Four
By the time Sahara went to bed that night, she was comfortable with the new lines and mentally immersing herself back into the role. She was a little sad, a little bit afraid and definitely uncertain what tomorrow would bring, but it felt good to be resuming normal activities.
When her alarm went off the next morning at four o’clock, she had just enough time to shower and dress for the day before the car would arrive to take her to the set.
While she was getting ready to leave, the bomber was in the parking lot of The Magnolia watching the video feed inside the elevator car from a remote control camera, waiting to hit a button and blow her to kingdom come.
Oblivious to the impending danger, Sahara moved through the penthouse with comparative ease, opting to wear some loose terry-cloth slippers to work. Adam had just called to let her know her car arrived, so she headed out the door wearing gym clothes and a lightweight zip-front hoodie. She was carrying a small purse barely big enough for credit cards, her phone in one hand and her coffee in the other as she punched in the code to send for the elevator.
And up it went.
When the bomber saw the doors open and his target step onto the elevator, he grinned. He didn’t waste any time. He took a quick breath and detonated the bomb.
But Sahara had realized she’d forgotten the pages with all of her notes and comments for the day’s shoot and had jumped out of the elevator with her key card in hand before the doors had closed. She was already running back across the hall to get them.
She was three steps from her door when the bomb went off. It blew the elevator doors into the hall only feet from where she was standing, immediately filling the hall with flying debris and a cloud of white billowing dust.
The impact knocked her to her knees and sent the key card sailing out of her hand. She was down on all fours screaming and crying for help when she heard the elevator car fall. It slid down the shaft in a horrible screech of metal against metal, and the faster it fell, the louder the screech until it was a constant, unending scream.
Sahara had lost her sense of direction in the thick, billowing dust and smoke, and all she could hear was that shriek as she frantically crawled from one side of the hall to the other, screaming for help, trying to orient herself with where she was. When she finally felt the ornate carving on her front door, she scrambled to her feet.
The light in the hall was off, leaving her in solid darkness. When she finally felt the keypad, she sobbed with relief as she began trying to key in her code. But the feeling was short-lived, because the floor began shaking beneath her feet. The car had become its own missile, rocketing down the shaft until it passed the ground floor and smashed into the basement in a second explosive blast, filling the shaft with even more smoke and debris.
Out in the parking lot, the bomber drove away convinced he had succeeded, and while most of the other tenants thought it was an earthquake, Sahara feared it was no accident. She was ninety-nine percent sure that a second attempt had just been made on her life.
When she finally made it back into the penthouse, she locked herself inside and then sank to her knees, sobbing. Too weak to stand, she fumbled for her phone, then groaned when she realized it was somewhere in the hall, and she wasn’t going back into that choking smoke.
Slowly, she struggled back to her feet and then stumbled to the nearest bathroom, desperate to get the grit and dust from her face and eyes. Once she could see, she ran through the rooms to get to her bedroom suite, locked the door and then ran for the house phone at the end of the wet bar.
Her heart was hammering so loud she could barely think, and her hands were shaking as she called the lobby, waiting for the dear and familiar sound of Adam’s voice.
* * *
The lobby downstairs was in chaos.
Certain Sahara had gone down with that elevator car, Adam was already in tears as he dialed 911.
The driver who’d been waiting for her heard the commotion and ran inside, only to find out the woman he was supposed to pick up was inside the elevator that had crashed. In a panic, he called his boss, who immediately called Harold Warner.
* * *
Harold had business to tend to all over the city this morning and had hired a car so he could work as he traveled from appointment to appointment.
He was making a notation of a dinner meeting the day after tomorrow when his cell phone rang. He hit Save to his Notes and answered the call.
“Harold Warner.”
“Mr. Warner, this is Lou from Hollywood Limo.”
“Yeah, hello, Lou. What’s up? No problem picking up Miss Travis, I presume?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but my driver just called and said that while he was waiting for Miss Travis to come down, there was an explosion inside The Magnolia, and that the penthouse elevator came down and...crashed with her in it. I knew you needed to know. I’m so sorry to be the bearer of such news.”
Harold froze. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“No! Oh my God, no!” he cried, then hung up on the limo service and called the phone in the lobby of Sahara’s building. It rang and rang, but no one answered. He hit the intercom and buzzed the driver.
“Get me to The Magnolia as fast as you can.”
“Yes, sir,” the driver said, and immediately turned them around and headed in the direction of the well-known building.
