it up,” he warned.
“Yes, sir,” Bryan clipped.
Ramsey slid his arm around Hartley’s shoulders. “Let’s get those questions over with so the police officers can file their report.”
Hartley was almost moved to tears over Ramsey’s gesture of placing a protective arm around her. “I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier,” she said quietly.
“It’s okay.” His eyes softened, a hint of a wry grin touching his lips. “I figure the she-devil in you is bound to come out every once in a while.”
Semi-amused, she gave him a partial smile. “Thanks for being here with me.” She pushed out a shaky laugh. “Everything was going so well. I guess the storm clouds were bound to gather sooner or later, huh?” Emotion rose in her throat as she swallowed it back down. She was used to hard knocks. Heck, she’d been brought up on them. They’d made her who she was. But she was ready for a stretch of sunny weather—a chance to fall in love … a chance to experience true, undiluted joy.
He squeezed her shoulders. “We’ll get through this. You have my word.”
“After all this, you might regret joining the tour.” Her words were spoken lightly, but she held her breath waiting for his response.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said firmly. “We’re in this together. You got that?”
“Yeah,” she breathed, a large smile of relief filling her face. “I’m so glad.”
10
Ramsey’s senses were on hyper alert as he watched Hartley from the wing of the stage. So far, everything was going smoothly. Kudos to Hartley, she was performing like a pro. No one would ever guess what grueling events had transpired earlier. After Hartley had gone with Ava to get ready for the concert, Ramsey called an emergency meeting with his team, stressing the importance of them being vigilant. “If anything seems amiss, call it in. If you so much as see a person looking at Hartley the wrong way, I wanna know about it.” Ramsey wished that he was more familiar with the men on his team.
The irony. Ramsey had been feeling guilty that Cash was paying him so much when all he had to do was basically keep things running status quo. Little did he know what would be coming down the pike a few short hours later. Like Corbin said over the phone, things came in waves.
His mind kept running through everything that had happened. It would take several days to get any results from the fingerprint dusting. Thankfully, the check on the cell phone was faster. Just as Ramsey suspected, the phone had been used to leave Hartley the text. No other information was on the phone, just the one text. It had been purchased two days prior at a mall in Chicago. The buyer paid cash. Luckily, the store had video surveillance. It was the same mustached man who had been caught on video outside Hartley’s dressing room, giving Bryan the donuts. In both videos, the man had done a good job of shielding his face from the camera, preventing anyone from identifying him. Whoever this guy was, he knew what he was doing. Ramsey’s gut told him that the intruder was too smart to leave fingerprints behind. However, he had to be thorough and do his due diligence. The scary part about this whole thing was that if the guy had wanted to kill Hartley, he could’ve easily gotten to her while she was in the bathroom. This person wanted to invoke fear—a cat toying with its prey before moving in for the kill. Apprehension wrapped a tight blanket around him as he took in a quick breath. He had to remain calm about this so that he could think clearly. He had to squelch this indignation burning through him like raging fire, threatening to consume all of his effectiveness. Ramsey was trained for this sort of thing. He had to look at the situation analytically, pushing aside his fear.
Initially, Ramsey thought that Blake Owens might have sent the text. However, the man with the mustache looked nothing like Blake. However, that didn’t necessarily mean that Blake wasn’t involved. He could have hired someone to do his dirty work. But what motive could Blake have for terrorizing Hartley? Revenge because she’d called him out to the reporters? Was he obsessed with her?
Maybe Ramsey was barking up the wrong tree. Was this the work of some demented fan? Goosebumps rose over Ramsey’s flesh. Everything in him wanted to rush onto the stage and swoop Hartley up and