A steady stream of tourists and shoppers ambled by. Some loitered, others browsed, a few took vacation snaps by the mock canals. There weren’t any faces Charley recognized, and no individual stood out from the crowd.
Yet her gut told her someone was out there, watching, waiting, preying on them.
“Have you seen these bracelets, Charley?” said Ash, beckoning her into the adjacent store.
The shop assistant welcomed them and laid out a selection of silver and gold designs. Ash ran his gaze over them, then turned to Charley. “Which one do you like the best?” he asked.
Charley took a moment from her surveillance to have a quick glance. Her eyes were instantly drawn to a simple bracelet woven from three bands of white gold. “That one’s beautiful,” she said.
“I’ll get it for you,” said Ash, pulling out his wallet.
“But it’s five thousand dollars!” protested Charley.
He smiled at her. “So? You’re worth it.”
Charley put her hand over his wallet. “Listen, it’s very sweet of you, Ash. But I can’t accept it.”
Ash ignored her, handed the shop assistant his debit card and looped the white-gold bracelet around Charley’s wrist. “A thank-you gift,” he said. “For saving my life.”
As she admired the exquisite piece of jewelry, wondering how she could refuse now, Charley heard the faintest click of a camera.
“It’ll be an engagement ring next,” said a snide voice.
At once she knew who’d been following them. Charley couldn’t believe it. Was there no place Gonzo couldn’t find them? Hounded at every turn, tormented at every moment, she was truly experiencing the claustrophobic nightmare of being a celebrity in the twenty-first century—no privacy, no boundaries, no escape.
Gonzo was their very own stalker.
“Go crawl back into whatever sewer you came from!” Ash snapped.
“That’s no way to treat a friend,” replied the pap.
“Friend? Even my worst enemy is more of a friend than you.”
“Harsh, but you’ve got a lot of enemies from what I hear.”
Fuming, Ash stormed out of the store.
“Just leave us alone, Gonzo,” said Charley, struggling to keep the anger out of her voice.
But Gonzo stalked them through the shopping mall, snapping and filming away nonstop. Each time they entered a store, he’d wait outside, his lens tracking their every movement.
“I’ll have you arrested,” Charley threatened as they came out of a boutique.
“I know my rights. I’m on public property—nothing you can do about it.”
Charley felt her fury rising. Even while they had lunch, the man’s camera recorded their every mouthful. They visited a designer clothes store. When they came out, they passed a florist, and Gonzo goaded Ash once again. “How about a bouquet for your girlfriend? And don’t forget . . . one for your mother! Lilies are a good choice.”
Charley noticed Ash’s eyes redden and his fists clench. Gonzo had taken it too far, even for a paparazzo. Charley felt something snap inside her too. What right did this piece of scum have to stalk and harass them? What right did he have to bring up Ash’s dead mother? What right did he have to bait people purely for the purposes of a “unique” photo he could sell for thousands?
Charley reached into her bag and pulled out a small canister. Before Gonzo knew what was happening, she sprayed his camera lens and face with red gel. Spluttering and swearing, Gonzo furiously tried to wipe the gunk from his eyes.
“Sorry about that,” said Charley. “It just went off in my hand by accident.”
As Charley sauntered away with Ash, who was staring at her in stunned admiration, Gonzo yelled after them, “You’ll live to regret that, chica!”
20
Charley woke to the insistent blare of her alarm clock. Surely it couldn’t be morning already. Often on this tour she was so exhausted that she lost track of time, with no idea what day it was, let alone which hotel she was sleeping in. After a while the bedrooms all looked the same. She vaguely recalled they’d reached San Francisco. The gig in Las Vegas had gone without a hitch, as had the ones in Salt Lake City and Seattle, and they were now entering the final phase of the tour. She only had to keep Ash safe a few more days, and then the threat of “no more encores” would be just that—an empty threat.
