Chapter 15

 

Elle

 

It was twelve hours from the time we left Tucson until we arrived in Los Angeles.  The reason for the five-hour delay was because Levi and I made several stops on our road trip from Tucson.  Our stops weren’t just to fill up the car with gas either. 

Nope.

We made the most of our journey and thoroughly enjoyed it.  We made stops in multiple towns along the way and did some sight-seeing, shopping, and even some light hiking.  Well, I did the shopping.  Levi?  Not so much.  The hiking was more his idea and I decided that a compromise was in order considering he did this for me.  My time alone with Levi brought me a bit of inspiration, so I pulled out my notebook several times along the way and jotted a few words down.  

Being such an active person, I thought the ride in the car would have made him crazy, but if it did, he never allowed it to show.  When it came down to it, I noticed he was the most relaxed I’d seen him throughout the entire tour.  Initially, I couldn’t figure out why, but then it dawned on me that he wasn’t worried about me the way he had been from the minute he saw me sitting in his office that day a couple weeks ago.  With the last-minute decision to drive out to California instead of flying, he knew that if someone was stalking me to the level they had been, the road trip to LA wasn’t something they’d know about.  I think that it brought him a bit of comfort to know that he could relax and just enjoy spending the time with me.

Now, we were in California and had just checked in to our hotel suite.  I made a beeline for the shower while Levi made calls to Pierce, to let him know we were in town, and Cruz, to check in on things back home at the firm.

I had finished in the shower and was standing in my nightie drying my hair when Levi stepped inside the bathroom.  He was just staring at me, so I turned off the hairdryer and asked, “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head.  “Nothing at all, sunshine.  Just trying to let it sink in that you’re mine.”

“Everything ok at home?  The firm?” I questioned, wondering if there was something he wasn’t telling me.

He took three steps toward me and settled my mounting anxiety when he explained, “Yes.  I talked to Cruz about what happened last night.  The whole team was worried about you.  Dom had Deb rearrange his flight.  He’s flying out on the red-eye flight tonight and will be here first thing in the morning.  With the heightened attempts to contact you and approach you, we figure it’s better to have an extra person covering you.”

I guess that made sense.  “Ok.”

“I’m going to take a quick shower.  I’m wiped after today.  When I get out, will you be ready for bed?”

“Yeah,” I answered. 

Levi gave me a quick kiss on the lips before he moved to get in the shower.  I went back to drying my hair.  When I finished, I applied my lotion and walked out of the bathroom back into the bedroom.  While I waited for Levi to finish in the shower, I grabbed my phone and tapped out a quick text to Wes.  I didn’t like that I had unnecessarily worried him last night and thought it would go a long way if I checked in with him tonight.

Hey, bro!  Just wanted to let you know that Levi and I made it to LA.  I didn’t want you worrying.

Wes responded almost immediately.

I always worry about you, Elle.  Thanks for checking in, though.

Me: Well you can worry a little less.  Dom is taking the red-eye flight out tonight, so I’ll have an extra set of eyes on me for the remainder of the trip.

Wes: Good.  Dom’s a crazy motherfucker.  I’m glad he’ll be there.  Stay safe.

Me: I will.

I hadn’t posted on social media in a while, so I decided to check my accounts and give updates.

Holy cow.

As soon as I opened my Facebook account I was inundated with notifications.  Apparently, word of my debacle last night had spread like wild fire and my fans were concerned.  I wanted to set their minds at ease, but responding individually would have taken an eternity.  On that thought, I went live.  Within seconds, I had several thousand fans ‘tuning in’ to my live feed. 

I spoke into the camera.

“Hi guys!  First, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who reached out and expressed their concern for me over the incident that occurred last night.  I’m sorry I didn’t check in with all of you sooner, but I wanted to let you know that I’m ok.  You can see that I’ve got a couple of scrapes on my hands here and a bit of bruising on my neck, but otherwise, I’m physically ok.  I also wanted to let you all know that I’m currently in LA and I’m so excited to be performing here tomorrow evening.”

I watched as hundreds of my fans asked questions or expressed their love for me.  So many of them had been so worried about me and it made my heart feel so full that people who didn’t even know me personally felt so deeply for me. 

