It was his job to protect the star. That’s what friends are for, Henry Oakes reminded himself.
He sat at the counter of the small café, hunched over a cup of coffee and a copy of Whispers, and contemplated the task that he had set for himself.
The problem was that Nick Tremayne did not understand he was in danger. Henry wanted to warn him but he didn’t dare reveal himself. The time was not right.
It should have been the studio’s job to protect Nick Tremayne, but whoever was in charge of his security was obviously not paying attention. The studio had missed the threat that the first Whispers reporter, Hackett, had presented. They had not dealt with the Gloria Maitland problem.
Henry had talked to both women. Tried to reason with them. But they had treated him as if he was crazy. Hackett had actually called him crazy to his face. It had reminded him of his mother’s words. You have to stop obsessing over movie stars, Henry. People will think you’re not right in the head.
One thing was certain—neither the Maitland woman nor the nosy newspaper reporter, Hackett, would call him crazy again. With them out of the picture, it had appeared that Nick Tremayne was safe, at least for a time.
But now another reporter from Whispers had arrived on the scene, and it was obvious that Irene Glasson posed a serious threat to the star.
Henry folded the copy of Whispers very carefully so that the terrible headline was concealed. Nick Tremayne was not the first star with whom he’d shared a special kind of friendship. Before he had developed the relationship with Tremayne, he was very close to another leading man. But the studio had come between them. Two goons found him outside the star’s home one night. They had hurt him badly, beaten him nearly senseless. They told him that if he ever got close to the star again, they would kill him. He believed them.
For a while he tried to avoid having any more close friendships with stars. But he couldn’t resist the movies, and one afternoon he’d gone to see Fortune’s Rogue. He had been transported by the power of Nick Tremayne’s acting. By the time he left the theater, he’d understood that he and Tremayne were destined to share a special relationship.
He’d also comprehended that this time he had to be careful. He could not allow the studio to discover his friendship with the star. Nick Tremayne would be forced to deny it. So, for Tremayne’s sake, he had remained in the shadows.
Someday, when the time was right, he would reveal himself to Tremayne, but until that day he would do what he was meant to do—he would protect his friend, the star.