Chapter Two
“Can you believe that guy?” I cried as soon as I was in Jasper’s truck. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”
Jasper climbed into the driver’s seat and slipped the key into the ignition. The engine rumbled to life. “Cari, listen…if—”
“I mean, the first words out of his mouth were practically ‘I think you paid someone to do it’! What is this, the blame-the-victim law? I suppose if I were to get gunned down in the street, it would be my fault for standing in the way of the bullet!”
“Cari—”
“I knew we should have gone over this guy’s head,” I fumed. “He’s nothing but a drunk, sloppy, id—”
“Cari!”
I turned to Jasper.
“He was testing you. That’s all.”
“He was testing me?”
Jasper nodded. “Testing you. Feeling you out. Poking and prodding to see what you know. I don’t think he believes any of those theories. He said as much himself.”
“Then why waste the time?”
“To see what you’d give him,” Jasper said. “To see what you’d blurt out without thinking.”
“Oh,” I said. “Do you think I gave him anything? I mean, you know it couldn’t have been me, but did I say anything to make him think it was?”
Jasper shook his head. “No. He’s probably suspicious, but I don’t think he has anything solid. He knows you’re defensive, though, from the way you reacted to that first idea he suggested.”
“So…what now?”
“I don’t think Sands knows who it is any more than we do,” Jasper sighed. “No, I think it was someone else. Someone close to you. I think you pissed someone off, and that someone is out for blood. You still have that card Sands gave you?”
As we turned out onto the road, I pulled out the small cardboard rectangle. “This one?” Jasper took it from me, rolled down the window, crumpled the card into a ball and tossed it outside. “What are you doing?” I looked out the back of the truck, watching the crushed paper tumble down the pavement and into a pile of leaves. “We might need that!”
“We don’t,” Jasper said. “Sands is no use to us. He’s got no leads, and if we need to call him, we have the emergency number. No, we’re going to have to figure this one out ourselves. Who have you pissed off recently?”
I propped my elbow on the edge of the door and my chin on my fist, watching Meadow Ridge pass by. Who had I pissed off? Nobody, at least not that I knew of. I got along with pretty much everyone, Daly being the one notable exception. “A fan, maybe?” I tossed out. “That could be it. Maybe it’s not so much who I’ve pissed off as who I’ve turned on.”
I pursed my lips. I couldn’t imagine anyone being that twisted up over me.
Jasper gave me a wicked glance. I scowled at him. “You know what I mean,” I said. “Maybe someone is obsessed with me. You know, one of those crazies.”
It wasn’t likely. Selena Gomez I was not.
“Have you gotten any weird mail? Emails? Notes stapled to your door, maybe written in blood?”
“Very funny,” I said with a sneer. “I’m serious. It’s been known to happen. But in answer to your question, no, I haven’t gotten any weird mail, at least no weirder than usual. Sure, the occasional request from a fan for a lock of my hair, or a video of me stepping on grapes, but nothing that I would consider alarming.” I sighed. “I don’t like this, Jasper. All this craziness is starting to freak me out.”
“Don’t be freaked out,” Jasper said. “You get freaked out, you get careless. You start making mistakes. The last thing we need is for you to start making mistakes.”
“I am freaked out,” I reiterated. “I can’t help it. There’s someone out there, and they’re after me, and I don’t know what to do. I feel so helpless. And I’m worried—you don’t know who this person is, either. What if they’re stronger than you? What if you can’t protect me?”
“Do you trust me?” Jasper asked curtly.
“Do I trust you?”
“Yeah. Do you trust me to keep you safe?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“It’s a yes or no question, Cari. Do you trust me to keep you safe?”
The question hung in the cab of the truck for a moment. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I trust you.”
“Good,” Jasper said. “Because I will. No matter what it takes. If they’re stronger than me, I’ll get stronger. If they’re smarter than me, I’ll get smarter. Whatever it takes, we’re going to figure out who’s doing this and put an end to it.”
I opened my mouth to speak but silenced the thought before it emerged. Jasper was right. I was feeling a hundred different things all at the same time. Fear, love, passion—they were all intertwined right now, and the knot was only getting tighter as time progressed. There would come a time when this was all over, hopefully with me alive and well, when something was going to have to give. I was going to have to stop being in love, or in lust, and stop being afraid. But right now, my insides were a rat’s nest, and removing one emotion was probably going to damage the others wound up with it.
“We’re not returning to the shoot today,” Jasper said, after a lengthy pause.
“What do you mean?” I frowned. “Of course we are.”
“I mean it’s dangerous there. You’re going back to the room. Sands was right. You need to get organized, and relax.”
“No.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “No. We’re going to the shoot. I’m tired of being told what to do.”
“Cari, listen—”
“No, you listen,” I said. “I’m tired of hiding and living my life like there’s a great, big storm cloud over my head, waiting to strike me with a bolt of lightning if I walk outside. We’re going to take the upper hand. I have an idea.”
Leaving his right hand on the wheel, Jasper leaned back in the seat and rubbed his forehead with his left. “What’s your idea?”
“I’m going to go back to the shoot, just like we planned. Maybe the person doing this will be there. Maybe, by putting myself in the open, he’ll expose himself. Then you can move in for the kill.”
“Or,” Jasper said. “You’ll be killed, and whoever does it will get away. Or, hell, maybe they won’t. It won’t matter, though, will it? Because you’ll already be dead.”
“You said you could protect me,” I said.
“I meant—”
“That you’d get stronger if you had to, and smarter if you had to.”
“That’s the key word here,” Jasper said tersely. “Smarter. Going out in the open? Parading around with a great, big bull’s-eye on your forehead saying ‘hey, take a shot at me’? That’s stupidity. That’s unnecessary risk. If we’re smart about it, I can keep you safe. I can’t exactly protect you from being hit by a car if you’re dancing in the middle of a four-lane highway.”
“Well, that’s what I’ll do,” I said, letting my hand rest on the door handle. “I won’t be dancing in a four-lane highway, but I swear I’m going back to the shoot today, even if it means walking. Pull over up here, and let me out.”
“Cari, I’m not letting you out.”
“I said let me out!”
“Enough!” The veins on Jasper’s head looked like they were fit to burst. “Take your hand off the damn handle. I’ll take you back to the shoot. Try not to fall out of the car on the way.”
“Good,” I said, crossing my arms. “You’re going to find that this was a fantastic idea. We’re going to draw out whoever is after me, and they’re going to do something stupid, and you’re going to be right there waiting for them to screw up. That’s the plan, and it’s going to work. In fact, maybe we should think about some details.” I turned to Jasper again to see him playing with his phone, his gaze darting back and forth from the road ahead to the texts on his screen. “Who are you texting?”
“Nobody,” Jasper grunted.
“I mean it, who are you texting?”
Jasper tapped the screen of his phone one final time and shoved it into his pocket. “Nobody, all right? See, no texts.”
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just focus on what we’re doing,” I said. “And let’s get to the dig. I’ll be damned if I’ll let whoever is behind this put us even further behind schedule.”