Levi stepped out of the bathroom in nothing but a pair of sweats that rested low on his hips, just as I began answering a question that kept popping up from multiple fans, concerned about my security for the remainder of the tour.

“I appreciate all of the well wishes, love, and support from each and every one of you.  There is no need to be worried about me.  I have an amazing security team, led by my boyfriend, Levi.  They’ll have extra eyes on me for the remainder of the tour and I feel completely safe under their protection.”

More questions filtered across the screen.  The focus shifted from my well-being to my mention of a boyfriend.  My fans wanted details.

I looked to Levi and gave him eyes that pleaded with him.  I kept him out of view of the camera and explained to him, “My fans want to know all about my boyfriend.  I don’t think they should know all about you, but would you mind saying hello.”

He shook his head and gave me a smirk before walking over to sit next to me on the bed.  My heart exploded when he came into view of the camera and said, “Hello.”

The comments went crazy.

Holy shit!  He’s hot!

Girl, you are so lucky.

Can we see the rest of him?

Comment after comment came through.  Levi watched and his eyes rounded.  I whispered, “They think you’re perfect, love.”

He looked to me, his eyes sparkling and intense, and whispered back, “I don’t hold a candle to you, sunshine.”

I nearly forgot I was streaming live.  I turned back to the camera and saw more comments.

Sunshine?  Did he just call her sunshine?  That’s the perfect name for her.

I’m swooning over here.

These two are #relationshipgoals.

Too turned on by Levi and not wanting to share him any longer, I spoke.

“Ok, friends, it’s time to go.  You now know Levi’s off the market, but maybe tomorrow I’ll get the two other guys on my security team to say hello.  They are both single.  Thank you again for all of your love and support.  I love you all to pieces.”

I ended my live session and set my phone on the bedside table.  My eyes came back to Levi and he announced, “We’re relationship goals, Elle.”

I laughed hearing him use the modern-day slang. “That’s because you’re hot and said nice things to me in front of them.”

“Whether they’re watching or not, I’m inclined to agree with what they said.”

My voice was quiet when I admitted, “Me too.”

“I know it’s been a long day, but I’m in the mood for some honey from you, sweetness.  Are you going to let me love you before we call it a night?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

With that, Levi snaked an arm around my waist, pulled me down in the bed, and came to hover over me.  Then, I gave him honey eyes and let him love me before we went to sleep. 

 

*****

 

Levi’s phone rang early the next morning.  I didn’t know what time it was, but we were still cuddled up in bed.  I was utterly exhausted and it was still dark in the room.  It was a ‘I’m in a hotel with room-darkening shades’ dark.  That was one of those things I loved about hotels, but also hated.  It was so deceiving.  

Levi was on his back; I was curled into his side.  His arm was wrapped around me.

He reached over to swipe his phone off the nightstand and answered, “Yeah?”

Within seconds, I felt his body tense.  He pulled his arm from around me and sat up in the bed. 

“Where did you get the lead?” he asked.

Silence as he waited for an answer. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

More silence.

“How sure are you?”

The silence stretched on for a long while this time.

“I’ll talk to her.  Dom and Pierce, too.  We’ll come up with something and I’ll let you know before we do anything.”

Levi waited for the caller on the other end of the line to finish speaking.

“Right.  I’ll be in touch later this morning.  Good work, Michaels.”

I watched as Levi dropped the phone from his ear and set the phone back on the nightstand.  He settled on his back again in the bed.

“What is it, Levi?  What did Trent find?” I asked quietly.

“It’s a woman.”

My brows pulled together at this statement.  Puzzled and looking for clarification, I pressed him for more information, “A woman?  What are you talking about?”

“Your stalker, Elle.  I think we all just naturally assumed to some degree that it was a man.  We were wrong because Trent is pretty convinced he’s found our target.  Turns out, it’s a woman.”

“Who is it?”

“Do you know anyone named Becky?”

I took a few moments to think.  I knew a lot of people.  Nobody close to me was named Becky, but it’s possible that I knew or had met someone with that name.

