Hideaway Heart: Chapter 26

“DAMMIT,” I muttered after getting the update on my phone. My flight was delayed again.

We’d already been delayed twice. It was close to three p.m. now, which meant I’d been sitting at this fucking airport for more than five hours.

I was tired and cranky, Kelly hadn’t been in touch, and my stomach was tied in knots. Maybe I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

Tossing my carry-on over my shoulder, I left the gate and walked around the terminal until I saw a restaurant that had a couple open seats at the bar. I went in and sat down, and when the bartender came over, I ordered a beer and a club sandwich.

“Coming right up,” she said with a smile. Her black collared shirt had Kate stitched on it in gold letters.

While I was sitting there, a text came in from Zach Barrett with Lawrence Hooper’s flight information. I scanned it quickly. No surprises—he’d flown in on Thursday, the same day Kelly had arrived, the day she’d posted the selfie that revealed the house address. He must have seen the photo and jumped on a plane first thing.

Then I looked a little closer.

The days made sense, but the times did not. His first flight had left Nashville around nine a.m., long before Kelly had posted that photo.

What the fuck? How had Hooper known where she was going? Who’d tipped him off?

I recalled asking her who knew she was coming up here, and her answer had been her parents, her assistant, her manager, and Duke. But that was Friday afternoon, and according to Kelly, Duke had only learned of her whereabouts that day. And she’d claimed everyone else could be trusted.

So who’d leaked her location? And why? For publicity? Money? To keep tabs on her? It was going to gnaw at me until I had an answer. I needed to get ahold of Hooper and convince him it was in his best interest to be up front with me. But how was I going to find that asshole?

While I was thinking about it, the guy next to me held up his credit card and waved it around. “Hey, can I get my check?”

“One second,” Kate answered, typing something into the computer. When she returned, she took his credit card and looked at it. “James Bond? Is that really your name?”

“Sure is, sweetheart.”

James Bond?

I gave the guy a sidelong glance. White skin. Blond hair. Tall and beefy, like a bouncer. Was this the asshole who’d tried to get ten grand out of Kelly?

“Cool name,” I said. “So are you a spy?”

He looked over, his eyes raking over my build and my tattoos. He sat up a little straighter, puffed up his chest. “No. I’m in private security.”

Boom.

“Oh yeah? Like a bodyguard?”

“Yeah.” He tried to suck in his gut.

“So have you ever guarded any big name celebrities?”

“Tons of them,” he boasted. “But they all suck.”

I laughed like he’d said something funny. “Anyone I’d know?”

He rattled off a few people I’d never heard of. And then. “I worked for Pixie Hart too. The singer.”

“Oh yeah? My kids like her. She seems nice.”

“She’s a bitch just like the rest of them,” he said, and I had to fight the urge to punch his fucking lights out. “She fired me for no reason.”

“Seriously?” My beer arrived, and I wrapped my hand around it so tight I thought the glass might splinter.

“Yeah. Couple of the other guys on the team were doing some shady shit, taking money for tipping off the paparazzi and whatnot, but it wasn’t me, and I got fired anyway.”

“So the paparazzi were paying the security team for tips?”

He shook his head as he signed his check. “Fuck no, those guys don’t have any money. It was her ex-boyfriend paying the guys to leak the info.”

Deep breaths. In through the nose. Out the mouth. “Her ex-boyfriend paid the security team to leak information to photographers? Why?”

“Who knows?” He put the pen down. “Probably just to fuck with her. The guy’s a douche bag.”

“The world’s full of them,” I said, getting off my chair. Tossing money onto the bar without even waiting for my food, I bolted from the restaurant with my phone to my ear. Kelly’s voicemail picked up, and I left a message. “Hey, baby, it’s me. Please call me when you can.” Then I tried Marius and got his voicemail too.

Fuck!

Following the signs for luggage claim, I ran as fast as I could for an exit. Waiting in line for a cab seemed to take fucking years. While I was standing there, I tried to connect everything. Duke had paid her dipshit security guys to tip off photographers, but how was he getting the information? Was someone in her inner circle feeding it to him? Was it her shithead dad? Would Wags betray her like that? Would her assistant? I found it hard to believe either Jess or Wags would do that to her. Maybe someone else at the record label, a PR person or something, had caught wind of her whereabouts and thought it would be good publicity.

And Duke. When I thought about him, I saw red. If that asshole thought he could continue to fuck with her now that I was in the picture, he had another thing coming. Every time I thought about him at her side today, the way she was trusting him to be a decent fucking human being, I wanted to kick his ass.

“Motherfucker,” I seethed, causing the guy in front of me to cast a wary eye over his shoulder.

Ten minutes later, I was in a cab heading for the theater. Unfortunately, it was rush hour, and the traffic around the city was gridlocked. Closing my eyes, I cursed myself for ignoring that gut feeling that told me not to leave her.

Never again.