Frosted (8 page)

Chapter Seven

Krista woke up before Scarlet. She peeked into Scarlet’s room and saw her sprawled across the bed on her stomach. She didn’t completely shut the door. Scarlet slept like the dead, but if she heard the smallest sound she’d be immediately awake.

Krista needed caffeine. No one else was up either, and she thought this would be the best time to talk to Mr. Oliver about the employee in room nine.

She slipped on sweatpants and flip-flops and padded downstairs in search of coffee. And maybe a muffin. She should find the gym and work out ... maybe later.

It was just after seven in the morning and the lodge was quiet. The wedding party had been up late. She saw on the events calendar posted in the lobby that the wedding was scheduled for three that afternoon. The small restaurant was open with a continental breakfast for guests. The coffee smelled tempting and the array of pastries had her mouth watering. She poured herself a tall mug and sipped while she debated between blueberry and banana nut. An older couple sat in the corner having breakfast and reading the newspaper.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Oliver step behind the main desk. He was dressed in his suit, but he looked worn out. She considered what he’d said last night, about wanting to preserve the lodge for his parents. He’d seemed sincere at the time, but she wondered if he could be a pathological liar. She sent Mac a quick note to run a basic background on the proprietor and verify the ownership of the property.

She glanced up from her phone and noticed the older couple looking at her. She nodded and gave them a smile, then crossed over to the desk with her coffee—leaving the muffin decision for when she was done with Oliver.

“Good morning,” she said.

Gone was the helpfulness from last night. Oliver gave her a disdainful look like the one he’d given her when she first arrived.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Hart?”

“Who is staying in room nine in the staff quarters?”

“I can’t really discuss staff with you, Ms. Hart.”

“But last night you said—”

“If there is a situation, perhaps it would be better for Mr. Brock to file a police report.”

Krista didn’t know whether to jump over the counter and throttle Mr. Oliver or scream. Or both.

She did neither. Instead she said, “You have an employee who may be a stalker, who also turned off the power last night, which could have been a lawsuit waiting to happen if someone was trapped in the elevator or slipped and fell. And yet you won’t cooperate?”

For a split second he looked worried, but then he stuck that aquiline nose of his back into the air and said, “I believe this entire situation has been exaggerated, and I’ll talk to the employee in question and verify what happened last night.”

“No—you can’t do that!”

“My hotel, my employee, my decision.”

Dammit! What did he think he was going to accomplish?

“You’ll alert him that we’re onto him.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t even know who
he
is.”

“Please—let us handle the situation. If you don’t want to give us his name, please don’t say anything.”

“I don’t think you’re in a position to make demands, Ms. Hart.”

She was speechless.
Demands?

She turned and walked toward the staircase, her appetite gone. What was up with Oliver’s abrupt shift in attitude? Last night he’d seemed like he wanted to help and now? It made no sense.

Tiffany came bounding across the lobby and seized Krista’s arm. It was all Krista could do not to knock her flat on her back.

“Oh. My.
God!
” Tiffany jumped up and down.

“What happened?” Krista asked, alternately worried and suspicious.

Tiffany’s eyes widened. “I didn’t
know
. It’s fabulous! Adam is
such
a great guy.” She put both of her hands over her heart. “I am
such
a romantic. It’s a fairy tale, truly.”

“What are you talking about?” Krista asked, unable to keep the exasperation out of her voice.

“That you and Adam are getting back together!”

Krista stared at her. The woman was serious. “What?” she managed to croak.

“I didn’t even know he’d been
married
,” Tiffany gushed.

A ball of dread filled Krista’s stomach. “And how do you know this now?”

Tiffany cocked her head to the side. “
Rising Star
, of course.”

Rising Star
, a celebrity column that ran in all the major newspapers. Krista thought she was going to puke right there in the middle of the lobby.

She remembered the couple reading the newspaper. And how they’d looked at her. And Mr. Oliver ... first helpful but then a jerk.

Krista turned away from Tiffany without another word and rushed back to the dining room. The table where the couple had been sitting was empty now, but the newspaper was still there. She grabbed it and flipped to the front page of the entertainment section. Above the fold was a photo of her and Adam taken at the restaurant last night with the headline:

Moon Drop co-star Adam Brock shares romantic dinner with ex-wife—is love in the air again?

No. No. No.

A chance meeting with his ex-wife Krista Hart led to a trip down memory lane for rising star Adam Brock...

Krista couldn’t breathe.

The photo showed her leaning close to him, Adam’s hands reaching for hers—except she remembered that moment. He wasn’t reaching for her hands, he was reaching for the bread basket. Scarlet wasn’t in the photo—this was taken during the ten minutes she was out talking to her brother. But the angle ... It made her look like she was making goo-goo eyes at him, and he the same. He looked as good as ever, and she looked ... well, enamored.

She skimmed the article and had to sit down.

Private investigator Krista Hart, who’d been a police officer with L.A.P.D. before her partner was nearly killed during a raid...

Great. Just great. She loved her privacy. She
needed
her privacy.

She now had none.

Then the end. The clincher.

A source close to Adam Brock said that Adam and Krista weren’t officially an item, but that neither was involved with anyone else, and the chance encounter at a ski lodge outside Los Angeles gave them the opportunity to rekindle their flame. They have been inseparable ever since.

“What source?” she said out loud.

Tiffany came up to her. “Are you okay?”

“Did you talk to this reporter?” Krista demanded.

