CELEBRITY STATUS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #4) (9 page)

            “Plumbing problem looks legit,” he told Skip in his gruff voice. “But hard to tell for sure.”

            Skip nodded. “Thanks. Take your seat. I’ll go check on Cherise.”

            Everything went smoothly from there. Too smoothly. Once his charge was on stage, Skip took up his position again at the back of the crowd, watching, and praying that someone would make a move.

            But no one did. The fans screamed. Many of them jumped up and down. Some even stood on their seats, which was not popular with the folks behind them. But no one attempted to get near the stage where Cherise and her partner, Johnny Troop, were singing their hearts out.

            As they started on their last song together, Skip quickly moved from the hillside behind the crowd toward the side of the stage where Ben was waiting. Skip nodded to Dolph, in the wings on the other side, just as Cherise crooned her final note. She bowed, threw kisses to the crowd, then bounced off stage as Johnny, perched on a tall stool with his guitar, launched into one of the few songs for which he was lead singer. A recording of Cherise’s voice backing him up started playing.

            Ben on one side, Skip on the other, they moved her into the back hallway just as Dolph caught up with them and took up the rear. The extra guards hired for the evening once again created a wall of big bodies on either side, although surprisingly few people were wandering around backstage.

            Cherise stopped abruptly. “I can’t stand this make-up. I’ve got to get it off.”

            “No time for that,” Skip said. “We’ve got maybe eight minutes to get you out of here, before the fans notice you’re missing.”

            “It’ll only take two of those minutes to wipe this gunk off, and I need to pee.”

            Skip figured it would take less time to indulge her than it would to stand here and argue. He grabbed her elbow and hustled her in the direction of the dressing room.

            Rose jogged up to them. “What’s going on?” she asked.

            “Lady’s gotta pee,” Dolph said, just as Mac also joined them.

            Skip stuck his head in the dressing room door. The room was empty. The lavish bouquet of flowers barely registered in his mind. He practically shoved Cherise through the door. “One minute for gunk, one minute to pee, then we’re out of here.”

            The men stood in the hall. “Just like her to screw with the set-up,” Mac growled quietly.

            A scream shattered the air.

            Skip shoved the door open.

            Cherise was standing in the middle of the room, one hand over her mouth, eyes wide. She pointed toward the flowers on her dressing table. “I... I thought they were from Daddy,” she gasped. “I leaned over to smell them.”

            Skip took a stride closer to the flowers. Just under the top layers of blossoms was the tip of a bloody knife, a chunk of raw meat jabbed down on it. A note was skewered on top of the meat, the paper turned rusty and greasy in places. The fragrance of the flowers did not completely mask the putrid smell.

            Skip squinted to make out the words on the note.
This is what you’ve done to my heart
.

            “Rose, stay here. I’ll be back.” Skip grabbed Cherise’s upper arm and hauled her out of the room. Sarah was coming down the hall. She looked at their faces, Cherise’s pale with tears streaking her stage make-up, and Skip’s grim. “What happened? I only stepped away for a minute, to go to the ladies’ room.” Her voice trembled.

            “Go in and stay with Rose,” Skip ordered. He looked over Sarah’s shoulder at her guard. “You’re with me.” He gestured with his head at another guard. “On the door. Don’t let anybody in there unless Rose or I okay it.”

            By the time they got to the exit at the end of the corridor, Johnny had finished his song and the natives were getting restless, wondering why Cherise wasn’t back on stage for a last curtain call. “There she is,” somebody yelled as they started around the perimeter of the crowd toward the car.

            People surged in their direction, but the hired muscle forged a path and Ben and Skip propelled their charge down the middle of it. As they neared the car, Skip said to Ben in a low voice, “Go get it open and started, but be prepared to ward off unauthorized passengers.”

            Ben let go of Cherise’s elbow and jogged briskly ahead of them.

            The cameras flashed and the fans screamed. “Cherise, look this way.” “Cherise, we love you!”