Harold was in shock. For a few moments, he couldn’t think what to do or who to call and then realized he needed to let the director know his star wasn’t going to make it to the set this morning—or any morning.
* * *
Adam had Fire and Rescue coming in the front door and the Hollywood PD outside directing traffic, plus he was fielding calls from all of the other residents of the building while trying not to break down completely at the loss of one of his favorite residents. He was a grown man who wore a weapon to work every day. He had been hired to do a job—keeping the residents of The Magnolia safe and seeing that their privacy stayed intact. But he’d known Sahara Travis for years and liked her as a person. Knowing that she’d died on his watch was tearing him up. He’d just watched a team of firefighters heading up the stairs floor by floor to escort any reluctant residents down while another crew was making its way down to the basement.
Behind him, the phone began to ring again. He sighed, blinking back tears as he reached to answer, then froze.
Seeing her name on the caller ID was like a message from the grave. His hands were shaking as he lifted the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Adam, it’s me.”
Adam let out a shriek. “Lord have mercy! Oh sweet Jesus! Sweet Jesus! You are alive!”
She started crying all over again. “Yes, but by the grace of God. I forgot something and went back to get it. The elevator is empty. Tell rescue I’m alive but stranded up here. And please call the LAPD and ask for Detective Shaw. Tell him someone just tried to kill me again. I need to find a way to get out of here. I can smell smoke, and I don’t want to survive all this to end up dying in a fire.”
* * *
Harold Warner’s driver pulled up a full block away from The Magnolia.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Warner, but police have the streets blocked off down there. I can’t get you any closer.”
Harold’s heart was pounding. He was about to walk into a truth he didn’t want to face.
“Yes, okay. Just pull into this parking lot and wait. I have to get down there.”
“Yes, sir,” the driver said, and turned into the parking lot and killed the engine.
Harold got out, mopping the sweat from his face as he started down the street at a swift pace. He’d been thinking about Sahara ever since he’d gotten the call, remembering the first time he’d seen her. She’d come into his office, a little-known actress with two indie movies to her credit and seeking a manager. Before the meeting was over, he’d not only taken her on but felt like he’d been the one applying for representation. She’d grilled him about his education and even asked to see his résumé—she’d wanted to know what he could do for her that she couldn’t do for herself. He’d initially laughed at her audacity and then realized she was serious and he needed to be. Twelve years later, their story and the success of their working relationship was an industry fairy tale.
A police car came rolling up on the street beside him and honked at him to move over, yanking him back to reality. He turned and glared at the cop who was driving, then kept on moving. He was already walking on the sidewalk. The cop could keep his ass and the cruiser in the street.
Harold swiped his handkerchief across his cheeks to dry the tears that were streaming down his face. His chest hurt. He couldn’t believe she was gone.
Police were everywhere, rescue and fire trucks maneuvered their way closer to the building as residents were slowly being ushered out. The crowd was already gathering, most curious gossip-seekers uncertain about what was happening, but wanting to be in on whatever bloody details they could see.
He got stopped at one checkpoint, identified himself to the cops as Sahara Travis’s manager and was allowed to pass. Once he got closer, another cop escorted him into the lobby.
He choked up again when he saw Adam, and then all of a sudden the ex-linebacker picked him up in his arms, laughing.
“She’s alive, man! She’s alive!”
Harold gasped. “What are you saying?” he asked, as Adam put him back down.
“She just called down here! She was in the elevator, then realized she forgot something and jumped out at the last minute to go get it. The elevator fell without her in it! She’s trapped in the penthouse, though. Police are organizing a rooftop rescue right now.”
“Oh my God! Oh my God,” Harold muttered. “You talked to her? This is for sure?”
“Yes, I said—she just called! What’s happening right now?”
“Detective Shaw is outside somewhere. You’ll have to talk to him. That’s all I know.”
Harold couldn’t believe what was happening. He’d already buried her in his mind, but, just like in the movies, she was alive again.
* * *
Sahara stayed on the landline inside the penthouse until Fire and Rescue had given her instructions on how her removal from the scene would go, and all the while her apartment continued to fill with smoke. She didn’t know if the fire was spreading or contained for now within the elevator shaft, but she wasn’t waiting around to find out. Following the orders she’d been given, she ran through the penthouse and took the stairs leading up to the roof.
The sun was a blast of white heat as she pushed the door open. It was like running out into a natural spotlight she could have done without. The streets below were gridlocked from the crowd and the rescue vehicles. The wind whipped her hair into her face and tugged at her clothing as she ran toward the helipad at the far end of the roof.
