by Lara Archer
Shit. Of course it was about Ruby. And of course it was Donny Lempert who’d picked up the trail. Snakes like him dragged their bellies through the filthiest muck and invariably hit paydirt. And, whatever it was, it had to be bad. Something had been under Ruby’s skin the day she arrived, and that skin had been toughened up by some pretty nasty scandal with Vin La Russa. She wouldn’t have burst into tears over nothing.
Sure enough, Donny Lempert stood a little distance away from the crowd, ignoring Amber, with a cocksure, malicious look about him. He was waiting for someone else. For Ruby.
Damn.
Amber was making a little speech to the vultures around her, saying earnest things about making art and respecting the privacy of her actors so they could do their best, most honest work.
Appealing to the innate decency of tabloid reporters—nothing could more clearly reveal the difference between her life experience and his. She still believed in the basic goodness of the human heart. And he didn’t want to break that part of her. He didn’t want her to be disillusioned. Which was exactly the reason he couldn’t keep falling into bed with her—because disillusionment was sure to follow, sooner or later, if she got any more involved with him.
His gut cramped thinking about it.
He wanted to get a club and go swimming through that pack of vultures and send them all sailing a mile away from her. She needed protection. From them, and from himself.
Ranger Donnell came storming out from the Ranger Station now, Onyx pulling him by the arm, with Ruby’s security guards and Jake Hultensaalt close behind them. Clearly, Onyx was rallying the troops.
The ranger stepped up beside Amber, his back ramrod straight and his expression all business. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, in a loud, clear tour-guiding voice. “I’d like to remind all of you that you’re on federally protected land, and our rules are very strict here about not harassing other visitors. If necessary, I will ask you to leave the park.”
The vultures blinked at him. They were accustomed to being told to beat it. Hearing it from a Park Ranger who didn’t even carry a weapon had little effect on them. Collectively, they shrugged or turned their attention away from the man in uniform. And, Nick noted with a growing sense of anger, not a one of them moved away from where they’d landed.
With a frustrated frown, Ranger Donnell pointed at the clouds gathering above their heads. “In fact,” he said, “it might be best if you all get back in your cars and head out right now, before this storm hits. I’ve got nowhere to lodge you, and once the lightning starts, it’s going to be bad news for anyone out in the open. If we get hail, it could easily crack your windshields.”
At that very moment, a stiff breeze pressed against Nick’s back and set his hair whipping about his ears. The wind felt colder than before, wilder, making the trees show the white undersides of their leaves. Little spits of moisture began to flick his face, soft at first, but quickly picking up tempo and strength. Jake Hultensaalt noticed it, too, and pivoted to get a good look at the sky, which was definitely growing more ominous. The big cloud that hadn’t looked too bad fifteen minutes ago was looming nearer and rising higher and darker, suddenly seeming worthy of the word “thunderhead.”
Jake’s interest in the atmosphere made the assembled paparazzi look upwards, too, and a few of them actually seemed rather alarmed at the sight of that huge dark mass bearing down on them. For a few seconds, it seemed as if they might scatter and fly back to their vulture-mobiles.
But then, Ruby Torres’s cabin door opened. The diva herself stepped out into the open.
The flock instantly scented their prey. In a body, they turned and pushed towards her, forming a ring outside her porch railing. “Ms. Torres!” they started calling out, and cameras began to flash. “Can we have a moment? Ms. Torres!”
Ruby’s face blanched, and she let out a string of expletives in Spanish. But, like the diva she was, she gathered herself quickly and struck a serene and queenly pose, presenting her best angle to the cameras. “No comment,” she said, plastering a tight smile on her face. “I’m here working. No interviews during this shoot, sorry.”
She locked eyes with her security goons and made a subtle motion with her chin. So far, on set, she’d had them keep their distance from her, but now they bulldozed their way through the mob and formed a human blockade at the bottom of her porch steps.
Nick pushed his way over and stood beside them, and Jake shouldered a path from the back of the crowd, fortifying the wall between the vultures and Ruby’s porch.
