by Naomi West
“Good, good. Here’s what I’m thinking: This whole thing is awful, but that doesn’t mean we can’t turn it into something wonderful. The fact that somebody was after you means that you’re special; you’re important. We need to milk as much as we can out of that.”
“You do whatever you want to, I guess, but I’m a little worn out. I’m just going to take a nap, and we can talk about this tomorrow.” She stood up, her legs till shaky, and drew the curtains on the big windows.
“We don’t have time for that, kid. In this day and age, there are too many people with cell phones and social media accounts. If we don’t release this instantly, then someone else will. I’ll have Cheryl type up a press release right away. Cheryl!” His voice grew muffled as he said something to his secretary. “I’ll have reporters calling left and right, looking for an exclusive interview. This will be big, even bigger than that sexy video you released last month. Everyone will want to talk to you.”
Pausing to think about it for a moment, Lola realized just what was happening. She had nearly been bumped off, and Victor was more concerned about turning it into a publicity stunt than tracking down the would-be killer. “No, I don’t want to talk to anybody. I’ve had enough of a crowd in this little town as it is, and you’re only going to make it worse. No reporters, no media circus, no paparazzi. I want to keep this as small of a deal as possible and just get the hell out of town in the morning and back to my normal life.”
“No can do, kid. This story is going to hit the news whether you like it or not, and that’s just the way things work. Even if I don’t say anything, someone will. We’d be fools not to take advantage of it. Besides, you don’t have any work you have to do right now other than giving me all the details of what happened. Think of it as therapy.”
Lola rolled her eyes. This guy was such a sleaze, but he had come through on his promise to make her a big star. She wasn’t exactly a top-rated diva just yet, but everyone knew who she was. “Can’t you just make a generic release and we can go over the details in the morning?”
“Sorry, but business is business. I need to get this taken care of right away. Of course, all the information won’t go into the release, but I need to know just how juicy of a scenario we’re talking about here. If a reporter wants an exclusive deal, then we need to know what cards are on the table.”
Sighing and lying back on the bed, Lola agreed. “Fine. But the whole thing is crazy.”
“The crazier the better, kid! Hang on, let me get the recorder started. Okay, now tell me everything.”
* * *
Lola woke up early the next morning, before the sun had even made it over the horizon. She had been an early riser back when she was younger, before she was used to staying up all night giving concerts and going to after-parties. It was odd to be awake at such an hour and that it wasn’t because she simply hadn’t gone to bed yet.
She took a moment to collect her thoughts, remembering where she was and why. Rolling Hills, the Mahogany Blossom Hotel, room 3F, the most luxurious suite in the hotel which still didn’t come close to comparing to the places she was used to staying. She was in her hometown, if she could really call it that, and she was going to get the hell out.
Jumping out of bed, Lola suddenly remembered what she had been through the previous day as her sore muscles cramped up. She limped to the shower, blasting the water as hot as she could. Stepping back into the bedroom and flicking on the light, she picked up her phone so she could make flight arrangements for getting back to Hollywood.
But the noise outside made her pause. Things had been quiet when she had woken, but they had changed as soon as she’d turned on the light. Suspicion creeping up the back of her spine, she tiptoed to the window and peeked through the heavy curtains.
Rolling Hills was a quiet town. The only traffic that should be coming down the main road at this early hour was coal miners on their way to their shift. But the crowd on the sidewalk below the hotel was so thick that Lola couldn’t see the concrete. People stood shoulder to shoulder and then some, craning their necks up at the hotel and pointing their phones. They jumped up and down and pointed, accidentally pushing some of the onlookers out into the street and not noticing. Their screams were audible through the thick glass. The police were just arriving, their lights on but not their sirens, as they prepared for crowd control.
Lola snapped the curtain shut again. Her stomach rolled, and it wasn’t just because she hadn’t had breakfast yet. There was no doubt in her mind that these fans were here for her. It was a much bigger mass than the one that had assembled at The Dive.
She looked at her phone again, but instead of pulling up the app for the airline she tapped on the icon for the news. The story had broken, just as Victor had promised it would. There were links to numerous reports on both the scene last night and even the crowd that had formed just a few stories below her. Not only had people discovered the attack, they had figured out just where she was staying. That wasn’t a hard thing to do in a place like this.
Poking at her contacts, Lola mentally formulated all the mean and nasty things she was going to say to Victor. It was even earlier in Hollywood than it was here, and she hoped she brought Victor out of a nice, peaceful sleep just so she could chew his ear off.
But he answered with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. “Good morning, Lola! Do you smell that in the air? It’s publicity! And not because you wore a skimpy outfit or because people are speculating on who you’re sleeping with, but because you’re important and special and the whole world wants to see you! Isn’t it fantastic?” His voice was so loud that she pulled the phone away from her ear in order not to go deaf.
