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His cigarette hung on his lips, my words making an impact I wished they hadn’t. I shouldn’t have shared shite, but it was out there now. Johnnie recovered fast and jabbed a finger in my direction.
“Whatever shady background you crawled out of hasn’t helped you understand how the game works. The public needs pictures of the princess. The royal family need them to be taken so they stay relevant and in the headlines. She’s good at that. All this danger you see is just people doing their jobs. Stop stressing about the photographers when actually, we want them around, and they aren’t about to hurt her. Do you get me? If you learn one thing from this job, let it be that.”
“What if you’re wrong?” I bit back.
Riss spoke over the comms. “The first interval is in ten. On our principal, please.”
Johnnie led the way, clearly glad to be going back inside. I followed more slowly, lingering on his words. His attitude was a danger in itself. His challenge about what Alex’s role was here didn’t resonate with how she saw it. The temporary nature, at least.
My train of thought was interrupted when I passed the theatre’s bar. There were few patrons inside, the performance still ongoing, and a group of waiters in black and red ferried trays in and out of the bar room.
One man had his head down, but the shape of him gave me pause. He was familiar.
At my back, a rush of noise came. I glanced around. The interval had started, and hundreds of people were on the move at once.
When I twisted back, the rogue waiter was gone.
Certainty rippled through me, and I was moving. It was Malcolm Dennis. Here, and in disguise. What the fuck was the man doing? He could have bought a ticket as a patron, like he had at the football match. Why would he need to pretend to serve drinks?
A number of reasons crammed into my brain, none of them good. Johnnie had said the paparazzi wouldn’t hurt Alex, but there were a hundred different ways they could.
I tore up the stairs, an influx of people coming the other way and blocking my path.
With urgency, I jabbed my earpiece. “Riss, keep eyes on Penny. Don’t let her accept a drink.”
Her voice returned, faint over the noise of the crowd. “Repeat that.”
“Don’t let Penny Allen drink anything.”
Her reply was lost in a wall of sound. Scrambling through, I made it to the first landing where queues for the bathrooms and for the concessions booth blocked flows of people going either way. Pushing my way through earned me scowls, but I didn’t stop. Not until I was on the next more narrow staircase that led through the creaking theatre to the royal box.
Bursting in, I found no one but Will. “Where is she?”
He tilted his head across to the box next to ours.
In the midst of her group of friends, Alex held a wine glass to her lips and took a sip.
“Stop,” I yelled.
The boxes were designed for exclusivity over security, with unobstructed views out across the theatre, and high above the rows of people in the stalls below. Leaving by the door and jogging down the hall to the next theatre box would take too long, so with no thought in my head but her, I stormed to the gilded ledge and climbed onto it, stepping over the gap to the opposite ledge.
Horrified stares followed my action, and someone shrieked.
Alex covered her mouth in shock. I jumped down and snatched the glass from her hand.
“Ye can’t drink this.”
Riss appeared at my shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”
I kept my gaze on Alex. “Who gave ye that drink?”
Her beautiful brown eyes widened. “A waiter appeared with it a second ago.”
“Red and black uniform, cap low over his face?”
“I think so? I wasn’t paying attention.”
I held it up. “Was that all ye drank? One sip?”