Seen from the crowd below, her rescue was like a scene from one of her movies, and the crowd was riveted by the sight of the famous actress running through the billowing smoke coming through the roof vents toward a landing helicopter.
The second the skids touched down, a man leaned out, grabbed her outstretched arms and swooped her up into the chopper. A cheer went up from the crowd as the helicopter lifted off and quickly flew away.
Sahara looked back once and then covered her face with her hands, her body trembling uncontrollably. One man threw a blanket around her shoulders while another handed her a bottle of water. She took a big drink and then used part of it on her face. The heat and smoke were still burning her eyes.
An EMT was taking her blood pressure and pulse while the other EMT, who happened to be a female, reached out and took Sahara’s hands and just held them.
It took Sahara a few minutes to get past the noise inside the open cabin to realize the danger was over, but when she took a breath, she choked from emotion and relief. Someone squeezed her fingers. Sahara looked up into the darkest, kindest eyes she’d ever seen and took comfort in the woman’s calm, steady gaze. Slowly, slowly, the shaking stopped. She began to realize she had these people to thank for her life, and did so, one by one.
They smiled as they gave her a thumbs-up, then one of them pulled the blanket tighter around her chin and scooted her up against his chest for more stability. It was like being buckled into a car seat, and the security she felt in the EMT’s arms lulled her into a sense of safety that abruptly ended when the chopper landed and he released his hold on her.
Once more, she was transferred to another set of strangers. And again, she had to trust they had her best interests at heart.
* * *
Bubba was furious, then frustrated, then in disbelief when he learned Sahara Travis was still alive. But he knew something she didn’t know. She was going to be on her way to New Orleans soon, which would complicate everything. So he paced the room, cursing his failures until he’d given himself a headache, then sat down and made himself focus. He wanted to take her out before she left LA, but how could he make that happen?
And then it hit him. Her plane. The private jet. It would mean one more bomb to build, but this time they’d be in the air before it went off and she’d have nowhere to go to escape.
He called the bomber, relayed his displeasure with the failure and then gave him further instructions.
“And don’t fucking fail me this time! Do you hear?”
“I hear you, but I didn’t fail. She got on that elevator, and I pushed the button. Who the hell could have predicted that she’d jump out at the last second?”
“Whatever, I don’t need your excuses. This time, do what you have to do. Understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
* * *
Sahara was in the ER when Harold arrived. He pushed past a nurse in the doorway and went straight to the bed where Sahara was lying and took her in his arms.
“I thought you were dead. The entire drive over to The Magnolia I thought you were dead. Sweet Mother Mary, Jesus and Joseph...you are a miracle,” he said, hugging her and patting her over and over again.
“What are you saying? You’re Jewish,” she muttered, wrapped her arms around his neck and burst into tears.
“Well, you’re not, and I thought it best to thank your people first,” Harold said, and blew his nose.
“Excuse me, sir,” the nurse said, as she moved him aside.
“I won’t leave you alone,” Harold said when Sahara began to look anxious again.
“I’m not hurt,” Sahara said. “All of this is just dust from the explosion in the shaft. Nothing actually hit me.”
“You’re still getting the whole run-through, so settle back and deal with it,” he said.
“I have no place to live. I don’t know who wants me dead. I feel like a target on a gun range. What’s happening, Harold? Why is this happening?”
“Don’t know yet, honey, but we will. You will not spend another day alone until this danger is behind you.”
“I’m not moving in with you,” she muttered.
“Of course you’re not. But I have a bodyguard on the way over here. He’s an ex‒Army Ranger, and he’ll make sure you’re safe until we get this lunatic behind bars.”
“A bodyguard?”
The whine in her voice made him frown.
“After all of this, what did you expect?”
“I didn’t think it through,” she said, fiddling at the dust that kept falling out of her hair and onto the hospital gown and trying to brush it away.
Harold eyed the nurse who was trying to dodge Sahara’s fidgets as she struggled to get her blood pressure taken.
“Sahara, just be still and let the nurse do her job. I’m going to sit in that chair. Trust that I will not let anyone get close enough to hurt you again.”
She leaned back and gave in to the prodding and pulling, the lab tech taking blood, the X-ray machine that came and went.
“What happened to your foot?” a nurse asked, as she removed the dirty gauze around it, cleaned the burn and replaced the bandages.
“Burned it with hot coffee,” she said. “I’ve had a doctor—Chris Barrett—who’s been treating it.”