“It’s not fantastic when there’s a crowd about a mile thick right outside the hotel!” Lola dared to peek out the curtains again, but it only incited their screams once again. “They’re going crazy out there. What am I supposed to do?”
“Well, if I were you I’d have those two brutes of yours organize a little autograph signing session. Make the kids line up and tell them you’ll only spend an hour. It’ll increase demand, and it will make you a media darling.”
Lola frowned at herself in the mirror across the room. At the moment, with her hair wet, no makeup on, and a very grumpy look on her face, she definitely didn’t look like a media darling. And she didn’t feel like one, either. “I don’t think so, Vic. They’ll stampede the place, and you can’t expect me to smile and nod when I was nearly killed yesterday.”
“But—”
“No, I’m putting my foot down on this one. You can’t make me do it.” She sounded like a petulant child, but she didn’t care. “Now, how are you going to clean up this mess and get me the hell out of here?”
There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line before Victor spoke again. “Well, the thing is, there aren’t any reliable security companies out in the boonies where you are. It’s going to take some time before I find someone reliable I can send over. I know your guys are good, but the two of them aren’t going to be able to combat this. You need a much larger security detail, and maybe on a permanent basis. As a matter of fact, that might be something to focus on once you get back to Hollywood …”
“Stay focused, Vic. I don’t care about once I get back. I care about now.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’re the manager,” she reminded him. “Manage it.” She hung up the phone, wishing she could do something more satisfying than pressing a button on the touchscreen.
Flopping back onto the pillows, Lola tried to pull herself together. She was too pissed. Normally, she might enjoy a little downtime to herself. She could use the time to write new lyrics (even though her producer had trashed every song she had proposed to him so far) or work on content for her social media platforms. Hell, she could just read a damn book.
But right now, she didn’t want to do any of that. She just wanted to pack her bag, have Butch drive her to the airport, and get on a plane. It didn’t e
ven have to be headed straight for California as long as she was getting out of here.
Stomping to the door, she yanked it open to find Chris, half-asleep against the hallway wall. “Wha? What’s going on?”
Scowling at him, Lola grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him inside the room. There was no way in hell she was going to talk about this in the hall. Even though there weren’t any fans right at her door, she highly doubted the hotel management had done a perfect job of keeping nosy onlookers out of the building. “What’s going on is that you and Butch are going to figure out a way to smuggle me out of this place. Vic doesn’t think it can be done safely, but I’m not staying here one more day. Get Butch on the phone and put your heads together.”
Leering down at the top of her bathrobe, Chris nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
Butch arrived only a minute later. He had probably been sleeping, but he showed up looking as awake and aware as ever. “You don’t have to tell me. I saw them. Unfortunately, I think Vic is right. If we try to get you out of here, it’s going to be complete chaos. The airport is an hour away, and we’d have to shut down every major highway just to keep them at bay. Not to mention the fact that the guy who shot at you yesterday is still at large. We’re stuck for the moment.”
“What good are you anyway?” Lola hissed, instantly regretting it. Butch had been good to her, and he didn’t deserve that. “I’m sorry. I’m just very frustrated.”
“I know you are, but look at the bright side. People are crazy about you. And I doubt everyone down there is from this little town. They’ve probably come from all over just for the possibility of seeing you.”
She glared at him. “You sound like Vic.”
“Maybe I’ve been in the business too long,” he replied with a shrug.
“Can you at least try to figure something out?”
“No promises, but I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, just make the best of it.”
Butch was far too happy for her taste. Lola closed the door behind the men, heaving a sigh into the silence of her room. What a weird homecoming this had been. First, she had completely botched things with her parents. Then, somehow, word had gotten out that she was at The Dive, and she had been shot at, saved only by some awful biker who thought he had free rein to just shove her against a wall and kiss her.
The bad thing was that even though she’d had plenty happen to her since her arrival in Rolling Hills, Bishop was the only thing she could really think about. As pissed as she was about the crowd outside and the fact that she was stuck in this half-rate hotel, her mind kept drifting back to the red streaks in his dark hair and the way his eyes seemed to drink her in every time he looked at her. Lola shook her head. It shouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t be seeing him again. She padded to the bathroom to do her hair.
Chapter Six
Bishop
The old garage had been the perfect place to set up headquarters for the Cobra Kings when they had arrived in Rolling Hills five years ago. Built in the fifties, there was plenty of room indoors for the men to park their bikes out of the weather. For some reason Bishop had never been able to fathom, a second story had been built onto the place and was easily divided into apartments for the members. Out on the edge of town where nobody bothered them, it was simply ideal.