Groggily, she reached over to switch off the clock. But the alarm continued to ring in her ears. Shrugging off sleep, she smelled the acrid tinge of smoke in the air. At once she sat bolt upright in bed.
FIRE!
Barefoot and wearing a T-shirt and shorts, Charley grabbed Ash’s spare key card from the bedside table and sprinted for the door. Bugsy’s emergency fire training had drilled into her that every second counted in a fire. She tested the temperature of the door handle, then pressed the back of her hand to the door itself. Both were cool to the touch. Confident she wouldn’t stumble straight into a blaze, she opened the door and peered out.
A noxious gray haze immediately enveloped her, and she started coughing. The corridor was filled with smoke. Guests in all states of dress and undress were fleeing in panic, many with no idea where the nearest fire escapes were and running the wrong way. Jessie and Zoe flew past, along with other members of the road crew.
“Have you seen Ash?” Charley called out.
“No!” cried Zoe, not stopping as she disappeared into the haze of smoke.
Pulling her T-shirt up to her mouth, Charley hammered on Ash’s door. No answer.
She guessed that Big T had already evacuated him. But she couldn’t take that chance. Slotting the key card into the lock, she accessed his suite.
“ASH?” she called, hurrying through the lounge to the bedroom.
A figure lay sprawled underneath the covers. Charley wondered how on earth Ash could sleep through the Klaxon of the fire alarm. Then she spotted his in-ear noise-cancellation headphones.
Charley shook Ash awake. “GET UP!” she shouted.
Ash blearily opened his eyes. “What! W-what’s going on?”
“Fire!” explained Charley as she dashed into the bathroom and soaked a couple of hand towels. When she came back, Ash was busy gathering up his songbook, laptop and acoustic guitar. “Leave them! We don’t have time.”
“My life ain’t worth living without my guitar,” said Ash as he stuffed his songbook into his shorts.
“If we don’t get out now, you won’t have a life, never mind a guitar!” She grabbed his arm and hauled him to the door. She opened it a crack and smoke surged into the room. She slammed it shut.
Ash looked to the balcony. “Why don’t we jump?” he suggested.
Charley gave a strained smile. “We could. But the pool’s on the other side.”
She handed him a dripping wet towel. “Put this over your mouth and stay close.”
Crouching low to the floor to avoid the worst of the smoke, she eased the door open and led Ash out. The corridor was now a darkening tunnel of gray-white fog. It was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. She could hear a few straggling guests coughing and spluttering, and in the far distance the howl of fire engines. From her security checks on arrival at the hotel, she knew the nearest fire exit was eight doors and one corridor down. Keeping a hand to the wall, she counted them off as they scurried like frightened mice along the carpet. Her eyes stung from the toxic smoke, and she now appreciated how easily a person could get disoriented in a fire. There was no sense of distance or direction; everywhere was a murky gray cloud, furniture and figures appearing and disappearing like ghosts.
After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the fire door. She pushed against the locking bar, but it wouldn’t budge. Charley shoved harder. To no avail. Now she knew why the hotel guests had been fleeing in the other direction.
“Let me . . . have a go,” Ash coughed,
taking the damp towel from his mouth.
He kicked at the bar. Nothing. So he slammed his shoulder against the door. This time it screeched open a fraction. A lick of flames shot out. Ash leaped back, yelling as the sleeve of his shirt caught fire. The flames rapidly spread across his back.
On impulse Charley dragged him to the floor and rolled him on the carpet. At the same time, she smothered him with her body. She knew her T-shirt was fireproof and prayed she could put out the flames before Ash was seriously burned.
“I’m . . . all right,” gasped Ash, his shirt singed black.
But they were now in even more immediate danger. The corridor was on fire. Despite the door being open only a crack, it was enough for the blaze on the other side to finger its way in. Cursing herself for not checking the door first, she pulled Ash to his knees and headed back the other way. They’d lost their wet towels, and their lungs now filled with suffocating smoke. Coughing and choking, they crawled along the corridor. But in their hurry to escape the advancing flames, Charley lost count of the doors. With no clue in which direction or how far the next fire exit was, the two of them stumbled on blindly.