“Good man,” the nurse said, tossing the gauze in the trash, then cleaning Sahara’s foot and replacing the bandage.
An hour passed and then another. They were well into the third hour, and Sahara had finally calmed down enough that she was dozing and waiting to be discharged when she heard Harold shuffling around and then talking. Eyes still closed, she assumed he was on the phone thanking someone for taking the job on short notice, until she heard a man’s deep rumbling voice in reply.
“Happy to help,” he said.
She opened her eyes to see a giant of a man standing between her and the door, and she blinked again. Was he real?
As if sensing he was being watched, he turned toward her. She flashed on warm tan skin, thick dark hair and eyes the color of coal before he nodded politely and resumed his conversation with Harold.
Well...hello to you, too, whatever your name is.
Harold promptly filled in that blank.
“Sahara, this is Brendan McQueen. He will be your bodyguard until the person responsible for trying to kill you is caught. Brendan, meet Sahara Travis. I’m depending on you to keep her safe.”
As Brendan moved to the side of her bed, Sahara felt his gaze take note of everything about her within two or three seconds, including her filthy hair, the hospital gown and the bandaged foot, before he shifted it straight to her face.
“Sorry to meet you under these circumstances, Miss Travis. Know that from this moment until I am released from duty, I will be standing between you and trouble. I am pledging my life to keep you safe, so I ask only a few small things from you in return.”
“And those are?” she asked.
“That you never lie to me about anything and never leave my sight.”
She frowned. “You’re not coming into a bathroom with me, buddy.”
“I don’t have buddies, but you can call me Brendan. If you don’t want me in a bathroom with you, then I’ll make sure you’re the only one in it, because if you go into a public bathroom with multiple stalls, rest assured I will be standing inside that room until you are ready to exit.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she knew this was for her own good.
“Deal. Do we sleep together, too?”
His face remained stoic, ignoring her attitude.
“No, Miss Travis. I’m good with the floor.”
“You can call me Sahara,” she said, and then shifted her focus to her manager. “Harold, we need to talk.”
“What about?”
“The movie. I need you to get me out of the role. There’s no way to keep other people safe while someone’s after me, and I don’t want another Moira on my conscience. If I hadn’t told Lucy to meet me on set this morning, she would have made sure I had my pages when she picked me up, and we would have been in the elevator together—and on adjoining tables in the morgue by now.”
Harold flinched. “You’re going to lose a lot of money.”
Sahara glared. “I already have too much money, and none of it is worth a life, so I’m going to pretend I did not hear you say that.”
Harold flushed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It was the businessman in me. I’ll tend to it immediately. But what are you going to do? Where do you intend to go?”
She pointed at the bodyguard. “Ask him where a safe place would be. I’m open to anything.”
Brendan frowned. “Let’s backtrack. Who’s Lucy?”
“My personal assistant,” Sahara said.
“Where is she? Why isn’t she here?” he asked.
As if on cue, Lucy came flying into the exam room, her hair in tangles, a coffee stain on the front of her blouse, a bloodstain on her elbow, another on the knee of her pants, and her purse clutched beneath her chin.
“Oh my God,” she wailed, heading straight for Sahara’s bedside when someone grabbed her by the back of her pants and stopped her in place. “Let me go!” she screamed.
“Who are you?” Brendan demanded.
“That’s Lucy! Turn her loose,” Sahara said.
Lucy lunged to Sahara’s side and began apologizing as she put her belongings onto the chair beside the bed.
“I was on set when word came that you were dead. All hell broke loose. Look at me. I look like I was run over by a pack of wolves. People were running amok, heading for their phones, turning on televisions, watching the director losing his mind. I ran to your trailer to get my stuff. I just couldn’t believe it was true and was going to go to The Magnolia to see for myself when someone knocked me down as he came running out of the trailer carrying one of your silk nightgowns. It’s probably for sale on eBay right now.”
Harold couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Why was there so much chaos?” Sahara asked.
Lucy shrugged. “Oh, you know. Everyone figured they’d try to sell their story about working with you on your last movie to the media. I heard some idiot on the phone with TMZ, another was calling Entertainment Tonight...someone was calling the National Enquirer. Those money-hungry bastards.”
Sahara hid her shock and was glad she’d already made the decision to quit the movie. She wouldn’t be able to go back without wondering who had tried to profit from news of her death.
“Are you okay?” Sahara asked. “Your elbow is bleeding a little and so is your knee. Sit down and I’ll call a nurse. You need some first aid.”
