Page 5 of You Found Me

“What emails?” Piper tapped the letter. “He says you ignored his emails.”

“I don’t know. Jordanna handles all that stuff,” Della shifted from foot to foot. Why did that make her feel so guilty? “She passes along anything important.”

“If the emails were like this, I’m sure she deleted them,” Lizzie said. “She wouldn’t want to scare you.”

“Can I see it?” Mattie asked.

Lizzie handed the letter to her and started texting. “I’m telling Renic. I want to know how someone managed to get in here past all the security in the hall.”

“It’s not like the door was locked.” Della could see this simple creepy letter was going to morph into a major overreaction and tried her best to pull her sisters back from that ledge. “It’s just a fan. We’ve all had someone get a little enthusiastic from time to time. No need to get all paranoid.”

“I’m not paranoid,” Lizzie snapped. “It’s not paranoid when someone sneaks into your heavily guarded private space and leaves this…this…”

“Enthusiastic isn’t the right word,” Piper said as she crossed to the door. “Delusional, maybe. Bat shit crazy, definitely.”

“Della…this isn’t a normal fan letter,” Mattie said slowly. “This feels obsessive. He has details about you. Personal details.”

“Nothing he couldn’t see on the internet,” Della pointed out. “It’s just a fantasy. It happens all the time.”

“No it doesn’t. Not like this.” Piper opened the door. “Romi? Come take a look at this please.”

“Oh come on,” Della protested. “Don’t get Romi involved. She hates me.”

Piper’s personal protection officer always looked at Della like she was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

“It’s her job to protect us, Della.Allof us.” Piper stepped back to let Romi enter.

The woman radiated quiet danger as her gaze scraped the room for threats before it landed on Della. Her eyes narrowed in an of-course-it’s-you-causing-trouble way. “Look at what?”

Mattie gave her the now-crumpled piece of paper.

Romi held it like it might have been dipped in acid and peered at it front and back before she actually read the note.

“It was the last show of the tour,” Della said in what she thought was a perfectly reasonable tone. “We have a nice long break coming so no more dressing rooms will be invaded by dangerous flowers. This isn’t a big deal.”

“What emails?” Romi looked from Piper to Della.

“She doesn’t know,” Piper supplied before Della could open her mouth. “Her manager handles that.”

“I’m right here, you know.” Della glared at her well-meaning but definitely out-of-control family, and Romi.

“He knows what color your underwear is, Della.” Mattie sank down on the sofa next to Lizzie as if the mere idea made it impossible to remain standing. “How would he know that?”

“He might have been at a concert,” Piper pointed out. “The front row looks straight up. That’s why I wear pants.”

“I don’t wear thongs, and I wear shorts under my dresses on stage. You know I wear shorts. It’s delusional, like you said.” Della could see her sisters overreacting in slow motion. She’d been looking forward to the wrap party for weeks. She had special gifts for everyone, including the crew, and she wanted to see their faces when they saw the performance bonus hidden inside. She could see her grand gesture poofing into dust. “There’s no need to freak out over a silly fan letter.”

“It’s notjusta letter,” Lizzie said firmly. “Whoever wrote this was motivated enough to sneak past a line of people who are paid to keep him out just to make sure you know how he feels.”

Mattie sucked in a breath and put a hand on Lizzie's thigh. “What if she’d been alone in here when he came in?”

Della swallowed and tried to ignore the fact that she’d worried about the same thing. “I wasn’t.”

Renic walked in mid-conversation on his phone. His tone was the no-nonsense, in-charge, get-things-done command that he’d perfected when he started his own record label years ago. “Pull everything. I don’t care how long it takes, we need to ID this guy and we need to pinpoint exactly where the hole in security was so we can plug it for next time.”

Jason, the head of security, followed behind him with a tablet. His gaze flicked to the vase of flowers, then to Della, and his lips pressed together in a grim line.

Renic hung up and turned to Jason. “What did you find?”

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