Ash was coughing uncontrollably and Charley’s head pounded and she felt sick. The flames would be the least of their worries. She knew from Bugsy that the majority of deaths in a fire were caused by smoke inhalation rather than burns. They had to escape the corridor and find clear air.
Blinking away acrid tears, Charley reached out desperately in front of her. In the gloom, she discovered that a door to a guest room had been left ajar. Pulling Ash inside, she kicked the door shut behind them. Smoke hung around the ceiling in a thick cloud and still seeped in around the frame. But it was a far better situation than the corridor. Leaving Ash hacking on the floor, she threw any towels that she could find into the bath and ran the taps. As soon as the towels were wet, she stuffed them against the edges of the door.
“Charley! Look at this!” croaked Ash, leaning out of the balcony window for fresh air.
Six floors down, a huge crowd had gathered in the darkness. Fire engines, their lights flashing and reflecting off the other buildings, jammed the streets. The beam of a searchlight swept the hotel and illuminated the two of them in the window.
Ash looked at Charley, his face streaked black with soot, and said, “Take a leap of faith?”
With a final glance back at the smoldering door, Charley nodded and climbed over the balcony. Hand in hand, they jumped.
21
“I hate to admit it,” said Kay, shaking her head wearily as they ate breakfast in the diner opposite the fire-damaged hotel, “but that makes a great picture!”
She tapped the newspaper with a manicured fingernail. Below the headline—“LOVEBIRDS FLEE NEST FIRE”—was a photo of Ash and Charley caught midplunge over the hotel pool, still clasping each other’s hands, the flaming building making a dramatic backdrop to their death-defying escape. Of course, Gonzo had been there to catch the moment in all its glory, along with a handful of other paparazzi in the city. But he had been the one to nab the front-page shot.
“The headline’s predictably trashy, though,” Kay went on, sipping from her coffee. Despite having been up most of the night, as had everyone else, she somehow managed to retain her elegant looks even in a hotel robe and slippers. Charley and Ash were wrapped in blankets, Big T in a white T-shirt and gray jogging pants and, much to the road crew’s amusement, Terry had fled the hotel in a pair of blue pajamas embroidered with yellow teddy bears. Only Jessie had managed to escape the fire in any reasonable state of dress. She sat with Zoe at the next table in jeans, T-shirt and sneakers.
“But, in all seriousness, either this tour is cursed with the worst bad luck or someone is seriously committed to killing Ash if they’re willing to burn down an entire hotel.” Kay put a protective arm around her nephew and smiled at Charley. “If it wasn’t for you, Charley, my Ash wouldn’t be sitting here with us now having breakfast.”
“Yeah, well done, Charley,” said Big T, cupping a mug of coffee between his huge hands. “But next time . . . take the stairs.” He forced a tired smile at his weak joke.
Kay turned to Big T. “Might I ask where you were during all this? Because you certainly weren’t at Ash’s side.”
Big T dropped his grin and responded with a defensive frown. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Ms. Gibson. When the fire alarm woke me, I discovered Ash already gone from his room. So, after ensuring everyone else was out, I made my escape. I was the last of the crew to leave our floor.”
A frosty look entered Kay’s green eyes. “Not quite the last, as it turned out. Ash was still up there!”
“With Charley,” he pointed out. “I knew she’d carried out the fire security check, so I was confident she’d get Ash to safety.”
“Yes, and thank God she did!” said Kay, turning her back on Big T.
Charley saw the wounded look on the old bodyguard’s lined face. She wanted to say something in his defense, but Zoe cut in from the next table. “Hey, listen to this! Latest update on CNN . . . The fire was no accident!” she exclaimed, reading from a news app on her smartphone. “The police report states it was arson . . . They’ve found what appears to be the remnants of a homemade incendiary bomb.” She showed them a picture of a charred can of Hurtle energy drink and the remains of a cheap digital watch. “The fire was started in a housekeeping storage cupboard . . . and someone had disabled the hotel’s sprinkler system!”
