AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Soon a familiar creepy voice calls for her attention, appearing behind her on stage on the screen.
“Hello beloved fans. Hello Sweets,” Bartleby says, delighted in being cruel. “Pay no attention to who I am, just to the message I bring. Lily Rockwell is as big of a star as Sweets Tyler, and soon will be even bigger. Sweets Tyler, you will resign from performing the rest of this tour, won’t you? And let Lily be the headliner.”
“What is this guy talking about?!” Sweets asks, utterly confused. “Where’s security, how this is happening?”
But Bartleby keeps on talking over her words. “That would be so sweet of you, Sweets… Do it! Or there will be consequences!”
And with that, the transmission ends. Sweets leaves the stage, complaining despite an even more confused crowd, and the video itself ends on that note.
The same minute, I turn to Sweets, showing her my screen, “When was this?” I ask.
She ignores me.
“Sweets! When was this?!”
“Today!” she yells, waving me off. “Towards the end of the show!”
I make some mental calculations. “Do you know at what time they arrested the stabber?” I ask.
Now she pays mild attention to me, but drinks from her water to disguise it, “Are they the same guy?”
I nod positively.
“You’re cursed!” she bites back.
And that makes me sigh, and I feel sadness for being a nuisance and regret for causing such a negative shift in Sweets’ attitude.
I keep on doing detective work, trying to pinpoint when exactly Ben got arrested because something doesn’t feel right about the timing of all of this.
But when the time for the interview comes, I am forced to abandon my search.
Chapter Twenty
BRODY
Sandraholdsthephonewhile I button up my shirt, and I watch, horrified, as Lily’s stalker interrupts Sweets Tyler’s concert with threats.
“Do they have any clue how this happened?” I ask, tucking the shirt inside my pants.
“The found a flash drive with the recording, but as usual there are no fingerprints and no one’s sure who played it,” my sister says.
“So, it wasn’t live?”
“No. The system in the arena is not connected to the internet,” she says. “So, either he was still around, or paid someone to do it.”
“He must have an accomplice,” I say with confidence. “He got arrested not too long ago in New York.”
I watch as Sandra lays a hand on her chest and sighs with relief. She shuts down the video and hands me my blazer, waiting patiently while I put my holster back in place.
“Thank goodness. But this is going to be a public relations disaster, Brody…” she says, desolate. “I’m going to have to hire someone just to take care of it.”
I lean back on the chair carefully, so I don’t pop my stitches. “Money is not the problem, is it? I mean, they’re both selling tickets like crazy.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Philanthropist,” she kisses me on the cheek. “We can fend for ourselves. Now let’s go.”
She rushes me out, and as fast as I can muster, I follow behind her. Sandra is the one to sign the papers to release me from hospital care, and I feel weak to be under the eye of my little sister.
We take the car back to the hotel, and the driver goes slowly, attentive to my injury. When we get there, at almost midnight, there’s still an ocean of reporters around, although most are leaving and finally calling it a night.
