Chapter 35

I looked at Brian – and by extension, Theresa – when Sean closed the door.

“What could she know...” I began but stopped and held up my hands. Talking about it in front of a maid we didn’t know was no better than posting it on the Internet. “I need a number for Ryan.”

“Uh, sure,” Brian said, clearly confused. He just handed me his phone after hitting a button.

“What now?” I heard in lieu of a greeting.

“Uh, hey, Ryan,” I said tentatively. “It’s Travis.”

“Oh,” he said. “All right. What now?”

I laughed.

“Um, Brian and I are upstairs still,” I told him, moving back to the back bedroom.

“What?” he asked in a sharp voice. “Why? I told him to get you away from there.”

“It’s my fault,” I said. “I wanted to hear the end of Liz’s radio interview. I guess he could have bashed me over the head and dragged me out but that seemed a little counterproductive.”

“Well, then you know the score, I guess,” he said.

“I know more than the score,” I told him. “Is Sean nearby?”

“No and he better get his ass in gear,” Ryan told me.

“He’s on his way down,” I said. “I could hear everything. As he was leaving, he told Carly to keep her mouth shut and said he knew ‘they’ would be back for another scoop. He said he covered for her last time but couldn’t do it this time. I’m not trying to cause any more shit and Brian was right with me. But Carly is your leak and Sean knows who she leaked it to.”

“Hold on for a second,” Ryan said. His voice came out as muffled a second later. “Go wait for me in the SUV. I’ll be out in a minute.”

I heard Sean agree.

“OK,” Ryan said into the phone. “Are you sure of this?”

“I know what I heard,” I said. “You can ask Brian if he took the same idea from the conversation.”

I had expected a tirade. I didn’t expect laughter.

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” he said. “Liz fucking hates that woman. I thought we needed a woman on the team. Well, I still think we do. She was the best I could find. There aren’t a lot of women out there with her skills who can travel all over the world for half of the year. I would say that since ... Christmas ... Liz hasn’t said two words to Carly Sumner.”

“Is that when she called Jill a slut?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Ryan confirmed. “Liz told you about that?”

“No,” I replied. “Sean just gave his wife a rundown of all the times she almost got fired. I told you. I could hear everything like you were in the same room. But just because Liz doesn’t deal with her it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know anything. Right?”

“Right,” Ryan agreed. “I guess I should press him, huh?”

“I just thought you should know,” I said. “I have no idea what you should do with the information.”

“I don’t guess you know anything about waterboarding, do you?” he asked.

“Only that Liz’s image really couldn’t survive that scandal,” I said.

“Yeah, fine,” Ryan said. “You need to get moving if you’re going to get to the hospital.”

“We’re going,” I told him. “I just wanted to wait until Psycho leaves. The last thing I need is for her to try to kill me. Of course, I could be like you. I could take the first two shots and then plant her like a daisy.”

“Not one of my finer moments,” Ryan said.

“I had my money on you,” I said.

“Good to know,” Ryan said. “Uh, let’s keep this between us for now. After ... what she said about the boys ... Liz will destroy her. I don’t really care if that happens but I want to at least give Liz a day or two to get over things so she doesn’t make a decision she comes to regret.”

“Your call,” I said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “I can’t wait.”

I laughed as I looked for the button to end the call. Brian and Theresa were having quite the conversation when I came back out. They both looked at me.

“Duty calls,” I said.

“Uh, yeah,” Brian said, blushing slightly.

“Sorry,” I told him. He shrugged.

“Duty calls for me, too,” Theresa said. Brian and I watched as she bent over to put the vacuum plug into the wall. I gave him a grin and punched him on the shoulder.

“That is a cute butt,” he said as we reached the door.

We took the stairs down to the SUV, neither of us willing to risk a run-in with Psycho-Bitch.

“Did you ask her if she wanted to come to the concert?” I asked when Brian started the SUV and drove away. Unlike his typical passenger, I sat in the front beside him.

“Nah,” he said. “I’ll be gone in a day or two.”

“It’s not a marriage proposal,” I pointed out. “But, yeah, I guess she would be there by herself. You’ll be working security. Still, you could take her out on a date while you’re here.”

He shrugged.

“I’m with you all day tomorrow, Wednesday is a rehearsal and walk-through, Thursday is the concert and then I’m gone Friday,” he said.

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s like that,” he said. “I’m part of the advance team so I’ll be in Phoenix a week or 10 days before anyone else shows up.”

“What does the advance team do?” I wondered.

“We drive the routes to check congestion and find places to ditch photographers,” he said. “We visit hotels and interact with their security guys. We inspect the venue to make sure we’re not going to have to make major changes to stage setup. Then we go over the ‘Crazies List’ and try to verify address and appearance.”

“‘Crazies List?’” I asked. It was exactly what I thought it was.

