and assault. Several had a handful of restraining orders and violations to said orders. While they might have technically been stalkers, I didn’t think any of them actually posed a physical threat to Dinah. They didn’t look like they could barrel up the hotel stairs fast enough. I’d done a search for Reaper, but with nothing to go on, I abandoned it. Cross was making some calls to see if he could track down the man, and I was happy to let him handle it.

  “But what are you thinking?” she asked.

  Rocking back in my chair, I propped my feet up on an opened drawer. “I want to know how the drone operator came to know these things. The hotel swears no one ever gave out your room assignment. Your security team is questioning the bellhops and maids to make sure no one talked, so unless one of them gave you up to an obsessed paparazzo with a drone, I think this is a waste of time.”

  “It’s someone from the film. If I’m correct in believing whoever’s stalking me is the same person who broke into my house in L.A., then it isn’t some local with a camera.”

  From the conviction in her voice, she had a theory. “Who is it? Who would do this to you?”

  “The only person I know who is obsessed enough to do something crazy is Lance, but he’s filming.”

  “Could he have hired someone? Maybe sent his assistant?”

  “Possibly.” She reached for her phone. “Let me find out what he’s been up to all day.”

  While she was distracted, I pulled out a pad of paper and went back to my theories. If this was an elaborate hoax, Dinah, Scar, and the rest of her staff were involved. That would explain everything, including the reason Scar shot down the drone. One of the security guards could have been remotely controlling it from the adjacent suite, and I would never know. It could also explain how they knew about the window and even made certain Dinah was given a room they could break into from the outside. But as I watched her nervously pace and speak animatedly, it became clear she wasn’t involved, or she was the world’s best actress. And I’d seen enough clips from her indie debut to know that wasn’t the case.

  I closed my eyes and tried to silence the voices in my head. What was my gut telling me? I took a deep breath. Dinah was convinced someone was out to get her, and it was the same person who terrorized her in Los Angeles.

  She hung up the phone. “Turns out Lance wasn’t feeling it today and changed the order in which the scenes are being shot. He spent most of the afternoon in his trailer.”

  “That would be easy enough to verify.” I hit the speaker button and phoned the security team at the front gate, asking for the visitor log. Within moments, I had my answer. “Turns out Lance went on a little field trip from one to three.”

  “It could have been him,” she said, a mix of triumph and confusion in her voice. “But why?”

  “Okay, let’s not jump to conclusions.” Now I felt like I was channeling Lucien. “Something’s been bothering me since this started. When you received the flowers, you seemed angry and annoyed. You didn’t seem frightened.”

  “I’m just tired of this bullshit. I’m tired of being objectified and bullied. That was the second flower delivery I received. They both had similar notes attached with no way of discerning where they came from or how they got there. It was more frustrating than scary. They were flowers, not bombs.”

  “A bomb could have just as easily been left.”

  She swallowed, the thought never occurred until I voiced it. “I didn’t think of that. I don’t think in those channels. Who the hell thinks like that,” she scowled, “besides you?” Before I could defend myself, she was up and moving around my office like a toddler on a sugar high. “I’m not going back to that hotel, and until we identify the actual culprit with a hundred percent certainty, I refuse to go back to Scar and the boys. You seem to think it could be Scar, so we need to make sure it isn’t.”

  “Dinah, it’s not Scar.”

  She put up a hand to silence me. “No. He didn’t listen in Los Angeles. He treated me like I was crazy, and I’m not crazy. This is serious. Someone wants to knife me or enjoys knifing my likeness. Now windows are being broken. What if the drone had a gun attached instead of a little hammer?”

  “Gun drones are mostly in movies.”

  “But they do exist.” She was on a tear, so I let her go. She was spinning and would tire out eventually. “Even now, I don’t believe Scar would risk jeopardizing me, but maybe he believes what they told him. And if he’s not helping, then he’s hurting.”

  “What are you going to do? You can’t exactly find that deep, dark hole and hide away. You’re in the middle of shooting a movie.”

