Page 7 of Israel

Chapter 4

“So the threat is minimal.”

Israel sat back in a surprisingly comfortable leather office chair in the crew bus. The front part of the bus was a lounge and kitchenette, followed by a miniscule bathroom and twelve bunks, stacked three high on either side of the narrow hallway and overflowing with miscellaneous belongings.

In the back was another, smaller lounge area that had been repurposed as a mobile office which Harrison seemed to run the whole tour out of, with a computer, a filing cabinet, and stacks of paper half-falling off the desk.

Israel wondered idly what the place looked like after the bus had been on the road for a few hours, swaying and hitting bumps. Papers everywhere, probably. The chaos was comfortable, like the chairs, even though the whole setup was claustrophobically small.

Especially with two guys the size of him and Harrison in it.

“I’d agree with that, except for the fact that the letters didn’t come through the mail,” Harrison said. “They’re hand-delivered, no address or postmark, just her name. So somebody’s personally inserting them into the fan mail. Which most likely means someone on the crew—or someone following us closely enough that he’s able to get to the mail pouches. Either way, that’s a whole different ball game than some guy sitting home in his apartment with a purple pen and a bottle of Wal-Mart perfume, and an Ashley Silver poster over his bed.”

Israel nodded. “What about your office or the courier service?” he asked. “It’s not like you’re getting mail delivery on the road. Somebody’s forwarding it in batches from your office, right?”

“Of course,” Harrison said. “But it’s not there when we get the packages. I check every one. Somewhere between the pouch arriving here and the mail ending up in Ashley’s hands, this guy is slipping his notes inside.”

Israel tapped the latest note on his knee, trying to think through the fog of lilac perfume assaulting his sensitive nose. “But you’ve vetted the entire crew, right? No local hires, no ad-hoc replacements? They all came through the agency and went through the background checks.”

“That doesn’t mean one of them isn’t a stalker,” Harrison muttered. “It just means there’s no record of it anywhere. If this is his maiden voyage to Crazytown, it could be anybody.”

“Mmm.” Israel leafed through the notes again. They were all versions of the same thing: the stalker and Ashley were meant to be together, she was singing just for him, yadda yadda yadda.

“So far there’s no signs of escalation,” he said. “I don’t think Ms. Silver is in any immediate danger.”

“Look, Jonas,” Harrison said. “You come highly recommended from the Shifter Council, and I’m sure you’re overqualified for this job. But let me be really clear, okay?”

He leaned forward, elbows on his desk, biceps bulging. “Ashley Silver comes from a very wealthy, very powerful, very below-the-radar shifter family. They don’t come out in public. Even other shifters don’t know they’re shifters.

“Her family was strongly opposed to Ashley becoming a performer. The only reason she was allowed to do this is that I gave them my personal guarantee that a) she would be perfectly safe and b) no one without a strict need-to-know would ever find out where she’s from or what kind of shifter she is, or that she’s a shifter at all.”

That was the part Israel disapproved of. In his mind, her personal security guard had a need to know, but apparently Ashley’s family didn’t see it that way, because Harrison refused to tell him.

Harrison eased his bulky weight, making his chair creak. “Nobody knowingly crosses Ashley’s family, or pisses them off in any way. They’re touchy and tend towards a scorched-earth policy—and I have no intention of being in their path of destruction. Not to mention the fact that Ashley is like a little sister to me.” He gave a half-grin. “An annoying, superior, diva of a little sister, but a still a sister.”

He clasped his hands together and looked Israel straight in the eye. “So I don’t give a fuck what your threat assessment is. You treat that girl like a precious treasure that’s about to be looted by pirates any second, and you stick to her like Superglue until this guy is caught, or the tour is over. Any breaks you need will be covered by one of my personally selected security people. And they better be few and far between.”

He leaned back, flexing his hands. “If anything happens to Ashley, I’ll have to break out the claws and rip your fucking head off. And I don’t want to do that, man. I like you.”

Israel pursed his lips and nodded. Okay then. No need-to-know, and no taking it easy. It was unrelieved Diva Duty until further notice. So give the mate thing a rest, he told his wolf. We have to concentrate here.

“Understood,” he said.

“Great,” Harrison said. “Let me take you to meet Ashley.”

Israel followed Harrison across the parking lot and in through one of the stage doors, Harrison pointing out crew members as they went. There were even more people involved in this traveling circus than he’d first thought: assistant tour managers, roadies, light and sound technicians, production assistants, personal assistants, makeup, hair, costumes…there had to be upwards of thirty people. Harrison had given him files on everyone who belonged here, so he could eventually identify anyone who didn’t.

Although he had a feeling that was going to be harder than it looked. Despite the skinny woman’s warning to him, groupies had gathered around and insinuated themselves into the proceedings. They mostly seemed to be female, though, primarily focused on Ashley’s backup band. So maybe security had been tightened, at least where male groupies were concerned.

His wolf was looking eagerly at each of the women as they passed, and then sighing in defeat. Not The One, he said mournfully.

Mental facepalm.

Israel forced his mind back to the job. Even without the groupies, keeping track of the comings and goings of this mob would be next to impossible. He’d have to rely on the regular security team to do most of it, while he stuck to Ashley Silver like a barnacle and hoped she wasn’t the kind of diva who tried to give her bodyguard the slip.

“About a third of the road crew are shifters,” Harrison had told him when he handed over the files. “They’re marked with a blank blue sticky note. Keep that on the downlow, of course—most of the humans have no idea.”

Israel was a bit surprised the shifters were willing to mix with humans in such close quarters, working and living together. It was a risk, but that was Harrison’s headache, not Israel’s, as long as he himself wasn’t outed. It was good to know there were some shifters at his back if he needed them.