“Liz gets a lot of weird shit, Man,” Brian said, shaking his head. “People send her stuff in the mail and some fucked-up e-mails. Most of the stuff isn’t criminal. It’s just ... creepy. We track them. We try to take a picture of them to make sure that everyone knows if they show up at the concert or somewhere. That’s why I didn’t meet you in San Diego. I have been up here for the last two weeks tracking down nutcases.”

I shook my head sadly.

“I guess I’ll be part of the advance team, too,” I said. “I mean, you know, once I actually start to work for her.”

“You’re already working for her,” Brian said. “Christ, getting rid of Psycho-Bitch will probably get a five-figure bonus. I don’t know why Ryan kept her around.”

“Liz said he wanted a woman on the team to check out restaurants and to go into places a guy can’t go,” I said.

Brian scoffed. I wondered if everyone thought they could do Ryan’s job.

“It’s a good idea but you can’t use someone that ... grating,” he answered. “I might give some of my old buddies a call. A couple of them are ready to get out of the Corps. They’re solid and they’ll follow orders.”

“Might be something,” I said. “Is Dom ex-military, too?”

“Army puke,” Brian said, offering a grin.

“How did you get from a D-3 college in Tennessee to the Marine Corps?” I inquired.

“This might come as a surprise but there ain’t a lot of call in the workforce for guys that leave school 12 hours short of a degree,” he said. “I got out of school and couldn’t find work. I was 22 years old and I’d lived on my own for four years. I didn’t want to live with my folks again. I couldn’t really afford to go back without a scholarship and ... my grades sucked. So I enlisted.”

“When I left Texas, I had a 2.2 GPA,” I said. “And that was because I took a lot of no-show classes to stay eligible. I was fucked if I hadn’t been drafted. I probably would have been serving right beside you.”

“I at least kept a 2.6,” Brian said, laughing. “The Corps was good for me. It made me grow up. It taught me I didn’t know anything. Book learning can only take you so far. At some point, the shovel has to hit the road. I didn’t really understand that when I left school.”

“Me either,” I admitted. “Life had been ... pretty easy for me. They coddled me even in the minors. The injury surprised me. I thought ... well, I tended to think like Liz does. I thought I was bulletproof. Finding out I wasn’t was a pretty big shock to my system.”

“Yeah,” Brian said. “At least you didn’t have to find out you’re not bombproof.”

“You have any problems besides the vertigo?” I wondered. I was going to be spending a lot of time with Brian so I thought I should get to know him.

“They got the shrapnel out but I can tell you when the weather is about to change,” he said.

“I hear you,” I said. “That’s one of the reasons I stayed in San Diego. The weather doesn’t fluctuate much. I was in Little Rock right after it happened. That winter was horrible! I could tell you two days before every cold front came through.”

“You should see Nashville,” Brian said. “Well, you will. Did you ever play there?”

I shook my head.

“I played in Knoxville,” I said. “We played Tennessee when I was a sophomore. Memphis and Nashville are both Triple-A cities. We drove up to Memphis one time when I was in Little Rock. I’m ... I’m not even real sure where Nashville is.”

“Tennessee,” Brian joked.

“I see your knowledge is as extensive as mine,” I rejoined.

We continued to banter until we neared the hospital. Then he called Ryan.

“We’re on our way in,” he said.

“About damned time,” Ryan said.

“Hey, you told me to make sure no one followed us,” Brian protested.

“Yeah, I know,” Ryan said. “Sorry. Did Travis talk you about anything important?”

“I haven’t,” I said. “I’ll do that now.”

Brian gave me a strange look when the call ended.

“That stuff we overheard at the end?” I said. “Ryan wants us to keep it to ourselves until he can figure out how to press.”

“I didn’t even understand it,” Brian admitted. “I mean, yeah, she leaked something to someone but I can’t figure out why. Everybody loves Liz.”

“That’s Raymond,” I corrected, referencing an old sitcom that seemed to run endlessly in syndication. Brian gave my attempt at humor the response it deserved: He flipped me off. “Not everyone loves Liz. And there are some people that would try to harm her reputation in order to make some extra money.”

“I better never find them,” Brian said.

“Me, either,” I said. “But ... it seems Carly has passed sensitive information somewhere and we need to know what she said and to whom. But we don’t want Liz to know just yet. She’s already really unhappy with the woman and she’d likely lash out without thinking. Then she’d regret it when it was too late. You know?”

“I know,” Brian said. “But I don’t like it. She’s been really good to me, Man.”

“I know she has,” I agreed. “I’m not keen on it either but I think Ryan is right.”

“Well, at least I’ll be with you for the next few days,” he said.

“And we’ll be far away from this place until Wednesday morning,” I added. “Think about all the SoCal hotties you’ll see tomorrow. You thought Theresa had a sweet can; wait until you see some of the girls from San Diego.”