Oh, wouldn’t her life be easier if she only had one set of eyes on her.
Nope. She wasn’t pulling the poor little rich and famous girl routine. She was not falling into that trap. Her life was good, and she was working to make it even better, and she wasn’t going to apologize or whine and cry about it. “Excellent. I promise I’m here in Dallas to work. I’ll film for ten to twelve hours a day, and I’ll be in my trailer most of the rest of the time. I have a couple of social events, but they aren’t high risk.”
“Social events?” West had picked up his pen and looked down at the blank legal pad in front of him, but not before she’d caught that hint of disdain in his eyes.
She was so sick of men. They came in two types, it seemed—the ones who thought she was a sex toy to be passed around and the ones who decided she was an airhead with no thoughts in her head past her next shopping trip. She twirled her hair in one hand and gave her best blank look. “You know. Parties. Chilling with some of the hot people here in Dallas. Gotta get in my socials, you know.”
Charlotte Taggart’s gaze narrowed, and she could practically hear the woman calling bullshit, but West simply put his pen down.
“You’ll have to run anyone you’re…chilling…with by me,” he said, clearly taking on the disapproving authority role.
“She’s not going to be partying.” Her stepfather sent her a death stare of his own. “Believe it or not, she’s not a partier.”
“I just play one on TV,” she quipped.
“I think you’ll find the social events she has scheduled are all charity gatherings.” Her stepdad pulled out his phone. Unlike a lot of the older people she knew, her stepdad was a whiz with tech. Gavin Jacks wasn’t letting the world pass him by. “I sent your boss her schedule for while she’s here. She’s resisted getting a personal assistant, or her assistant could help you. Ally won’t tell you this, but when things get hard for her during this shoot, take her someplace out in nature when she has a day off. She looks like a city girl, but she enjoys hiking and being by herself. This is going to be hard on her. She’s used to a lot of alone time.”
“Not according to her actual socials she’s not,” West argued. “Look, Mr. Jacks, I am a huge fan of yours, and I respect the fact that Ms. Pearson is your stepdaughter, but you need to understand that I’m her bodyguard, not her nanny. I do not need feed and caring instructions.”
“Damn straight.” It was good to see someone stand up to her stepdad. He was good to her mom and had always watched out for them, but he was also a leading man in Hollywood, so he could play the massive dick card when he wanted to.
Her stepdad frowned her way. “You are not helping.”
“How about we discuss the reasons why Ally needs security?” Charlotte seemed determined to turn this whole thing around.
Exposition it was then. “A couple of years ago, I picked up a stalker.”
“Since the beginning of her career, she’s picked up four of what I would call credible threats,” her stepdad interjected. “Everyone who works in show business at our level has to deal with overzealous fans. These four went beyond that.”
“We disagree on that,” she countered, not wanting to overestimate the threat. “One of them was a mom who lost her daughter, and I look like her. She fixated on me. That was all.”
“She found your house,” her stepdad argued.
They weren’t going to have this fight in front of people they didn’t know. “And I handled her. The other two the police caught, and they haven’t bothered me again. That we know. Honestly, it could be one of those two men.”
“I’m sorry. The math isn’t adding up.” West had a pen in his hand again, so she figured she was talking about something he was actually interested in now. “You said four stalkers?”
“Mrs. Jackson wasn’t a stalker. She was a woman dealing with grief, and she’s getting help.” She wasn’t going to tell them that she personally was paying for the woman’s therapy. “Brian Hudson is in jail. Not for breaking into my place. He attacked a model.”
“Yes, and you were lucky it wasn’t you,” her stepdad said.
She ignored him. Nagging was one of his love languages, which was great because it was her mom’s primary language. “The other known stalker is a man who goes by JK Harris. He was a set designer, but he hasn’t worked in the last two years. I met him on a set a few years ago. It was my second film.”
“Ready for Love?” Charlotte asked.
It was nice to have one person in the room who liked her. “Yeah. I was the gloomy best friend. It was actually a fun part. Anyway, I talked to the guy. When you’re on set, unless you’re some kind of huge star or some assholey method actor, you end up spending a lot of time with the crew. You get to be friends. Well, JK took it too far. He got drunk at one of the crew parties and got super handsy. I called him out, and he got fired. So I became the bitch who ruined his career.”
“Of course.” Charlotte’s eyes rolled. “I’ve heard that accusation a couple of times myself.”
“Oh, baby, you did not. You never ruined a career. You blew heads off.” Taggart winked his wife’s way. “No one complains after that. Have you thought about doing that, Ms. Pearson?”
Oh, they were a fun couple, and she wanted that story. “Every day. Did you do it up close or from a distance?”
Charlotte’s elegant shoulder shrugged. “It all depended on the job. I will tell you it’s far less messy from a distance.”
“Do we know where this JK Harris is? Also, who is the fourth stalker?” West seemed excellent at ignoring his elders, too.
“He disappeared a while back,” she admitted. “And that’s where things get interesting. The police think Harris is the one causing trouble, but I don’t think so. Harris’s letters were all full of threats, and he sent them through the mail. He liked to stand outside red-carpet events shouting about what a whore I was until he was escorted off the grounds. He didn’t send elaborate, horrifying art projects.”
“He could be escalating,” West offered.
“Or he could be someone new, hence the fourth stalker, who might or might not exist.” It was what she was afraid of. Like she needed another person who wanted to take her down a peg, who blamed her for their problems.
“West, if you were running the investigation portion of this case, where would you go from here?” Taggart asked. “You’re not, of course. Think of this as an academic exercise.”
Oh, she knew a teaching hospital when she saw one. Was she getting the newbie? That could be fun.
“I would ask Eve McKay for her opinion,” West replied. “I would request that Eve study the case reports and give me her thoughts on whether this is the same JK Harris or if she thinks we’re looking for another person.”
“Unsub.” See, this part was interesting. Or it would be if it also wasn’t horrifying because she was living through it. There was a reason she preferred fiction to real life. “We’re looking for an unsub. I once got through four rounds of auditions to play an FBI special agent who hunted serial killers. I did a ton of research and even wore a boring suit and everything, but they went with the brunette.”