Page 74 of The Bombshell and the Bodyguard
I gave a humorless laugh. It wouldn’t be funny at all if Hap was on the internet tonight. No doubt the story of Jade’s close call with a would-be kidnapper had already spread like wildfire—along with the accompanying photos of her rescue.
Well fuck. I’m going to have some explaining to do.
Aloud I said, “The most important thing is that you’re okay.”
And that was the truth. That was what I had to focus on, though self-recrimination threatened to swamp me.
“I love you, Wilder,” Jessica said quietly.
The air left my lungs with a whoosh. Before I could respond, the police officer and his partner were back, addressing Jessica.
“We’ve got an ambulance here for you ma’am. If you’ll come this way...”
She tried to protest. “I’m okay, really.”
“You should go,” I said. “Get checked out. I’ll feel better if you do. I need to speak to the officers and other security guards anyway, get some information on that scumbag lying in a puddle over there and figure out how he got close to you.”
“Okay. You’ll come to the hospital and pick me up afterward?”
“Of course. I’ll be there soon. Don’t leave without me.”
“I won’t.”
“We’ll take care of her sir,” the young officer assured him. “She’ll be at Desert Regional Medical Center.”
“Okay thanks.”
One more kiss and I watched Jessica climb into the back of the emergency vehicle with the two officers. Then I spoke with the other law enforcement members on site as well as a representative from the security company in charge of staffing the main stage.
I learned the festival organizers had stepped up security in recent years following the Route 91 Harvest Festival tragedy in Las Vegas, posting officers with rifles in high and low-profile observation areas in case of a lone shooter situation or terrorist act.
But scores of additional security personnel were needed to deal with things like traffic, ingress, egress, flow inside and outside the venue, check-ins, check-outs, credentialing, and searches of cars, bodies, and containers like purses and coolers.
There literally weren’t enough available police officers in the city of Indio or the surrounding departments to cover it. So a large private security company as well as several smaller ones were brought in to make up the difference.
The blond assailant had been wearing the uniform of one of them. I wasn’t sure at this point whether he’d stolen it or if he’d actually been hired by one of the companies.
An employee I interviewed told me about a cattle call interview in Long Beach where he’d been hired, along with several friends, after a quick background check.
They’d all been shuttled off to an orientation, and a few weeks later, here he was, sleeping in a tent, sweltering during the day, shivering through the night, and charged with protecting crowds of over a hundred-twenty-five-thousand people, including an astonishing number of celebrities.
Speaking with a police detective assigned to Jade’s case, I said, “It’s the perfect situation for an obsessed fan.”
I also wanted a word with whomever had determined the man they’d arrested a few days ago was indeed thesamestalker who’d broken into Jessica’s houses. The lengthsthisguy had gone to in order to get close to her—and the desperation of abducting her while surrounded by a crowd of witnesses—made me wonder.
And he looked an awful lot like the security guard I’d found unconscious in the foyer of Jessica’s Eastport Bay mansion. Correction—hehadlooked like that guyuntil I’d permanently altered his face. Now I doubted if the guy’s own mother could I.D. him.
Before I could make the call, my phone rang with an incoming one. Lifting the device, I saw the name on the screen, closed my eyes, and exhaled.
Hap.Fantastic.
Though I would have loved to duck the call, I swiped the screen to answer. Jessica’s brother had to be frantic for news about her.
“Hey. She’s okay. She’s at the hospital getting checked out, but she said she was uninjured, and she looked fine,” I said.
Hap’s voice sounded like a growl coming through the long-distance line.
“Good. Now that’s out of the way, I haveanotherquestion. Whenexactlywere you planning to tell me you’d seduced my baby sister—while she was at hermostvulnerable?”
