Page 153 of Ever With Me

Had the fair freaked him out? He’d been worried about waiting in the apple fritter line, but they’d been wandering around the fairgrounds before that. Dancing. He’d signed a few autographs.

Maybe she’d misjudged how much he enjoyed it?

But then why hadn’t Brooks taken his bodyguard, Ryan, with him? Ryan had said that Brooks had told him not to bother sweeping the trailer before he’d gone in. Maybe it was just Ryan’s way of protecting himself and not be blamed for failing to do his job—but then why had Brooks slipped out without telling Ryan?

Brooks was worried about security. He’d insisted on the bodyguards this week, everywhere they went.

“Dan, can you and your friends step out of here for a couple of minutes? We’ll call you back,” Naomi said.

Maddie didn’t open her eyes but heard them go.

Naomi settled on the couch beside her. “It’s your move, Maddie. If you want to file a missing person report, I get it. But there exists a small possibility that Brooks . . . just needed to get away from this.”

Maddie gave her a doubtful look. “Without a bodyguard?”

“I don’t know. He came to Brandywood without a bodyguard, didn’t he? Maybe he doesn’t like them around all the time.”

“He doesn’t,” Kayla said quietly.

“Maybe so, but what happened at the lake terrified him. I don’t think he’d go anywhere right now without Ryan—even if he doesn’t like bodyguards.”

“The concert is the biggest sticking point for me,” Cormac said with a frown. “His last concert got canceled because of his arrest. I don’t think he’d walk out on the next one. Some people here tonight probably came from Baltimore because they missed the last one. The fair is neverthiscrowded.”

Thank you, Cormac.

“I agree,” Maddie said quickly.

“You’re agreeing because it’s what you want to hear,” Naomi said. “You never know, he might come back in time for the concert. Maybe he just needed some air.”

Cormac’s eyes were troubled. “We need to come up with a contingency plan in the meantime. There are going to be a lot of disappointed people out there otherwise.”

Maddie stood, feeling like her head was going to explode. “I don’t care about the damn concert. I’m telling you, I know Brooks. He wouldn’t leave the concert. He wouldn’t leave . . . me.”

She met three sets of pitying eyes and her heart broke.

Maybe none of them were as sure as she was.

But she was right, wasn’t she?

They had talked. They were in a relationship. Doing things long-distance.

He wouldn’t leave without talking to her.

. . . except he’d tried to do just that once before.Only a week before.

She stood there, a scene from just the weekend before playing in her mind. He’d packed her bags in her apartment.“You’re fucking leaving?”she’d asked him.

“It’s for the best. Things are getting out of control.”

The slick, miserable hand of doubt wrapped its way around her throat, choking her.

Then she dissolved into tears.

42

BROOKS

As the airplane’swheels touched down in Baltimore, Brooks stared stonily into the darkness. He’d caught the red-eye out of Vegas and hoped to sleep on the plane.

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