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By the time the crank of the steel door opening booms into my ears, my wrists are bleeding, and the feet of the chair I’m restrained on are closer to the maintenance room I’m hoping has a hacksaw capable of breaking through my restraints.
“What the…?” Dallas's eyes shoot to me before they follow the droplets of blood my endeavor to escape dotted the floor with. I almost laugh when his eyes lower to the cuffs and he asks, “Do you have the key?”
“If I had the key, would I still be sitting here?”
He doesn’t reply. He enters the maintenance room and returns with a Stanley knife and a screwdriver. The knife shreds through the rope part of my restraints like a hot knife through butter, but it takes a while for the screwdriver to buckle the steel cuffs enough for me to slip my wrists through the once-tight opening.
While rotating my wrists to ensure nothing was broken during my endeavor to free myself, I notice several needle pricks in my arm. I look like a drug addict.
I have a million questions in my head, but I focus on what matters the most. “Have you seen Nicole or River since last night?”
The first expression to cross Dallas’s face is worry. It is closely followed by unease. “Last night?”
Were we not the only ones knocked out?
“When Nicole was given a sedative.”
“Umm…” He wets his lips before confessing, “Knox ordered everyone out of the room not long after they sedated her. I haven’t seen River or Nicole since then.” He takes a moment to register the panic on my face before he pulls his brows together. “The stuff written about you is daunting, Laken. They’re saying you were recently released from prison and were incarcerated for the death of Nicole’s sister. Is that true?”
I almost lie until I remember that’s what got me in this position. “Yes. But it isn’t what it seems. I just don’t have time to explain right now. I need to get to Nicole and River.”
Dallas slows my steps to the exit. “They checked out days ago.”
“Days?” I couldn’t sound more shocked if I tried. “Nicole performed on the roof of this hotel last night. She’s not due to check out for a few more days.” My voice tapers the more I speak. My blurry head isn’t responsible for the unease of my words. Dallas's faint headshake is.
“Nicole performedthreenights ago. Then checked out the morning after…” He drops his eyes to my chest like the words Nicole shouted in my face were as bruising as my fists to Knox’s cheek. “She hasn’t been seen by the public since, and they’re unhappy about that.”
“Fuck.” As my fingers worsen the thump of my skull, I try to make sense of everything. I’m aching, and my stomach won’t stop gurgling, but that’s because of the situation I find myself in, isn’t it?
After a few moments of silent deliberation, I say, “Knox won’t keep her hidden forever. He needs her out in public, selling the records.” I check my watch, my shock too much not to balk when I realize three days have flipped over on its date mechanism. “She has a TV interview booked this morning. He secured a huge promotional slot after I put her singing in the rain on YouTube. He won’t let her miss it.”
“That was you?” When I nod, Dallas says, “That’s not what’s being reported on TMZ.”
“Nothing being reported right now is true, but as I said earlier, I don’t have time to explain.” I flash him a quick smile in gratitude for his assistance before racing for the exit.
The midmorning sun streaming into the foyer of the hotel is blinding. It hinders my vision so well that I have no clue I’m walking onto a minefield until a piece of rotten fruit splatters on my shirt. “What did you do with Nicole, dipshit? Did you tie her to the boiler of her hotel?”
The haggler sends another piece of fruit sailing through the air as the crowd gathered outside the hotel, which Nicole planned to use as her home away from home, shifts their focus to me.
“Hey, isn’t that the guy from Lateline?”
“That’s Nicole’s stalker.”
“He’s the convicted killer I read about in the paper.”
“Get him!”
The last chant surges the crowd into a desolate onslaught. They peg everything and anything at me before rocking against the police barrier so furiously that it soon collapses.
My eyes bulge when they sprint for me like they do Nicole, but instead of begging for autographs and photographs, they threaten to dismember parts of my body and lodge them into any available orifice I have.
Only a foolish man would stand his ground when it's a hundred to one, so instead of waiting to see if they’ll make true on their threats, I bolt down the sidewalk and weave in and out of the pedestrians hogging the last of the space.
During my sprint, it dawns on me how effective Knox’s smear campaign was. Even men dressed in pricy suits recognize me when I dart by them, and I won’t mention how many women snarl at me.
I’m the most hated man in America but also the most determined.