  “True, but when I’m not on set, I can go off the grid.” Her eyes brightened. “I’ll just find someplace to stay that no one would ever suspect, and I’ll make sure the paps and the rest of the cast and crew think I’m still in my room.”

  “Where will you go?” I asked.

  She looked expectantly at me, but I kept my mouth shut. Cross mentioned she thought I should be her babysitter until we had a solid lead. That wasn’t something I wanted to do. I’d promised Martin I wasn’t hired to be her bodyguard; I wouldn’t let Lucien or Dinah make a liar out of me.

  “I know plenty of people here. Hell, I used to live here. Someone will put me up for a few nights.” She bit her lip and thought. Then she went to her phone and scrolled through her list of contacts. “It should be someone you’ve already ruled out.” She came closer and scanned the papers on my desk. “Where’s my phone log? The ones you didn’t highlight are clear, right?”

  I had no idea who she planned to call, but it better not be Martin. Over my dead body would I allow her to stay at his place. That wasn’t happening. I set my jaw. “You can’t be positive whoever you contact won’t leak your presence.”

  She thought for a moment and smiled. “Yes, I can. In fact, I know just the guy.”

  The NDA. Shit. “No. You can’t.” I relented, cursing my paranoia. She probably knew plenty of guys, and I was just being irrational. “I know a place where no one would ever think to look. It doesn’t have room service or housekeeping, and there might be mold on the stairs. But no one’s died there recently.”

  “You’re stashing me in the ghetto?”

  I laughed. “It depends on what Cross thinks. He’s in charge.”

  * * *

  Letting Dinah stay at my apartment was never something I planned. If jealousy hadn’t reared its ugly head and I hadn’t panicked at the prospect that she might ask Martin for a place to hide out, I never would have come up with such a ridiculous idea or given in to her ridiculous idea. Hopefully, she’d hate it and go running back to the hotel. The problem being she was more afraid of her stalker and not knowing who he was than a possible rat or cockroach sighting, even though my apartment didn’t have rats or cockroaches. But somehow, she’d gotten the idea in her head, and I didn’t bother to correct her.

  She looked around the room while I locked the door. “Is this one of Cross Security’s safe houses?” She went to the f
ire escape and looked out. “A sixth floor walk-up doesn’t seem particularly secure to me.”

  Ignoring her, I went into my bedroom to make sure nothing private was out in the open. Unlike most normal human beings, I kept my living space devoid of sentimental things. No matter how hard she looked, she wasn’t going to stumble across any framed family photos or pictures of Martin. I kept those things at our apartment since he was the far more civilized and human one in the relationship and enjoyed seeing proof that there was an us.

  I stuffed some clean laundry into my drawers, changed the sheets on my bed, and replaced the pillows with the crappy spares I kept in the closet, deciding I’d be damned if she had a good night’s sleep on my pillow. Then I went into the bathroom. Dinah didn’t pack when she left the hotel. She actually didn’t think this through. She just wanted to be away from the danger. I could relate to that kind of thinking, but unlike me and most federal agents, she didn’t have a go-bag packed and waiting.

  “Here,” I opened the drawer and pulled out a stash of hotel-provided toiletries from a few of my rendezvous with Martin and put them on the counter, “in case you need a toothbrush or something.”

  She entered the bathroom and looked at the items. Since Martin always picked ritzy places, the toiletries were rather nice, which was why I had nicked them. “I’m just now beginning to realize I didn’t plan this out very well.”

  “It’s not too late. I’ll give you a ride back. Your security team is on alert. They have a new room waiting.”

  “Maybe tomorrow. For now, I’d just like to wind down. Is that okay?”

  “Sure.” I went into my room and came back with an oversized t-shirt, yoga pants, and pajama shorts. “I’m not sure about size. They should fit, but the pants might be more like capris so you might want to go with the shorts.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine. I just want to take a bath and decompress. My energy fields are out of whack, probably from the shooting and the stress.”

  Energy fields. I resisted the urge to mock. “I’ll order dinner. Low-carb, gluten-free. Any other restrictions?”