Donny Lempert, though, slithered up boldly, looking up at Ruby over the taller men’s shoulders. “Just one question!” he called. “I wonder if you can give us a little...teaser about the movie you’re making?” He gave her a nasty, predatory grin that suggested the words were somehow a threat. “I have a couple of cop friends who are real big fans and would love to know.”
Nick glanced back over his shoulder at Ruby, who’d gone bone white now, her smile sliding completely away.
“Cop friends?” she said, in a choked voice.
“From your old neighborhood, I think,” said Lempert. “Maybe you knew them when you were a teenager, before you got your big break? Can I maybe get a few minutes of your time? For their sake?”
One of the security goons moved forward now and put his broad chest right in Lempert’s face, preparing to push him back. And Jake was right there with him, clearly with something similar in mind. Ruby waved them both off.
“Sure,” she said, trying to smile at Lempert. The wind was picking up even harder, blowing her long, black hair in her face, but Nick could have sworn her lower lip was trembling as she spoke. “Anything for the boys in blue, right?”
“Absolutely,” said Lempert.
“Not absolutely,” said Jake. “Ms. Torres is working today. She doesn’t have time for interviews.”
“Jake,” Ruby said in a tight voice. “Leave him alone. It’s fine.” She managed another brittle smile in Lempert’s direction. “Let me just stop in the bathroom and get my water bottle, and we can take a walk, okay? Give me a minute.”
As she turned to go inside her cabin, Jake loped up the stairs and took her arm, bending low to speak in her ear. Nick was just close enough to make out the words: “Don’t let that guy freak you out. If you got in trouble with cops as a teen, there’s a statute of limitations on all that stuff. They can’t—”
“It’s nothing, Jake,” said Ruby, tugging against his grip.
“What? Was it drugs or something?”
“No!” She yanked her arm free with a fierce expression. “No drugs! For Christ’s sake—I never got in trouble. I was a good Catholic school girl, remember?”
She’d said that a little too loudly.
Donny Lempert certainly heard her. “Oh, yeah,” he called out, that smirk still on his face. “From what I hear, she wasn’t a troublemaker. She did exactly what those cops said. Every last little thing.” Somehow, he made it sound like a bad thing.
A nauseated look crossed Ruby’s face, but she nodded at Lempert. “I just need to get my water, okay?” She looked back at Jake. “It’s nothing. Just stuff with some old homeboys. Nostalgia, okay?”
Jake let her pass through the door and close it behind her, but he didn’t look happy. He stationed himself on the little porch, waiting, tapping his foot and keeping his glare fixed on the reporter.
Lempert stood there, grinning defiantly, though occasionally glancing up at the sky. The little spits of moisture were thickening into outright splats of rain, and the heavy cloud above them had begun to roil and rumble ominously.
The ferocious, dark look on Jake’s face was giving the thundercloud some worthy competition—and he looked just as likely to explode.
“Listen,” Nick said, laying a chummy hand on Lempert’s shoulder. “It’s going to be pouring in a few minutes. This isn’t a good time for a walk with Ruby. You know how stars are—they’re like cats. They hate rain. You want some good dish, I
’ve got plenty of gossip I can share. Hell, I spent the weekend drinking with Bradley Cooper and Channing Tatum before we drove out here, and you won’t believe some of the stuff they’ve been up to.” It wasn’t even true, but Nick knew how to make things up, at least enough to send Lempert haring off on a different trail for a while. “Why don’t you and I go have a cup of coffee in my cabin and I’ll make sure you leave here with a story.”
“No thanks,” said the reporter, nodding towards Ruby’s door, where Jake was standing guard with his arms crossed and bulging over his chest. “I’ve got all I need right in there.”
That phrase was enough to set Jake off. He charged off the porch and got right in the reporter’s face. “Nothing in there is any of your business. Not one damn thing.” His finger poked hard into the guy’s significantly-less-well-developed pectorals. “Now just get in your car and get the hell out of here and leave decent people alone!”
“You sure she’s so decent?” Lempert countered, a nasty gleam in his eye.
Jake strode forward, his chest pushing the guy back six inches with each step. “I don’t care what you’ve dug up from when she was a kid—she’s a better human being than you’ll ever be.”
