Page 34 of You Found Me

Somehow, that made Ward feel less embarrassed. With that out of the way, frustration bubbled back to the top.

“What’s the status? Do we need to move to plan B?” Renic asked with the resigned tone of a man who earned his living surrounded by celebrities and their pool parties.

Ward relaxed. A man about to fire someone didn’t usually plan next steps with the person they were canning. “We’ll doa full sweep as soon as the lastguestis off the property, but protocol dictates we shift to a new location at the very least.”

He filled the word guest with all the irritation he’d felt when he stepped onto the porch and saw his protectee riding a man like he was a prize stallion. “Not that it will do any good if she pulls a stunt like this every time I take a few hours off.”

He glanced at the monitor. Diggs stood near the front step watching the last car disappear down the drive. The man should have known better. He should have been the one to tell Ms. Bellamy no. He’d left Diggs in charge to do exactly that, and he’d failed.

The bitch of it was he’d seen on the man’s face that heknewhe should have told her no. He just hadn’t done it.

He’d put his protectee at risk.

There was no greater sin as far as Ward was concerned.

Diggs had a glimmer of future potential, but he had a lot to learn, and his obvious inability to say anything but “Yes, ma’am” to Ms. Bellamy made him a liability.

He shouldn’t be standing on the front step like a lap dog watching the road. They had a whole team for that. They were in crisis mode. He should be directly watching Ms. Bellamy.

Ward scanned the feeds.

His principal was nowhere in sight on any camera.

Great.

Now neither one of them knew where she was.

“Something else going on?” Renic asked.

“It’s quiet. For now.” Ward stared at the pool on the screen. It looked serene and inviting and empty, but he could still see his protectee riding the shoulders of that…guy. He could still see her head thrown back and her arms outstretched as she reached for the ball. He could still hear her laughter when she missed.

She was the very definition of carefree. Life was one big party for Della Bellamy.

He ripped his gaze away from the empty pool and focused on Renic. “We’ll try to put names with faces, checking for anything or anyone that stands out, but we don’t have good visuals on everyone. There are areas in the house that aren’t on camera. We’ll try to focus on anybody who paid her a little too much attention, but I have to be honest, that includes pretty much everybody.”

“If you send me the photos, I’ll work with Morgan to see who we recognize,” Renic said. “We know the crew and a lot of the people who hang around Piper and Blake. It might make it go faster.”

“Done.” Ward fired off a quick email to Spencer. They’d follow the leads Ms. Bellamy had unwittingly dumped on them, but he didn’t think they would go anywhere. There were too many of them. “She made herself bait today, and I don’t think she’s even aware. She hasn’t shown even the slightest interest in her own well-being. I can’t protect someone who doesn’t want to be protected, Renic. I told you that at the start.”

“And I told you she might be a challenge,” Renic said in the same patient tone he’d used when he hired Ward. “You said you were up for it.”

“Challenge is one thing. Stupid is another.”

“I’m not stupid,” Ms. Bellamy snapped behind him.

Ward turned to face his problem, shifting to the side so that he didn’t block the video feed. She wore a flimsy transparent shirt over the red scraps of fabric that passed for a swimsuit, which did nothing to hide anything. It was distracting as hell, which only added to his frustration. “Your actions sure as hell were.”

He spoke over his shoulder to Renic. “It obviously never occurred to the noisemaker here that she might have invited her stalker into her safe house today.”

“I didn’t invite a stalker. I invited my friends.” Ms. Bellamy glared at him. “There’s no way anybody who came here today would hurt me.”

“Right.” Ward couldn’t have stopped the snort of derision even if he’d wanted to.

Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I bet you didn’t even know their names when they walked through the door.”

Her shoulder twitched as if she were shrugging off that accusation.

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