“It does make one wonder,” Cooper says. He shrugs, seemingly done with the subject, and reaches for the remote. “Oh well. What sadly morbid glimpses into the lives of the less fortunate have you got recorded for us tonight?”
He might be done with the subject, but I most definitely am not.
“Hold on,” I say. I can’t help remembering that look I’d seen on Jordan’s face in the Allingtons’ penthouse. There’d been something he’d wanted to say, something he might have been too frightened to say. “What’s Tania so afraid of? Did you ask? Has she had any actual threats?”
He sighs and lowers the remote. “My dad swears up and down that she hasn’t and that she’s fine . . . maybe a little shaken up from what happened in front of Christopher’s club. Because we handled the crisis she had while she was at Fischer Hall last week so competently—”
I can’t help snorting. “Stephanie Brewer fed me almost the exact same line,” I say.
“Well,” Cooper says, “it could be true, you know. With her longtime bodyguard—Bear’s worked for her for two years—down for now, Tania might truly want people around her who she thinks she can trust, especially when she’s in such a delicate state.”
“Delicate state? The girl is having a baby. People have been having babies for thousands of years, often in the middle of fields with no painkillers, while running from woolly mammoths.”
Cooper raises an eyebrow at me. “Are you all right?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Of course I’m all right.”
I realize I need to cool it a little. Tania may have stolen one Cartwright brother away from me, and now, by getting herself pregnant by him, is using that “delicate state” as an excuse to hire a second Cartwright brother to “protect” her—or at least her father-in-law is.
But that doesn’t mean she’s going to steal Cooper away from me, first, because Cooper is in love with me, and second, because she’s married now and having a child. And third, because if she lays so much as a finger on Cooper, I will break it off. Unlike when I found her messing around with Jordan, I will actually fight for Cooper, as the love I have for Cooper is a dazzling supernova, whereas the love I had for Jordan was a wet sparkler no one could light on a soggy Fourth of July.
“Pass me that water glass, will you?” I say to Cooper. I figure I could probably use some hydration too. Cooper is no slouch in the therapeutic massage department either, and Patty has a theory that 50 percent of life’s ills can be solved simply by stopping and drinking a glass of water.
“Look,” I say after I’ve downed the remains of the glass’s contents. Better. “You do realize it’s actually kind of unlikely that at Tania’s level of fame she wouldn’t have any stalkers. How many Facebook fans did Stephanie say she has, like twenty million or something? I’m sorry, but even back in my day, before social networking was at its current height and at my much, much lower level of success, I had a few wackos who wanted me to be their teen bride.”
Cooper raises both eyebrows. “I thought I got that restraining order against me lifted. How’d you find out about it?”
I’m in no mood to joke. “I know if this has occurred to me, it’s occurred to you. Why is everyone so adamant that there isn’t anyone in the world who’d want to hurt Tania? It’s obvious CRT takes her security seriously.”
Cooper looks uncomfortable. “As I’m sure you remember from your days onstage, fans can express as much admiration as they want—even propose marriage—but it’s not considered stalking or even a threat until they say something that suggests violent intent. I talked to Bear and to my father, and as far as either of them knows, Tania’s received no threats of a violent nature. All her fans are of the overly ardent kind.”
“No one at Cartwright Records would be likely to admit it if she had been getting serious threats,” I say, “because if she had and New York College got wind of it, they wouldn’t let her come film her show on campus. They wouldn’t want to risk the possible lawsuits if any students were endangered . . .” My voice trails off, and I look at him, wide-eyed. “Unless,” I say, “they decided to let them film in a building that’s empty for the summer. A building that Christopher Allington tipped them off has a reputation that couldn’t possibly get any worse, regardless of what happens.”
Cooper looks at me steadily with those calm gray-blue eyes of his. “That’s one theory,” he says, in a voice that is suspiciously neutral, “I suppose.”
“My God.” My heart feels as if it’s turned to gelato in my chest. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you took the job. You don’t think that was a random shooting at all. That’s why you went and talked to Bear. You think there is a serious threat, and CRT is hiding it, but going ahead with filming anyway, because they’re in too deep financially to get out of it now. Cartwright Records isn’t doing very well, is it?”
“I already told you,” Cooper says, taking the empty water glass from my suddenly limp fingers and setting it back on the nightstand. “That isn’t why I took the job. The fact that they moved the filming of Jordan Loves Tania to your place of work means that, whatever is going on with my brother’s wife, I have an obligation to make sure my own bride-to-be remains in one piece. And that’s what I plan on doing. You do have something of a reputation, Heather, for attracting people with homicidal tendencies.”
His tone is light, but I’ve known him long enough to tell he’s deadly serious.
“What about Tania?” I ask him. “Why would anyone want to kill her?” Besides myself, I can’t think of anyone who’d hate Tania Trace enough to murder her. Even I don’t hate her that much—at least not anymore—and I have more reason than anyone.
“We don’t know for certain that someone does,” he reminds me.
“Your dad doesn’t approve of what you do for a living, and yet he went to all the trouble of setting up a fake meeting so he could hire you—”
“Because Tania specifically asked for me, remember? Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough whether or not it’s true.”
My heart freezes up again, remembering what happened to Tania’s last bodyguard. “Oh God, Cooper,” I say. “Promise me you won’t do anything brave. Don’t throw yourself in the path of any bullets for her. I realize she’s carrying your unborn niece, but—”