Page 122 of Nanny for the SEALs

A sickening thought suddenly came to me. “Rogan. What if that’s the point? To get her to return to the trailer, where an ambush is waiting?”

Pure terror flashed in his eyes. “Lopez, get to Happy Holiday’s trailer ASAP.”

“Hard copy.”

The door suddenly flew open and Jimmy Cardannon burst inside. He was holding his own walkie-talkie to his mouth, and he gazed up at the screens. “I don’t see Pedro Ortega on any of the screens.”

“He was in the cloud, with the director and Amirah,” one of the film guys told him.

Rogan growled at Cardannon. “Is this your plan? Use the demolition as a distraction?”

Cardannon ignored him while listening to the radio. He was sweating, and nervously rubbing his thumb and finger together. He was a cocky guy; I had never seen himnervousbefore.

“I don’t care about the roadblocks,” Cardannon cursed into the radio, “move forward and get Pedro to safety.”

I let out a long, relieved breath. Cardannon hadn’t orchestrated this as a distraction. It wasn’t part of the plan to harm Amirah.

Which meant that aside from dust inhalation, Heather was safe. I stared at the dot on my GPS app and began to relax.

Just then, the cloud of dust began to dissipate. One of the crew members had found an industrial-sized box fan used to keep the actors cool, and had turned it on to banish the dust. One by one, the director and others became visible again, covering their faces and frantically waving their hands.

“Cooper, come in,” Rogan said. “We’ve lost visual on your location. Did you and Happy Holiday return to the trailer?”

There was no response.

I frowned at my phone. “I still have Happy Holiday in the same location as before, next to the director…” I trailed off and squinted at the screen. “She should beright there. Where is she?”

“Lopez?” Rogan demanded.

“I’m at the trailer,”Lopez answered. “No sign of Cooper or Happy Holiday.”

My stomach sank.

Rogan and Asher started shouting at the film guys to zoom in, but I knew the truth in my gut. I ran from the trailer out into the sunshine, turning toward the set at a dead sprint.

No, no, no,I thought, panicked.Please no.

I reached the director, who was shouting at someone,anyone, to get him a bottle of water. Heather and Cooper had been just to the left, but now there was no sight of them. According to the app, she should have beenright here.

“Brady?”Asher asked in my earpiece. “Do you have visual?”

I whirled around in all directions. Panic gripped my chest and made it difficult to breathe.

Then I noticed something over by a crate of water bottles. A pair of expensive black heels, which Asher had inserted a GPS tracking chip into.

“Negative,” I said in a shaky voice. “Happy Holiday is gone.Heatheris gone.”

47

Heather

Cooper and I were close enough to the director to hear him speaking to the head of the pyrotechnics team. He warned the director that there would be a huge cloud of dust, just like the director wanted for the shots, and that it would blow away from our location.

But I was barely listening. I was running through the plan in my head. As soon as the demolition scene was over, it would be two o’clock and I would be walking over to the roadblock to sign more autographs. That’s when the attack would happen. I would be out in the open, surrounded by people, and totally vulnerable.

I realized I didn’t know what Amirah Pratt’s signature looked like. That was probably something I should have asked her when I was in the trailer. I would have to make up something. Probably start it with a legible A, and then a bunch of squiggles. Nobodyreallycared what the signature looked like, right?

Even though we were several blocks away, the explosion made my legs tremble. The stone collapsed, sending out a cloud of dust that was eerily reminiscent of those September 11 videos I had watched in history class.

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