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Chapter Twenty-Three
Lincoln
I’d snatched the bastard’s phone and smashed it into a thousand tiny pieces on the ground before leaving the coffee shop.
How dare he take pictures of Harper when she explicitly asked him not to do so and even had invited him onto the set.
What a creep!
The twat had made me lose sight of Harper. I was supposed to keep an eye on her, even from a distance, but I had neglected to do that. Showing up at the coffee shop just moments behind her hadn’t been a coincidence.
My phone had been set with an alarm to alert me when she’d been on the move.
I hurried toward the set, slowing the truck down, when I noticed her car and Ariella’s both banged up on the side of the road.
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel. “Shit.”
Where was she now?
Using my vehicle’s hands-free device, I phoned Jaxson.
“Everything okay? Where are you?” Jaxson asked.
“Running late. Harper seems to have trouble follow her. I had to deal with a reporter, and I’m almost at the set, but I noticed two cars on the side of the road, and one of them was Harper’s,” I said. I didn’t further elaborate, not wanting to worry Jaxson.
Had Ariella called him?
Where had the girls gone? Did a stranger pick them up?
“Harper just showed up a few minutes ago. The director seems pretty pissed. I should warn you. He let it slip about the studio hiring a bodyguard for her.”
Why the hell had the director gone and done that? Was it to make my life miserable?
“Wonderful,” I muttered under my breath. There was little chance Harper was going to let me spend the evening with her and keep an eye on her.
I wasn’t concerned about her alone at the hotel. It was what trouble she might land herself in while on her own.
She had never just been an assignment. I wanted to spend time with her.
By now, word had begun to spread about a Hollywood starlet and film crew in the valley. The last thing I needed was Harper to have more press hounding her.
“Ariella called me on the way to the spa. She invited Harper over for a girl’s night tonight.”
Interesting. Since when had Harper made friends with Ariella? I hadn’t seen them together except for the two cars abandoned on the side of the road. “Did Ariella mention anything about her car?”
“Yeah, Harper plowed into her when the girls stopped short from hitting a deer that ran across the road,” Jaxson said.
He didn’t seem angry with Harper about the accident. “Was everyone okay?”
I pulled into the parking lot of the production set and shut off the truck. I grabbed my phone as it switched from the speakers back to my cell phone.
“Just a little shaken up. Ariella and Hazel went to the spa as planned. Mason gave all of them a ride.”
Climbing out of the truck, I breathed a sigh of relief. At least it wasn’t Ben who had snatched the girls or forced them to go with him. Most of the town’s folk were friendly and would happily offer a lift, but there were a few people who had once lived off-grid who would have worried me.
The majority of those folks had died a few months ago in an ambush. There were a few people who mysteriously survived. Those were the guys who I worried about, the ones who had gotten away unscathed.
I slung my credentials around my neck. The lanyard swung as I strolled toward the set at a quickened pace. While I hadn’t intended on being late, it wasn’t in good form.