“I’m all right. I just can’t get over all this. First the poisoned food and now this! It’s for sure God’s will that you are still alive,” Lucy said.
Harold belatedly introduced Lucy and Brendan.
“Lucy, this is Brendan McQueen. He’s Sahara’s new bodyguard. Brendan, Lucy Benton, Sahara’s personal assistant.”
“We’ve met,” Lucy snapped.
Brendan didn’t respond.
Sahara rang for a nurse, who soon had Lucy’s scrapes cleaned just minutes before Sahara’s discharge papers arrived.
“So you really can’t get back into the penthouse?” Lucy asked.
Sahara shook her head and turned away, not wanting any of them to see her tears. But Brendan saw them and filed away the knowledge that she wasn’t nearly as tough as she pretended to be.
“You’ll need clothes,” Lucy said. “Give me an address, and I’ll go get the essentials and have them to you before dinner.”
“I don’t have an address,” Sahara said.
Brendan handed Lucy his card. “You go shop and text me when you’re finished. I’ll send you an address, which I trust you will not share.”
Lucy took the card and turned her back to him. She didn’t like him—she was used to being the person who took care of Sahara, whom she relied on, and this guy had jumped in and taken her place. She put a hand on Sahara’s shoulder.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” Lucy asked.
“There’s no need,” Brendan said.
“Yes, I’d like that,” Sahara said, ignoring her new bodyguard. “If I keep you close, then I’ll know you aren’t being targeted in an effort to get to me.”
“I’ll bring a suitcase when I come,” Lucy said.
“You’ll have to buy new luggage for me, too. Everything I own is in that death trap,” Sahara muttered.
“I’ll take care of it. And I’m going to assume you want comfort and low-key in your wardrobe?”
“You know me.”
“Then I’m out of here, and thank you for the first aid.” Impulsively, she leaned down and kissed Sahara’s forehead. “I’m so grateful you are alive.” The affection surprised both of them, but it wasn’t unwelcome.
She gathered up her purse and left, limping as she went.
Brendan gave Sahara a wary look but stepped aside as a nurse came in with discharge papers. Twenty minutes later Sahara was buckled up in the front seat of his black Hummer, waving goodbye to Harold as they drove away from the ER entrance.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“A hotel for tonight. I have access to a remote cabin up in the mountains. Easy to see if anyone comes or goes, and it’s teched out with radar and satellite security systems. It has an indoor pool, a full gym in the basement and a screening room for movies should the urge occur. We’ll go there tomorrow.”
Sahara sighed. One place was as good as another until the police figured out who was doing this. She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.
Brendan navigated traffic smoothly while keeping an eye on his passenger, who seemed to have fallen asleep. So when she suddenly spoke, it startled him.
“This is so awful,” she said quietly.
He heard so much in her voice, but most of all regret.
“Have you ever been stalked before?” he asked.
“Sort of. But no one was ever hurt like this. I can’t quit thinking about Moira.”
“Was she the woman who died on set?”
Sahara nodded. “In my trailer. She was twenty-four years old—worked in wardrobe and had a crush on one of the grips. He didn’t even know it.”
He glanced at her again as he braked for a red light. She was crying—a quiet grief he would not have expected from someone with a diva reputation. He was beginning to wonder if that reputation was all hype.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
“Do you have any tissues?” she asked.
He pointed to the glove box.
She found some individual tissue packs, pulled one from the packet to wipe her eyes and then blow her nose. A few minutes later he moved into an exit lane and turned off the street and up the drive into a chain motel.
“A Motel 6? Are you serious?” she asked.
“It is not Motel 6, but it is the last place anyone would expect a star like you to be in, and it’s only for one night. Sit tight and don’t move. No one can see inside, so they won’t know you’re here.”
“Don’t forget to get an adjoining room for Lucy,” she said.
“I forget nothing,” he said. “I’ll be locking you in, so don’t fiddle with anything or you’ll set off the security alarm.”
He got out without waiting for an answer and strode toward the office.
Sahara watched in spite of herself. He had a nice tan and was certainly good-looking, which meant nothing in a city full of pretty people, but she liked the set of his jaw and the straight line of his nose. And his eyes. Despite the gruff tone in his voice, he had kind eyes. His head was bare, as were his arms in deference to the heat of a California summer. His stride was long and his shoulders almost as wide as the door he entered.
Once he disappeared inside, she glanced at the interior of the Hummer and crossed her arms across her breasts, making sure she didn’t bump anything that would earn his ire, and swallowed past the lump in her throat.