He loved the smell of generations of oil and fuel that constantly emanated from the concrete floor of the garage, and he strolled through the rows of bikes that morning, trying to focus on it. He needed to get his head on straight and stop thinking so damn much. It really wasn’t that difficult to be the president of an MC as long as you knew how to keep your men in line, and that was something Bishop was good at. What he wasn’t good at was figuring out why he couldn’t stop thinking about Lola Lennox.
She was a little blonde superstar, the kind of girl that didn’t belong in Rolling Hills or anyplace but Hollywood. She was the kind of person that every guy thought he wanted. But she was so difficult and stubborn that she wouldn’t be worth keeping a hold of. No, if Bishop were ever to settle down with a woman, she couldn’t be like that. He needed someone who had a little bit of a tough side so she could deal with the other MC members, but who was an absolute kitten in bed and submitted to his every whim. That would be perfect, and Lola didn’t fit the bill.
But he couldn’t deny the way the singing sensation had made him feel. Bishop had instantly snapped into guardian mode while her life was in danger. He’d tried to tell himself, as he had lain tossing and turning in bed the night before, that it was what any decent person would do. But if that was the case, he wouldn’t have tried so hard to get her to come with him, and he definitely wouldn’t have kissed her.
Bishop paused next to his bike and admired the cold metal. It was a machine that brought him great satisfaction and freedom, and yet it wasn’t enough today. He wanted to have the warm flesh of Lola’s lips pressed against his, or maybe pressed somewhere else on his body. She had felt so luscious in his arms as she had succumbed to his kiss, melting like a candle in his grasp. Bishop could have satisfied himself with any woman, but his body was obsessed with Lola. And there wasn’t anything he could do about it. She was probably long gone on a plane back to California, where she belonged.
“Boss!”
The voice from the other side of the garage was urgent, causing Bishop to turn immediately on his heel. He needed a distraction. “What is it?”
“Did you see this?” Sluice trotted across the garage floor, his tablet in his hand. He tapped the screen when he reached Bishop, displaying a video of a massive crowd. People of all ages—from young kids to adults—stood on a sidewalk, clapping and cheering. They held homemade signs in their hands, and news cameras were all over the place.
“This is the scene this morning outside the Magnolia Blossom Hotel,” a bland reporter’s voice narrated over the screams. “Since the press release last night about the attempt on singer Lola Lennox’s life, fans have put the information together and discovered that she’s staying right here in Rolling Hills. Police are asking everyone to be mindful of traffic and business, but that hasn’t stopped the crowd from continuing to grow. Eyewitnesses tell me that people have been congregating here since the early hours of the morning, and more have continued to come. Lola has reportedly looked out the window a couple of times but has not officially been seen other than that. Back to you, Chip.”
“Shit.” Bishop ran a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. So this wasn’t over. Not even close. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“I didn’t know how much it really mattered, but I thought you might like to know,” the VP explained. “At the very least, some of our men might be able to get security work out of it.”
“No way,” Bishop countered. “This is a celebrity we’re talking about. Those bodyguards aren’t going to let guys like us anywhere near her. They only want professionals, and that’s not us.”
“Okay.” Sluice turned off the screen and strode off toward the dining hall.
“Wait a second.” Bishop knew he couldn’t just let this go. He didn’t know just what he was going to do yet, but he had to do something. “Get the men rounded up. I want to have a meeting.”
“Yes, Boss.”
* * *
When the Cobra Kings had assembled, Bishop took a moment to just look at all of them. They were a fine set of men, all incredibly loyal. He also knew they were each skilled in their own ways, and he would have to use that to his advantage. “Men, we have a situation on our hands. I’m sure you all know that someone tried to kill Lola Lennox yesterday. I might not think too much of that if it happened somewhere else, but the fact remains that it happened here. That means we’ve got a criminal on our hands, and one who we haven’t approved of.”
The member laughed a little at that. The Cobra Kings weren’t exactly law-abiding citizens, but there was a big difference between exchanging some black-market goods to make money and shooting at an innocent person.
“I don’t think we can
just stand by and let this go. We need to do something about it, and I know that you men have the talent to track this guy down. I want you to get out there and find out everything you know. Thanks to the news, we know where Lola is staying. That’s a great start. But I want to know just who the hell this guy was, and why he’s trying to kill her. Use your connections, talk to people, do whatever you have to do, but I want a full report by dinnertime.”
Nodding their agreeance and turning to talk to each other about plans, the meeting was adjourned. Bishop headed to his office, a small room off the garage that had once belonged to the garage manager back in the old days. It smelled of old rubber on hot days, but he didn’t mind. It was his private space, and a good place to think. He heaved his weight into the old leather chair and let it spin slowly. “Now,” he murmured to himself, “why would someone want to kill a woman like Lola?”