“I can’t recall anyone specifically.  What’s the last name?”

“Blunt.”

“Becky Blunt?” I scoffed.  I couldn’t help it.  That was the most ridiculous name I had ever heard of for a psychopath. 

“It’s not funny, sunshine.”

“I’m sorry, Levi.   It’s just…” I paused to regain my composure. 

When I got myself under control, I sat up, turned on the light next to the bed, and looked at Levi.

“You think someone named Becky Blunt is stalking me?  That name doesn’t sound very menacing.”

“I’m passing along the information I was given.  Trent is good; I have no reason to doubt him.”

“So, what makes Trent think that this woman is stalking me?”

“The live-streaming video session you did last night.  Apparently, he went through and saw the names of all the people who watched it.  Becky stuck out to him because it wasn’t a name that he went through when he searched any of your followers.  Evidently, she watched you last night, but she doesn’t even follow or like your page.”

“Ok.  I don’t understand how that translates into her being a stalker.  I mean, maybe she doesn’t want to actually follow the page for some other reason.  I highly doubt this means anything.”

“Elle?”

“What?”

“Trent went to her social media page.”

“And?”

“She’s your stalker.”

The tone of his voice and the way he said it sent a shiver through my body.  Suddenly, I didn’t think it was so funny.

“Tell me,” I urged him through a whisper, feeling my throat get tight.

“Every time you post something, she posts something nearly identical.  She never shows her face in her posts, but Trent says there is no denying that everything she posts is related to what you’ve posted.  He said that sometimes, you’ll post something and it’s not even an hour later when she does something remarkably similar.  There have been several instances of her copying verbatim what you’ve said.  Once or twice might lead us to believe it’s coincidental.  When it’s nearly every post, that tells us something else.”

“Which is?”

“She’s obsessed.”

Fuck.

Holy fuck.

Why?

Who was this?

“What are we going to do now?” I wondered.

Levi sat up in the bed and explained, “You need to get out of the nightie and put some clothes on.  I’m going to call Pierce and Dom.  When they get here, I’ll clarify what Trent needs us to do.”

“Ok,” I agreed.

With that, I got up and put some clothes on while Levi called the boys.  I moved to the bathroom, did my business, brushed my teeth, and made myself look half decent.  Levi threw on some clothes and I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. 

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.  I sat on the couch in the living room of the suite and opened Facebook while Levi opened the door.  I searched for Becky Blunt and went to her page.  As I scrolled through her feed, it was like I was reliving my own life.  I heard the guys walk back into the room, but I was too shocked at what I was seeing to look up from my phone.

Silence settled over the room as I’m sure they took me in and realized I was about to lose my shit.

“Elle?” Levi called.

I looked up and saw them all looking at me with worried and concerned looks on their faces.  My breathing came quick, my teeth clenched together, and my leg was tapping ferociously on the floor. 

I stood. 

“This is the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever seen in my life!” I shouted.

Dom turned his head to Levi and asked, “What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” I seethed.  “Trent managed to figure out who the bitch is that’s obsessed with me and it seems she has absolutely nothing better to do with herself than to stalk my entire fucking life.”

“Elle, sunshine, calm down,” Levi pled. 

“Calm down?  How can I calm down, Levi?  I just scrolled through a few days’ worth of posts on her Facebook page and it was like reliving my own fucking life.  I didn’t think it was that bad when you told me about it this morning.  Seeing it?  That’s something completely different.  There are instances where entire sentences or questions I’ve asked in my posts are copied in hers, only hours after I’ve posted them.  Who is this psychotic?  And why?  Why would someone spend their time doing this?”

“Levi?” Pierce called.

Figuring that speaking to me was likely not a good option at this moment in time, Levi brought Pierce and Dom up to speed.

“So, what’s the plan?” Dom asked.

“Yeah,” I started.  “That’s an excellent question.  I’d love to know what the plan is.”

“Trent is digging, trying to figure out who this is and where they are from.  From there, we’ll have a better idea on how to proceed.  In the meantime, he needs Elle to be as active as possible on her social media accounts.  We need to build up evidence of the obsession.  We’ll have, at minimum, the police report from Tucson.  In addition, we have all the notes Elle’s received.  If we can show just how deep Becky’s fixation on Elle is, it’ll only strengthen the case against her.”