“Me? No! But what’s wrong? It’s a great article. Anyone would love to be given so much great press.”

Krista was speechless. She folded the newspaper under her arm and, ignoring Tiffany, ran across the lobby and up the staircase all the way to the third floor. She found Scarlet in her bedroom getting dressed.

“Have you seen this?” Krista thrust the article under her nose. “Who the hell’s responsible for this?”

Scarlet pulled a sweater over her head and took the newspaper from her. She skimmed through it and frowned. “You think Adam—”

“He’s a dead man.” Krista started out of the suite, but Scarlet grabbed her arm.

“Hold on. Think it through, Krista. Isn’t this more up Dave’s alley?”

Krista’s vision blurred. She ran through the suite and found Dave standing in front of the television in a hotel bathrobe. He didn’t look surprised see her.

“You’re going to fix this,
now
!”

He glanced at the paper she was holding. “They ran it?” He tried to grab it from her, but she pulled it back.

“Yes! And it’s pure fiction! Call them up right now and demand a retraction.”

He rolled his eyes. “I can’t
unplant
a story. That’s not how it works.”

“What story?” Adam asked, wandering into the room.

“Your publicity hound planted a story about us in some gossip column.” She threw the paper at Adam. He grabbed it before it fell to the floor. “And he’s going to call them up this minute and demand a retraction.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” Dave said. “I’d lose all credibility.”

Adam was reading the article and raking a hand through his already disheveled hair. He’d clearly just woken up and didn’t fully grasp what Dave had done.

“Well?” Krista said when he looked up.

Adam shrugged. “It’s a pretty good picture of us.”

Krista mouth fell open. She wanted to smack him.

“You should be grateful,” Dave said.

“Grateful?” She spun toward him.

“Yeah, what’s so bad about being paired with one of the hottest rising stars in Hollywood?”

“We are not a pair! If I’d wanted to be
paired
with him I wouldn’t have divorced him!”

She turned to Adam and he looked like she’d kicked his puppy. Damn it, she hated this. She tried to calm down, but the more she thought about her friends, her clients ... Her parents! Oh, God, no. Her parents were going to call her from Florida the minute they heard about this. They hadn’t liked that she’d eloped with Adam and had been relieved when she “came to her senses.” She didn’t need a lecture. She was going to be sick.

“Krista’s right.” Adam turned to Dave. “We have to fix this.”

Dave laughed. “I can’t call them back, Adam. Are you kidding?”

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Adam said, pulling his phone from his pocket. He nodded at Krista. “Sorry, Kay.”

She took a deep breath and tried to calm her temper. It didn’t work. “Thank you,” she said through clenched teeth.

Adam left the room and Krista glanced around to see Scarlet and Trina watching from the doorway.

Scarlet cleared her throat. “Okay, let’s get back to business, everyone. We need to figure out how the stalker found out that Adam was here, at this resort. I searched social media and couldn’t find any reference, so who knew? That may help us narrow down who’s stalking Adam.”

“The reporter said the trip was spontaneous.” Krista glared at Dave. “Who did you tell?”

“Why are you suspicious of me?” Dave asked.

“I wonder.”

“Yesterday afternoon was the first time I said anything, I swear.”

Krista didn’t want to believe him. “Why here? Who told you about this place? Could Adam have been set up? Maybe he was sent here to get him out of his apartment.”

“So,” Scarlet said, “someone could search his apartment.”

David shrugged. “I just heard about it. They had room for us.”

“Who did you hear about it from?”

“I—” His face fell. “No. You’re just being ridiculous.”

Krista had had enough with the business manager. “Dammit, Dave, who?”

“Tiffany told me about it last weekend. We were meeting and she said she was in a wedding at the lodge, and that it would be a good place to get away. And after the thing with the champagne and Adam worried about his upcoming audition, I thought time off would be good for him.”

He sounded sincere, but Krista was still angry about the article. “Tiffany,” she said flatly. “And you didn’t think to tell us?”

“I didn’t think about it at all. I told her I was too busy right then, but when Adam got spooked by his girlfriend getting sick on champagne, we decided it would be a good time for a getaway.”

“Do you travel with all your clients?” Scarlet asked, suspicion oozing from her voice.

“No—yes—sometimes.”

“What is this all about?” Trina walked up to Krista. “Are you trying to get Adam back, and your speech earlier was just bullshit?”

Krista glared at her. “Shut up.” She turned back to Dave. “Is Tiffany as dumb as she acts?”

“She’s not dumb.”

He didn’t sound convincing.

“Look,” he said, “she’s a nice girl who hasn’t had a lot of breaks. She got her breasts enhanced because her last agent told her it would help her—and then she gets offered these shit roles as a bimbo or slut, and she can do more than that. She
wants
to do more than that. I convinced her to go in and get the silicone implants removed, and the surgery is next week. She and her boyfriend had an argument about it. I think that’s probably why he didn’t come with her this weekend.”

“His name?”

“I—why is that important?”

Scarlet said, “It’s
all
important until we know what this unknown person wants from Adam.”

Adam stepped back into the room. “It’s done,” he said. “I’m really sorry, Kay.”

She took a deep breath and let the anger go. It wasn’t going to do her any good to be seeing red all day. “I know,” she said. And meant it. Adam really did look upset by the whole thing, and it was clear he hadn’t known what Dave had done. “Adam—we asked you earlier what you bought in South Africa. Maybe it wasn’t what you bought, but something that was given to you. A gift?”