At the sound of my name, my head automatically turned. Too late I realized my terrible mistake.
Vulture.
I recognized the face at once. Mom and I had given him the nickname. Ed Whisk, a tall, gangly man with extra skin on his neck and beady eyes. He works for that lying, down-in-the-dirt tabloid Shock.
“Found you, Shaley.” He smiled, showing yellow teeth, and clicked his camera.
I gasped and stopped in my tracks. Brittany grabbed my arm.
“It’s okay, girls,” Bruce said in a low voice. “Just keep walking. We’ll head for the nearest exit.”
From all points, more photographers descended. Someone had tipped them off. One camera became two, three … five … six … I knew over half the faces. Frog, the ugly woman with the wide mouth and googly green eyes, who’s with the tabloid All That’s Hot. And Cat, a gangly, effeminate man with bleached white-blond hair and two inches of black roots, working for Cashing In. Plus two freelancers we called Frodo and Gollum, after the characters in Lord of the Rings.
I pictured the Abercrombie clerk on his cell phone and wanted to strangle him.
It would only take one call to bring these people running. They’d probably all flocked to San Jose as soon as the news about Tom’s death broke. Once one of them discovered our trail, the others had followed like hounds.
My heart tripped over itself. Being caught among a crowd in a limo was bad enough. But exposed like this — so open and vulnerable — I felt absolutely crushed.
The exit seemed a million miles away.
“Hey, Shaley, love the wig!” A photographer I didn’t recognize darted close to me like some mosquito. He gave me a smarmy grin. The man was short and skinny with wild brown hair and deep-set, coal-black eyes. His nose wrinkled as he clicked his camera again and again.
Brittany held tighter to my arm. Carrying two bags, I didn’t have an extra hand to shield my face. I turned my head this way and that, but every time found myself staring into a camera.
At the commotion, shoppers looked around and exchanged comments. I heard the words black hair followed by wig as people saw past my disguise. A young couple ran toward me. Two girls. Three guys. Five more girls. Women and men and kids — like an avalanche picking up speed, rolling toward us.
“Shaleeeeey.” Brittany pressed against me, her eyes wide.
In seconds, they swarmed over us.
“Get back!” Bruce shouted. He moved in front of us, right hand up, palm out. “Let us through.” He pushed forward, parting people like a gunboat through water, the two of us in his wake.
The crowd pressed in tighter, hands reaching to touch me and trying to snatch off my wig. I thrust both bags into one hand, ducking down to cover my head with the other arm. Feet stepped on mine, people jostling me and calling my name. Someone pushed into me, and I stumbled to one side. Brittany and I screamed. No, don’t fall! If I went down I’d be trampled.
Bruce turned and caught my arm in an iron vise. He pulled me up straight. “Hold onto me. Keep moving.”
Shoppers thrust cell phones in my face, snapping pictures. Others shouted into their phones, “Get over here right now. Shaley O’Connor’s here!” More and more people rushed over, the paparazzi cursing and shoving.
My mouth hung open, dragging in air. All these people around me, sucking up oxygen. I couldn’t breathe.
New voices yelled my name, the shouts ricocheting throughout the mall. Reporters materialized with microphones. “Shaley, is it true you found Tom Hutchens’s body?”
Flash.
“Did you see his blown-out eye?”
Flash, flash.
“Who do you think killed him?”
Flash.
“Was he a good friend of yours?”
Bruce yelled in their faces and pushed them away. It did no good. As big as he was, he was outnumbered by a hundred. The crowd swarmed in tighter. I could hear Brittany crying behind me. I tipped my head up toward the ceiling, desperate for air.
A dozen flashes went off.
Bruce’s hands rose. Cat shoved in beneath one of his arms and stuck his camera in my face. The flash nearly blinded me. I cried out and ducked my head back down.
“Get outta here!” Bruce surged between Cat and me. One of his hands fumbled to pull out his cell phone. I knew he was trying to call the limo driver. If he dropped the phone, he’d never be able to get down and pick it up.
“Shaley,” a reporter called, “what did Tom look like when you found him?”
Something hit the base of my neck. The wig knocked down on my forehead, half covering my eyes. I shoved it back.
“Where was he?”