            Skip reached for the door handle just as a reporter stepped in front of them and the flash of his camera temporarily blinded them. Dolph stepped around them and elbowed the guy out of the way. In a second, Cherise and Dolph were in the back of the limo.

            “Go!” Cherise yelled. Ben, behind the wheel with the engine idling, ignored her.

            “Go, damn it!” she screeched, just as Mac dropped into the seat across from her.

            Cherise reared back. “Who the hell said you could ride with me?”

            Skip stuck his head inside the car. He wanted to point out that now was not the time to get choosy about who guarded her. He drummed up a soothing voice instead. “It’s gonna be okay, Cherise. I’ve got things under control.”

            He slammed the door with one hand while pounding on the roof three times with the other. Ben moved away from the curb and Skip turned to push his way back through the crowd, Sarah’s guard still with him.

            “Any idea where those flowers came from?” Skip asked.

            “No, sir. I didn’t see no deliveries but I didn’t go in. Just stood in the hall, ’til the lady said she needed the restroom.”

            Back at the dressing room, Sarah’s eyes were red and puffy from crying.

            “Says she was only away from the room for a couple minutes,” Rose said. “Should we call in the cops? That looks like a real heart to me.”

            “Couple minutes would be all it would take, and any staff hanging around wouldn’t give a thought to someone delivering flowers,” Skip said. He leaned over to examine the bloody mass of flesh without touching anything. “Too small to be human.”

            “Unless it’s a child’s,” Rose said.

            Sarah covered her mouth with her hand as tears started leaking from her eyes again.

            “Sit tight,” Skip said. “I’ll find Sergeant Robinson. He’s the head of the Howard County team.”

            While Robinson’s officers were interviewing the Merriweather staff, trying to determine if anyone had seen the flowers being delivered, Skip was in the back of a police cruiser. He had just disconnected from filling Kate in on the evening’s events when his phone rang in his hand.

            “We’re at the farm,” Dolph said without preamble. “Everything’s secure, but the lady’s still a bit hysterical.”

            “Can you handle her? I’m on my way to the police station. We had to bring them in. Heart could be human, although I doubt it.”

            “Yeah, I can manage. Been married thirty years. Had lots of practice ignorin’ a screaming woman.”

            “Better not ignore your wife too much or you won’t make it to thirty-one,” Skip said. He heard a low chuckle on the other end.

            “Should we be concerned about Troop’s safety?” Dolph asked. “The world thinks they’re lovers.”

            “He refused a bodyguard before. We can ask him again. But my suspicion is that this is one of Cherise’s real boyfriends, and they’d know the supposed relationship with Troop was fake.”

            “When you get done with the police, go home and go to bed, son. You did good. Lady’s safe. That’s what counts.”

            “Gee, thanks, Dad,” Skip said.

            Another low chuckle. Dolph disconnected.

            Skip was signing his formal statement when Robinson returned from Merriweather. The sergeant strode across the bullpen to the desk where Skip was sitting.

            “Why the hell weren’t we informed that Ms. Martin was being stalked?”

            Skip suppressed a sigh. “I told you she’d been getting threatening notes.”

            “And why weren’t we called in from the get-go?”

            “Because my client refused to involve the police.” Skip glanced at his watch. It was after one in the morning. “What exactly would you all have done if she’d called you?”

            “We’d have investigated.”

            “Only if you’d known the vic was Cherise Martin. If Carol Ann Morris had called and said she was getting sick love notes from some anonymous admirer, what would you have done?”

            Robinson deflated and sank into the nearest empty chair.

            “Sent an officer to take her report,” Skip answered for him. “Told the vic to be extra vigilant and beefed up patrols near her farm.”

            Robinson scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll have a uniform take you home.”

            At the house, Skip locked up his gun, then slipped quietly into the bedroom. He put his cell on vibrate, set it on his nightstand, and sat down gently on the side of the bed. He didn’t even bother to get undressed, just nudged his shoes off and stretched out, trying not to disturb Kate.