Ruby’s security goons moved to either side of Lempert, flanking him in a menacing way without actually touching him. Nick moved closer as well. The professionals might be worried about a lawsuit if they made contact with the guy in front of so many camera-carrying witnesses, but it would have given Nick a lot of pleasure to punch Lempert in the jaw.
“Hey,” said Lempert. “Time to back off, all of you. The lady wants to talk to me. You heard her.”
“Bullshit,” said Jake.
Whatever Lempert had on Ruby, it was giving him more confidence than such a little man should have with four much larger guys surrounding him. He raised his chin and glared at Jake. “You got a problem with me, pretty boy?”
Jake pressed in closer, urging the advantage of his greater height and muscle. “I know the smell that comes off guys like you. And I’ve never liked it.”
“What, you want me digging up something on you? ‘Cause I’m sure I could find it. Everybody’s got skeletons in their—”
Jake cut him off with a shove that sent him sprawling onto his rear. One of the security guys barely stepped out of the way in time to avoid being bowled over right along with him. Cameras and iPhones were recording every millisecond, from every possible angle.
“Screw you!” said the little reporter, scrambling to his feet. “You trying to protect Ruby Torres? ‘Cause if you are, you’re not helping. You’re just making me mad. And I’m not very nice when I’m mad!”
“Enough!” shouted Ranger Donnell, coming between them with his arms out to both sides like a referee. He stabbed an index finger at Lempert. “Sir, you’re creating a disturbance. I want you back in your car and out of here immediately or—”
“He pushed me! I wasn’t doing anything!”
“Fine! He can leave t—”
His words were cut off by a sudden howl of wind. Old dry leaves whisked up off the ground, flying upwards in crazed spirals, swirling through the crowd. Everyone looked up at the glowering thunderhead, which seemed to have dropped several hundred feet closer to the ground in the past minute, as if intent on crushing them. Its wide, flat, dark belly blotted out the sky, its blackness now weirdly tinged with green.
The ranger’s jaw clenched. “That’ll be hail for sure,” he said.
Low thunder growled through the sky, as much a vibration deep in Nick’s bones as an actual sound. It seemed impossible that the sky had been mostly bright blue less than an hour ago. Raindrops fell thicker and thicker, making pattering sounds in the trees and dark splats on the wooden sides of the cabins. Strange, heavy energy prickled in the air—Nick had the weird sensation he could taste the coming storm.
“Won’t be long now,” the ranger said. “Everybody needs to find shelter.”
“Damn it!” growled Jake, and sprang back to Ruby’s cabin door. “Where is she?”
He started knocking. Hard.
Suddenly, it occurred to Nick that Ruby was taking a remarkably long time to use the bathroom and grab a water bottle.
“Ruby?” yelled Jake, pounding now. “Are you in there? C’mon, sweetheart, answer me!”
Silence.
Jake kicked the latch, splintering the wood around it, and pushed the door open. Nick followed close behind and saw what Jake did: the cabin was empty, and the back window was wide open.
Ruby Torres had fled.
Into what looked to be a really dangerous storm.
As if on cue, the cabin windows flashed with blinding light, and thunder boomed overhead, earsplitting now, cracking from one side of Wild Mountain to the other, so loud it seemed to rip the sky apart. As Nick and Jake came out of the cabin again, the rain let loose, coming down in pummeling sheets.
Amber, Onyx, Ranger Donnell, and the security goons all rushed to get under the deep overhang of Ruby’s cabin, with Lempert trying to squeeze in behind them. The rest of the mob of reporters ran for shelter under the much more spacious porch of the Ranger Station.
Jake lunged for Ranger Donnell, grabbing his arm and shouting over the wind. “Ruby’s gone! Out the back window.”
Donnell stuck his hand out beyond the overhang of the porch, and within seconds his palm held a little lake. “Two minutes out in this, and she’ll come back.”
“No,” said Amber, looking anxious. “She won’t. That reporter knows something she’s really scared about. I don’t know what, but she was freaking out about it yesterday.”