“Is the Rayne tour going to continue?”
“Shaley, come on! What do you know?”
Tears bit my eyes. “Stop it! Leave me alone!”
Camera flashes pummeled me. I covered my face.
Dimly, I heard Bruce shouting into his phone for the limo.
“Shaley, how well did you know Tom?”
“How do you feel about the murder?”
Panic and anger and fear gnawed at my chest. My legs weakened. I wasn’t going to make it. Any second now I’d fall.
A new bright light poured over me. I swung around to see a TV camera. A female reporter shoved a microphone at me. “Shaley, do you think the killer is part of your tour group?”
“No!” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Go away!”
“Hey, hey, get back!” Two mall security guards rushed to the crowd, trying to help.
Through blurred vision, I saw the exit in the distance.
Bruce pulled us up in front of him, me on one side of his chest, Brittany on the other. He wrapped his huge arms around us. “Move toward the door!” he shouted in our ears.
Inch by inch we battled our way, jostled on every side. The mall security guards fought past crushing bodies and cameras and arms and legs to reach us and form a front barrier.
“Shaley, tell us about Tom!”
“What did his face look like?”
“Where’s Rayne? How does she feel about the murder?”
After an eternity, we reached the exit.
The mall guards pushed through a door, holding it open for the three of us. As we passed through, they wedged in behind us. The limo waited nearby, back door ajar. I threw myself inside, sliding over my bags and ending up on the floor. Brittany came right behind me, followed by Bruce. He slammed the door shut and locked it.
The limo took off.
Breathing hard and crying, I nudged myself up on the seat next to Brittany. We clung to each other. Bruce collapsed on the seat opposite us, facing backward. His cheeks were beet red, a thick vein pulsing in his forehead.
Bruce surged forward on his seat, craning his neck to check through windows on both sides and the back. “No one’s following. Yet.” He swiveled to push back the small sliding door in the barrier between us and the driver. “How far to the freeway?”
“Real close, sir.”
“When you get on it, take the first exit, and do some double-backs on surface streets. We can’t have anyone follow us to the hotel.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bruce huffed back in his seat, facing me and Brittany. Seeing our tears, he snatched two tissues from a built-in holder and pressed them into our hands. “Sorry, Shaley.” His voice was low, eyes narrowed. He looked like he wanted to punch a hole in somebody’s face.
“You don’t have to apologize.” I hiccupped, wiping at my face. “You got us out of there.”
He made a sound in his throat. “Barely. Good thing the mall guards came along.”
Brittany clutched her tissue. “All those people. I just can’t believe how fast they came.” She shuddered.
One of the shopping bags sat half on my foot. I kicked it off. “I hate that Vulture. And Frog, and Cat, and all the rest of them.”
Brittany made a face. “Wasn’t it Vulture’s tabloid that said your mom found you in a dumpster when you were a baby?”
“Yeah. Shock. They’re also the ones that ran that fake story about Mom’s wild sex parties. Vulture’s the one that took the pictures of the outside of our house and of us coming and going. He camped out on our street for days.”
“Your mom should sue them for lying. You should sue them all for what they just did.”
“It’s too hard.” My words were bitter. “We’re famous people.”
“So?”
“So the courts have hard standards for proving lies if you’re famous. We don’t have the time or energy.”
“That’s not fair.”
I gave Brittany a humorless smile. “Yeah, I know. Welcome to the Rayne tour.”
She shook her head and glared out the window.
My tears had stopped, but my limbs still shook. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and gazed unseeing into the shopping bag nearest my feet. The reporters’ questions battered my head.
Didn’t you find Tom? What did his face look like? Do you think someone on tour killed him?
Anger rippled through me. I wanted to tear every one of those people apart.
A dark rectangular shape in the shopping bag punched into my consciousness.
I blinked, stared at it.
A photo?
Where had that come from?
Slowly, as if it could bite, I reached into the bag and drew it out.
It was a picture of me from last night—getting out of the limo in the hotel parking lot.
My mouth hinged open. Who could have taken this? We hadn’t seen anyone. And why had it been put in my shopping bag?
Somehow, I knew there was more. My fingers flipped the picture over.
On the back, in block red letters — the words that chilled me to the core.
Always Watching.