“You don’t believe that, and neither do I.”
Danni tried to muster a smile, but this wasn’t the time to get into it with another set to perform.
“We can talk about it later. Go get your shower. Dom Perignon can’t block your stink.” Another reality of touring with a band. Sweaty rock stars looked good on stage, but up close, they reeked.
“Sure, Mom.”
Her friends would think she was insane if they found out she was mothering Rolling Stone’s hottest musician, Alex Hardy, instead of getting down and dirty with him. Maybe she really hadn’t recovered from Jax’s betrayal. It had been over a year. She’d stopped loving him, but not what he represented.
Danni leaned back in the seat and listened to the sound of the shower. She could join Alex in the shower and prove that she was over her Jax’s cheating ways and that she was free. Unfortunately, a naked Alex didn’t conjure one fantasy of soaping his hard body…but a damn Scandinavian twin with an irreverent sense of humor and raw hunger in his bright eyes had her brain spinning and her body tensing.
Danni was lost in a fantasy of Lars begging. It was one of her favorite fantasies—kneeling in the shower, her lips around him, making the macho marine beg.
“What the fuck?”
Danni rushed to the bathroom door, which stood open. Alex, bare-chested with his jeans half-open, held a T-shirt.
“What’s wrong?”
“What the fuck?”
“Did the wardrobe person not iron it?”
She had never seen him lose it over something so trivial as a T-shirt. The pressure of the stalker was getting to him. Maybe it was time to stop touring—take a break like Frank had recommended—despite how much she hated agreeing with Frank.
Alex stretched the T-shirt between his hands. Exactly like the threatening notes, the T-shirt had bold red calligraphy surrounded with red blotches resembling blood. The difference was the stalker’s canvas was now a T-shirt. Unlike the previous three letters’ threat, “March 2006” was in the center of the blood splotches on the shirt. The stalker had taken a great deal of time and care to construct the artistically awful T-shirt.
A thousand icy pinpricks jabbed at her skin.
The stalker had invaded Alex’s space again under Danni’s watch. And this time, the assault was more personal. The stalker had touched his belongings.
The only way the stalker was able to gain access to Alex had to be due to a breach in his security. But Alex would never accept that Frank was complicit with the stalker or possibly even was the stalker.
Danni led Alex to a chair, then poured him a glass of water. Alex needed to pull it together since he had to perform in less than twenty minutes. “You need to hydrate.”
Alex drank the water in one gulp. “I’m so fucking tired of the invasion. And tired of being paranoid about everyone around me.”
Danni dropped into the chair across from him. “This is a real clue. We can figure out what happened in March 2006. This is a good thing.”
“Oh, sure, a good thing.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I have no idea what March 2006 means. Who remembers what they did eighteen years ago?”
Had Frank placed the shirt after the wardrobe person set up Alex’s clothes? To be fair to Frank, the wardrobe person did the setup way in advance of Alex’s arrival at the venue, giving anyone who was backstage time to leave the shirt.
“We need to have Frank look into the wardrobe person—run a background check. And check the security tapes.” Since Frank wasn’t privy to Danni’s role as Alex’s personal bodyguard, Danni couldn’t tell him what to do. Not that testosterone-swaggering Frank would listen to her anyway. Now she was glad that Frank didn’t know her role, since she planned on upping her surveillance on him.
Alex leaned back in the chair, stretching his legs out.
“You know, you’re amazing. I know you said no to sex, but, Danni, I don’t know what I would do without you. I’d really like us to be more than friends.”
Despite her dual PhDs, she might never understand men. “Let’s focus. You would’ve been eighteen years old in 2006. Someone from your past? An old girlfriend before you became famous?”
Alex gulped the water. An obvious shudder went through his body. “I had a girlfriend my freshmen year in Providence, but she died after I dropped out. I got my first recording deal January 2006, and they wanted me to start touring at semester break, so I guess I left college in March.”
“You left school. Can you remember where you were touring in March? Maybe a fan you hooked up with?”
Alex stared at her. “You’re kidding, right? Like I would remember. It’s pretty much a blur. I was all over the place. Milwaukee? Cleveland, Dayton, Scranton. Who knows? And who remembers the roadies?” Alex stood. “I need to get dressed. Frank will get on this. He’ll need to file another police report.”
Danni turned the T-shirt inside out and read the label. She’d call Reeves. This was a custom T-shirt, and if anyone could trace the manufacturer, Reeves could. And if the stalker had ordered the shirt online, Reeves would be able to track the order and possibly discover the identity of the stalker.
She’d never give up until the stalker was caught. Still on leave from her work with Jordan Dean, she had the time to devote her skills to solving a crime and the time to figure out what she wanted to do next with her life once the stalker was behind bars. She wasn’t sure she’d return to the research lab. Being held prisoner and forced to do her life-saving research for criminals made a girl reevaluate her life’s purpose.
Trouble was, she kept getting distracted by someone who promised to complicate her life whichever choice she made.
She’d figured she’d be logical about her choice, but that plan got thrown out of the window whenever her mind flicked to
