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“What?” Gabe asked, knowing Chad had a theory.
“You don’t travel in a typical bus like other singers? You only use Gabe’s hotels?” When PJ nodded, Chad continued. “Who preps your room for you when you arrive at a new hotel? Does someone go in ahead of you, other than the hotel staff, that is?”
“Usually either Lydia or Ellis. Sometimes Debra if she’s with us, but she doesn’t travel with us very often. One of my bodyguards accompanies hotel staff when they take my luggage up to the hotel room. Ellis or Lydia often have things to drop off for me, or they may be in there laying out clothes for interviews, shows, that kind of thing.” PJ blushed a stark red.
“I guess it sounds like I’m a spoiled princess, but I usually have to go over to the venue and do a sound check or talk to the guys in my band. They travel in a bus and not with us. They prefer that.”
“Why don’t you travel by bus too?” Chad asked, and Gabe saw PJ flush again.
“I don’t––” She paused and glanced at Gabe. “It’s just that it reminds me of what it was like when I first started my career…of what happened with Jimmy.”
Gabe had filled Chad in on the whole story before they’d come over, everything from the baby to Jimmy’s agreement to let her out of her contract, to his recent angry text messages.
Gabe squeezed PJ’s hand and rubbed his thumb over hers where their hands were joined.
“PJ, did you leave your luggage at the hotel with Lydia and Ellis, or do you have it here with you?” Chad asked.
“Most of it is with the team. I only brought a small bag with me,” she answered. “Why?”
“The way I figure it, someone had to have found out about the journal. If you had a bus you used regularly, I’d check it for peepholes of some sort in your section. Some way someone could spy on you.” PJ’s intake of breath was sharp and audible. She shook her head. “No one, no.... Not on my team.”
This last part was weak. They all knew it had to be someone on her team, but it sounded as if she wasn’t ready to face that possibility.
“I’d like to check your luggage to see if anyone’s tampered with it or planted cameras in your belongings. That’s really the only way someone could have seen you write in your journal and known where to look for it. Where are Debra and the rest of your team now?” Chad asked.
“Debra went on to Denver. She’s in the Towers there, getting ready for the next show. She plans to stay with us for a few stops until this all dies down, then she’ll go back to her office. I think the rest of the team was given a few days off. They’ll meet us in Denver for the show. They should arrive tomorrow.”
“Give me a minute,” Chad said and crossed back over to speak to Sam. They could hear him instructing her to send two of his people to Denver to screen all of PJ’s luggage. He also sent someone to the hotel in New York where she’d been when all this blew up to search the hotel suite there for any evidence that someone had been spying on her.
PJ sank forward, her head in her hands, and Gabe rubbed her back. He wanted to say something, anything, that could make this better for her, but he knew there wasn’t anything to say.
Whoever this was, would prove to be a huge and very personal betrayal by someone she loved very much – or at the very least, trusted. Chad returned, sitting down across from them once again.
Before he had a chance to speak, Samantha stood and came over to them, holding her laptop.
“Chad, you need to see this.”
Gabe leaned in. “What is it, Samantha?”
Chad was watching something on the screen intently. Samantha looked up at Gabe and explained.
“I’ve been looking at footage from security cameras and sightings posted on social media of PJ coming and going from her venues and from the hotels.”
Gabe’s eyes widened. “That’s a lot of footage.”
Sam waved a hand. “There are algorithms involved. And I told the computer to look for a few people, so it’s not really me doing the looking.”
Gabe knew Sam was a genius with computers. She had a game out that had been some kind of instahit when it released the year before. And he knew she’d worked for the FBI.
But he’d never seen her in action like this. He was glad she was here helping them.
“What did you find?” Pru asked.
Chad turned the screen toward them and played a clip. It was grainy like it had come from a security camera, and a cheap one at that. He saw PJ’s limo pull up to his hotel in New York City.
“That’s after a show two months ago,” Pru said.
“Yeah, New York,” Sam said. She pointed to a corner of the screen. “Watch here.”