“Hail’s coming. And it’s going to get cold out when it does,” said the ranger. “Low 30s, even, and she’ll be soaked. Was she wearing a jacket when she was out here? Did anyone see?”
Jake shook his head grimly. “Shorts and a tank top. Her jacket’s draped over a chair in there right now.”
Rain was slanting in sideways now, and it was already turning icier, stinging against Nick’s bare arms. A shudder went through him at the thought of Ruby out there, wet and exposed, without shelter anywhere for miles, unless she came back to camp. Which it seemed fairly clear she had no intention of doing.
“Does Ruby have wilderness experience?” asked Donnell.
Onyx rolled her eyes. “You know who she is, right? Her idea of nature time is lounging by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
At that, Jake took off like a shot through the rain, banging through the door of his own cabin and coming out seconds later with a rain poncho over his head and a huge, ratty old backpack slung over his shoulder. He didn’t stop to say anything, just disappeared up the nearest trail, his sneakers splashing in the deep puddles that had already formed.
“Hey!” called Ranger Donnell after Jake’s retreating back. “Don’t go out there alone!”
But the shout was lost in another crack of thunder—though it looked like Jake would have ignored him anyway—and he vanished into the trees too fast for anyone to hope to catch him.
Lempert, though, seemed determined to try. He sprinted after him on his much shorter legs as another flash of lightning gleamed off his shaved head. Ruby’s security goons gave each other a resigned look and loped into the woods, pulling their black jackets up over their heads against the deluge.
“Get back here!” yelled the ranger. “Conditions are getting to be very—”
“Don’t bother,” said Nick, putting a hand on the ranger’s shoulder. He’d seen the look on Jake’s face, and he also knew a guy like Lempert would crawl through hellfire over his dead grandmother’s bones to get a story. He wasn’t quite as sure about the security goons, but he suspected Ruby paid them extremely well, and they wouldn’t want to risk what was usually a cushy job by abandoning her to the elements.
“Fabulous,” said the ranger, taking off his hat and shaking off the rain over the porch rail. “Now I’ve got five civilians out in that.” He pulled a radio from the little holster on his bel
t and spoke into it. “Morrissey, get Pete and Naomi out here with search packs, pronto, and have them bring mine, too. Ruby Torres and four others just took off into the woods.”
Curse-laden static came back over the radio, and a minute later, two younger rangers wearing fluorescent-yellow rain ponchos and carrying three backpacks came running across the grass, with gray-haired, pot-bellied Ranger Morrissey himself huffing after them.
“What the hell happened?” said the senior ranger, panting and half-soaked as he reached the porch.
“Ruby took off,” said Amber, hugging herself against the increasing chill in the air and bouncing on the balls of her feet to get warm. “The paparazzi spooked her.”
Nick had to fight a powerful urge to put his arms around her to give her some body heat. Why did it have to seem like the natural thing to do now, to pull her against him, skin to skin? It wasn’t what he should be doing, or even thinking about.
“What paparazzi?” said Ranger Morrissey.
Nick pointed at the reporters huddled under the Ranger’s Station porch, all of them apparently oblivious to the fact that their quarry had fled into the wilderness without them. They were city vultures, after all, and probably didn’t realize life could exist away from electric lights and concrete. “And if she sees any of these guys trying to follow her,” he said, “she’ll just keep running.”
“Have you seen her work-out video?” said Amber. “She might be a high heels and fur coat girl most of the time, but she’s tireless, and she’s got a will of iron.”
Morrissey squared his shoulders, his face pinkening. “No paparazzi are chasing one of the park’s guests on my watch,” he said, and he stormed back over to the Ranger’s Station, suddenly bellowing at the top of his lungs, having no difficulty making himself heard over the wind and rain. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a federally-declared state of emergency!” he said, and Nick was fairly sure Morrissey had just decided on that declaration himself. “I’m going to have to insist that anyone who doesn’t have a cabin—and that means all of you—moves inside the Ranger Station immediately, and stays there under my supervision until this storm passes. For your own personal safety.” He had a kind of General MacArthur authority vibe, and, remarkably enough, the reporters filed into the building like terrified recruits.