“Really?” I almost ran right into the huge man standing just outside my bus door when I opened it after lunch. “Can you guys go lurk somewhere else?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. Orders.”

I huffed at him before slamming the door shut again. I couldn’t walk two feet without tripping over one of Mason’s G-men. I already regretted confiding in Kinsey about the crazy letters I kept receiving.

With their broad shoulders and tight butts, Mason’s guys would have made great eye candy except for their brooding, threatening demeanor. Dressed all in black with matching close-cropped haircuts, each with a curly cord leading up to one ear, they were almost indistinguishable from one another. None of them said much. They simply shadowed me everywhere I went, demanding to know where I was going and what I was doing every minute of every day. I’d had enough.

Gathering my courage, I squared my shoulders and opened the door again. This time, I walked down the steps and right past him. I’m in charge here.

“Miss Lane.” The man posted outside my trailer held up his right hand as his left hand touched his earpiece and he spoke quietly to someone on the other end.

“Out of my way. I need to talk to my drummer.” I dismissed him with the wave of my hand and strode across the gravel parking lot.

“Miss Lane!” He hurried after me, his heavy boots crunching on the rocks with every step. “You need to follow protocol. I need to know where you’re going. You need to wait while we clear the way.”

“That’s silly.” I laughed and shook my head. “There is nothing dangerous between here and the band’s bus.”

“You don’t know that, Miss Lane. That’s why we’re here.” He sighed, scrubbing his hand over his face as he walked next to me. I guess I was frustrating him. Well, he was frustrating me too. I was too busy to run every move I made by some stick-up-his-tight-butt ex-military giant. I needed the creativity my freedom afforded me. If I wanted to stand under the full-moon and twirl in circles while singing the words in my heart, I needed to be able to do it without prior security clearance. Otherwise, the music would never come.

I wished I had never confided in Kinsey. I hadn’t expected her husband to sic his bodyguards on the situation, effectively tying me up in a straightjacket of rules meant to curtail my every movement. I was sure everyone was overreacting to the break-in and the letters. Already feeling suffocated, I wasn’t about to admit I suspected someone had broken in the day before these guys stormed my bus.

Knock. Knock.

I rapped on the door to the guys’ vehicle and waited, impatiently tapping my foot on the bottom step.

“Hey, Maggie.” Elijah pushed open the door and held it so I could enter.

I smiled, walked into the living room, and thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have to share a bus with the guys. I loved them to death, but they were pigs. Compared to my spotless space, theirs was a sty. It was covered in dishes, dirty clothes, beer bottles, random instruments, and sheet music.

“Hey, Mags!” Dylan and Levi yelled from where they lay sprawled out on facing couches, fooling around with their guitars.

“Hey, guys.” I bit back a comment on the mess. “Did anyone pick up some sheet music I had backstage last night?” After a very late breakfast I had called Julie to see if she had found it in the rehearsal area or in my dressing room. I’d already gone through every drawer and cabinet in my bus. The latest song I had been writing was nowhere to be found.

The three of them looked at each other and then back and me, shaking their heads. “No,” Elijah said. “We didn’t see anything.”

“Well, crap.” I screwed up my face in frustration and surveyed their space with my hands on my hips. “Thanks, guys.” I turned to go but reconsidered and spun back around. “Everybody doing okay? Need anything?”

“Nah,” Eli said, dropping onto a bean bag chair. “We’re good… unless, of course, you have more beer. Levi here drank the last one.”

I raised an eyebrow at the abundant beer bottles scattered around. “Nope. I’d go bankrupt if I tried to keep you guys in beer. You’re on your own for that one.” I turned and grabbed the door handle. “I’ll see you guys at six for warm up.”

“Later!” Dylan called as they turned back to their instruments.

I left the trailer, and the hulk was there again. He dogged my every step as I crossed the twenty feet back to my own bus. I have to figure out how to get rid of these guys. Then I can get Julie to call back the old security team. They can handle this. Couldn’t they?

I couldn’t take it anymore. Mason’s goons followed me everywhere. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without a silent shadow falling into step behind me, checking the stall before I entered, and standing right outside until I was done. I wanted to scream, but then they would have come running.

Every night, I returned to my bus as soon as the show was over. I ate, slept, and left just long enough to sing, and then I’d go back to my bus and repeat the routine in the next city. If I wanted to go running, it took an act of congress and a second team to clear my route. I was allowed nothing spontaneous or creative. I loved singing outside at night with only the stars above me. That was how I did my best work, but I hadn’t been able to sing outside even once since this all started. Instead of being my safe haven, my bus was starting to feel like my prison.

Afraid things would get worse, I kept a folder hidden under my bathroom sink. It was stuffed full of letters and photographs I continued to find like Easter eggs around the trailer. No way was I showing anybody. God only knew the lengths these guards would go to for my protection.

I wasn’t cancelling this tour. I had a hard enough time making it in the cut-throat music business with my mediocre talent. Julie never let me forget that. I had no time for complications.