* * *

            “Daddy, wake up!” Persistent little fist pounding on the door. “Cartoons, Daddy, wake up!” Their daddy always watched Saturday morning cartoons with them and Billy wanted to know why they were not following that routine today.

            Skip opened one eye and looked at his clock. Seven-fifteen. Ugh. Five and a half hours sleep might be enough to get by on any other Saturday but he had to work again that evening, and couldn’t risk falling asleep then.

            Kate’s voice, coming to the rescue, “Billy, I told you not to disturb your father. He had to work very late last night.” One last knock, then his wife’s voice receded from the door. “Come on, little man, I’ll watch cartoons with you guys this morning.”

            Skip rolled over and buried his face in Kate’s pillow. Breathing in the smell of her, he tried to go back to sleep. But his mind wouldn’t shut down again, even though his body was longing for more rest.

            He was thinking about the new case he needed to work tonight. He’d been tempted not to take it, but couldn’t bring himself to say no. The woman had sounded pretty scared and desperate over the phone Thursday morning, and she had been referred by a former client. Not good PR to turn down business that’s referred to you by happy former customers. The good word-of-mouth can become bad word-of-mouth all too quickly.

            When Skip had met with her Thursday afternoon, he’d found out why she was so freaked out. The thirty-six-year-old divorcee was discovering little things missing from her house, and other things slightly disturbed, almost every time she went out. The first time had been when she had been on a date and her children, six and eight, were home with a sitter.

            Elise Thomas had just assumed the sitter had taken the pieces of jewelry she’d left out on her dresser–a necklace and earrings she had considered wearing, then had decided against. She had not used that sitter again.

            But then it had happened two more times, when all of them were out of the house. Once during a weekday, while she was at work and the kids were at school, and then again the previous Saturday night when she and the kids went to their weekly dinner with her folks.

            None of the items taken were all that valuable. The sense of invasion and fear were the main issues.

            So tonight, while Elise and the kids were once again at Grandma and Grandpa’s, Skip was going to watch the house to see who showed up. Despite Elise’s protests that the divorce had been amiable, Skip was betting on the husband.

            He was not looking forward to facing down an angry man bent on revenge against his ex-wife. But better he be the one in that confrontation than Elise Thomas. The petite strawberry blonde looked like a younger version of Liz Franklin, only four-ten and probably no more than ninety pounds. Skip was afraid her angry ex might do the mother of his children serious harm, perhaps without even meaning to, if she caught him in the act of invading her home.

            Giving up on sleep, Skip stumbled out to the kitchen, lured by the smell of coffee brewing.

            Kate apologized for letting Billy get away from her and wake him up.

            “S’okay,” Skip muttered as he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her curly mop of hair. They held each other for a couple minutes, then he sighed.

            After another beat, Kate chuckled and leaned back in his arms. “Skip, I did promise to love you for better or worse, but you might want to consider taking a shower and changing your clothes soon.” He’d been wearing the same rumpled brown shirt and khaki slacks for twenty-four hours.

            “I’ll have you know, darlin’,” he drawled, “that is the manly sweat of honest labor you are smelling, but I will go wash it off if you promise me two things.”

            “What’s that?” she asked.

            “You bring a cup of that wonderful coffee to me in the bedroom.” He paused, then gave her a wicked grin. Nuzzling her neck, he added, “Right after you bribe Maria to take the kids to the park for awhile.”

            “I think that sounds like a lovely deal.”

            Forty minutes later, after she had helped Maria get the kids dressed and then buckled into their car seat and booster seat in the red minivan they used for family outings, Kate slipped into the bedroom with two fresh cups of coffee.

            Skip was stark naked, his hair wet, lying face down on the bed, snoring. Kate waved one of the cups under his nose. No reaction.

            She slipped back out of the room.

CHAPTER EIGHT

            Skip came out of the bedroom two hours later, in fresh clothes and looking sheepish. Kate smiled at him and pointed toward the coffee maker. “I’ve been keeping it warm for you.”