Pierce piped up.  “I realize we want to get as much evidence against this Becky character as we can, but wouldn’t it also speed up the process if Elle just made the accounts private and blocked the bitch?  Someone who is this neurotic isn’t going to be able to handle not knowing what’s happening in Elle’s world.  She’d have to find another way and it could bring her out quicker.”

“Elle can’t,” Dom explained.  “At least, not on all social media platforms.” 

My head shifted and I looked at him.

“Certain platforms will allow you to block specific people from seeing what you post.  Others don’t give that option when it’s a business page.  So on Facebook, for example, if Elle wants to continue having a page that promotes what she does, she’s unable to prevent an individual from seeing it.  The only way she’d be able to block her would be if this Becky chick actually interacted on the page.  Even then, I don’t believe it would prevent Becky from seeing it; I’m pretty sure she just wouldn’t be able to interact on the page anymore. From what Levi just told us, Trent said she’s not even someone who has liked or followed the Facebook page.  She just likely consistently watches it to keep tabs on Elle.”

“This is outrageous,” I ranted.  “I don’t even understand why someone would do this.  I mean, you’d have to have no mind of your own for you to try and live vicariously through another person.  When you find her, don’t forget what you promised me, Levi.  I want five minutes with her and I want to know why.”

He nodded his head and reassured me, “Already told you if I could make that happen for you, I would.”

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.  I had been awake for not even a full hour yet and I was already exhausted.

When I opened my eyes again, I looked at the three concerned men in front of me and quietly said, “This is my life.”

“I’m not following you, Elle,” Dom informed me.

“Social media is what it is.  I wasn’t very thrilled with the idea of it initially, but I’ve seen how much my fans appreciate that communication from me.  It’s their way to have that connection to me.  Doing this tour has confirmed what I already knew would be the case, which is that I prefer the small, hometown feel.  I’m not planning to do this touring stuff on a regular basis.  It’s just not what I’m into, nor it is what I want as a regular thing in my life.  That said, my fans have come to these sold-out shows just to watch me perform.  These people are so supportive of me and they are very important to me.  What she’s doing is simply attempting to make a mockery of my chosen career path.  I didn’t even have enough time to go through everything on her page and, to be honest, I don’t really care to do that.  However, to do what she’s doing in the way she’s doing it by copying every single thing I do and trying to spin it as something significant in her own life is distasteful, fake, and arrogant all wrapped up into one.”

“I get the distasteful and fake,” Pierce chimed in.  “But why do you get arrogance out of this?”

I explained, “As I said, I’ve only scrolled through and seen a few posts, but if she isn’t copying exactly what I say she’s attempting to diminish what I’ve posted.  It’s like she believes, for whatever reason, that she’s better than me.  For example, the first stop on the tour was in Denver.  Levi and I did some sightseeing and I snapped a few photos.  I ended up posting one to my Facebook account.  In the text of that post, I spoke about the beauty of Denver and a specific location we visited.  She ended up posting something about an hour after I made that post with a picture of some place she’s been.  She went on to not only talk about how great the place she visited was, but she also goes so far as to mention Denver in the post and attempts to diminish the beauty of Denver.  I mean, seriously?  The only way you can feel good about where you’ve been is to talk badly about the places I’ve been?  It’s like an ‘anything you can do I can do better’ mentality.  I can’t wait to meet this egotistical, conceited, and shameless piece of work.”

“Got it,” Pierce admitted nervously.  “Didn’t mean to get you any more riled up.”

I gave him an apologetic look and sighed.  “I’m sorry.  I think I need food.  Can we go have breakfast?”

Pierce and Dom chuckled.

Levi visibly relaxed and said, “Yeah, Elle.  We’ll go have breakfast.  After, I’m taking you for the biggest bag of potato chips I can find.”

I smiled at him before walking over and wrapping my arms around him.  He hugged me and pressed a kiss to my head.

Then, the four of us made our way out to have breakfast.