“Hey, Mags,” Julie called just outside my bus door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” I held it open for her to enter. “It’s so good to see a friendly, unarmed face.”

“You’re funny.” She chuckled, spinning and plopping down on the couch, stretching her arms along the back. “The boys and I are heading to a local sports bar to blow off some steam. You want to come?”

“Ugh, I can’t.” I flopped backwards on the carpet, lying spread-eagle, and stared up at the ceiling. “I’d love to, but the goon squad won’t let me. They say public spaces ‘can’t be controlled.’”

“Oh, come on! Don’t be a spoilsport.” She threw a pillow at me, and it bounced off my chest.

“Really, I can’t.” I rolled to face her with my chin propped up on my hands and my feet kicking behind me. “I won’t be paroled until they catch this guy.”

“Oh, fine.” She huffed and stood to go, but then stopped and spun on her heels to look at me, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Wait. What if we played a prank on them?” She tapped a finger on her lower lip and paced back and forth.

“What do you have in mind?” She’d caught my attention, and I sat up to focus.

Julie looked cautiously toward the door where my guard stood just outside. Then she knelt down to whisper in my ear. “What if we trick them?” She flicked her eyes at the door again as if she was afraid they could hear us.

I looked back at her, intrigued. Would they really fall for that? Could I pull it off? God, I wanted out of that gilded cage so badly. “I’m in.” I crawled on my knees, the student to the master. “What do we have to do?”

“Here.” She pulled her top over her head. “Swap clothes with me.”

“But—” Before I could ask questions, she pushed her shirt into my hands, kicked off her heels, and shimmied out of her pants. “I don’t think—“

“No, no. You’re a performer. This is so simple I’m sure even you can pull it off. They’ll never suspect a thing!”

At her insistence, I stood and started undressing too. Then I pulled her clothes on, thankful I had skipped breakfast—Julie always was skinnier than me. She had way more self-control around the snacks and massive deli trays the band surrounded themselves with, and which always appeared backstage.

“What about our hair? We’re the same size, but you’re not a redhead.” I looked around for a ball cap or something, but remembered she hadn’t come in with a hat, so she couldn’t go out with one either.

“Really, Mags?” She put her hands on her hips and gave me a disgusted look. “You’re a performer. You’re telling me you don’t have a box of wigs in a closet somewhere? A box of disguises to go out? I know you do.”

“Oh!” A lightbulb finally went on in my head. Thank God she’s here to keep me organized. I would forget my name without her. All that confinement was really turning my already-scattered brain to mush. I turned and started digging through a box in the bottom of the hall closet. “Here!” I held up a brown wig triumphantly. “This will work!”

“That’s perfect!”

Julie and I crammed ourselves into the small bathroom. I was no stranger to costumes, and I soon had my own red hair tamed, tied back, and covered with the mousy brown wig. “Here are my sunglasses and my purse,” she said, handing them to me. “Here! Look in the mirror!” She turned me to the reflection of her handiwork.

I stood and stared at the person looking back at me. Julie had made me up in her signature style with the brown wig pulled back in a messy bun and a pencil stuck through it. Her black-rimmed glasses were perched on my nose. We weren’t exactly twins, but I didn’t look like me, either.

“Pick a fight with me.” She bumped my shoulder with hers.

“What?” I looked over at her with my eyes wide and brows raised. This night was getting weirder and weirder.

“Pick a fight with me. That way you can storm out of here and no one can look too closely.”

“God, Julie, you are way too good at this.” Julie was so straight-laced, always the designated driver, her demeanor so buttoned-up and proper. She was even a little nerdy.

“I just watch a lot of made-for-television movies.” She chuckled and gave me one long last look. “I pronounce you ready.”

“Here we go,” I murmured, taking a deep breath. Then I shouted so loud the guard outside could hear me. “Dammit, Julie, I can’t do any more than I’m already doing!”

She shouted back, “Your fans expect it, Maggie! Suck it up, buttercup! This is your job!” She smirked at me, gesturing it was my turn.

“I can’t! You do it!”

“You wanted this! You left me behind and became the star. I can’t do it for you!”

“I’m exhausted! Quit pushing me!”

“It’s my job to push you! It’s the scrap you’ve thrown me! I’ll be back in the morning! Get it together, Maggie! This is pathetic!”

Julie pointed at the door and nodded at me. I took a deep breath and shook my hands out before blasting through the trailer door. I ran past the surprised guard hunched over with my head down and Julie’s clipboard clutched to my chest.

“You alright miss?” The startled guard barely got the words out before I was up the steps and safely inside the bus Julie shared with several other roadies. I slammed the door behind me for effect.

“Fine,” I yelled with a sob from the other side of her door. I leaned with my back against it, my chest heaving.

I looked around at the space. Julie shared it with two other girls, but thankfully, neither was there. I think we pulled it off!