Page 45 of Unseen Danger
They turned the corner to another wide hallway, and her mouth tilted at an amused angle. “I’m guessing you didn’t have anything like that at your school?”
He chuckled. “Well, considering I grew up in a town of about nine hundred people and went to a Christian school with one hundred students, nope. No metal detectors.”
“Where was that?”
Was she asking him where he grew up? His heart thumped against his ribs at the sign of interest. Whoa, boy. Professional relationship only, remember?
“Sunnybrook, Idaho.”
She nodded, that amused smile still in place. “Makes sense.”
“I noticed that here the security seems aimed more internally than externally.”
“If you mean protecting against the students instead of intruders trying to get in, you get a gold star.” Nevaeh glanced at Jazz, who nodded as if she already knew of the school’s problems. Had Jazz attended this school, too? The two did seem to be close, though that could come from being coworkers.
Branson pointed farther up the hallway to a door on the right. “So you probably know the stage entrance is there. We’ll use the room across from that for a dressing room.” He pointed to the closed door on the left. “But D-Chop is going to arrive only fifteen minutes before the concert.”
“Let me guess.” Nevaeh smirked. “Accommodations not plush enough for him?”
Branson grinned. “You know him well.”
“It’s nice of him to do this benefit concert, though.” Jazz inserted the comment as Branson had them stop by the dressing room door. “It’s for music scholarships?”
“Yeah. D-Chop set up the program to help students interested in music like he was.” Branson turned the knob and swung the door open, looking at Jazz. “I’d like you to check the dressing room every time you make your ro—”
The eyes of both women widened as they stared past him through the doorway.
He jerked his head to look.
Next to the mirror on the wall of the dressing room hung a D-Chop poster.
With a knife blade stabbed into the rapper’s face.
Fourteen
This one was vicious.
The image of the knife cutting into the D-Chop poster wouldn’t leave Nevaeh’s mind as she and Alvarez stood guard at the front entrance.
Greg and Terence, the high school’s security guards, directed concert attendees to pass through the two metal detectors one at a time, then patted them down on the other side as an additional precaution.
The process took time and created a line of people out the glass doors. Some people who’d cleared security clustered on the other side of the detectors to wait for their friends or family before heading to the theater.
The unusually cheap ticket price for this D-Chop benefit concert meant the low-income students who attended Wilton High could afford to see the rapper in person. No wonder the turnout was big. Hopefully, the high school-sized auditorium would have room for them all.
She’d heard D-Chop himself had insisted on making the concert affordable. His goal was to give back to the school, to help kids like him pursue a better future. That would take community effort and ownership, as well as generous donations like D-Chop’s to the scholarship program.
It was the kind of thing D-Chop did. Taking care of his own, giving back. But had it gotten him in trouble this time?
Not everyone liked change or appreciated a hero coming into their lives and telling them to aim higher, even if that hero gave them the means to achieve their dreams.
The knife in D-Chop’s face on the poster felt different than the previous incidents Branson had told them about. And different than the fire or the gate guard.
This was a direct attack on D-Chop. Or at least a photo of him.
It felt…angry. Like someone driven by a personal vendetta.
Or it could have been a teenager playing a prank, like Jazz had hypothesized after they’d found the knife. She’d pointed out this was a school day, so students had been there. Any one of them could’ve visited the dressing room, knowing about the concert that night, and decided it’d be funny to fake a threatening message.