Big T leaned forward in his seat. “Any suspects?”
Zoe read a little farther down, then shook her head. “The police have no leads whatsoever . . . and no one has claimed responsibility so far.”
Charley put down her orange juice. “The fire had to be targeted at Ash.”
Ash glanced up from his omelet, his fork hanging halfway between the plate and his open mouth.
“Fire is a very indiscriminate method of murder,” Big T noted. “Ash may have escaped unharmed, but other guests didn’t. It’s a miracle so few were actually hurt in the blaze.”
“But if some maniac is willing to go to those lengths,” Charley pointed out, “it shows how determined they are.”
Kay narrowed her eyes. “Aside from the death threats we know about, what makes you think Ash was targeted?”
“Our closest fire exit was blocked,” Charley explained.
Zoe gasped and looked at Jessie. “Thank heaven you made me run the other way.”
Jessie nodded. “Yeah, we’d have been trapped too!”
“Good thing you did,” said Ash, setting down his fork. “The fire was on the other side of the door. Without Charley smothering me, I’d have been burned to a crisp.”
He took Charley’s hand in his. She smiled warmly in response. Their near-death experience had definitely brought them closer.
Big T rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It might not have been blocked on purpose. Many fire doors have smoke seals that expand under heat to close the gap between the door and its frame. The fact they worked in this case probably saved your lives.”
“That does seem more likely than a direct attack on Ash,” admitted Kay.
The diner’s entrance swung open, and Vince approached their table. “I’ve been informed that it’s safe to return to the hotel and collect our belongings,” said their security guard.
“Well, thank God for the San Francisco fire department,” said Kay. “I just hope they managed to save my dresses.” She raised an eyebrow in response to Terry’s shocked expression. “That’s a joke, Terry, in case you’re wondering.”
They rose from the table and headed back to the hotel. From the outside there appeared to be little damage, just a few shattered windows and black smears of soot staining the outer walls. As they entered the lobby, the reception area was in organized chaos, but a VIP representative from the hotel swiftly escorted their group past security and up
the stairs.
The benefits of being a celebrity, thought Charley.
On the sixth floor, she and the others were confronted by the full devastation wreaked by the blaze. The corridor was scorched and the walls were blackened. The harsh, acrid tang of smoke still hung in the air, and the carpet was soaked with water from the fire hoses. As they each peeled off to gather their belongings, Charley was amazed to discover her and Ash’s rooms were untouched by the fire, their closed doors having held back the flames. There was still the reek of smoke, but that appeared to be the only serious damage.
Next door she heard Ash exclaim his delight at finding his guitar in one piece. She looked in and smiled to herself when she saw him caressing the instrument like a long-lost lover. But she noticed the Intruder device that she’d attached to Ash’s door frame had melted beyond repair.
Returning to her room, Charley checked and repacked the contents of her go-bag: spare Intruders, half-empty pepper spray, high-impact pen, first-aid kit, comms unit, flashlight. As expected, her phone registered several missed calls from Guardian HQ—Jason’s concern growing with each voice mail message—and a bunch of warning texts from the Intruder device catching her entering and leaving Ash’s room during the fire. She deleted these, then called HQ.
The phone was picked up on the first ring. “Charley! Is Ash okay?” asked Jason.
“Yes, he’s fine,” she replied. “I am too. Thanks for asking.”
“That’s a relief,” he said, though Charley wasn’t sure if he was referring to her or Ash or both of them. “We saw the fire on the news and pictures of your dramatic escape, but we were worried that we hadn’t heard from you.”
“I’d left my phone in the room. For obvious reasons, I was in a bit of a rush to get out,” she explained. “But I’ve got your messages now.”
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